“The Snow Shovel”
Listening to the weather reports coming out of Georgia reminds me of when we moved back to Lithia Springs after my dad passed away to help mom.
After we had unloaded the U Haul and everything in the living quarters was all put in their places, I was downstairs in the garage finishing up. My new neighbor, an Atlanta Police officer who flew helicopters for the city came down to introduce himself and as we were talking he was admiring my “wall of pride” or where all the large hand tools hung, he noticed my trusty “D” handled orange snow shovel.
Being a true southerner such as I, he made the usual comment on such a useless tool! I had to explain to him that in Springfield, Mo we were used to using this implement at least once a year and also being the good red blooded male, he knew that we never throw away a tool no matter how long it’s been since it was last used! We traded a few jokes and his were aimed at the tool that would never get used! This became a ritual when he would come over to shoot a few hoops or work on something or other or sit and drink a beer or two listening the Braves play on the old AM radio.
Winter rolls around and as it’s down south where we “never” get snow but that white stuff that fell that winter sure looked like the real thing! Shoveled like it too!
It would be best if I explained something. The subdivision we lived in was on a hill.
Bob’s house was up hill from mine and his driveway was pointed towards MY front door! My driveway was even steeper than his and was pointed downhill towards the creek behind my house and many pine, oak and dogwood trees! A pick up truck or car does not do well on these slopes!
While my teenaged son (oh teenagers are so useful when it snows and one owns a snow shovel!) was doing his best to remove that white stuff off the drive my neighbor walks up and stands there a minute watching how a snow shovel is operated.
Finally, he can’t hold it in any more. He looks at me and says ”After all the joking and ribbing I’ve given you about that snow shovel I was wondering, if, when he’s done with your drive way, may I borrow that thing and do mine?”
I looked at him, smiled that you know what grin, and told him “Yeah I reckon but I have to ask you if you want hot sauce with that crow?”
That shovel made the rounds of the neighborhood that day and got pretty worn down!
How do you go through like without good neighbors?
George “Rollover” Purdy
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Christmas Advice for men and NEWLYWEDS!
Christmas is around the corner. This holiday is a once a year thing and it's NOT a surprise! BE PREPAIRED! You had a year to actually LISTEN to her! You had a year to LOOK! Now for a little advice;
DO NOT GIVE ANYTHING WITH A POWER CORD ATTACHED TO IT!
Unless she specifficially asked for it as applied by the rules of women! She drops several hints and then POINTS IT OUT TO you.
Unless the present is a computer or a TV SHE asked for, anything with a power cord attached will send you to the doghouse. If it is a beauty product STOP! Did she ASK for it? If not you are telling her she is ugly! Doghouse bound you are!
Cleaning products like vacuums and whatever if not asked for, to the doghouse you go!
Chain saws unless her hobby is chainsaw art and totem pole carving you’re going to get it used on your arse!
If this present you give her can be used by you forget it! Buy it for yourself!
Doghouse land is no fun! There is no good food, as you will be cooking it yourself! There will be no lovin and attention! None of that horizontal bebop for a long time! And, if you think the silent treatment is ok, try it! It’s highly overrated!
If this present is real small and cheap use it as a STOCKING STUFFER! ANYTHING under a tree says I LOVE YOU! It should NOT say “I’m an idiot and have no clue!”
The best and ONLY things you put under a tree are these:
*Clothing in the CORRECT sizes! This is a no brainer, just go into the dirty clothes hamper and look at a tag! The CORRECT SIZE is on a tag! DO NOT GO TO THE BACK OF THE CLOSET! These clothes are there because they DO NOT FIT! BE VERY, VERY CAREFUL with bras! If you get the wrong size UP you’re a DEAD MAN!
* Nick Knacks for her collection
*A hobby gift she likes to do
*A car, truck or motorcycle for HER! Get your own!
*A matching helmet for the motorcycle!
*If she has her own bike or P/U , get accessories for it! Like a tool box, stero, side saddles, windshield, chain belt, leathers, boy beater whip, set of tires, a detail at the best place in town, oil change or service job.
* The final suggestion I can give you is DIAMONDS! OH yes, nothing says I love you more than a sparkly little rock NOT to little or it will need to go to the stocking! Gold, silver and platinum jewelry is also at the top of the list! If it’s beautiful it a winner and if her BFF or worse enemy does not have one, then you my friend will get a trip to heaven!
Have a happy Hanukkah or a very Merry Christmas! Stay out of the doghouse!
now watch this video! Let this be a warning!!!!! http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1543292789?bctid=3130509001
DO NOT GIVE ANYTHING WITH A POWER CORD ATTACHED TO IT!
Unless she specifficially asked for it as applied by the rules of women! She drops several hints and then POINTS IT OUT TO you.
Unless the present is a computer or a TV SHE asked for, anything with a power cord attached will send you to the doghouse. If it is a beauty product STOP! Did she ASK for it? If not you are telling her she is ugly! Doghouse bound you are!
Cleaning products like vacuums and whatever if not asked for, to the doghouse you go!
Chain saws unless her hobby is chainsaw art and totem pole carving you’re going to get it used on your arse!
If this present you give her can be used by you forget it! Buy it for yourself!
Doghouse land is no fun! There is no good food, as you will be cooking it yourself! There will be no lovin and attention! None of that horizontal bebop for a long time! And, if you think the silent treatment is ok, try it! It’s highly overrated!
If this present is real small and cheap use it as a STOCKING STUFFER! ANYTHING under a tree says I LOVE YOU! It should NOT say “I’m an idiot and have no clue!”
The best and ONLY things you put under a tree are these:
*Clothing in the CORRECT sizes! This is a no brainer, just go into the dirty clothes hamper and look at a tag! The CORRECT SIZE is on a tag! DO NOT GO TO THE BACK OF THE CLOSET! These clothes are there because they DO NOT FIT! BE VERY, VERY CAREFUL with bras! If you get the wrong size UP you’re a DEAD MAN!
* Nick Knacks for her collection
*A hobby gift she likes to do
*A car, truck or motorcycle for HER! Get your own!
*A matching helmet for the motorcycle!
*If she has her own bike or P/U , get accessories for it! Like a tool box, stero, side saddles, windshield, chain belt, leathers, boy beater whip, set of tires, a detail at the best place in town, oil change or service job.
* The final suggestion I can give you is DIAMONDS! OH yes, nothing says I love you more than a sparkly little rock NOT to little or it will need to go to the stocking! Gold, silver and platinum jewelry is also at the top of the list! If it’s beautiful it a winner and if her BFF or worse enemy does not have one, then you my friend will get a trip to heaven!
Have a happy Hanukkah or a very Merry Christmas! Stay out of the doghouse!
now watch this video! Let this be a warning!!!!! http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1543292789?bctid=3130509001
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Chapter 31- a shower in Brooklyn!
I was looking through one of my favorite forums called The Truckers Report and stumbled across a thread witrh a funny title that I had to read and then post this story to. The thread title was"the Strangest Place you're Bathed? For thoose ofd you not farmiliar with trucking we don't have showers in our sleepers unless we are lucky enough to have one of those 101" long bunks then we have everything but there are not to many of those out there! We have been known to go for several days between a bath or shower as time can play rough on us and I was doing a dedicated run to NYC and I would shower the night before I got to town and then it would be 1 and a half to two days before I got a "normal" shower. Handi wipes do help in the in between times!
So here is my post for you to enjoy:
Aside from the creeks in the oil patch, hoses, sinks, rivers and lakes I'd say the strangest place wasn't so strange as to what happened!
I was parked on Meeker Ave in Brooklyn on the 4th of July! I had finished my 2 days of deliveries and was waiting on that load message knowing it wasn't going to come in till the next day!
