Three Little Birds

It’s ironic that the very first song I thought of for my surgery soundtrack was Bob Marley's song, “Three Little Birds”. It’s ironic because he died of Melanoma, the very thing that I was having surgery for.  He would have been 68 this year.  He died when he was only 36 years old and has been gone for 32 years as of today.  He had Melanoma on the bed of one of his toes and apparently decided not to amputate due to religion.  Unfortunately, within a few years the cancer had metastasized and spread to vital organs including his brain.

You see, Melanoma isn’t just for us pasties.  Melanoma is a non-discriminatory club and its recruiting people DAILY.  Estimated diagnosis for this year is 210.11 people – a day.  Divide that by 24 and you get 8.75 people – per hour.  It’s also excessively kicking people out of the club.  Estimated deaths for this year are at 26 people a day.  And this is just the United States.  Crazy, right?  I think so.  You know what is even crazier to me?  That people can take proper precautions and they don’t.  Of course, there can be some genetics that come into play and those can be unavoidable, however most of the damage comes from UV rays.  It could be that people are just completely unaware, know a little about it and are uneducated in prevention or they think “this won’t happen to me” which is just plain stupid on all kinds of levels.

I fell into a bit of all three.  I guess I knew, in a way, that tanning could cause Cancer. But then again, what the hell DOESN’T cause Cancer?  Tonight on Channel 7 news, the link between drinking more than one cup of coffee and Cancer.  Seriously?!   I feel like we live in a world where everything, in one way or another, causes Cancer.  The air we breathe is completely polluted – at least in lovely Southern California.  The foods we eat have been sprayed with pesticides and filled with preservatives.  The makeup we wear has known carcinogens in them that apparently the manufactures don’t want to advertise.  And of course, I can’t leave out the chemicals that we clean our house to get that clean feeling and smell.

Anyways, I’m going to end this now with a few lyrics to that awesome song that I'm sure helps thousands of people navigate through their own rough patches, even if only for a couple of minutes.  It just makes you feel happy and you can't help to smile when you hear it.   

Rise up this mornin'
Smiled with the Risin' Sun,
Three Little Birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs,
of melodies pure and true
Sayin', this is my message to you-ou-ou.

Singin' Don't worry, 'bout a thing
'Cause every little thing gonna be alright