HERO OF THE STUPID

Yes, it is true that there are manly men who roam around the world. These men are fearless, brave and seek adventure. This is the story of one of these men. For the purposes of this story, he will remain nameless so that he is not pursued by wily women who may search for such a man.

Yet, dear reader, it is important that you can put a picture of this man in your mind’s eye. So here you have him crossing the Panama Canal in 2010 and flexing his muscles to show that he is in control of the world and impervious to its threats.

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So strong, so virile, so tough, so brave.

Across many oceans he sailed - traversing the Pacific and on to the Great China Sea; the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean.  Almost 33,000 miles to date.

Always, he looked out across the sea for squalls, floating debris, boats, reefs, dolphins and whales. Our hero did this under the noonday sun of 25 countries.  Often he wore no hat or shirt, defying the sun to do its worst.

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His nagging wife would utter silly requests such as “Honey, put on sunscreen” but, of course, our Hero laughed this off.

You see his skin was tough, like him.  He didn’t need “no stinkin sunscreen!”  Sunscreen was for wimps, girly men, snagglepused-simperers, fair-weather pimple-nosed pussies!

After five years, our Hero, visited a dermatologist – once again at the insistence of his nagging wife. This dermatologist was a lying, scurrilous deceiver. She told our Hero that he had been damaged by the sun. Can you imagine this? Our Hero damaged by the sun! “Impossible!,” he said.

The diagnosis was pre-cancerous cells on his face.  The diagnosis had to be wrong!  Nothing could affect that face chiseled from granite; noble of bearing; tough as nails! 

Well, the dermatologist gave our Hero a prescription for Zyclara which is, essentially, a crème chemo therapy.  He was told that, if there were pre-cancerous cells, the Zyclara would interact with them and evidence would appear on the skin.

Our Hero told her that he was fine, nothing was wrong but that he would apply the medicine just to show everyone that he was a God of Men.

Well, after one week he looked like this:

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 Then, after two weeks he looked like this:

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Then

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For almost three weeks, our Hero was in serious pain with itching, fever, fatigue, shivers, sneezing …you name it.

But, our Hero bore it all like a whimpering baby…asking his spouse to cuddle him, rub his feet and get this and that from the galley. He grew very fond of chocolate cookies with milk.

Despite all those ministrations, it was a terrible three weeks.

But, since our Hero thinks heroically, he decided he needed to change heroically

First, he learned that skin cancer is the most common of all cancers. It accounts for nearly half of all cancers in the United States.

There are three main types of skin cancer: basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma. Basal cell and squamous cell cancers are less serious types and make up 95% of all skin cancers. More than 3.5 million cases of basal and squamous cell skin cancer are diagnosed in this country each year. Also referred to as non-melanoma skin cancers, they are highly curable when treated early.

Melanoma, made up of abnormal skin pigment cells called melanocytes, is the most serious form of skin cancer and causes 75% of all skin cancer deaths. Left untreated, it can spread to other organs and is difficult to control.

Our Hero now applies sunscreen every day.