I NEEDED a bath badly!There are NO truck stops in the 5 boroughs or on Long Island! My friends were not home so a shower at their flat was out of the question and I wasn't going to go all the way up to the Bronx to another friends apt!
So, it's time to get ready for a truck shower! I always carry an old orange bathing suit with me for in case I get to go swimming or I need to do a jug bath! I get "dressed" for my bath and put on my flip flops and grab 3 gallons of water out from under the bunk and set then on the catwalk between the truck and trailer. I grab my wash rag and liquid soap and get the wash rag ready by squirting some soap on it and then grab my shampoo and towel and climb up on the catwalk.
Now I'm parked about half a building down from the Union Pool Bar. It's about 4 o'clock and nice and warm. I get the first gallon of water and pour it over my head and get wet and of course pull the swim trunks out a little and get "other" body parts wet and start to soap down.
Of course for "proper" washing I always start with my face and work my way down and having a face full of soap my eyes are closed.
Yes, I've washed myself enough times that I don't need lights or have to see what I'm doing! Uncle Sam helped me learn how to do a fast bath also!
Any way I'm soaping on down and get to the "other" parts and reach in with the soapy wash rag and for some reason I hear, a giggle? HUH? I'm thinking and so I do my legs and feet and then add a little more water to my head and am searching for my bottle of shampoo and I hear, "A little to you left" in a female voice!
I stand straight up with a gallon of water in my hands and rinse the soap out of my face and look towards the place where I heard the voice and to my surprise I have an audience! Apparently the whole bar emptied out as I was more interesting than sitting and talking to your friends sipping your suds!
A free show has opened out on the side walk and I'm the center of attraction!
There are cameras and cell phones out and I'm starting to get applause so I do the first thing that comes to mind. I scream and "cover" my chest with my wash rag and get a standing ovation! One guy tells me when I'm finished to come on in and my drinks are on the house!
OK! I finish doing my hair and drying off, yes, in front of God and Brooklyn and climb in the truck get dressed, sprinkle on a little cologne and go in and have a great time at the Union Pool and some well earned beers!
I just hope I never see the videos on YouTube! Too bad I hadn't put a hat on the sidewalk as I might have been able to buy a nice steak dinner out of the donations!
The 4th of July in NYC will never be forgotten by yours truly!
Rollover
__________________
No greater love hath a man that he give up his life so another my live John 15:13
Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote Multi-Quote This Message Quick reply to this message
So here is my post for you to enjoy:
Aside from the creeks in the oil patch, hoses, sinks, rivers and lakes I'd say the strangest place wasn't so strange as to what happened!
I was parked on Meeker Ave in Brooklyn on the 4th of July! I had finished my 2 days of deliveries and was waiting on that load message knowing it wasn't going to come in till the next day!
I NEEDED a bath badly!There are NO truck stops in the 5 boroughs or on Long Island! My friends were not home so a shower at their flat was out of the question and I wasn't going to go all the way up to the Bronx to another friends apt!
So, it's time to get ready for a truck shower! I always carry an old orange bathing suit with me for in case I get to go swimming or I need to do a jug bath! I get "dressed" for my bath and put on my flip flops and grab 3 gallons of water out from under the bunk and set then on the catwalk between the truck and trailer. I grab my wash rag and liquid soap and get the wash rag ready by squirting some soap on it and then grab my shampoo and towel and climb up on the catwalk.
Now I'm parked about half a building down from the Union Pool Bar. It's about 4 o'clock and nice and warm. I get the first gallon of water and pour it over my head and get wet and of course pull the swim trunks out a little and get "other" body parts wet and start to soap down.
Of course for "proper" washing I always start with my face and work my way down and having a face full of soap my eyes are closed.
Yes, I've washed myself enough times that I don't need lights or have to see what I'm doing! Uncle Sam helped me learn how to do a fast bath also!
Any way I'm soaping on down and get to the "other" parts and reach in with the soapy wash rag and for some reason I hear, a giggle? HUH? I'm thinking and so I do my legs and feet and then add a little more water to my head and am searching for my bottle of shampoo and I hear, "A little to you left" in a female voice!
I stand straight up with a gallon of water in my hands and rinse the soap out of my face and look towards the place where I heard the voice and to my surprise I have an audience! Apparently the whole bar emptied out as I was more interesting than sitting and talking to your friends sipping your suds!
A free show has opened out on the side walk and I'm the center of attraction!
There are cameras and cell phones out and I'm starting to get applause so I do the first thing that comes to mind. I scream and "cover" my chest with my wash rag and get a standing ovation! One guy tells me when I'm finished to come on in and my drinks are on the house!
OK! I finish doing my hair and drying off, yes, in front of God and Brooklyn and climb in the truck get dressed, sprinkle on a little cologne and go in and have a great time at the Union Pool and some well earned beers!
I just hope I never see the videos on YouTube! Too bad I hadn't put a hat on the sidewalk as I might have been able to buy a nice steak dinner out of the donations!
The 4th of July in NYC will never be forgotten by yours truly!
Rollover
__________________
No greater love hath a man that he give up his life so another my live John 15:13
Edit/Delete Message Reply With Quote Multi-Quote This Message Quick reply to this message
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Chapter 30 Can I ramble on or what?
Chapter 30
Can I ramble on or what?
I’m getting to know about all kinds of medical tests! It’s actually interesting to find out what can be done with technology!
The newest addition to my growing list of medical things done to me is the ENG or Electronystagmogram, and what it does is measures involuntary rapid eye movements called nystagmus and evaluates the muscles controlling eye movements. No, I cannot pronounce any of the words with more than eight letters!
I can say it was actually fun to do as I didn’t have any needles pushed into veins or drink nasty pasty chalky drinks or get shot with radioactive beams!
I got to wear the coolest riding goggles I’ve seen! We’re talking Star Wars and other scifi stuff! These goggles have cameras in them to look at the eyes and muscles and have covers that the technician flips down do you are in the dark and can’t see.
The test took about 45 minutes and you sit upright, lay down roll onto both sides move you head into different angles and watch red lights on a light bar move back and forth up and down.
It was interesting to say the least and when I was done I talked to the girl and I told her that it seemed that when I was in the dark with the covers down that I thought that my eyes did not want to stay “looking” in the same direction. I was supposed to look at a certain “spot” on the wall when I could not see anyway! She agreed and then she said most people don’t release that they do this. Well I’m not most people! She tells me that the doctor will see me next week and I check out and go into the waiting room to wait for Barbara to get back as she had to see a doctor also!
As I walked into the waiting room I see one of my old nurses from my cancer team. I walked over and asked her “don’t I know you?” in a joking way and said” your name is Donna isn’t it!” and she smiled and asked how I was doing and said I must be doing good as I looked pretty good!”
Me I look at this mug every day and I can’t agree with her but I thanked her any way and we talked for a while until Barbara came and we said our good byes and headed home.
Next week arrives and I go in to see what the ENG came up with and oh yeah I now get more medical terms that describe my life!
I seems that radiation and brain surgery has caused another problem as if I didn’t already realize this! Me from not going to a doctor unless I was bleeding out of every pore of my body or threatened my my wife is starting to “see” things in a different light like X-Ray vision!
The new medical terms, yes, terms, plural, or for those of you like me who need a better description, more than one term! They are called Vestibular Neuronitis (http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/794489-overview ) AND Vestibular Neuropathy (http://www.cs.umb.edu/~dqg/newone/balance_stories.htm )
or as the doctor puts it “Your right ear took too much damage from radiation and surgery.” As we talk she is giving me a list of exercises and that I’ll need to get some therapy. If I want, Tai Chi classes she said will help and we talk more and the killer hits. No Mr. Purdy, I do not think you’ll be driving big trucks any more unless the therapy works as I hope it will, but…. It’s the darn BUT that hit the floor making a nasty sound as she continues, I don’t think we’ll have that much success.
