In the early 1990s, My friend Phill and I made a drive up the northwest Pacific coast. The photograph above was taken during one of our many roadside stops on the Oregon coast. Thirty seconds before the picture was taken, I was balancing on a narrow outcropping of rock that rose out of the wet sand a few feet below. The next instant a wave came up from around the large rock you see on the left and suddenly water rose in all directions around me. In just a few seconds, I saw the water rise too quickly towards my shoes. I stepped up to the highest part of the narrow rock, but the water kept climbing. I realized I had no options. It is a little misleading in the photo, but the bit of rock on the bottom of the photo is actually quite a distance away from me. I was unable to jump to it. All I could do was wait and see what fate had in store for me.

I looked to Phill for some assistance, or at least some advice, but he was too busy laughing and reaching into his camera bag.

At the speed the water rose around me, you might have thought, as I did, that I was a goner. I was going to get very wet. But with less than an inch to spare, the water crested and then slowly dissipated leaving me once more balanced on a narrow rock over wet sand. I jumped down and ran higher up the shore.

Phill sent me this picture tonight and I thought it served as an excellent illustration of the year I have just lived through. I really do feel like I’ve been balancing myself on a narrow outcrop of stone as forces beyond my control swirled up around me. All I could do was ride it out and hope for the best. And once again it appears that I escaped by an inch.

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Things have been very quiet in Depot Town lately. Consequently, there hasn’t been a lot of blog worthy things to write about. But I want to let my readers know that I am doing just fine. I’ll be back soon enough.

When I arrived at Oliver’s and Amélie’s school today, I ended up walking a few strides behind two of the cutest little girls you ever saw. I’d guess they were in the first grade. They walked in lock step with each other and one of the girls reached over and pulled her friend even closer together so their heads could lean against each other as they walked.

Cute, huh? I thought so too until I suddenly overheard their conversation.

Girl 1: Don’t play with Monica. She is so mean!
Girl 2: Really? I don’t think so.
Girl 1: No, I’m telling you, she is. She was so mean to some other girls at recess.
Girl 2: No. She wouldn’t do that. Monica is so nice.
Girl 1: You’re not listening to me. We can’t play with her anymore? Okay?
Girl 2: Okay.

Wow! I was blown away. When I was in the first grade, it was all I could do to remember to keep my zipper up and my finger out of my bodily orifices. But these girls were already negotiating the dangerous waters of “girl pecking order.” I really was amazed. I always knew little girls could be very crafty about this stuff, but I never thought it started so early. And, you know, I just have to say it. Boys do NOT do this! When you are a six year old boy, then any other boy who happens to be around (and who clearly is not older and wanting to beat you up) is your best friend.

“Hey kid, you have a ball. Let’s play ball.”

That is as complicated as boy sociology gets. But for girls? Oh, man. It is a totally different animal.

I understand the necessity of equality in the eyes of the law. We need equal pay, benefits and opportunities regardless of gender. But, jeez! In all other respects, we are totally different creatures. We might as well be two different species.

Not having grown up as a girl, I’d love my female readers to chime in on this. Do you remember this social pecking order starting this early? And why do you think Girl 1 behaved that way? She saw it on t.v.? She saw an older sibling do it? It is programmed into her DNA? What gives?

Umm.....

My friend Lori just delivered this to me. I haven’t seen it before tonight. It was at a party on a hot evening in summer of 1985. I’m simply including it here for your amusement and my 80s hair shame.

I am no amateur when it comes to social gaffs. And for those gaffs that occur in the social space of online dating, I am a master. Here is a true story that happened to me last fall. So if you are interested in how to remove yourself from the dating world, read on and learn.....

I had set up a profile on match.com and had recently started emailing this one woman pretty regularly. It seemed we were hitting it off and were planning a face to face meet up. It was just at that time that I received my cancer diagnosis. So I emailed her and told her what was happening. I knew I would be spending some time in the hospital and then continue on to some unpleasant treatments for the following months. My main point? Don’t wait for me. I let her know I enjoyed emailing her but that it just wasn’t going to happen for us.

The following week, I was in a doctor’s waiting room and wasting time online with my laptop. I knew dating was going to be out of the picture for me for a while, but in a fit of self pity, I returned to the match website, if only to contemplate everything I would be missing in the coming months.

I then came across another great profile and before I could think twice, I habitually hit the Wink button. No big deal, I thought, nothing was likely going to come of it anyway.

Except it did. The next day I received this email....

“Dude! Don’t wink at me!!!!! Are you crazy? Didn’t you just tell my sister you had cancer? Are you a big liar?”

Yes it is true. Of the tens of thousands of anonymous people on match, I hit on two sisters. And when I looked at all the facts of the situation, I knew one thing. I was screwed. While I don’t think I necessarily did anything really wrong, at the same time I did EVERYTHING wrong. Hit on someone’s sister? Oh, man. There is no recovery regardless of the circumstances.

For the next two days I suffered a barrage of angry emails from both of the scorned women. Clearly, I looked like the biggest jerk in the world. All I could do then is close my laptop with a bemused smile. Man, some people just shouldn’t date, you know?

I just returned from my latest visit with my oncologist. He told me that the spot on my lung did, indeed, test positive for melanoma. However, my doctor did go on to say,”Since the surgery was successful and the portion we removed had clean edges, it is quite possible that you are disease free right now. However, we will have to watch it very closely in the coming months.”

He also added,”The tumor board met to discuss your case yesterday and we discussed it at length. We reviewed all aspects of your case. Under the circumstances, we feel it is best to hold off on the interferon treatments, until such time that there is clear evidence that the melanoma has regrouped.”

I almost fell out of my chair when I heard that!

The idea of getting off of interferon, before the eleven month deadline, has caused some concern for friends and family who want to make sure that EVERYTHING that can be done is being done. But my doctor explained it to me this way. “The fact is that since December, almost half a billion units of interferon have been put in your body. And whatever benefits interferon was going to deliver to you, they likely have already delivered. But we must also understand that this spot on your lung developed WHILE you were taking the interferon treatments, and it could very well be that interferon was not a good solution in your particular case for holding the melanoma back. So with that in mind, the tumor board has suggested that we simply wait and closely monitor your situation. And if the melanoma does return at some point, there are alternative drug therapies and trials that we can explore.”

So now you know everything I know. My next PET scan is scheduled for late June. If that comes back clean it will be time to PAR-TAY! In the mean time, I’m going to have a few preliminary celebrations this week.

Just the idea that the serious suckage known as interferon is out of the picture for me now, is reason enough to dance dance dance.

EDIT-slightly expanded first paragraph with additional details.

On June 1st, Depot Dad will have been live for one year. This is my 134th post. I really can’t believe it.

One year ago I was a mess. A happy mess, but still a mess. I had no idea how I was going to go forward with my life. I figured a bunch of other people must have survived, even prospered, after the end of their marriages or as single parents and I went on the internet to find them.

Wow, did I get lucky. Read More...

You know, in my last post, I contemplated how to follow up my incredible run of bad experiences. Well, I found my answer and it is detailed below.

I should first warn the reader that what follows is a particularly graphic rendition of one of my experiences in the hospital. It includes incompetent nurses, mismanaged catheters, and a great deal of urine. If you don’t want to read about such things, (and really, why would you?) you should just stop here now.

If, however, you feel a slight tinge of relief when you hear about horrible things happening to other people and not you (and I’m told the ancient Greeks actually had a word for this momentary feeling of relief) then read on. Read More...