![\"Andy](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/New-Bio-Photo-Andy-Hinds-Aug-2012-web-291x300.jpg\")
<\/a>They\u2019re at once fascinated and terrified by the huge displays at the museum.\u00a0 They\u2019ll play make-believe with the little T-Rexes and Stegosauruses in the play area for hours, and they\u2019ll memorize the facts that I read them from the plaques on the more docile looking dinosaurs; but they won\u2019t get within 20 feet of the huge animatronic dinos that grunt, paw at the ground and grind flesh with their robotic jaws.<\/p>\n
The girls raced up and down the stairs and ran laps around the galleries on the upper floors, and later picked at a pricey lunch in the museum\u2019s caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n
It was a lovely outing, except for the fact that I was pretty sure I would be dying shortly afterwards.<\/p>\n
On the way to the museum, I had noticed, while making faces at the kids in the rear-view mirror, a dark spot on my left earlobe. It looked kind of like an inkblot.<\/p>\n
\u201cPerhaps it\u2019s an inkblot,\u201d I told myself, with false lightheartedness that only brought attention to my sudden sense of dread.<\/p>\n
I looked at it more closely once I had parked and, since it was slightly raised, determined that it was not an inkblot, but certainly a fast-acting, death-dealing tumor that was at that moment spreading its pernicious tendrils deep into my brain.<\/p>\n
I never used to think like that.\u00a0Even when I technically had skin cancer (basal cell carcinoma, pretty much the least deadly cancer ever) a number of years ago, I was like, \u201ceh, whatever. It\u2019s cool, I\u2019ll just be better about using sunscreen.\u201d<\/p>\n
But that was before I had kids.<\/p>\n
It was also before I passed a certain age threshold where bad things started happening to my peers. I know people my age with serious or even terminal illnesses. The extent of this knowledge is exacerbated by the miracle of the internet, through which I am constantly apprised of the comings and goings of people I haven\u2019t seen in 20 years, as well as people I have never even met in real life. Hell, I know people my age who are dead.<\/p>\n
But mostly it was the kids who gave me the dreads. How would they react when they learned that Daddy was no longer there to take care of them? What would Mom tell them about where I had gone? How would they remember me? Worse, would they remember me? Would they feel an endless ache for the person who was always with them as they transitioned from wiggling scream-sacks to sentient beings: for the man who contained half of the secrets that could help them understand themselves? Or would I just become a vague memory, a collection of stories that became less accurate in the telling, and more expedient to their personal narratives? Would their new Daddy be rich and have thick, luxuriant hair?<\/p>\n
These questions distracted me from the more immediate mystery of why the fossil of the land-based Ankylosaurus was found in an ancient seabed with a shark tooth in its side.<\/p>\n
I texted an ear self-pic, along with the question \u201cwhat kind of cancer is this?\u201d to a highly respected doctor in my area, with whom I happen to be sleeping: my wife. While she usually responds to any request from family for free medical advice with, \u201cYou\u2019ve got about four months \u2026 six months, tops,\u201d she texted me back: \u201cThe brown spot?\u00a0 I\u2019d need to look at it more closely.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lack of gallows humor only deepened my anxiety. Had she not been concerned, she would have surely mocked me for worrying about a little blemish on my ear. Her answer was very, well, professional, as if I were a real patient with a real condition.<\/p>\n
I tried to remember the pamphlets that I had received from the dermatologist when I got surgery for what I had jokingly referred to as \u201cface cancer\u201d seven years ago. What does melanoma look like? Was that the bumpy, colorless one? Or the one that looks like a mole? Or an inkblot?<\/p>\n
I could never keep that stuff straight. It was like Poison Oak or Black Widows: it didn\u2019t matter how many times I saw the illustrations, the warning signs of the stuff that would mess me up didn\u2019t stick. One thing I knew, though, was that my occupational history (lifeguard, carpenter, ski instructor), and disdain for sunscreen until age thirty, put me at high risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s extinct, right?\u201d Maddy asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Triceratops. He\u2019s extinct, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh. Yeah.\u00a0All the dinosaurs are extinct.\u00a0Or, you know, they\u2019ve kind of turned into something else.\u00a0They don\u2019t really live anymore, but we can see still see traces of them in animals that are alive now,\u201d I said, trailing off.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to pee!\u201d Livvy interrupted.<\/p>\n
We raced to the bathroom and, after all the business was done, I rubbed and scratched at my earlobe in the mirror.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you doing, Daddy?\u201d\u00a0 Maddy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, just \u2026 I have this spot on my ear,\u201d I stammered.<\/p>\n
\u201cWash it off, Daddy!\u201d Livvy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s gonna come off from washing, sweetie.\u00a0It\u2019s not that kind of spot.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou should put water on it and use a washcloth,\u201d she insisted.<\/p>\n
\u201cOK.\u00a0Well, I don\u2019t think it will work, but sure.\u00a0OK.\u201d<\/p>\n
I soaked a paper towel and started scrubbing the damned spot.<\/p>\n
And damned if it didn\u2019t start rubbing off. My earlobe turned red as I scrubbed, but the spot disappeared.<\/p>\n
\u201cHah,\u201d I said.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019re right, Livvy. It did come off.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was it, Daddy?\u201d\u00a0Livvy asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just some caulk with dirt stuck to it,\u201d I said.\u00a0I realized that, as thoroughly as I had scoured myself after working on a window replacement job the day before, I hadn\u2019t gotten every last schmear of polyurethane caulk off of my skin.\u00a0I must have brushed my face against the trim of the window I had just installed as I tried to squeeze between the wall and the lemon tree.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s caulk?\u201d Maddy asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the gooey stuff that Daddy uses sometimes to fill in cracks and holes when he\u2019s fixing stuff.\u00a0Kind of like glue,\u201d I said, but they had already stopped paying attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are exti-inct!\u00a0You are exti-inct!\u201d they chanted as they ran back toward the dinosaurs.<\/p>\n
\u2014Andy Hinds es un padre que se queda en casa, bloguero, escritor independiente, carpintero y, a veces, profesor adjunto de escritura. Es conocido en Internet como Beta Dad, pero es posible que lo conozcas como ese tipo en North Park cuyos hijos viajan en un carro tirado por perros. Lea su blog personal en betadadblog.com<\/a>. Comun\u00edquese con \u00e9l en betadad@gmail.com o @betadad en Twitter.<\/i><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Andy Hinds | Parenting Last Friday, I took my 4-year-old twin girls to the Natural History Museum for a return visit to the big exhibit about dinosaurs, a topic that has dominated their conversation for the past few months.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1274,"featured_media":246190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"How I beat cancer","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1274"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}