I think somewhere in my larger than life files in St Johns computer system it says: DO NOT SUGAR COAT TEST RESULTS WITH PATIENT! HE CAN HANDLE IT! I made that clear 2 years ago. I’m a straight shooter and I don’t want the happy stuff blown up my six! Give it to me straight!
Well I guess she did and I did not want to hear THAT! Here I am, wanting my life back, and it seems like that is not going to happen! Me, I can agree with her. There is no freight out there worth me dying for or me killing an innocent motorist because I need to pay bills, get out of the house and get back to work driving something that can weigh 80,000 pounds down the road. I can lose my CDL (commercial drivers license) if I can’t get the dizziness and vertigo to stop. I have a hard enough time RIDING in the car and I’ve even driven a couple of times. I’ve made it home and it wasn’t as fun as I remember driving to be. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t have the bike any more as that wreck could hurt!
Therefore, it looks like my driving days are at an end. At least truck driving and the way I make a living to support my family! This stupid disability is not worth much as I am used to making in a week what I’m getting in a whole month! Try it some time! It’s way over rated! Trust me on this! How do people enjoy being on disability who can work but are the ones that ruin it for those who must be on it! Poverty level living sucks big time!
My only hopes at work is something I can do while sitting in front of a computer. I can talk to people except for stupid people like creditors! I actually broke my 16 year old phone while slamming it down on a Sprint creditor! Yep, temper, temper as if Selixa is going to “keep me calm” with that moron! A bottle full of them running through my veins would not have stopped me from reaching through the phone and strangling someone who so desperately needed to be choked to the floor!
That’s one job I can’t do. Call and harass someone like me that can’t pay to cross the street if it cost a nickel! This town is getting to be like Buffalo, Ny., bringing in call centers and saying that the economy is improving! Look at our unemployment rate now! It’s going down!! Yeah right! Call centers is not real work! As soon as every one gets back to work at a real job making honest money and paying their bills then the next wave of unemployed hits the market. The out of work credit collectors! What a vicious circle it is!
Maybe Prime will hire an old truck driver or one of the other companies (except for my old company!) or maybe I can do a convenience store! Who knows, as with all this new medical information in my head I still can get one of the 20-30 medical jobs that are posted through the state employment site every day! Keep dreaming there slick!
As I posted on my Twitter thingie, yeah I’ve bitten that hook also! It’s time to start a new life as I can’t get my old life back! I’ll start by looking back and crying at what I’ve been through, what I’ve lost and what I can still lose and then I’m going to laugh at all of that same things as when I look back at it all I CAN do is laugh!
I had a Face Book friend that had posted a few weeks ago”Cancer stole all my dreams” and I posted back “Yes, Cancer stole all my dreams and I made more dreams to follow.” She did not like it and we’re no longer friends. I guess it’s a good thing that I CAN look back and cry, laugh and make more dreams to follow. Now I need to change those dreams into a new life!
I’ll let you know how that works out for me.
Can I ramble on or what?
I’m getting to know about all kinds of medical tests! It’s actually interesting to find out what can be done with technology!
The newest addition to my growing list of medical things done to me is the ENG or Electronystagmogram, and what it does is measures involuntary rapid eye movements called nystagmus and evaluates the muscles controlling eye movements. No, I cannot pronounce any of the words with more than eight letters!
I can say it was actually fun to do as I didn’t have any needles pushed into veins or drink nasty pasty chalky drinks or get shot with radioactive beams!
I got to wear the coolest riding goggles I’ve seen! We’re talking Star Wars and other scifi stuff! These goggles have cameras in them to look at the eyes and muscles and have covers that the technician flips down do you are in the dark and can’t see.
The test took about 45 minutes and you sit upright, lay down roll onto both sides move you head into different angles and watch red lights on a light bar move back and forth up and down.
It was interesting to say the least and when I was done I talked to the girl and I told her that it seemed that when I was in the dark with the covers down that I thought that my eyes did not want to stay “looking” in the same direction. I was supposed to look at a certain “spot” on the wall when I could not see anyway! She agreed and then she said most people don’t release that they do this. Well I’m not most people! She tells me that the doctor will see me next week and I check out and go into the waiting room to wait for Barbara to get back as she had to see a doctor also!
As I walked into the waiting room I see one of my old nurses from my cancer team. I walked over and asked her “don’t I know you?” in a joking way and said” your name is Donna isn’t it!” and she smiled and asked how I was doing and said I must be doing good as I looked pretty good!”
Me I look at this mug every day and I can’t agree with her but I thanked her any way and we talked for a while until Barbara came and we said our good byes and headed home.
Next week arrives and I go in to see what the ENG came up with and oh yeah I now get more medical terms that describe my life!
I seems that radiation and brain surgery has caused another problem as if I didn’t already realize this! Me from not going to a doctor unless I was bleeding out of every pore of my body or threatened my my wife is starting to “see” things in a different light like X-Ray vision!
The new medical terms, yes, terms, plural, or for those of you like me who need a better description, more than one term! They are called Vestibular Neuronitis (http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/794489-overview ) AND Vestibular Neuropathy (http://www.cs.umb.edu/~dqg/newone/balance_stories.htm )
or as the doctor puts it “Your right ear took too much damage from radiation and surgery.” As we talk she is giving me a list of exercises and that I’ll need to get some therapy. If I want, Tai Chi classes she said will help and we talk more and the killer hits. No Mr. Purdy, I do not think you’ll be driving big trucks any more unless the therapy works as I hope it will, but…. It’s the darn BUT that hit the floor making a nasty sound as she continues, I don’t think we’ll have that much success.
I think somewhere in my larger than life files in St Johns computer system it says: DO NOT SUGAR COAT TEST RESULTS WITH PATIENT! HE CAN HANDLE IT! I made that clear 2 years ago. I’m a straight shooter and I don’t want the happy stuff blown up my six! Give it to me straight!
Well I guess she did and I did not want to hear THAT! Here I am, wanting my life back, and it seems like that is not going to happen! Me, I can agree with her. There is no freight out there worth me dying for or me killing an innocent motorist because I need to pay bills, get out of the house and get back to work driving something that can weigh 80,000 pounds down the road. I can lose my CDL (commercial drivers license) if I can’t get the dizziness and vertigo to stop. I have a hard enough time RIDING in the car and I’ve even driven a couple of times. I’ve made it home and it wasn’t as fun as I remember driving to be. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t have the bike any more as that wreck could hurt!
Therefore, it looks like my driving days are at an end. At least truck driving and the way I make a living to support my family! This stupid disability is not worth much as I am used to making in a week what I’m getting in a whole month! Try it some time! It’s way over rated! Trust me on this! How do people enjoy being on disability who can work but are the ones that ruin it for those who must be on it! Poverty level living sucks big time!
My only hopes at work is something I can do while sitting in front of a computer. I can talk to people except for stupid people like creditors! I actually broke my 16 year old phone while slamming it down on a Sprint creditor! Yep, temper, temper as if Selixa is going to “keep me calm” with that moron! A bottle full of them running through my veins would not have stopped me from reaching through the phone and strangling someone who so desperately needed to be choked to the floor!
That’s one job I can’t do. Call and harass someone like me that can’t pay to cross the street if it cost a nickel! This town is getting to be like Buffalo, Ny., bringing in call centers and saying that the economy is improving! Look at our unemployment rate now! It’s going down!! Yeah right! Call centers is not real work! As soon as every one gets back to work at a real job making honest money and paying their bills then the next wave of unemployed hits the market. The out of work credit collectors! What a vicious circle it is!
