Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Well I'll Be

   I've not posted in a while, and there are a couple of reasons for that. One I'll talk some about, the other falls into my Priority Holding Area, also known as "Nun ya". "Nun ya?" you say. Why yes, that's short for "Its none ya fuckin business."  So, I'll bail right in.

   I've been a bit busy fighting some personal demons called "What the fuck, I'm fairly useless" and "Fuck it, do what ya want, I don't give a fuck". The first one is self defeating, and some sociology or social behavior expert will say that I'm depressed. Got no fucking idea why I might get down in the dumps from time to time. Cancer is killing me, and there are days I don't think it's getting the job done quite fast enough. Jimmy Dean Witzke says his pain is far worse than mine because it's always and he is either drugged up so much with his prescription drugs he's zombied out, which I understand. Or that he is in pain all the time. He was nearly killed in a motorcycle/'car accident and nearly killed. I can sympathize with him on that end for certain. I've got nerve shit going on with what's left of my jaw. So yeah, I can be zombie like from the quick help meds of morphine or  Lortab, or go on hurting. I've got it in so many places that I take the Morphine. It helps on me. It does one of two things, though. Knocks the piss out of me and I sleep, or knocks the pain down to a dull roar. The second suits me, because I've knee, jaw, and shoulder pain all wrapped around a dab of that drug, so a dull roar is basically what it was like before I got cancer and was given Morphine to control it. Works well for me, and being the selfish bastard I am, I don't care if it worked for you or not. Morphine is an old school drug. There are many out there that are as good if not better than opiates to control pain. If the stuff I'm on now wasn't doing the job, I'd raise hell with the people treating me, until we did find something that worked without putting me off in Zombie land. But, since I'm unable to work, not from the drugs, but from the nature of my surgery, and the fact that the cancer is sucking my strength off to feed itself, I guess I don't mind being Zombie like.
  That is the first "Well I'll Be" moment. Well I'll be, my wife and I have to take care of ourselves. She won't back down until something that works is found. She didn't stop until things were right with my PT after not getting calls to my Doc in Houston returned so I could get on some PT, she worked her ass off. I e-mailed until I could barely write. But we got it done. Well I'll Be, we did it ourselves and didn't have to have help. How the fuck was that possible? The help we did get was through Patient Advocacy, but we didn't do it by pissing about "well I got it worse!". I'll admit, I was pissed and I stepped into that pile of shit, I will not do that again.  I'm not particularly in the best of moods. My behavior toward everyone including family has been pretty pitiful and I'm working on fixing that. The "Well I'll Be" study of this portion of today's blog should be along the lines of "A Pissing Contest To See Who Has It Worst". That's what it boils down to in a lot of online and real world conversations. There's nothing I like better than having a person I know and talked with some before I got cancer, ask me how I'm doing. I write the note explaining the good and bad, and after it's read get the "wow, I've had pain like that only in my asshole since my head slipped up there 4 months ago. And I hurt my shoulder doing "Reach the Remote First" competition from the couch. And face it, man, we are all dying every day." Well I'll Be, I didn't know I had it so good! Thanks!! At which time I make a mental note reminding myself that it would be illegal for me to split them up the middle with my KBar. But not illegal to just  blow them off when I see them and end up hearing "That fucker quit talking to me just because I had more aches and pains than he did, all he's got is cancer".  (honest to God, that happened. I was laughing my ass off at his buddy's expression)

   The second "Well I'll Be" moment of realization is this: Sometimes I'm not clear when I write things out. That's true, looking at some of the stuff I've written, and I'll be working on fixing that little problem. I get a lot of quizzical looks, since a spoken conversation can move on to different topics and in different directions at a moments notice. So, I've written something out as fast as I can, handed it to someone closest the center of the group, then have them look at me almost cross eyed. They had it back, I look at what I've written and it appears that it says "Dingle hims! Mombo be dog faced in banana patch!" Well I'll be, that's not what I wrote at all, at least that's not what my noggin saw me putting down.  Yet there it is, FUBAR. So what I've done is sit and listen. I'll nod my head, or shake my head, and not do a thing unless someone asks me a question. When they do that, I know they are going to wait  for an answer. Since I'm writing as fast as I can, I'm hoping with beyond hope that it's decipherable and not something goofy like "Any youse wimps wants to Mambo?" So yeah, that's led to a lot of misunderstandings in a lot of places and has left me more than just a little disappointed in myself. I'll be working on that as well. Seems like there are a lot of things I need to work upon don't I? Well, in reality these are things I should have been working on year round. Just like I did tonight. I worked on my communication skills at work constantly, both written and verbal because it was a requirement for my position. Since the cancer took the job, there's no reason when I can't continue that here, in the lap of luxury.  I will keep all of you apprised of the progress along the written communication skills improvement (hopeful improvement, practicing and having the written skill further deteriorate would be a shame).

