The Pirate Vs The Cancer

Yesterday
Today I want to blog about what happened to me yesterday. I find it therapeutic and will help clear the air. If you prefer gamer news and photoshop tricks, please come back tomorrow and things will back to normal. In late 1998 I was diagnosed with cancer (malignant melanoma). I had it surgically removed and was free and clear, sadly until yesterday. This is the story below. Its long so brew a fresh pot of coffe or mix the fresh batch of margaritas.

Is This Story True
I like to consider myself king of blog skeptics and really enjoy ousting fake-deathers and fake health bloggers. Hehehe. Judy in TSO, Renea in There, Desi the Billionaire all come to mind. So if I read my own post today, I would probably start by thinking "sympathy post...this is bs!" For those people that don't know me, maybe ask my friends and see if they will vouch for my character. I have been blogging online for eight or nine years and I hope I am considered a straight shooter.

What Is Cancer
I personally think of cancer as a human weed. You might think of your body as a garden and cancer is like a dandelion. Cancer wants to grow and then to spread its seeds in the wind, and grow elsewhere. Cancer destroys the garden as it spreads. To get rid of dandelions, we can dig them out with a spade if we catch them before they seed. We can also poison them with weed killer (radiation or chemo) to thwart their growth. Often times cancer is a small growth or bump, and it is surgically removed. If cancer grows too long, it will send itself to other parts of the body. The lymphatic system is like the bodies drainage system and so when you get cancer, doctors often test your lymph nodes to see if and where the cancer has spread since the lymph nodes seem to pick up the cancer the earliest.

If the cancer is just in a single localized spot, and has not spread, this is generally good news and is early detection. If the cancer has infiltrated the lymphatic system and has traveled to other parts of the body, this is generally bad news since treatment is more difficult.

What Is Modern Cancer Treatment
Now take this with a bag of salt since I'm somewhat tainted in my views; current cancer treatments are somewhat barbaric. Basically there are two options: 1) cut out the cancerous tissue with a margin of surrounding tissue and 2) nuke the body with radiation or chemo in hopes of killing the cancer. The biggest developments in treatment in the last few years seem to be early diagnosis and better scanning equipment etc. Really the best thing you can do for cancer, is catch it early, same thing as getting rid of the weeds in your garden.

My Cancer Story From 1998
I had a small mole on my calf that I asked my doctor to remove during a regular check-up. He looked at it and I think he suspected something and decided to send me to another plastic surgery doctor who removed the tissue and had it biopsied. They called me into the office a few days later and I was a little worried since the nurses and doctors were being way too kind to me. He then told me I had cancer and it was a malignant melanoma, which is one of the three skin cancers. It is only 25% of them but accounts for 77% of the deaths. At the time, I really didn't even know much about cancer and had seen so many ads on TV saying "cancer can be beaten", that I really didn't understand that gravity of the situation. On return home and doing many Google searches, this is when reality hit me and I was completely scared and sad and a mess.

I was rescheduled for a second, more evasive surgery a week or two later where they removed more skin around the area. They took a big square piece of skin from my thigh to act as a skin graph on my calf. This made my thigh temporarily look like someone had dropped a rectangular iron on it since it is very similar to a third degree burn. Hehe. I was on crutches for a week or two and in a cast. I actually took a couple gross pictures back then (my leg looked kind of like a pizza for a couple weeks) and posted to some weird gross pic sites. tehe again it was therapeutic. I think Starley and Cytra may of even been tortured with these pics a long time ago (my poor friends! hehehe).

An Old Porn Post
Back before there were blogs, I used to write a weekly porn newsletter full of webmaster tips and tricks on how to get more traffic for your website and how to make more money with adult sites. I was able to dig up the post where I described this cancer experience to my porn friends when it all happened. If you are interested, you can read it here.

