"I'm A Pirate"

(by Cap'n Slappy, Ol' Chumbucket and Chumpail)



In honor of:
I have a special post by an even more special


But before I get to that, I'd be foolish to not take advantage of a day that's all about pirates to raise a little awareness for Ocular Melanoma! I know that my friends & regular readers are well aware of this disease ~ but on the off chance that somebody new shows up, I can't just pretend that this day is special because I like to talk like a pirate! To be honest, three years ago I never thought about pirates, and I don't think I ever thought about anyone wearing an eyepatch for any other reason than to look like a pirate. Now I know better. Since my husband was diagnosed with Ocular Melanoma, I've learned a lot of things that I had never thought about before. I had never even heard of eye cancer, much less OM. And I certainly didn't have a clue that people could die from it! But OM leads to death in 50-65% of the people who are diagnosed with it (statistics vary, and there's simply not enough known to have a more accurate number). That's why research is so important, but there is little funding towards research for this rare disease. If you (or anyone you know) would like to help the Ocular Melanoma Foundation in their efforts to find effective treatments to improve patient outcomes & one day find a cure for OM, donations can be made on the OMF support page. {for the record: not all Ocular Melanoma patients wear an eyepatch on a regular basis, but most of them have worn one briefly (even if only while recovering from surgery). Just thought I'd make that clear!} Also, you can help raise awareness by voting for Christopher to be the face of about.me. Voting ends tomorrow!

And now, for my guest blogger...my beautiful daughter Elly wrote something about her dad for school, and she wanted to share it with y'all. Because it has to do with piratey things, I thought today was perfect! {Before I let her take over, I have to say that the facts aren't exactly accurate, but they're close enough! Also, there's one part that struck me as funny: she seems to think that her dad isn't short. For the record: he's 5'6"!}



There once was a man named Butch. He wasn't tall, but he wasn't short. He had a beard that a pirate might have and earrings that looked like a "U" with circles at the end, which also looked as if he were a pirate. All he needed was an eye patch to look like a real life pirate. Well one day he finally did look as if he was. You guessed it: he got an eye patch.

You may be saying, "Now, why is Butch wearing an eye patch?" Well, it all started when he thought he saw a Chinese dragon shape inside of his eye. His family all tried looking but saw nothing. So after awhile he went to an ophthalmologist (or eye doctor) and got lots of x-rays. He found out that he had ocular melanoma, which means eye cancer.

He had a type of surgery done to get rid of most of the cancer, and it worked. The side effect was he lost almost all his vision in that eye. He could only see fingers at 3 feet away, which is very bad (as you can guess). He worked with computers, but looking at all those words his good eye got tired and he got headaches. So he got an eye patch to wear on the bad eye so it wouldn't stress to see those tiny words. The "pirate" looked in the mirror and whispered, "My life will never be the same."

And it wasn't much differently, actually. People stared and kids were either scared or amazed by the "pirate", but he didn't mind. He was different. We all are in our own ways. That's the story of Butch the "pirate", my dad.

Comments

Brooke said…
"He was different. We all are in our own ways."

this made me cry. i'm blaming the meds.
Zion said…
Oh my goodness! I am going to cry too. This should be published, because I think it is the most comprehensive description that anyone could come up with. Seriously. I love it.

Popular Posts