After getting over the initial shock when my father was diagnosed with a choroidal melanoma on Friday, my thoughts turned to blogging. Specifically an intention not to add to the thousands of “my father/mother/brother has cancer” posts. What’s the point? If you have no experience of such an event, the post is largely redundant – basically the same as a cat-post. If on the other hand you’re going through something similar, do you really want to read about someone else’s experiences (good or bad)? Additionally, it is an intensely personal event, with feelings and occurences that are near impossible to articulate.

And that’s when I changed my mind.

You see I’ve always considered myself a bit of a writer. Upwardly-articulate if you will. Yet despite my best attempts this doesn’t seem to come through in my postings. I have a swirl of prose in my head, but as I sit down to write a post, it seems to come out all… stilted… amatuerish… boring. I’m not sure if it is a lack of vocabulary, a lack of grasp of the finer points of grammar, or both. I still get anxious if I need to use a comma. Should it be a comma, or a semicolon? Does semi-colon have a hyphen in it? Are three questions in a row too many?

So cancer. If there was one word I had to choose to describe the last week, it would be mortality. I’ve always been aware that my parents are getting older, but an event like this forces one to actually address the fact that with age comes increased mortality. Twinges, pains, blurry vision. Things that a 18 year old would put down to stress or exertion can no longer be ignored. When forced to think about this, my thoughts turn (selfishly?) inward. If I keeled over tomorrow, what would be my legacy? If I fancy myself as a writer, then why the hell am I not writing? What’s stopping me? Why am I afraid to write a cancer post? In the immortal words of Garth Algar (Wayne’s World): “Live in the NOW, man!!”

So in a wonderful circular reference¹: here is my cancer post. I’m not afraid. Read my prose. It is good.

Finally (and most importantly), it looks like dad will be fine for many years: no metastasis as yet, and the current worst-case scenario is the loss of one eye. Shocking, but a lot less shocking than a limited lifespan.

Footnote 1: As a computer science professor once told me: “To iterate is human, to recurse is divine.”

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