It certainly did for Bob Marley. In the summer of 1977, he injured his toe playing soccer, the wound was slow to heal, and he reported that he’d had a chronic sore at that spot for years. Later in the year somebody took a biopsy and realized he was looking at a nasty malignancy.
He was advised that amputation of the toe at least and quite possibly the entire foot was proper response. He refused.
Why he refused isn’t entirely clear. Sources (see some citations below) talk about Rastafarian disbelief in western medicine and/or belief in mystical healing and/or simple deist fatalism. Others suggest he couldn’t imagine performing without the missing parts. I think he might just not have been convinced he had to go there to survive.
He did. Died in 1981 of lung and brain metastatic manifestations of his toe melanoma.
I think I can understand Marley’s dilemma. I might still have to face it. Apparently I presented late in the cancer-development process. My stage 4—already-metastasized—tumors should, I believe the doctors are telling me, have been apparent to any idiot long ago and been properly diagnosed. I actually went to my physician just about 3 weeks after I got the persistent symptoms of trouble talking and swallowing (ironically, after having dinner with an old and dear friend celebrating her own successful first-year’s battle with cancer who berated me into submission). Which seemed about right to me. For years I’ve had this chronic thing of swollen glands that I would deal with by attentive dental hygiene including application of washloads of alcohol-based mouthwash. Which latter is, of course, a risk factor for otopharyngeal cancers.
Hmmm… . Sounds sort of like Marley’s story, huh? Here’s the thing. A few years ago, I gather the recommended treatment for me would have been radical surgery, including removal of my larynx. The Greater Baltimore Medical Center docs and Hopkins faculty think the aggressive program of twice-a-day radiation and weekly chemotherapeutic infusion will be able to corral these cancers short of the massive excision.
But. After the whole course of treatment, part of the follow-up up will be continued diagnostics, including a neck dissection. I assume if the findings of the latter are dismal, they might still want to yank my larynx.
I’d have to think about that. I can’t really imagine life without my voice. I gotta admit I’d be much less possessive of my toe and even my foot. But we all gotta face Jah in our way and our own time, Mon. With whatever body parts we still got attached.
Anyway. I’m feeling pretty crappy this week, having gone through the second week’s chemo. Cathy points out that this is a milestone, puts me a quarter way through the treatment (by one measure). Problem is, that’s not necessarily a good thing in cancer (as opposed to non-malignant illnesses) treatment. Because the bottom line of cancer treatment is to make the whole system just sick enough to kill the cancer without killing the entire corpus. Which means things get worse before they get better.
A lot like real life. There’s a marginally-Marley-complementary essay newly posted over at http://sustainablebiospheredotnet.blogspot.com/ that’s worth a read. I’ll try to get new posts up at http://docviper.livejournal.com/ and http://theresaturtleinmysoup.blogspot.com/ for you this weekend as well.
Have a good weekend, all. “Live it while you got it” is the message I’m taking from my cancer experience. And at the moment “living” consists primarily of trying to hang on to the toboggan down the radiation and chemotherapy mountains. That means you guys gotta pick up the slack for me!!!
Notes
Religious aspects of Marley’s cancer
http://worldmusic.about.com/od/genres/f/BobMarleyDeath.htm
http://thehypelifemag.com/2011/04/16/a-death-by-skin-cancer-the-bob-marley-story/ --importance of time and treatment. Diagnosed in 77, refused effective treatment (excision). Continued injury to toe earlier in life.
Conspiracy theory (of course there’s a conspiracy theory!!!):
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread235511/pg1
Lud, your voice is here - in your writing and your painting and your music. Someone can always speak your words for you but no one can make them up. This is how we hear our voice and we look forward to it.
ReplyDeleteJust catching up to all of this kerfuffle, Dave. Where do I send my letter to the Maryland gov't to immediately legalize medical marijuana?
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ReplyDeleteFor Steve--dunno, but don't forget to include your favorite brownie recipe. A couple weekends ago I ran out of pain killers. The on-call doc at the hospital bailed me out, but then my regular oncologist had to post-date the follow-up scrip so we wouldn't get busted. For ^%%^&^'s sake! For Beth--I never ever did get a grip on complex grammar, I assumed there's some wacky tense or declension thingie ("passive third person future plural?") that covered the "our" vs. "your".....
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ReplyDeleteMy family had a friend who for years used an electronic voice that consisted of a device she held to her throat to pick up vibrations and convert them to words. She sounded almost exactly like Stephen Hawking. If you get one of those I would have a few questions about the origin of worm holes.
ReplyDeleteIf I remember correctly, the one time Dave did eat some loaded brownies he ended up chatting with a squirrel... Not that there's anything wrong with that!
ReplyDeleteI've chatted with a few squirrels, sans brownies....
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