“TL;DR – I got the cancer, yo.

“I’ve been in ‘hiding’ since the end of February. Why? One part was I just got lost in the haze of working and not being able to get out and not wanting to see what all I was missing out on. Another part was getting fired for taking a day off at the slave grain plantation and being depressed. And then there’s this.

“In January, I had this growth on my calf. It was growing rapidly and I knew I needed this looked at. By March, I was able to get a doctor to see me and he removed it. He thought it looked like *insert long name* and that it was tissue damage from hitting my calf at work all the time. He removed it and I went about my life. Felt good, happy the thing was off, I could wear jeans without a bandage on my leg. Cool, cool.

“April comes and I get this phone call. He needs to see me. ASAP, ‘To discuss options.’ At this point, I knew that what was on my leg wasn’t what he had thought it was. It was worse. Much worse as it turns out. It was Stage 4 melanoma cancer.

“Stage 4? Really? Yeah. But how? I always wear sunscreen outside and wear long sleeves, jeans and a wide brim hat. I hate the sun. Lucky me; this wasn’t the type that’s caused by the sun. This was the ‘rare mutation in the body that couldn’t be prevented’ type. Fantastic.

“So you can imagine what adding this type of issue on top of depression and the current, sudden COVID-19 shutdown situation can do to a person. I just sunk down into a dark place. Just didn’t have a place to turn to and didn’t want to say anything. Hey; I kept saying I wanted to die, right?

“Because of COVID-19, it was real tricky going about seeing doctors, doing tests, hospitals, travel, etc. I had no choice but to go about this completely alone. Just isolated in my situation. There was no comforting hand to hold, no shoulder to lean on, no voice of hope to hear. Just complete emptiness. Gotta say, it wasn’t much different than usual.”