Around 1981 I noticed a weird looking mole on Charlie's leg. He had it checked out and it turned out to be melanoma. It was extremely frightening and depressing. He said when the doctor called he was expecting good news but the bad news obviously upset him, and me, quite a bit. At a follow up appointment a doctor gave him only a 50-50 chance of survival, it had been deep. It was a dark, gloomy day, depressing. He went in for surgery on a nearby lymph node to see if the cancer had spread, it hadn't, the doctor raised Charlie's chances to 95 %. While he recovered from the operation he wore special stockings designed to ease swelling. We raised the leg when he slept, he called it "scrunchums". We always had our own language.
During the recovery we'd do fun things to ease his spirits. We'd go out to the national monument on Pt. Loma. Once we went to a fishing pier on Shelter Island in San Diego Bay. While we were looking out over the bay a whale surfaced, I shouted, "Look! A whale!" but by the time any of the fisher people looked it had disappeared beneath the water without a ripple. I guess they thought I was crazy. His mom was great, totally supportive. She often had trouble showing love but during Charlie's recovery she was there 100 %. She was a remarkable woman, from the South, from near Warm Springs, Ga., she frequently saw Franklin Roosevelt driving his specially equipped car with controls on the steering wheel. She was given a portrait of President Roosevelt by a family member, it hung in our house for decades. She deserves a whole chapter, truly a remarkable woman.
The illness seemed like an oppressive black cloud, boundless fear and depression, it seemed to go on forever. And yet...our first visit with anybody during Charlie's recovery was with Brad Truax, president of the San Diego Democratic Club. He told us to keep Charlie's immune system strong by not introducing new germs by staying monogamous. So we did. Just in time to miss AIDS. In later years it seemed absolutely amazingly ironic that that melanoma saved us from AIDS, we had had an open relationship before Brad's advice. AIDS cut a huge, horrible swath among our friends, I think Charlie and I could each name about 100 people we lost to the disease. It seems so ancient now. It seemed so absolutely hopeless at the time. We would lose as many as three in a single week. It was overpowering. And yet...around 1997 the medicines started being perfected and deaths declined. The last person we knew who passed away from it passed over 10 years ago. Some people virtually cleared the virus from their bodies and don't take any medicines any more. Oh yes, and Hawai'i Richard, close to death and a virtual walking skeleton in the 1990's, has staged a comeback and looks as healthy as he ever did. Truly, remarkable.
We hiked to Kalaupapa on Moloka'i, the former leper colony. It was awesomely inspiring. Especially at a time when AIDS was so hopeless. There had been this horrible disease, horrible, cruel, cursing the human race for thousands of years. And yet medicines had come along to treat it, and now the patients who stayed at Kalaupapa did so only because it was where all of their friends were, and Kalaupapa is undeniably beautiful. Hard to believe such a beautiful place witnessed so much horrible human suffering. And now AIDS seems to have joined leprosy as a former scourge. Thank God for science, for dedicated men and women researchers who find the answers to such horrible problems. We do owe them our lives. Also inspiring, the story of Father Damien at the leper mission. A man who brought Christian decency and mercy to the sick and dying. We hear so much in our upbringing about Christian kindness yet seeing it actually practiced seems to be very rare. But that was Father Damien, 100 %. Our guide, our host, was Richard Marks, a leper, the "sheriff of Kalawao County", a very positive and inspiring man, a devout Catholic, his prized possession was a photo of himself and the Pope. I have no problem at all with people who live the life of service and kindness and mercy that Jesus taught, it has always been a beautiful ideal and is wonderful to see it being practiced.
Charlie popped up with 2 other melanomas over the years. They were all caught early, they were never a problem for him. He was on personally friendly terms with his dermatologist. In his first checkups I'd accompany him. I'd wait in the waiting room while he was being examined, I will always remember him emerging with a big smile on his face, giving a happy thumbs up. I wish you could see the expression on his face. Well, at least I can remember it. I love him. I miss him.
