Wednesday, December 10, 2008

All Fun and Games

I'm kind of a sore loser. When I was growing up, I didn't like games of strategy because I'm just not that strategic of a thinker. And I didn't like games of chance because I'm not that lucky. Once I got old enough to opt out, when my family would sit down to a game, I'd camp out in the same room with a book and make more or less helpful or snide comments to the players in the background. Now that there are team games like Cranium or Pictionary, I'm more likely to play, maybe because they involve teams so if I lose there is an entire group of people who goes down with me.

That's a nice realisation for a Wednesday night . . .

All the same, when we had group projects in eighth grade social studies class, I liked inventing board games. I'm not sure someone who dislikes games is capable of making good ones, but I am here to tell you that, nevertheless, I have come up with a new game. It is great, because it combines both strategy and chance. Get ready for next Christmas, folks, and start saving now. It's pretty expensive. It is called:

Cancer: The Board Game

The object of the game is to move from cancer diagnosis through treatment to being cancer-free, first, and without dying. The "Start" block is a doctor's office for a routine check-up, and depending on a roll of the dice, you can end up with a clean bill of health, or with a complication which you have to get checked out. If you get a clean bill of health, you're pretty much out of the game. I haven't figured out if that means you won or you lost, since the game is called Cancer: The Board Game, and since you pretty much haven't completed any of the objectives. Anyway, whatever. Go get yourself a book and make snide comments to those of us who get diagnosed with cancer in this game. (Note: that part is not very true-to-life. No one has yet made any snide comments about my real diagnosis. Also not very true-to-life is the idea that cancer patients are out to race each other to a positive outcome. I think this is something that is Not Done. But we're talking retail profit here. No one wants to buy a game where all you do is help each other. Do they?)

Everybody else who rolls a complication is guaranteed to get a cancer diagnosis, because this is Cancer: The Board Game, and not Anurysm: The Card Game or Deep Vein Thrombosis Solitaire or anything like that. Various things happen based on dice rolls, and then finally you get to treatment stage where you encounter "Treatment Cards." This is where actual thinking might happen. If you feel like it.

Say you roll the dice and you land on a space that says, "You have stage 1, grade 2 cancer. You may opt for the traditional treatment [which entails going down a long and circuitous chemotherapy track that has all sorts of pitfalls sending you back five spaces or something] or draw a Treatment Card." You know that if you draw a Treatment Card, you might mis-roll later and end up back in that very chemotherapy trail you were hoping to avoid, but if you don't, you'll be that much closer to the end of the game and beating out your fellow cancer-sufferers.

So you draw a Treatment Card and it says, "You are going to be treated with radiation and hormone therapy. Go to Radiation." You move your playing piece to the Radiation section and it says, "You will be here for six weeks. Every day heterosexual members of the opposite sex who are your age or younger will radiate a part of your body you do not wish them to see. Lose six turns." (I haven't figured what happens when everybody is losing multiple turns at once . . . )

Then after that you move your piece to Hormone Therapy and it says, "You are taking Tamoxifen. Side effects are usually mild and treatable, but may include . . . [yeah, actually, I don't want to write them here. You can click here if you really want to know]. Lose a turn and go back two spaces."

I'll let you know how the game ends up. These are just examples of the hosts of diagnoses, moves, decisions you can encounter in this fabulous game. Don't you want to play?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jenn, I enjoy reading your blogs. You are able to write in a way that expresses true feelings that most people are unable to express easily. They will help others that are suffering.

David Madeira said...

Ooh! I wanna play Deep Vein Thrombosis Solitaire! Make that one next!

Jennwith2ns said...

Anonymous--thanks for reading--and commenting. I'm sure I know who you are . . . if only I knew who you were . . . ;)

Dave--yeah. Mostly the word "thrombosis" cracks me up. "Myocardial infarction" is another one. Who ever came up with the word "infarction"?

Tina said...

I can just see the jaws drop of people thinking "that's just not funny" - but if you've played the game... you get it...
and at the "end" of the game - you figure out if you have to go around again!

Anonymous said...

Thanks Jenn,

Well stated! Cancer, really is the game we all get to play one way or another! Either you have cancer or you know someone with cancer...no one escapes!

Mary Anne said...

oh my gosh, Jenn, that was hilarious. hhahaha. Loved it!! You are so funny.

Scott R. Davis said...

good way to explain the maze that you go through. May you have peace and keep up your good looks and attitude of god which shines through you. CBD has a good deal on God will Make a way cds and dvds for $20 . very cool deal that I got thanks to my having in it in my wish basket!!!

Anonymous said...

Wow.
That was the most macarbe piece of humor... As I was chuckling I was looking over my shoulder to make sure nobody new I found it funny.

It occurs to me that you could turn this into a drinking game. Many of those side effects might be simulated by an appropriate number of shots of the appropriate drink.
Not just naseau, sleepiness, etc, but also the exposing of body parts to people of about our age...
I wonder if on the treatment cards you could say "To simulate the effects off _______ take three shots and then spin around ten times."
(Note: I mean this with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek; drinking very much is a bad idea.)