Almost 40 percent of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer.
It’s happened to me twice.
The first time came in September 2000. I was sitting in my office when my doctor called with the results of a biopsy taken earlier in the week. He told me I had melanoma.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means if you waited another year to treat this, you’d be dead,” he said.
I was 38 years old with a five-year-old daughter and a three-year-old son. The mole had already been on my arm for years. What if I was dead already?
Obviously, since I’m here to write this, my story had a happy ending. But for a month, I didn’t know that.
I stayed up late that night thinking about my mortality. I had a lot left to do. But if I only had a short time left, what was most important?
I thought that was going to be hard to narrow down. It was remarkably simple.
In the end, my bucket list had two items.
- Leave something behind for my children. I wanted them to know who I was, give them the benefit of what wisdom I had, and make sure they knew I loved them.
- Finish my quest to visit all 50 states. I had three left—North Dakota, South Dakota and Alaska.
So I started to write. Every night after my family went to sleep, I wrote down lessons I thought I would have time to pass along and ideas about how to remind them how I loved them during milestones I wouldn’t be there to see. I thought about what I could do now to create memories from the future.
Some of those writings have resurfaced in this blog—especially in the stories about Buster, who was with me then.
My purpose certainly has resurfaced here—leave a legacy, for whatever it’s worth.
The image on the right is Jake and me during that time in my life. We were out for a boys’ night at White Marsh Mall. That usually involved Burger King and a trip to Sears to sit on every riding lawnmower in the store. This time, we stopped at the portrait studio too.
It ended up being just another photo.
It could have been so much more.
I also called my brother. I told him about the diagnosis and we planned a road trip to the Dakotas.
Alaska came later, after the surgery.
I spent my birthday that year in surgery. The doctor removed a lot more tissue around the mole than I thought he would. Pathology showed clean margins. I recovered. That was that.
It could have been much worse.
Still, it made an impact.
I was never a sun worshiper. I never used a tanning bed—and still, I developed melanoma. Now I protect myself in the sun and see a dermatologist annually.
I used to take time for granted. Now I focus on what matters.
Most important, I used to think I wasn’t significant enough to make a difference. I left the fight to others. Now I’m engaged with whatever influence I can bring to bear.
If this resonates with you, thank a nurse named Taryn who was taking my blood pressure one day and said, “Hey, have you ever had that mole checked?”
Dakota and I are participating in a fundraiser this month to help the American Cancer Society take a bite out of cancer. We’re sharing a photo each day throughout the month.
If you’d like to follow along, you can do that here.
And if you’d like to contribute to the cause, you can do that here.
Dear 16-Year-Old Me
This video from the David Cornfield Melanoma Fund features people whose lives were changed by melanoma. I was lucky. But you don’t have to rely on luck.