Maybe Prime will hire an old truck driver or one of the other companies (except for my old company!) or maybe I can do a convenience store! Who knows, as with all this new medical information in my head I still can get one of the 20-30 medical jobs that are posted through the state employment site every day! Keep dreaming there slick!
As I posted on my Twitter thingie, yeah I’ve bitten that hook also! It’s time to start a new life as I can’t get my old life back! I’ll start by looking back and crying at what I’ve been through, what I’ve lost and what I can still lose and then I’m going to laugh at all of that same things as when I look back at it all I CAN do is laugh!
I had a Face Book friend that had posted a few weeks ago”Cancer stole all my dreams” and I posted back “Yes, Cancer stole all my dreams and I made more dreams to follow.” She did not like it and we’re no longer friends. I guess it’s a good thing that I CAN look back and cry, laugh and make more dreams to follow. Now I need to change those dreams into a new life!
I’ll let you know how that works out for me.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Chapter 29 The Snake, a Biker and Smokey Bear
The Snake,a Biker and Smokey Bear
I've played with snakes all my life and they don't bother me until while out riding in North Georgia on a nice warm sunny day this pick up I was following ran over a rattle snake and threw it into the air.It landed squarely on my handle bars.
To say that snake was a tad bit pissed was an understatement, as he was thrashing around and biting at everything it saw as the handle bars were a little warm and must have been showing up in it's "thermal viewers" until it saw me and my nice hot body that was going cold with fright!
Needless to say, I almost unassed that bike while trying to grab that insane thing. I managed to get it with my left hand and throw it as hard as I could to my left, unfortunately on the hood of a passing car and as I looked back I noticed the light bar on the roof and the next thing I see are brake lights and cop car all over the road as that rattler was going insane on his hood!
Me, I went ahead and stopped as I knew that when ole Smokey got his shit straight his next target was a biker going in the opposite direction!
About 2 minutes later after he got out of the ditch here he came and pulled up behind me and from the way he bailed out of that car I knew life as I knew it was over!
He walked up to me and stood there with his hands on his hips and then broke out laughing so hard I thought he was going to have a heart attack! When he got it out of his system and me looking around for the punch line he gave it to me.
He tells me he saw me weaving all over the road and was going to pull me over and see how much I'd been drinking when he saw me finally grab that rattler and fling him away! That I choose that precise moment to let him go was the beginning of his experiences with a flying snake that sacred the hell out of him. He decided after the initial scare to come back and check on me and couldn't believe I was sitting there so calmly.
I looked at him and told him the only reason I was sitting there was I couldn't get the seat out of my ass and that trying to smoke 10 cigarettes at once was pretty hard to do on a bike at 60 MPH! We both sat there for a few minutes smoking a few more cigarettes chuckling about flying snakes, pulling the remains of seats out of our asses and finally parted ways!
I seriously thought long and hard about buying a windshield but what are the odds of that ever happening again? I still have no windshield but I don't ride to close to pick up trucks in the summer time!
Ride safe
Rollover!
I've played with snakes all my life and they don't bother me until while out riding in North Georgia on a nice warm sunny day this pick up I was following ran over a rattle snake and threw it into the air.It landed squarely on my handle bars.
To say that snake was a tad bit pissed was an understatement, as he was thrashing around and biting at everything it saw as the handle bars were a little warm and must have been showing up in it's "thermal viewers" until it saw me and my nice hot body that was going cold with fright!
Needless to say, I almost unassed that bike while trying to grab that insane thing. I managed to get it with my left hand and throw it as hard as I could to my left, unfortunately on the hood of a passing car and as I looked back I noticed the light bar on the roof and the next thing I see are brake lights and cop car all over the road as that rattler was going insane on his hood!
Me, I went ahead and stopped as I knew that when ole Smokey got his shit straight his next target was a biker going in the opposite direction!
About 2 minutes later after he got out of the ditch here he came and pulled up behind me and from the way he bailed out of that car I knew life as I knew it was over!
He walked up to me and stood there with his hands on his hips and then broke out laughing so hard I thought he was going to have a heart attack! When he got it out of his system and me looking around for the punch line he gave it to me.
He tells me he saw me weaving all over the road and was going to pull me over and see how much I'd been drinking when he saw me finally grab that rattler and fling him away! That I choose that precise moment to let him go was the beginning of his experiences with a flying snake that sacred the hell out of him. He decided after the initial scare to come back and check on me and couldn't believe I was sitting there so calmly.
I looked at him and told him the only reason I was sitting there was I couldn't get the seat out of my ass and that trying to smoke 10 cigarettes at once was pretty hard to do on a bike at 60 MPH! We both sat there for a few minutes smoking a few more cigarettes chuckling about flying snakes, pulling the remains of seats out of our asses and finally parted ways!
I seriously thought long and hard about buying a windshield but what are the odds of that ever happening again? I still have no windshield but I don't ride to close to pick up trucks in the summer time!
Ride safe
Rollover!
Friday, June 18, 2010
Chapter 28 More reflections on the past 2 years
Chapter 28
More reflections on the past 2 years and other ramblings!
April 25, 2008: The day I was told I have the word that should not be in the human language at all.
You have cancer. Of all the untold illnesses we have in the world none are more frightening than cancer. Yes there are a few others like stroke or heart attack broken necks but these things if they don’t kill you on the spot you have a good chance of living for years without a relapse.
Look at David Letterman. After his heart attacked him life keeps on going. The same for my dad. Just got up and went on until he fell asleep in a hot tub in Breckenridge, CO. That he didn’t survive. Or Parkinson’s disease with the dementia that goes along with it. My mom didn’t survive from that either. My brothers’ stroke, he’s up and learning but it took him down pretty hard.
Cancer, the gift that keeps on giving even if you don’t want that (put your bad word here) gift!
Oct 31, 2008: You’re cancer free! Whoopee! No cancer in my body! OH YEAH! But I can’t drink a celebratory drink as my taste buds don’t “like” beer or Jack Daniels or a glass of wine so there is no real celebrating at all! But I can wait for these things to start to work again! I can even wait for the taste of chocolate to come back. I hope! Ever wonder what it’s like not to be able to eat a piece of chocolate? That would take a while to put to words! It’s easier to punch a hole in a wall as words fail me on that!
Then things unwind in ways I never thought. I was so happy to get back to work, against my doctors orders of course, but I was looking at bills piling up and I was going insane from sitting around so I went back and started with my old company driving trucks and I screwed the pooch!
I was driving in upstate New York in white out conditions, lake effect snow, truck wrecks on two lane roads, getting loaded and then having to drive almost 90 miles out of route due to other truck wrecks took it’s toll on me. I actually fell asleep at the wheel when I was on the NYTP mile marker 390. The guard rail on the north side of the westbound lanes half of it belongs to me! I kept the truck up right and with damage but I guess being alive after hitting and climbing up on a rail and keeping the “dirty side down” I’ll live with that! Yes I DID fall asleep but I was NOT doing the nodding thing at all as if I had been there was the truck parking stop just a few miles behind me! I would have pulled in there and taken a 15 minute nap and then gone on to my planned stop at Erie, PA about 30 miles or 30 minutes away. Yep, bam, and lights out. I’m thankful there wasn’t a car on my right side.
I lost my job 2 days later because of the accident but in the long run it was better as that company went to the full truck lease plan and actually the last of us at this company were the drivers with too much intelligence to even look at that “lease to fail” program and would have been let go in Aril of ’10 with a take the lease or leave” offer.
So I didn’t think that I could not get another job. All of my driving experience and all I could get was at Wal-Mart stocking shelves, and finally a job with a poor truck owner operator who was leased to a bottom feeder operation and I wound up in Aug going to a California ER! I had to fly home as I couldn’t drive the truck which is why I pulled over and called that 911 number to begin with. Everyone thought it was a stroke but it wasn’t and it took almost 2 weeks before it was figured out to be vertigo and 1 treatment and it was gone.
