Let me start off by saying that this story is not about me but about someone much braver than me. A friend of my parents has skin cancer and it is very severe. He has it in the face. He is slowly dieing and will eventually need to move into a hospice in order to complete his journey through life and die. When I say he is brave I really mean it. I have trouble even thinking of going through what he has and will go through. I will identify him simply as Ted.

His might be a journey anyone of us might have to undergo one day. I hope to God not but there is always a chance. For life is really quite random and things happen through a combination of chance, encouraged by things such as genetic predisposition, diet and external factors (such as too much sun). It is an illusion to think that you are somehow protected, and it is just a numbers game; and the next meteor that falls to Earth could very well fall right on top of you or me (looks worryingly at the ceiling).

Too often it is our own sun that is the silent killer in Australia. I see too many young Australians (and some not so young), bronzing themselves on our beaches in summer time (as is there right), without a care in the world, and I wish they could only see the possible long term effects of doing this. Similarly, recently in the news was the pretty young Chinese girl who died from skin cancer from using sun beds (I imagine this will send shock waves through the world to owners of such establishments and sun bed manufacturers, as potential litigants group together for future potential class actions). Also in the news, the sad story of a pregnant young mother who lost her fight against cancer, giving up her anti cancer treatment in order to save the life of her then unborn baby.

Ted is married with kids and no doubt this is a big part of what has kept him going and fighting his disease. He has so far lost most of one side of his face, including an eye, an ear, most of the muscles on one one side of the face that allow you to smile, eat and talk (I am not sure about the bone), and I am told he is sadly no longer able to speak, and communicates by writing down.

Next time you look down to cut into a potato at dinner time, imagine a pea sized bit of the potato that you want to get rid of, and then cut 3-4 times as much out of that spud, and you get some idea of what he has been done to Ted's face in order to keep him alive. I will not bring up the well known side effects of chemo and radiation but

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