There are a couple funny tangents in that newsletter that made me giggle. First, if you are a system administrator or geek, you may appreciate that my banner farm was serving close to 9 million banners a day! hehehe or 101.4 a second. This was on 200 and 300mhz boxes running NT or was it called IIS back then? I was fortunate to find a lad named "Gus the Programmer" and his C++ skills made the database sing, even when the TCPIP stack was constantly wanting to fail. I also noticed that at the bottom of the newsletter, I had just finished playing a game called "Half-life" and enjoyed it. Who would of thought it would explode to what it has become today. OK I'm off track, back to the story. :)

Yesterday's Trip To The Doc
Last week I was scratching my leg near my scar and I felt a small bump. It just felt wrong and I decided to call my oncologist and see if he could get me in. I'm actually from Canada originally where they have socialized medicine but I have to say that my doctors and hospital have treated me amazingly well here in California. My doctor actually personally called me back at 8pm and said "why don't you come in tomorrow at 1130?" I told him OK...I think both he and I were a little worried since the bump was near the scar area. I showed my doctor and within 15 seconds he said "want me to take that out today?" and I love getting things done fast so I said "yes please!"

So check that out for speed...I called Monday around noon, the doctor called me back at 8pm, and I was being taken care of Tuesday afternoon. I feel fortunate that they take such good care of me. So the doctor froze the area locally yesterday and cut out the bump and even asked if I wanted to see it. Ewww. Well it looked small and like dark colored skin. It was cancerous. This is certainly sad news for me since statistically, at the seven year clear mark, you are almost completely out of the woods. The doc and nurses stitched up my leg and gave me some pain killers which I requested. And here I am. My leg feels good and is not sore...I have it up high on the computer desk as I type this.

What's Next
Next Tuesday I will go back to possibly have the stitches removed. You may recall that above I said that cancer scanning technology has been some of the major improvements...I will be getting a call shortly to receive a PET scan. What this scan does is introduce a radioactive glucose into your system and cancer seems to love this tasty drink and grabs it. The scan then sees areas of cancer much easier.

The Bad, and The Really Bad
I'm not a doctor but here are two possibly outcomes that are most likely to occur...let's start with the super bleak. Super bleak will be if the PET scan shows cancer that has done the dandelion and shot it seeds all over my body, lodging here and there and starting to grow. If this is the case, in my humble opinion, it is a death sentence and the main treatment will be chemo. I personally feel that such treatment generally only prolongs life in most cases....it is always a horrible price to pay for added life...we will beat your body down so you can barely move and we will do this for months, so you can live a few more months. Bah. I really don't want to make that choice. I am getting very sad just thinking about it.

The less bleak story would be that the cancer came back and we caught it early. I think recurrence is bad though and is not like catching it the first time...I think the math will be slanted against me. I suppose it will be a life long game of cat and mouse trying to catch tumors before they grow. But even if this less bleak scenario holds true, the bad news is that they most certainly will reschedule me for evasive surgery since they will need to remove more tissue surrounding the area. Fuck. Yes Fuck fuck fuckety fuck. I'll have no fucking leg left. I'm exaggerating but I am scared and don't want to go through this again. I'll be on crutches and it will be harder to use the computer. My wife joked that they should just cut half my leg off and for a minute I was excited because I thought "woah! I can get a real peg leg and be a pirate for sure!" hehehe.

I think with a second occurrence, they will want me to have chemo. I tried chemo one day last time, and I personally would put a bullet in my head than deal with that pain. I am a wimp and the treatment last time gave me a double migraine. This is probably the most pain or close to the most pain I have ever had and I see no point in living if you have to accept this much pain to add six freaking months to your life. Bah. I'm talking nonsense now and I'm sorry. I wanted this to be a logical and explanatory post and I'm working myself into a frenzy and crying. OK back to my story...

What Causes Cancer
I think there is a natural human urge to find the "badguy". People love to speculate that sunburns, lead paint, overhead wires and many other things were the cause of someone's cancer. With my cancer, which is one of the three skin cancers, the sun has little to do with it since it is not basal cell cancer which is different. The most likely cause of my cancer is simply genetics. The dice sadly rolled against me. Genetics is often the cause of many cancers, but we all seem to want to find an easier answer to blame.

Cancer Death Statistics
I prefer the truth and often doctors do not want to give people the truth. I like cold hard numbers. You can learn a lot about very cancers and their severity from 5 and 10 year survival rate charts. I'm not positive but local usually means the one spot. Regional is probably very close to the one spot or maybe even the one lymph near that spot. Distance means the cancer has traveled somewhere else in the body.

The best cancer to get is Prostate. Many men get this later in life and it is the gentlest of all cancers. Throat, Liver, and Pancreas cancers are incredibly severe and the worst. My cancer, Melanoma, has very similar statistics to Breast cancer. This chart shows that 95% of people will live 5 years with my cancer. The numbers get scary if the cancer is regional, and very scary if the cancer is distant. This is why I say "early detection is everything" since you don't want the cancer to spread. Eeeeep. I am very anxious to have this PET scan done. I would very much like to know where I mathematically sit as of today.