Then the blood clot in Dec. and the brain surgery in Feb and the removal of that growth in my nose and that’s it so far! I did have an MRI June 2 because the dizziness and other problem like losing weight when at 134 pounds I do NOT need to be losing. The headaches are still working on me but they aren’t the killers I’ve had thank God for that!
I’m still waiting on a call from the Nureo surgeon about the MRI I had last week to see if there is anything in there. I do have a copy of the MRI but I’m no doctor so I’ll wait till he confirms what I see is anything to worry about.
OOPS, I just found out that the MRI shows “normal post operative” swelling so I’m glad that it will eventually go away but there “might” be another little problem with the fluid that’s building in my ears. This they believe is from the surgery and I get to go to a hearing specialist to figure out. I hope that all the dizziness is from fluid in my ear and nothing to do with my brain! The poor thing has been abused enough in 55 years and fluid in ears is a good thing to me!
This alone took a load off my chest even if it’s still to early to know for sure but for some reason I forgot to take my pill last night and this morning when I woke up and I’m feeling that I’m not as wobbly as normal. Maybe it’s because I watched a Wanda Sykes stand up and LMAO! Or was it from Jeff Burnham and Walter?
Or it might be from me answering a call for help from a Face Book woman needing help understanding why a child would not want their mother in their life after finding out about their brain cancer. This is what I wrote on Cancer Warriors post to Carla:
Having just had brain surgery after a battle with cancer this is a hard disease to cope with for some people. For you to understand, my surgery was 02/22/2010.I'm still not 100% yet but I'll try to give you a little understanding and get you on a path that night help.......
You do have to know, anything having to do with the brain is not something simple.
First there is just the word cancer. It's an ugly sounding word in any language. Be it lung or heart or brain or many of the other kinds this is a demon that affects everyone around the victim of this beast. But the brain is a very sensitive part of the body when invaded. The tumors grow and cause pain unlike any you will ever know. Even a migraine headache goes away after a while.
The tumor is still there, getting bigger and causing pressure that affects our thinking in ways that I didn't even think was possible.
Thinking is hard to keep on a single path. Memories get moved, erased, changed and rerun over and over. We forget things or can't get them out of our minds. Simple thoughts are now hard to concentrate on. Even talking or putting a complete sentence together can be a major undertaking.
And the hardest thing is to forget those you've known all your life, your mother, father and siblings but even your own children. That is extremely hard not to know one you held in your arms minutes after they were born!
But this beast will come in and affect those without it invading their bodies. The collateral damage caused by cancer is just as hard to live with even if you are not the one getting strapped to a table for radiation or sitting in the quiet room watching a bag of chemo drip into a piece of metal and plastic implanted in your chest or feeding yourself through a tube in your belly because radiation has destroyed the muscles in your throat.
The people around us have the hardest row to hoe watching your child or relative or friend be put through this torture and then realize that your child doesn't know you or is so distressed that "he might die" doesn't want his parent or sister to get thrown into this hell hole of an existence some think cancer is which if they let it be a hell hole it will be.
Carla and others reading this, we're probably going to die. It will at times not be pretty. Hopefully, when it's time, I hope there is a hospice that will take us but you have to remember with brain cancer it's not that he doesn't want you in his life he or she does but they don't want you to see the pain and the aggravation that having something in your head and body can do to us! Give treatments a little time, bring something every day that you might have from the past to help this child of yours remember you and your love for them. A picture, a stuffed toy you put in the attic or box in the closet, a favorite sweater, and warm pair of socks (that hospital, if like mine is way to cold!) Warm them up and it will warm their thoughts of times past up not to mention their toes and heart.
Always a smile on your lips! Never a sad face! A joke a day and comedy central on the TV in the room. Laughter IS the best medicine so use it in large doses! And let all of the visitors know this also to never show sadness to the patient no matter how hard it is not to cry. BUT crying WITH him is different! Let the tears flow for both of you when they are crying.
Just remember it's his or her brain, the central processing unit of our whole body that doesn't have an on off switch which would be great but of course God didn't give us one so you have to let him be the one to finally get "his ducks in a row" or try to "march to the same drummer. " He will come back to you and you'll hold him just like your baby and things will slowly get back to normal. Well as normal as life is after cancer.
It's been almost 4 months since I woke up after they opened my head to get that invader out! The month leading up to the surgery was hard to bear. The waking up and afterwards, seeing my face and head looking like I was on the wrong side of a bar fight was hard but see and feeling the tubes coming out of parts of the body that they shouldn't be in and the medicines that make you feel like sludge is not fun and I don't recommend it for a weekend adventure! But when it happens it happens. Don't force him or her to remember you but coax them back with reminders of you and them and when they start to see the light they will see it in your eyes and they'll be home where they need to be.
You just can not lose your faith or your outlook or your positive mental attitude as much as you hurt for them. You must be an anchor for them to hold on to. The lifeline they need to hold on to their sanity as it slips through their fingers until the demon can be beaten.
I hope I could help. It's been a struggle for me as I'm still getting my ducks to line up. My surgery was only to the front of my brain. I hope your child could be as lucky as me but from your desperation I know they aren't. Just be there for them. Be there when they wake up after a treatment and be there when they need a hand to hold or a stroke through the hair or on the cheek. Read to them when they come back if they are asleep. It will make them think back to when you read them to sleep as a child and that will help them bring you back in their mind not to mention their heart. Just don't try to force them but nudge and coax them.
Then here is her reply to me:
Dear George,
Thank you so very much for your well thought out and lengthy response to my out-cry for an explanation regarding brain tumors; their emotional and behavior changes. You went to so much trouble to help me understand where my son might be in his head at this time and I will forever be grateful for your unselfish time you spent for me.
I also wanted to let you know that I read all 5 chapters of your cancer journey on your "my space". You are very expressive and share your uttermost feelings; for that I too am grateful. I really believe you could make a book out of this as the chapters were medically informative, funny, sad, tear and thought provoking. You are a kind man, always thinking of your wife and sons even in the midst of your own pain and suffering.
You are a delightful character and I will forever hold you in my prayers, thanking God that he who use you to touch my life with explanations to ease this Mother's heart....I never get to hear my son's voice, nor see his face, and that becomes overwhelming in the early morning and sleepless hours. It is so hard to understand how he can walk away from me after all we had been through together since I was a single parent for 21 years, he is now 37 yrs. old. His wife does not, nor ever liked me as she feels I "baby" him and she caused so many divisions and problems the days after and during his brain surgery. I suppose he must do what she asks and stay away from me, I simply don't know.
But thank you again, and also thank you for standing up for what is right with your ministry to servicemen who have died in the line of duty. Your presence and those that ride with you is forever admired and we are grateful for your loving service to those families.
Your friend,
Carla
Then my 2nd reply to her email:
Carla,
That’s why I took the time to write you as doctors can't really answer your questions to the fullest. Yes, they can give you all you need in medical terms but you and I are not medically inclined!
I'll give you a hint, There are actually 28 chapters to my blog! I made a boo boo and numbered #27 twice but that’s no problem yet. If you go back to the My Space page and look all the way at the bottom of the last chapter you'll see a little line that says "older posts" and if you click on it the next section comes up. They aren't exactly in order! Or you can go to this link at BlogSpot and they are in order except for the last few chapters and this is where chapter 27 is titled twice. Read the bottom 27 then the top! I'll be adding another one soon. http://rolloverriderpgr.blogspot.com/
Carla, it's a hard road to travel, but we are on this journey and the only way it'll be over is to take this ride. It's bumpy, has some really hard hills to climb and curves that would make NASCAR jealous. The stops and goes and the traffic can make us all crazy but the journey will end.
