A story of cancer, morbidity, mortality and me

The words "morbidity" and "mortality" are way too similar.

That fact made my recent cancer experience worse than it had to be.

Yeah, cancer.

This story starts in early February, when I got a dreaded message from my health care provider: "Here is the result of your biopsy: Pigmented basal cell carcinoma nodular type-extending to both peripheral and deep tissue edges."

I knew a few of the words. Including carcinoma. It's cancer.

Oh no.

Really, oh no.

Not what I expected, nor what my doctor expected. Cancer. And I found out as I was getting ready to go to bed.

I sat down for a second. Reminded myself that I trust God for everything. Told Mrs. Brad: "Well, I have cancer."

It was scary. It was one of those moments you hope to never encounter. It was one of those moments that many, many people encounter. It's still unexpected.

So, after talking with and hugging Mrs. Brad and again reminding myself that I trust God for everything, I did what we all do: I looked up the prognosis on Google. I knew "carcinoma," but didn't know the other words.

The first websites were generally positive: It's the most common form of cancer. It's treatable.

Then I saw one that said "the morbidity may be considerable" and had to sit down.

Considerable morbidity? I found another site that said, "the morbidity is nearly 100%."

Again: I had just seen a cancer diagnosis. Now I see that morbidity is nearly 100%.

My head was spinning. I had to sit down. I reminded myself again that I trusted God for everything, even if this turns out bad.

NEARLY 100% MORBIDITY!

Then I looked up "morbidity."

It means, "the condition of suffering from a disease." What?

So having cancer means there's a considerable chance at having a disease? It means there's nearly 100% chance of suffering from a disease?"

HOW IS IT NOT 100%????

IF YOU HAVE CANCER, YOU HAVE A DISEASE!

AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, WHY DOES MORBIDITY SOUND SO MUCH LIKE MORTALITY?

I didn't sleep well that night. (Although this is one exception to the advice to not Google your symptoms. The common fear is that you have cancer, so if you already know it's cancer, it can be reassuring. Like hearing that it's common and treatable – although "morbidity" may confuse you.) The following days were scary and sobering, particularly until I could talk with a doctor.

I told my family and some friends. I scheduled a procedure to cut out the cancerous section of skin. I kept reminding myself it's about morbidity, not mortality (although as a Type 1 diabetic, I now have co-morbidities. Not great, but it could be worse: I could be a Raiders fan.).

To bury the lead, as we say in journalism, I had minor outpatient surgery (Mrs. Brad and I disagree whether having a quarter-sized chunk of skin taken out of my torso counts as surgery, but I insist on casually referring to it as "my cancer surgery") and waited for the results. They came back a week later: The lab says it's all gone. I just have to return for checkups to catch any recurrence early.

So it's really a happy ending. But here's what I learned:

• I can trust God with everything, even if it's bad news.
• It's uncomfortable to have skin removed from your body.
• People are sympathetic when they hear you have cancer, even if it's "minor" and even if you joke about it.
• Morbidity and mortality are very different things.

No. 1 is the most important, but No. 4 is pretty significant.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Speaking up for secondary words: The potatoes and meat of language

My friends, I come before you on behalf of pepper and butter. And arrow. And all they represent.

They've been overlooked too long., left in the shadow of their more famous counterpart. Always listed second.

I come before you in support of the inanimate versions of Garfunkel, Eve, Clark, Clyde and Juliet (to Simon, Adam, Lewis, Bonnie and Romeo).

Why, for instance, do we always say salt and pepper in that order? What's wrong with pepper? Why can't it be first? Did anyone ever consider how pepper might feel always being relegated to the vice president status among spices? Maybe it doesn't matter, but salt being listed first is as certain as taxes and death.

See?

Why is it always bread and butter? You could have butter and bread and it would be the same thing, right?

Bow and arrow? Sure, you need a bow to shoot an arrow, but what's a bow without an arrow?

