How are you feeling?

As soon as they hear about the tumor, almost everyone asks this question. It's always with a good intent, but the answer is sufficiently complex that I decided I would use this blog, as I have with the news, as the mechanism for explaining it.

Most of the time, I feel no more about it than I do about the sun. It's there, I'm busy, and I'm focused on what's in front of me.

When I do think of it, which admittedly is a hell of a lot more often than I think about the sun, my overwhelming reaction is anger. I didn't ask for this thing. As best I can tell, I did nothing to cause it. It just arrived. It will cost me at least a major surgery, possibly surgery plus radiation therapy or worse if it's malignant, and in the worst case, my life. That pisses me off.

I'm also scared, of course. I very much do not want to die. I do not want major surgery, though next to death, it's a price I'll happily pay.

I'm sad at times, because if this thing does kill me, I will miss so very much. I have books to write, decades of life I should get to live, people I want to grow old with, and most of all, two amazing kids I want to watch grow up.

Sometimes, I feel disbelief, as if surely this could not be happening to me. Then, of course, I touch my face, and there is the tumor, under and just in front of my right ear.

Annoyance is also there. I have to wait from Thursday when the doctor called to Monday for the biopsy. Then I have to wait days for the verdict: benign or malignant. Then more time to schedule a surgery. And so on.

Every one of those feelings, though, takes me back to my old friend, the one ally who's never let me down: anger. That anger will make me fight, and with luck it will make me win.

The Young Marines tried to break me, and they couldn't. I owned the place before I left. Fuck those jerks who abused me.

The woman who beat me for four years tried to break me, and she couldn't. I had her life literally in my hands, and I let her live and walked away. Fuck her.

All through my life, people and events have tried to stop me, tried to beat me, and they have failed. I fought, and I won. Fuck them.

Now, this tumor sits on the side of my face, barely noticeable, and it is doing its inanimate best to mess with my head, force surgery, and maybe even try to take my life. Well, fuck this tumor.

If it's benign, I'll have the surgery, deal with the pain, and move on with my life.

If it's malignant, I'll fight it with every asset I can bring to bear and every bit of will I can summon. No way in hell am I going gently into any night.

No matter what, I'll get mad, and I'll fight this clump of unwanted cells.

Fuck this tumor.