Where, is up to us, the patient, How we handle the trip is the most important part and will tell us the outcome of the journey.
Your Friend
George "Rollover" Purdy
I seem to feel better about my journey when I can share anything that can help another person get through this insane journey or roller coaster ride as I some times call it as it is. The up’s and downs we go through, the tests of our wills and faith. The trying times wondering where the house payment will come from or the food my family needs, the wishing that we all want OUR life back not A life!
Yes A life could be nice but it’s NOT MY life! I miss my job but I don’t miss the time I missed with my family. I’ve made that up by being home so much the past two years but it’s had an effect on my wife and sons. My wife I have to hide the duct tape from as she’s about to tape my butt to the wall! My youngest son has the hardest time with this as all of a sudden his Dad isn’t the super hero he used to be and with the money problems we are experiencing he’s been thrown into a world that only the poor know and it’s not only hard for him but for the rest of us! I was so used to being able to buy what I needed or wanted and now we’re waiting on SSI and food stamps. That is a steep learning curve to say the least and then throw in bankruptcy proceedings. And you have more problems.
I’m hoping that with the new news I’ll be getting back to normal. I was really hoping that I could be doing back flips off the couch or jumping up and down on the bed or other things a month ago or longer but that’s not in the cards yet, so I’m taking my time.
I will admit I was so down in the dumps last week I was making plans for my wake! Thanks to a friend, Roni, writing me a note with such kind words of inspiration I climbed up out of that hole I fell in. Thank you Roni.
I’ll be filling out the paper work to have my body donated to science in the next few days , hopefully the American Cancer Society, so they can teach new doctors the who's, what’s and whys of cancer, radiation, chemo and the effects it has on a body. I know they can’t use me for donor parts as the cancer could be transferred like it was just recently. Yeah, I can’t help that way but any way to advance a doctors knowledge over this monster is good for me!
I would hope others would think to go this way as it relieves the family of the cost of a burial as they will cremate the body and send the ashes to you. Me I’d rather not take up good ground where some vandal will some day kick over an over priced stone or have a building built on top of me in 1000 years! Just take my ashes to the closest interstate in each capital of the United States and sprinkle a little of me on the roadway as I’ve been on every one in America except Alaska and Hawaii! That way if my wife or sons want to talk to me all they have to do is go out and sit next to a road and talk to the asphalt. It’ll get to me and I can listen!
But I do want all my family and friends to laugh and cook out or go to Hudsons Hickory House back where I grew up in Douglas County Ga. and eat a combo plate and bowl of Brunswick stew, drink a sweet tea or a good beer and toast me going on another journey no one has gone on and returned to tell about!
I don’t want any tears for me! God said to rejoice for the fallen as they are now standing next to him and I plan to be right there! Yes, I walk through the Valley of death and God walks next to me but I fear no evil as God and I are the two meanest cusses in the valley!
Now if the ducks and brain cells would just settle down and get a little more creative I might someday be able to finish the love story of Jerry and how he’ll overcome his loss to cancer and find love again and get it to a publisher!
Cya all next time
George
More reflections on the past 2 years and other ramblings!
April 25, 2008: The day I was told I have the word that should not be in the human language at all.
You have cancer. Of all the untold illnesses we have in the world none are more frightening than cancer. Yes there are a few others like stroke or heart attack broken necks but these things if they don’t kill you on the spot you have a good chance of living for years without a relapse.
Look at David Letterman. After his heart attacked him life keeps on going. The same for my dad. Just got up and went on until he fell asleep in a hot tub in Breckenridge, CO. That he didn’t survive. Or Parkinson’s disease with the dementia that goes along with it. My mom didn’t survive from that either. My brothers’ stroke, he’s up and learning but it took him down pretty hard.
Cancer, the gift that keeps on giving even if you don’t want that (put your bad word here) gift!
Oct 31, 2008: You’re cancer free! Whoopee! No cancer in my body! OH YEAH! But I can’t drink a celebratory drink as my taste buds don’t “like” beer or Jack Daniels or a glass of wine so there is no real celebrating at all! But I can wait for these things to start to work again! I can even wait for the taste of chocolate to come back. I hope! Ever wonder what it’s like not to be able to eat a piece of chocolate? That would take a while to put to words! It’s easier to punch a hole in a wall as words fail me on that!
Then things unwind in ways I never thought. I was so happy to get back to work, against my doctors orders of course, but I was looking at bills piling up and I was going insane from sitting around so I went back and started with my old company driving trucks and I screwed the pooch!
I was driving in upstate New York in white out conditions, lake effect snow, truck wrecks on two lane roads, getting loaded and then having to drive almost 90 miles out of route due to other truck wrecks took it’s toll on me. I actually fell asleep at the wheel when I was on the NYTP mile marker 390. The guard rail on the north side of the westbound lanes half of it belongs to me! I kept the truck up right and with damage but I guess being alive after hitting and climbing up on a rail and keeping the “dirty side down” I’ll live with that! Yes I DID fall asleep but I was NOT doing the nodding thing at all as if I had been there was the truck parking stop just a few miles behind me! I would have pulled in there and taken a 15 minute nap and then gone on to my planned stop at Erie, PA about 30 miles or 30 minutes away. Yep, bam, and lights out. I’m thankful there wasn’t a car on my right side.
I lost my job 2 days later because of the accident but in the long run it was better as that company went to the full truck lease plan and actually the last of us at this company were the drivers with too much intelligence to even look at that “lease to fail” program and would have been let go in Aril of ’10 with a take the lease or leave” offer.
So I didn’t think that I could not get another job. All of my driving experience and all I could get was at Wal-Mart stocking shelves, and finally a job with a poor truck owner operator who was leased to a bottom feeder operation and I wound up in Aug going to a California ER! I had to fly home as I couldn’t drive the truck which is why I pulled over and called that 911 number to begin with. Everyone thought it was a stroke but it wasn’t and it took almost 2 weeks before it was figured out to be vertigo and 1 treatment and it was gone.
Then the blood clot in Dec. and the brain surgery in Feb and the removal of that growth in my nose and that’s it so far! I did have an MRI June 2 because the dizziness and other problem like losing weight when at 134 pounds I do NOT need to be losing. The headaches are still working on me but they aren’t the killers I’ve had thank God for that!
I’m still waiting on a call from the Nureo surgeon about the MRI I had last week to see if there is anything in there. I do have a copy of the MRI but I’m no doctor so I’ll wait till he confirms what I see is anything to worry about.
OOPS, I just found out that the MRI shows “normal post operative” swelling so I’m glad that it will eventually go away but there “might” be another little problem with the fluid that’s building in my ears. This they believe is from the surgery and I get to go to a hearing specialist to figure out. I hope that all the dizziness is from fluid in my ear and nothing to do with my brain! The poor thing has been abused enough in 55 years and fluid in ears is a good thing to me!
This alone took a load off my chest even if it’s still to early to know for sure but for some reason I forgot to take my pill last night and this morning when I woke up and I’m feeling that I’m not as wobbly as normal. Maybe it’s because I watched a Wanda Sykes stand up and LMAO! Or was it from Jeff Burnham and Walter?
Or it might be from me answering a call for help from a Face Book woman needing help understanding why a child would not want their mother in their life after finding out about their brain cancer. This is what I wrote on Cancer Warriors post to Carla:
Having just had brain surgery after a battle with cancer this is a hard disease to cope with for some people. For you to understand, my surgery was 02/22/2010.I'm still not 100% yet but I'll try to give you a little understanding and get you on a path that night help.......
You do have to know, anything having to do with the brain is not something simple.