Gentlemen and ladies, let me make a case. When it comes to the order in which words appear, we sometimes treat it like we're comparing oranges and apples, but we're not. That "mom" always comes before "pop" while describing a small business isn't something that's done with mirrors and smoke. It's part of the potatoes and meat of our ordinary language.

See my point?

It begins in childhood. That's when Dr. Seuss teaches us that the troublemakers in "The Cat in the Hat" are Thing 1 and Thing 2. Always in that order. Girls and boys (see?) who read those books are taught that Thing 1 always comes first, even though it doesn't matter.

We're taught that chips always follows fish. We're taught that certain stores carry clothes for big and tall men. Why should "big" men get priority? I say those stores are for for tall and big men.

This is part of the pull and push of our language, the take and give – whether the words are spoken on written down in white and black. I'm not familiar enough with other languages to know whether it's universally true that inanimate pairs (or even people and animals: How about Jerry and Tom? How about Scratchy and Itchy?) are always said in the same order, but here in the United States, we should do more for the underdogs. In the home of roll and rock, under the stripes and stars, we should support the secondary words in two-thing parings.

Why aren't they breakfast and bed inns? Why isn't the song about ivory and ebony? Why don't people chill and Netflix? Why is it always yin before yang?

And why, for crying out loud, does peanut butter always get first billing ahead of jelly? You need both.

I suspect it's because we're lazy. Once something gets stuck in our mind (thunder and lightning; flotsam and jetsam), it sticks. Perhaps it's always been that way. Perhaps when the original people (gatherers and hunters, perhaps?) talked, they paired things up the same way every time.

Maybe that makes it easier to survive. Maybe that's a way our language adapted to make it simple.

I complain, but that's because I'm not stuck between a hard place and a rock.

Reach Brad Stanhope at brad.stanhope@outlook.com.

Ridiculous fame is at least as old as two obese twins on motorcycles

Any time I hear someone is a "YouTube star" or is famous for TikTok videos, I roll my eyes. How crazy is it that all you have to do to be a celebrity in modern America is make a dance video or record yourself doing something stupid that people will watch?

It's absurd.

Then I remember the McCray brothers.

You may remember them. Or maybe you know them as the McGuire Brothers, their name during a short-lived wrestling career. Regardless, if you're 50 or older, you probably know these obese twins.

Billy and Benny McCrary were famous because they were noted in The Guinness Book of World Records (now Guinness World Records) as the record-holders as fattest twins. It seems weird now, but I suspect 75% of the students in my elementary school knew who they were – if not by name, then by the most famous photo of them, the one that graced every annual Guinness Book of World Records during my youth. Benny and Billy sitting on minibikes. More accurately, enveloping minibikes.

Each of the McCrarys weighed more than 700 pounds. You read that right: Between the pair of them, they weighed 1,500 pounds. That fact and their inclusion in The Guinness Book of World Records (and especially the photo) made them celebrities.

In a way, they already were celebrities before my friends and I learned about them: They were regionally famous as wrestlers as part of the National Wrestling Alliance and New Japan Pro Wrestling. Why wouldn't they be? Two 700-pounders was a great draw!

The Guinness Book of World Records was a sensation in the 1970s, much like disco and pet rocks. At least it was a sensation to school kids. A few students would get the book through one of those book fairs at school and we'd pass it around. Read and see pictures of the fattest twins. The longest fingernails. The oldest living man. Fattest cat. Most tattoos.

The editors of the book knew to put in photos and the McCrary brothers were the stars of the book. If their photo wasn't the first, it was one of the first and the fact they rode minibikes (apparently they took a motorcycle trip across the nation) made it undeniably interesting. Everyone knew the McCrary twins.

I'm sure the parents of my generation thought this was stupid, in the same way they thought our music, our fascination with pet rocks and our love of "Welcome Back, Kotter" was stupid.