    I will call this section "Oh Fuck It". It's what I'm going to use as a parameter for making certain I'm doing what I should to get myself back to the point that I'm more optimistic, having something to help other folks to better understand why or what I'm having for feelings. Mental and physical afflictions as I go along Terminal Velocity Hghwy strait toward Critical Mass Eternal Parking Lot.

  Let's begin with a person's belief system. To me that falls under the heading "None Ya". It's a very personal thing with me, and it's supposed to be with everyone. "Oh Fuck It". I don't care what you believe, Christianity, Buddhism, Muslim, Atheist, I don't care. If someone asks for prayers for someone else, of course I will. Same thing with asking for good thoughts, you bet. Do I want to have a protracted discussion and asked over and over what I believe. Fuck no I do not. I know several truly Godly people and families. They help me quite a lot. We don't discuss my beliefs, they have asked me if I minded being put on their prayer list. Of course not. I consider them very good friends, and respected the family while I was in HS. Good people, living what they believe. I didn't ask before, I just let that topic go until someone started to argue, and lately that has been me. We will no longer do that. That will, once again, be one of the few Taboo Questions to ask. The others are about Family, Income, or pretty much anything I don't want to talk about, simply because they fall under the ever expanding cloud of "None Ya".

   At the moment, I'm worn down to a fucking frazzled end. I've got about 11billion nerves so there's not possible chance that someone won't get on one with very little notice.  I'll be an ass hat and speak mean and hateful language, because when I'm in that state that's how I operate. I'm dog tired. Really tired of being tired. When in reality I'm really tired. That state does open up the nerves for me, and I can get plain dog dirt mean about it. I don't like a lot of people when I'm tired and hurt, mostly I don't care much for myself and I rub that off onto people to see how well it sticks with them too. When it does stick, and everyone around me is as miserable as I am, boy!, that's a good place to be…..right? WRONG!  I am going to halve to work really diligently not to let this tired, raw nerved me out of hiding. I really have to just kick it's ass and either cage it up like I try to do Cap'n Temper then pitch it in the trash a couple blocks away some unsuspecting dumpster diver take it away with them. (it's sneaky. The slippery little devil will attach itself to you without you even noticing.

  As you frequent readers will have noticed, this isn't the most upbeat blog I've had in a while. The way things are working for me now, I'm having to either give some MORE stuff I like to do, or find a to work around those. The options for working around things are narrowing daily. Some things I found some real pleasure in are no longer going to be part of my "good days" set of toys. But the one of those that bugs me worse than any of them is cooking. I really enjoyed cooking, but I believe I've spun my last tiny culinary web. I'm far too sensitive right now about how I see what I'm doing being good or bad. I get too stupid with some of the little things, and cooking is one of the little things. It should have bothered me more when I could chew, swallow, and enjoy the full flavor of what I was burnin on the stove, oven, or grill. I can't let that drag down my "Good Days" for now good reason. People eat around here all the time, I know this to be true, I was once one of them. (secret: when I was really training hard in 2008,  I ran into eating between 4500 and 5000 calories a day). I "eat" four times a day now, back in the ever popular Osmolite 1.5 Caravan of Delicious You'll Never Taste it Unless You Puke it canned goodness. Yum


   Well, enough of that stuff.

  A couple of years ago I tore a bicep tendon off of my arm. The bicep ended up in my armpit, my forearm looked normal, but my Upper arm looked way small, hence "Popeye Arm". So, I went to Scarby and helped out. Went to Arlington and judged a couple of days. It was here that I did something I never would have done had I not been missing throwing every day. They moved the throwing area a couple of times for the AD, and suddenly, not like a couple months ahead of time, but that day. So, me and the AD's brother are bringing some weights back. I grab the 56# Weight over bar implement and we dug out. Behind me I hear this drunk douche bag having his way running off at the head about the guys in skirts. I had a kilt, and had just gotten my splint off my arm and the AD's brother was with me carrying the 42#. I sent him on ahead, acted like I was winded, and set the 56# down. The loud mouth, his pretty pissed off buddy and girl friend caught up. It went kinda like this (loud mouth had on Nike running shoes). "Damn, this thing got heavy fast!" I say. Loud mouth "It can't weigh that much, it's not very big". "That's true, but it's solid, it's not hollow" Me. "I'll bet I can carry down to where you guys are, and I don't have to wear a skirt". "Okay", says me, "let me hand it to you". I picked it almost shoulder high in front of me and told him to get braced up because I was about to drop it. That was no lie, I did drop it. On his foot, and in immediate retrospect I thought, Holy Fuck! I might have broken his foot!!! He wasn't even yelling when I picked the weight up and said "Sometimes, bud, the guy in the kilt wins against the guy that's all mouth." Everyone giggled but the guy, he said something about kicking my ass and I said something back over my shoulder like "not with that foot" or something along those lines. On my way back I kept trying to think of ways to tell the AD what I'd done. I couldn't decide, so I said nothing. Well, until today

Have fun all the time even if you're panicked out. make it fun