First there is just the word cancer. It's an ugly sounding word in any language. Be it lung or heart or brain or many of the other kinds this is a demon that affects everyone around the victim of this beast. But the brain is a very sensitive part of the body when invaded. The tumors grow and cause pain unlike any you will ever know. Even a migraine headache goes away after a while.
The tumor is still there, getting bigger and causing pressure that affects our thinking in ways that I didn't even think was possible.
Thinking is hard to keep on a single path. Memories get moved, erased, changed and rerun over and over. We forget things or can't get them out of our minds. Simple thoughts are now hard to concentrate on. Even talking or putting a complete sentence together can be a major undertaking.
And the hardest thing is to forget those you've known all your life, your mother, father and siblings but even your own children. That is extremely hard not to know one you held in your arms minutes after they were born!
But this beast will come in and affect those without it invading their bodies. The collateral damage caused by cancer is just as hard to live with even if you are not the one getting strapped to a table for radiation or sitting in the quiet room watching a bag of chemo drip into a piece of metal and plastic implanted in your chest or feeding yourself through a tube in your belly because radiation has destroyed the muscles in your throat.
The people around us have the hardest row to hoe watching your child or relative or friend be put through this torture and then realize that your child doesn't know you or is so distressed that "he might die" doesn't want his parent or sister to get thrown into this hell hole of an existence some think cancer is which if they let it be a hell hole it will be.
Carla and others reading this, we're probably going to die. It will at times not be pretty. Hopefully, when it's time, I hope there is a hospice that will take us but you have to remember with brain cancer it's not that he doesn't want you in his life he or she does but they don't want you to see the pain and the aggravation that having something in your head and body can do to us! Give treatments a little time, bring something every day that you might have from the past to help this child of yours remember you and your love for them. A picture, a stuffed toy you put in the attic or box in the closet, a favorite sweater, and warm pair of socks (that hospital, if like mine is way to cold!) Warm them up and it will warm their thoughts of times past up not to mention their toes and heart.
Always a smile on your lips! Never a sad face! A joke a day and comedy central on the TV in the room. Laughter IS the best medicine so use it in large doses! And let all of the visitors know this also to never show sadness to the patient no matter how hard it is not to cry. BUT crying WITH him is different! Let the tears flow for both of you when they are crying.
Just remember it's his or her brain, the central processing unit of our whole body that doesn't have an on off switch which would be great but of course God didn't give us one so you have to let him be the one to finally get "his ducks in a row" or try to "march to the same drummer. " He will come back to you and you'll hold him just like your baby and things will slowly get back to normal. Well as normal as life is after cancer.
It's been almost 4 months since I woke up after they opened my head to get that invader out! The month leading up to the surgery was hard to bear. The waking up and afterwards, seeing my face and head looking like I was on the wrong side of a bar fight was hard but see and feeling the tubes coming out of parts of the body that they shouldn't be in and the medicines that make you feel like sludge is not fun and I don't recommend it for a weekend adventure! But when it happens it happens. Don't force him or her to remember you but coax them back with reminders of you and them and when they start to see the light they will see it in your eyes and they'll be home where they need to be.
You just can not lose your faith or your outlook or your positive mental attitude as much as you hurt for them. You must be an anchor for them to hold on to. The lifeline they need to hold on to their sanity as it slips through their fingers until the demon can be beaten.
I hope I could help. It's been a struggle for me as I'm still getting my ducks to line up. My surgery was only to the front of my brain. I hope your child could be as lucky as me but from your desperation I know they aren't. Just be there for them. Be there when they wake up after a treatment and be there when they need a hand to hold or a stroke through the hair or on the cheek. Read to them when they come back if they are asleep. It will make them think back to when you read them to sleep as a child and that will help them bring you back in their mind not to mention their heart. Just don't try to force them but nudge and coax them.
Then here is her reply to me:
Dear George,
Thank you so very much for your well thought out and lengthy response to my out-cry for an explanation regarding brain tumors; their emotional and behavior changes. You went to so much trouble to help me understand where my son might be in his head at this time and I will forever be grateful for your unselfish time you spent for me.
I also wanted to let you know that I read all 5 chapters of your cancer journey on your "my space". You are very expressive and share your uttermost feelings; for that I too am grateful. I really believe you could make a book out of this as the chapters were medically informative, funny, sad, tear and thought provoking. You are a kind man, always thinking of your wife and sons even in the midst of your own pain and suffering.
You are a delightful character and I will forever hold you in my prayers, thanking God that he who use you to touch my life with explanations to ease this Mother's heart....I never get to hear my son's voice, nor see his face, and that becomes overwhelming in the early morning and sleepless hours. It is so hard to understand how he can walk away from me after all we had been through together since I was a single parent for 21 years, he is now 37 yrs. old. His wife does not, nor ever liked me as she feels I "baby" him and she caused so many divisions and problems the days after and during his brain surgery. I suppose he must do what she asks and stay away from me, I simply don't know.
But thank you again, and also thank you for standing up for what is right with your ministry to servicemen who have died in the line of duty. Your presence and those that ride with you is forever admired and we are grateful for your loving service to those families.
Your friend,
Carla
Then my 2nd reply to her email:
Carla,
That’s why I took the time to write you as doctors can't really answer your questions to the fullest. Yes, they can give you all you need in medical terms but you and I are not medically inclined!
I'll give you a hint, There are actually 28 chapters to my blog! I made a boo boo and numbered #27 twice but that’s no problem yet. If you go back to the My Space page and look all the way at the bottom of the last chapter you'll see a little line that says "older posts" and if you click on it the next section comes up. They aren't exactly in order! Or you can go to this link at BlogSpot and they are in order except for the last few chapters and this is where chapter 27 is titled twice. Read the bottom 27 then the top! I'll be adding another one soon. http://rolloverriderpgr.blogspot.com/
Carla, it's a hard road to travel, but we are on this journey and the only way it'll be over is to take this ride. It's bumpy, has some really hard hills to climb and curves that would make NASCAR jealous. The stops and goes and the traffic can make us all crazy but the journey will end.
Where, is up to us, the patient, How we handle the trip is the most important part and will tell us the outcome of the journey.
Your Friend
George "Rollover" Purdy
I seem to feel better about my journey when I can share anything that can help another person get through this insane journey or roller coaster ride as I some times call it as it is. The up’s and downs we go through, the tests of our wills and faith. The trying times wondering where the house payment will come from or the food my family needs, the wishing that we all want OUR life back not A life!
Yes A life could be nice but it’s NOT MY life! I miss my job but I don’t miss the time I missed with my family. I’ve made that up by being home so much the past two years but it’s had an effect on my wife and sons. My wife I have to hide the duct tape from as she’s about to tape my butt to the wall! My youngest son has the hardest time with this as all of a sudden his Dad isn’t the super hero he used to be and with the money problems we are experiencing he’s been thrown into a world that only the poor know and it’s not only hard for him but for the rest of us! I was so used to being able to buy what I needed or wanted and now we’re waiting on SSI and food stamps. That is a steep learning curve to say the least and then throw in bankruptcy proceedings. And you have more problems.
I’m hoping that with the new news I’ll be getting back to normal. I was really hoping that I could be doing back flips off the couch or jumping up and down on the bed or other things a month ago or longer but that’s not in the cards yet, so I’m taking my time.
I will admit I was so down in the dumps last week I was making plans for my wake! Thanks to a friend, Roni, writing me a note with such kind words of inspiration I climbed up out of that hole I fell in. Thank you Roni.
I’ll be filling out the paper work to have my body donated to science in the next few days , hopefully the American Cancer Society, so they can teach new doctors the who's, what’s and whys of cancer, radiation, chemo and the effects it has on a body. I know they can’t use me for donor parts as the cancer could be transferred like it was just recently. Yeah, I can’t help that way but any way to advance a doctors knowledge over this monster is good for me!