The Irony
And so it is somewhat ironic that the Relay For Life is right now, just when I have been posting about it! hehehe If I was reading my blog and didn't know me, I'd yell "Rigged!" haha. I do think there will be a cure for cancer at some point...my guess is 50 years or less. We will stumble onto something by accident that will either super early detect it, or somehow neutralize it.

Cancerboy.com
When I first got cancer, I registered the domain cancerboy.com. lol I have it at a domain farm currently but if I find out the grim reaper is near, I may have to post daily until I croak since I figure the ratings and hits would be huge! LoL

Thanks For Listening
I wanted to post since I feel better telling you all, and I thought it was a good way to tell my friends. I hope we can put this behind us and move forward. Please do not treat me with kid gloves. Please don't laugh at my jokes if they are not funny. Please slap my hand if I pinch your bum and get too frisky. Please just treat me as you have done in the past. I'm still the same person, maybe with a shorter life expectancy ROFL but I can deal with that if you can. =) *big hugs* As I find out more, I'll post updates on my medical adventures. Tomorrow, back to normal geek and gamer blab.

Comments

[Willow]

Just <3 Twid, you know the rest

*hugs*

[Celebrity Trollop]

I know I don't know you very well, but I saw on Elika and Starley's blog about what happened, and I'm also thinking and praying for you.

<3

Celeb

[Cytra]

**Big Hugs** I'm really sad that you have to deal with this again, right when you'd gone over the 7-year hump!! You can show me your new pics anytime Twid!!

[Dreamstalker]

Cytra had just told me Twid, I hope all goes well and you are a true salty dawg and fight this thing away!!

My grandfather died from lung cancer. My aunt is battling breast cancer and my uncle is battling colon cancer. I have Vitiligo which makes me very prone to skin cancer. If it is genetic I have a high probability of contracting some form of it I suppose.

I am not a religious man, but I will keep you in what little prayers I do say.

[Geoff]

Avast from New Zealand, you old blackguard!

We was all shocked by your news down here, but you've beaten the beast once, matey. You can do it again. We'll all be cheerin' you on.

[LiciLee]

Just thought I'd post and send some love. Keep fighting mate life is precious no matter how little time we get to spend here. My thoughts are with you. Blessed Be. Lici

[KittenestKat]

wow... my heart goes out to u pirate. my sis passed away a few years ago with hotchkins lymphoma.
it was spread all through the nodes when we found out. sorry to hear u had a recurrence of the cancer- hopefully the doc removed all of it. got my fingers crossed for ya, and u'll be in my prayers.

besides all the mushy stuff, wanted to say u rock! i love ur tutorials, and they are really easy to grasp. keep up the awesome developments! ur imvu pal, KittenestKat

[Becca]

Hey Twid, it's Q. Starley just linked me to this blog. I must say, I'm shocked. I had no idea you had gone through this before. My thoughts and prayers go out to you, and I hope that you DO remain that frisky old pervert that we all know. Much love, hugs, and kisses. You know how to find me if you need me. ((((((Twid))))))

[Lillie]

Twiddler, I'm so sorry to hear you're going through this again - my thoughts are with you - keep talking and that sense of humor will surely keep you going!!!
Hugs, Lillie

[Lyra Muse]

Hey Twiddler.. never really spoken to you or Starley but I've been a fan for a while. When I saw the post on her blog, I wanted to come say hello. You need to heal up fast and make more great heely videos, because nothing on the net has made me laugh quite so well as that in the last few months. Thank you for being such a "straight shooter" and sharing this information and your story.

[Meishee]

i also had malignant melanoma and had a large chunk taken from my back on MY SHOULDER BLADE....I think that your are over exaggerating with the cast and the pain pills....please...it hurt like a fucking cunt...and was emotionally upseting but get over it. U just need to make your story juicy and sweet so that the readers will eat it up...I stopped short in the middle...after reading your crap! oh ps...i used to live near canada in ny...watch out for the UV numbers this summer LMFAO

[dermatology claremont]

I hate talking cancer my grandmother was died because of the cancer and im not feeling well every time i heard about cancer. I n this matter we have to prevent this problem.

by: sphin