My friend and fellow Vancouver blogger Derek Miller has the Big C, and the air is rightfully blue over on his site:
So, fuck.
I’m a fucking cancer patient now.
I left work early today, and my wife and I stopped by the liquor store for some of the Glenlivet, of which I’ve had two servings tonight, neat. Odds are that we’ll kill this thing, and I’ll go on just fine.
But still, fuck. Hel-lo 2007.
That’s some hard luck. The odds are very much in his favour, so the outlook is good. Still, if you feel like heading on over to his site and commiserating, I encourage you.
I’ll just offer the best advice I ever received when things were really lousy: chin up.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
That’s the stupidest advice I’ve heard in a while, and suggests a stereotypical masculine lack of sympathy (I say stereotypical).
Chin up? How would anyone find that phrase helpful? “Oh, gee, I hadn’t thought of that, I had no idea that I didn’t have to mope around for the rest of my life.”
It does make it easier to shave under there, though.
Grrr! Manly!
More seriously, there is nothing that changes in what I’m going to do in the next couple of weeks — I was going to have the polyp removed whether it was cancerous or not, and I’m still going to L.A. for a few days immediately beforehand to geek out on musical toys at the NAMM Show.
Maybe Darren should have said, Drink up!
I think Derek’s exact words were something like: “I wanna have one last party in case I need chemo or something”. Chin-up, indeed. Never before has the phrase “one-day-at-a-time” come in more handy.
Thanks for your post, Darren. Having our friends, family, and co-workers on our side makes the safety net that much more supportive.