Allan´s Weblog

This is not going to be a pleasant entry to go through.

If you choose to do so anyway, you will be "rewarded" with a first hand impression of what humans can do to each other when at their most extreme.

When I was at school in the early seventies, the following footage was shown to us. Prior to that, the question whether we as 13 year olds should be seeing this was intensively debated. This debate was taken at the school board, between the teachers and together with our parents, we were told.

The outcome of the debate was, that we at our most receptive age should see the film in order to let it do it's part to ensure that nothing like it would never happen again.

My family was very influenced by what this film has to say. Therefore it had maybe an even more profound influence on me than on most. Even today at my 48th year I can't help crying over it in desperation and grief.

The film is a collection of different footage taken as the Nazi concentration camps were found and liberated just after the German surrender following the second world war. The full collection takes almost an hour to watch. Watching it is most disturbing, most necessary and most interesting.

You know, this could happen to anybody. Anybody could be treated as we Europeans were during that damned war - just as any of us could be one of the people doing these atrocities, if we don't keep our minds and hearts sane and healthy.

Please - watch it, do your crying if you must and decide with yourself what you will be a part of and what not - on the small as well as on the larger scale.

This film contains extremely graphic scenes of human suffering, please exercise caution when viewing.

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I've just won the grand prize - and contrary to my previous post, this is the pure and simple truth.

Story goes like this:

For quite some time I've had a birthmark (well, maybe not quite a birthmark since it emerged a few years ago) on my forehead. A couple of months ago it began changing colour from brown to something darker - almost black at places. I kept an eye on it a while and decided to go to my GP with it. You know, a birthmark like that changing, should always ring a bell somewhere - as it did for me.

A thing like that can be a melanoma - birthmark-cancer. And that is most likely lethal if not taken care of in an early stage.

My doctor didn't have time to see me right on - had a long waiting list. I could probably have made him see me earlier if I insisted, but I didn't. I was sure it was nothing serious, since I didn't feel ill in any way. At that time I didn't know as much about melanomas as I do now - had I known what I now know, I surely would have rushed him to see me.

The time passed. A long time - till I finally saw my GP. The only thing he could say about it was, that since he was not an expert in these matters, all he could do was to lead me on to a dermatologist. And so he did.

New waiting list. Long. Now a couple of months had passed waiting for the right person.

Ten days ago I finally made it to the dermatologist. He looked at my mark, scratched his head and said he really didn't know. But he would set everything aside for me and make an immediate surgery. He would simply remove the thing here and now after which he would send it to a lab for analysis.

That was when I got it. Got IT, to be precise. This birthmark could very well be a melanoma. It had been there for years. It was changing.

I had been sure that he would look at it and say that it was all benign. But he didn't. He had a serious look in his face, asked me all kinds of questions. For how long had it been there? Did it feel strange in any way? Had I experienced other symptoms of cancer?

Other symptoms of cancer!

I felt like falling into a deep, black hole. I stared my death right in it's eyes. Was I going to die soon?

The dermatologist made an appointment for me ten days ahead, where I could have stitches removed and hear the result of the test. These ten days would prove to be ten days in a mental roller coaster. I wouldn't want my worst enemy to experience anything like it.

I drove home in a mental haze. At home I began searching the Internet for knowledge of this sort of cancer. And it all seemed like it was written to fit my situation.

What about my wife if I died now? Would I undergo severe suffering prior to my death? Radiation therapy? Surgery? Tumours in lungs, liver, kidneys, bones? These were the questions I asked myself again and again.

The days were tolerable because I had my job to attend to. Things to do, people to take care of.

But the nights! Oh, sweet Lord! Nothing more to be said. Imagine the worst and multiply with ten.

Today at 12:20 pm I got the results.

Age related changes of the characteristics of the skin. All benign - no traces of cancer at all.

I drove - no, I flew - home to Lise and told her. Then I went back to my job.

I could have won 20 million dollars today, and I wouldn't care one bit. Today I won my life back. I won years of smelling the grass in the morning. Watching the traffic. Enjoying the sunshine. Experiencing the seasons. The ordinary things - the smallest, yet the largest of things in life.

Do you know what I mean?

I breathe! I gorge in air!! Isn't that the best thing ever?

I am so happy that I don't have to kiss you all goodbye way too early.