Before I get started, Pet Peeve. I'm a customer, you offer a service. Doesn't matter what service, but I'm paying you to do something for me, or supply me with something. If I hear "Look, I'm just doing my job....", you've pissed me off from one short fused end to the other. Saying that implies one of two things. First, you're too stupid to know any other way to tell me what the problem is about. That means you're too stupid to deal with me, go find someone who can explain it without a cop out statement like that. Secondly, and more importantly, you've just shown me you don't give a shit about what I may need to know, besides something isn't right, to rectify the situation. That's worse than being stupid. Stupid is a non repairable function, apathy is absolutely repairable. Given the opportunity to fill out a "Customer Satisfaction" survey, I'll put your dumb assed apathetic name on the the form. You'd better hope they don't have a place for added comments while we're at it. Okay, rant and Pet Peeve over. Thanks for you're continued support.
I've been sleeping again. At least for the last two nights. Eight hours Monday, six hours last night. Kinda nice. I do feel a little more refreshed. I've even taken a twenty minute nap yesterday, I guess because I'm so over active (insert classic eye roll) or because the damn cancer is making me tired. I actually vote cancer on this one. I used to get by one four to six hours. If I slept eight hours I was sick, or had been out for over 18 hours straight. Sometimes, back in the day, it was 36 hours straight or more. Those nights I might sleep nine or ten. Not very often though. I did sleep a bit more when I worked and also weight trained twice a day. That 4 hours a day in the gym seemed to take a lot out of me. In the end I was doing more harm than good and cut it back to 2 hours a day, five days a week. I blew past a couple of flat spots and added a lot of strength and flexibility. Good for me, yay. The extra rest didn't hurt that either. They gave us thirty minutes for lunch. I never took my lunch in the dog house, I kept it with me and ate in the truck as I got hungry. That meant a lot of times I'd have a bit or two or several as I was going between wells. It also meant that I could set my phone alarm and take a fifteen or twenty minute power nap for my lunch break. Talk about being revitalized. Especially if I'd been called out in the middle of the night. Depending on when I got finished, it was easier to just sleep in the truck than drive almost an hour home, sleep for 30 minutes, change clothes, make more lunch, grab a cup of Joe, fill up the truck and drive to work again. If I stayed, and I always took extra food, I could sleep 3 or so hours in the truck, and take that power nap. It was like getting a good night's sleep for me then.
So what's changed? Oh shit, pick a spot. I have to blow clear my trach tube at least once during the night as a rule. Sometimes more often than that. I can't sleep in bed, because I can't lie flat. If I lie on my side for any length of time, I get a hack and choke feeling that's hard to get rid of, even if I get on my back again. Once in a while I'll hit the bed, because by God feeling like a regular human once in a while is a good thing. As I've said, cancer takes a lot of things, but not any I can't work around or suffer through for a time. Sleeping in bed is one of those things I figure out and work around. So, yeah, cancer has interrupted my sleep. You'd think it wouldn't be a big deal after all those years on call. Well, I spent a year NOT on call all the time. A bit over, actually. Being a well tech had it's advantages. I was third on the call out list at the field I worked in. I got called out once. Hit a reset button, then waited for a couple of hours to make sure that was the only problem and went home. I did have a talk with the pumper about taking his phone everywhere, and that a baseball game was not an excuse for skipping a call out. I was going to tell his relief that as well, but he was on vacation. That's about the only excuse I took. You have to let someone know there's plans in play so they can expect a call if you're not taking them. But, again, I digress
Yeah, cancer changed a lot of stuff. This last time with poor sleep I'd been sick. Not wanting to run the risk of being caught in the chair throwing up, I just didn't sleep at night. Then I'd fall asleep for too many hours during the day and I'd be wide awake at night. Terrible cycle to be in, unless you work Morning Tower on any job. Then it's okay. I do this unconsciously. It's not planned, but something in me says "don't sleep, what if something happens?'. I think it started with twenty-one days in the hospital after all three surgeries. The nurses have to check on your regularly. I wanted my wife to get some sleep, so I stayed awake in order for the nurses to not have to talk to me. We just did our thing with simple sign language. I also left notes on my chest, in case I was asleep when they came in. Things that were either okay or not so good. Worked well, but I got a physical habit of a couple hours nap, up five or six, couple hour nap, up four or five. You get the idea. I think at times that takes over. Probably when I've got more pain, or have done something that just wore me out. It sucks, but what the hell, it is what it is. Now the Hospice Dr. wants to come talk to me about my sleep habits. You know, if I'm okay with the amount of sleep I'm getting, leave me the fuck alone. You aren't God, your service is to keep me comfortable, and that means just leaving me alone unless I've got a problem I can't handle. That's only going to be pain.
