Happy 2014! The start of my second melanoma decade.....

 I hope that each of you got to have a holiday celebration with those you love.  I wish you the very best in the coming year.  I had the blessing of more special time shared with friends and family.  In fact, while driving back from a visit with my sisters in Alabama, the timing and a chance (???) experience was such, that I had much to think about.

To back up a step, as I recount earlier in my blog, I had my first diagnosed melanoma lesion (a black spot/mole on my back) in 2003. I was working on my masters/NP degree at the University of Alabama in Birmingham at the time. Every time I make that drive now (from here to Birmingham and back), I can NOT believe I did that drive, to and fro, at least twice weekly for two years.  Anyhow, when the "spot" came back positive for melanoma, and a complete surgical resection of the area was required, things were bad enough.  Then, when one of the sentinel nodes was positive as well, and a complete lymphadenectomy of the right axilla was needed, I knew I was in trouble....in more ways than one.  I couldn't do all that, continue to work in the New Born Nursery, take care of kids aged 10 and 12, plus housework AND take full time NP classes at UAB WITH a 6 hour per day, twice weekly, commute.  AND.....I didn't want to be dead!!!!!

So...what's a girl to do?  Go into action!!  Quit the nursery job.  Schedule the surgery.  Share things as best you can with your children.  Talk to your professors.  Dr. Ivey, Dr. Rice....you will never realize how grateful I am for your efforts and assistance.  They allowed me to take an 'incomplete' in my classes that semester and worked to bend the will of the University so that I could come back the following semester and take the classes needed for that semester AS WELL AS the ones I had incomplete's in...so that I could finish my degree.  Granted that meant, I took two semesters IN ONE on my return.  That's one version of hell, people.  But...I did it.  And, I am grateful.

But....that still left me with: MELANOMA and I DIDN'T WANT TO BE DEAD!  Hanging....out there....just waiting.  Bentie went into action, seeking information, calling experts across the US.  Sending bits of my tumor to Dr. Starz in Germany.  Should we do interferon like my local oncologist recommended?  Should we do the vaccine trial offered in Nashville?  He found the info.  I listened.  Then, I decided.  No.  To both.  I have no regrets.  I don't think either would have made any impact on anything other than a detrimental one on my health, such that I would have been a year away from returning to school...if ever.

Back in the day, folks, there was nothing else for melanoma, even Stage IV.  NOTHING.  Oh, they offered interferon and various weird, ineffective conventional chemo options, but nothing that worked. (Not that things are much better for Stage III melanoma patients today, sadly.) So, I decided since "nothing" worked and the "something" made you quite ill....NOTHING was better.

But...that doesn't change a mood... a heart.  Then, I happened upon this song.  Given to me by my sister, Carla.  (It is hauntingly beautiful, certainly worth a listen using the link below.)

Silence (Delirium) sung by Sarah McLachlan

Give me, release.  Witness me.  I am outside. Give me peace.

Heaven holds a sense of wonder, and I wanted to believe that I'd get caught up; when the rage in me subsides.

Passion, choked the flower....'til she cries no more.  Possessing all, the beauty. Hungry, still, for more.

In this white wave, I am sinking, in this silence.  In this white wave, in this silence, I believe.

I can't, help this longing.  Comfort me.  I can't, hold it all in.  If...you...won't...let me.

In this white wave, I am sinking, in this silence.  In this white wave, in this silence, I believe.

I have seen you, in this white wave, you are silent.  You are breathing. In this white wave I am free.

And...there it was.  Everything I was feeling, thinking, crying, demanding.  I sent the lyrics to some I thought would understand.  A few did.  Others didn't.  I guess that's about right.

But....to return to the point of this piece.  Driving back from my visit with my sisters, on the same stretch of road where melanoma and these words haunted my thoughts...I heard it...AGAIN.  The ipod was on shuffle...but somehow...it played...at just the place.....where I KNEW....I had listened to it over and over and over again....BEFORE.  So, I let it carry me back to that place.  To the bleakness.  To the rage.  To the place where there is little that anyone else can do.  But, those who do share the 'white wave of silence' are more precious than life or gold.

I hope that in the past ten years I have been able to turn my rage into something positive...for me....for others. I hope that passion will not choke the flower who does indeed huger still for more.  I hope that I have found a way to balance the white wave such that, if not today...then soon...I WILL be free.  And, Bentie....you were always there.  I saw you.  Underwater.  Beneath the waves.  In the rage and the silence.  WITH ME.  - c