But the McCrary Brothers were undeniably celebrities. Do you know how I confirm that? They appeared on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson at the end of their 3,000-mile motorcycle trip.

Billy died in 1979 due to injuries from a motorcycle accident. Benny died of heart failure in 2001, at age 54.

Here's the thing: The McCrary Brothers were one-trick ponies. They were massively obese. And they were twins. Their fame was enhanced because of a single picture: Them riding tiny motorcycles.

It didn't seem strange in the 1970s that they were celebrities for that, which is important to remember every time we get mad in 2022 about someone being a celebrity for something dumb.

So maybe dumb fame (YouTube star! Tik Tok video!) isn't new.

Maybe it's as old as two guys sitting on a tiny motorcycle to create interest among elementary school students.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Valid criticism or being negative? How Mrs. Brad and I watch sports

I treat sports like the athletes are deliberately trying to hurt me. Mrs. Brad treats sports like a family get-together.

Those differences may be due to our personalities and histories. They're possibly due to gender stereotypes: That men compartmentalize and women are more relationship-oriented.

But here's the fundamental problem: While watching my favorite teams, I criticize players. I expect the worst from them and often reference previous mistakes.

She considers me "negative" and will clap back when a criticized player does something well, insisting that I didn't believe in him.

I say I was just being honest.

She says I'm not being supportive.

And we keep watching the game.

I have a theory on why this happens, but it comes with spin to make me look more reasonable.

The theory: Like most sports fans, I have spent a lifetime being disappointed by my favorite teams. I love the Warriors, Giants and 49ers (in that order) and while they've all had championship runs, they– like virtually all teams – spend much more time being bad. Sometimes (Warriors) they were dreadful, sometimes (Giants) they occasionally got close enough to just break my heart.

(Note: The post-2010 championships of the Giants and Warriors have been thrilling. But all those titles came after a lifetime of disappointment. I was a fully formed fan before their glory days started.)

My hypothesis is I learned to protect myself against the inevitable heartbreak by expecting the worst. That means I frequently say things like, "Oh, this is going to be an excruciating loss" or "that mistake is going to cost them the game."

It's not being negative, it's being self-protective. (So I say.)

I also merely state facts. If Stephen Curry misses his first 10 shots, it's accurate to say he's having a terrible shooting night. When Jimmy Garoppolo throws high passes over the middle, it is correct to say that will lead to interceptions. When the Giants bring in a reliever and he walks the first two batters, it's valid to call that a terrible start. (So I say.)

Mrs. Brad sees it differently.

She's a legit sports fan – she grew up with a football-coach dad and married a sports writer, so you could say she had no option. That would ignore the fact that when I was a sportswriter, I would often come home from work to find her watching NBA playoff games. Last summer, she suddenly started watching five-hour daily broadcasts of the Tour de France and other European cycling races. She now has theories on what makes a great cycling team. She remembers NBA facts that I forget.

But to her, athletes – stars like Steph Curry, but even more so, role players for whom she develops a love (Marquese Chriss, Kirt Manwaring, Andris Biedrins) are friends or family and should always be supported.

If you like them, you shouldn't criticize them. To her, me griping about missed free throws by Andrew Wiggins is like me criticizing one of our sons.

When I grumble, "That's a terrible shot!" or bark, "throw a freaking strike!" she tells me to stop being negative. Ultimately, when another shot goes in or the pitcher gets out of the jam or the quarterback throws a touchdown pass, she tells me I didn't believe in them.

I say I believed in them. My criticism was valid! (So I say.)

We just see things differently. Like my love of early 1970s pop music. Or her enjoyment of "Project Runway." Or our differing opinions about yogurt.

As we near our 37th anniversary, the differences are what keep it interesting, I guess. But everything would be perfect if the Warriors would get into their offense quicker and Giants pitchers would throw strikes and the 49ers stopped committing pass interference penalties.

Which is negative. Or valid criticisms. (So I say.)

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.