I'm dying. I'm not going to get better. I feel little bits of me being taken apart slowly. It's coming, it's not as fast as I first thought, and that's both good and bad. It's good because I get to spend more time with my family and friends. That's always good. It's bad because it's a mental battle as well as physical. Mentally I've got to be more on top of myself than ever before. Sliding into depression, or thinking about just giving up, that means the cancer has won. I won't let that happen. A long time ago I wrote a bit about "My life, my rules. My death, my rules". That still holds true. It's a bit tougher now that it has been, but it's still true. I've had to come to the reality of some things. I can't travel like I'd like. Not because riding the bike is out of the question, that's for certain. It's that I don't recover well, or at least as fast as I'd like. That makes it tough on me and everyone in my house. It's not worth the added concern I see in the family's faces to just take off and go. I figured that would happen, and it has. I went on two pretty big trips about a month apart. The difference in the 650 mile trip and the 350 mile trip was scary. I was tired on the 650 mile trip in September, but that cleared up pretty fast. I was tired, coughed up a lot of blood, and took almost most twice as long to heal up after the 350 mile trip. Time to stay home. My decision. Not the Doc, not the family. Mine. My rules.
Sounds kind of narcissistic, doesn't it. That's because it is, dammit. I've been a bit that way my entire life. This is how Rocky does it, because he wants to and can do it his way. Always has been. I got along okay at work. I'd get orders to do something, I'd make it fit Rocky's way, and still look enough like what the boss wanted that they didn't notice. Worked for me. I kept my mouth shut and they got what they wanted. Where that didn't work with me was in the "told ya so" area. Bosses don't like to hear their idea failed. Anymore than I did. Go figure. Took me years to quit saying that and just let shit lie. It worked better. That worked for me because I made it. My life, my rules. Cancer became the same way. I didn't wear the damn mask, I still went for coffee. I ate the first time when they swore I'd not be able to swallow for the pain. I did, I got some morphine spray to help. It did...and if one squirt would work, two or three worked better, right? So it's also how I worked this cancer. My rules. I decided to get all the surgery. I could have said no. I wanted a fighting chance. I got that. It's not my fault, the doctors fault, nothings fault that I can't swallow. Or was just making decent head way when I got diagnosed again. My rules, no chemo. No Clinical Study. No more being sick on drugs to gain a couple of weeks on the whip end. Not happening.
New motto. My death, My rules. Which also is part of the pet peeve. When I tell the nurse something, it's not some idle bullshit, it's real. Pay attention and don't give me the "I'm not sure about that" or the look like "if he only knew what he was talking about" look. I'm too tired now, but a year ago you'd be sneezing to take a piss if you'd acted like that around me. This is something I'm going to address next visit. I know what I need. You aren't in my shoes, don't treat me like you think you know Jack Shit about my situation. I'm grouchy, I ache some, and I don't like not being active. I'm not, however, some toddling old man that's afraid of dying and my own shadow. Time to get in line with Rocky, not try to make him get in line with you. Hospice is fine, but it's a chicken shit bureaucracy. They have to jump fifty kinds of red tape to get anything done. They are, however, a service. It's time they started acting like one. See Pet Peeve above.
Okay, that's my big bitch for the day. Right, wrong, indifferent, it's Rock's Way.
So. What shall the marching orders be? I can't say do what I do, because that wouldn't by Your Way, would it?
Book of Rock: Believe your own hype, then step up and make others believe it as well. You're the only person selling you. Be confident in what you are, how you wear yourself. It's your skin, be proud you're in it. This is you. There is no other one on the planet. You're one in Six billion. That's damn thin when you figure odds. Make the most of You, but be damn sure you can back that up. Otherwise you've made You look badly, and that's not good.
And a bang on the ear