I would hope others would think to go this way as it relieves the family of the cost of a burial as they will cremate the body and send the ashes to you. Me I’d rather not take up good ground where some vandal will some day kick over an over priced stone or have a building built on top of me in 1000 years! Just take my ashes to the closest interstate in each capital of the United States and sprinkle a little of me on the roadway as I’ve been on every one in America except Alaska and Hawaii! That way if my wife or sons want to talk to me all they have to do is go out and sit next to a road and talk to the asphalt. It’ll get to me and I can listen!
But I do want all my family and friends to laugh and cook out or go to Hudsons Hickory House back where I grew up in Douglas County Ga. and eat a combo plate and bowl of Brunswick stew, drink a sweet tea or a good beer and toast me going on another journey no one has gone on and returned to tell about!
I don’t want any tears for me! God said to rejoice for the fallen as they are now standing next to him and I plan to be right there! Yes, I walk through the Valley of death and God walks next to me but I fear no evil as God and I are the two meanest cusses in the valley!
Now if the ducks and brain cells would just settle down and get a little more creative I might someday be able to finish the love story of Jerry and how he’ll overcome his loss to cancer and find love again and get it to a publisher!
Cya all next time
George
Monday, May 24, 2010
Chapter 27 It might end someday
Chapter 27
It might end someday
I got a call today for my Neuro surgeon that had an unexpected surprise.
It turns out that the “radiation necrosis tumor” that was removed on 22 Feb.2010 was a little more than that. It also had what was called Metastatic Cancer in it.
Apparently back in 2008 there was this one little cell that broke loose during my treatments. As you might recall if you have read my never ending journal that when we started this journey I had tumors behind both eyes, cancer in my lymph nodes on my neck, cancer in the top of my throat and in my right lung.
Well the Tomo Therapy computer picked up on this little breakaway when it landed in my brain and did what cancer does and started to grow. As the Tomo Therapy computers caught this new invader it targeted it and killed it but as can happen with extensive radiation to the brain it caused a radiation necrosis tumor to appear and grow later which became my last real problem resulting in the brain surgery.
Because my recovery hasn’t gone the way I thought it should like me doing back flips off the couch or other silly things a call to the doctor last week brought this up from the records and was told to me today.
Now I have an appointment with him on Wed to plan out some soon to happen new tests. OH great! Not what I need to or want to hear!
I do know that if this other thing I had removed last week the “Squamous Papilloma” comes back it could be cancerous and you guessed it chemo treatments will be called for but done with a needle and locally to the growth if it decides to return!
So in my need to know I now know more that I wanted to! I just want my life back but that Beast Cancer apparently wants another rematch! It’s tried several diversionary tactics that my team at St. Johns keeps winning but it just does not want to let loose of me! I must have really made it mad when I quit smoking so easily in Feb of 07!
I keep trying to have my usual PMA and my humor but as hard as I try I’m being surrounded by this dark despair that is hacking at my resolve, my dreams and my life. Prayer helps but as soon as the prayer leaves my lips it attacks me again and keeps pushing me towards this deep dark hole I thought I had just crawled out of. It’s affecting me in ways I never believed were possible in writing short sentences that offend friends to when I think my mind is starting to get in gear I hit a pothole and throw everything into neutral. I was so into a story line this weekend and then it was gone. Just poof and I’m sitting here with this hang dog look on my face.
And it’s not just the thinking but the walking too. I can walk but not for long as I found out today when Barbara and I went to WalMart. I made it inside but wound up sitting in Subway while Barb did what she needed to do. I haven’t planted a single flower nor have I worked in my flower beds this year either.
Moving about seems to get harder everyday. I took a walk Saturday but I was tired and dizzy when I got back and now looking up while I sit here looking at a picture on the wall pressure builds up in my brain and that’s not something that should be happening. I want to watch a bird fly across my back yard but can’t because I feel like I’m going to pass out from the experience. Riding in the car is a vertigo experience I’d rather not have. It’s like being trapped in an LSD trip that won’t end.
I was hoping that my life had been handed back to me but it’s not the life I want! I want MY LIFE BACK! Not “A” life but my life! I want what I had before this nightmare began but it’s not happening as I thought the script should read.
Not only do I feel like a Frankenstein project I’m looking like one too because the bone that they removed is sinking and creating a ridge along my temple. Looks so Goth! Not to mention starting to hurt a tad more.
If God has a plan, he’s not cueing me in to what it is. I know he wants me to be a friend and to help those in need, but I think I’m missing a point here as I need something too. I need to live a life where I can help my wife and be a father to my youngest son who is drifting away from me as I’m not the man I used to be and he’s as scared as his brother as to the future. I was hoping to have a long future but it’s getting hard to fight this as worry has set in again and worry takes the life you need for tomorrow away from you today. This battle I’m fighting is becoming like a loosing battle if I can’t get a grip on the battle plans.
Please God, I’ve never asked for anything for me but now I ask for one thing. I just want my life back.
It might end someday
I got a call today for my Neuro surgeon that had an unexpected surprise.
It turns out that the “radiation necrosis tumor” that was removed on 22 Feb.2010 was a little more than that. It also had what was called Metastatic Cancer in it.
Apparently back in 2008 there was this one little cell that broke loose during my treatments. As you might recall if you have read my never ending journal that when we started this journey I had tumors behind both eyes, cancer in my lymph nodes on my neck, cancer in the top of my throat and in my right lung.
Well the Tomo Therapy computer picked up on this little breakaway when it landed in my brain and did what cancer does and started to grow. As the Tomo Therapy computers caught this new invader it targeted it and killed it but as can happen with extensive radiation to the brain it caused a radiation necrosis tumor to appear and grow later which became my last real problem resulting in the brain surgery.
Because my recovery hasn’t gone the way I thought it should like me doing back flips off the couch or other silly things a call to the doctor last week brought this up from the records and was told to me today.
Now I have an appointment with him on Wed to plan out some soon to happen new tests. OH great! Not what I need to or want to hear!
I do know that if this other thing I had removed last week the “Squamous Papilloma” comes back it could be cancerous and you guessed it chemo treatments will be called for but done with a needle and locally to the growth if it decides to return!
So in my need to know I now know more that I wanted to! I just want my life back but that Beast Cancer apparently wants another rematch! It’s tried several diversionary tactics that my team at St. Johns keeps winning but it just does not want to let loose of me! I must have really made it mad when I quit smoking so easily in Feb of 07!
I keep trying to have my usual PMA and my humor but as hard as I try I’m being surrounded by this dark despair that is hacking at my resolve, my dreams and my life. Prayer helps but as soon as the prayer leaves my lips it attacks me again and keeps pushing me towards this deep dark hole I thought I had just crawled out of. It’s affecting me in ways I never believed were possible in writing short sentences that offend friends to when I think my mind is starting to get in gear I hit a pothole and throw everything into neutral. I was so into a story line this weekend and then it was gone. Just poof and I’m sitting here with this hang dog look on my face.
And it’s not just the thinking but the walking too. I can walk but not for long as I found out today when Barbara and I went to WalMart. I made it inside but wound up sitting in Subway while Barb did what she needed to do. I haven’t planted a single flower nor have I worked in my flower beds this year either.
Moving about seems to get harder everyday. I took a walk Saturday but I was tired and dizzy when I got back and now looking up while I sit here looking at a picture on the wall pressure builds up in my brain and that’s not something that should be happening. I want to watch a bird fly across my back yard but can’t because I feel like I’m going to pass out from the experience. Riding in the car is a vertigo experience I’d rather not have. It’s like being trapped in an LSD trip that won’t end.
I was hoping that my life had been handed back to me but it’s not the life I want! I want MY LIFE BACK! Not “A” life but my life! I want what I had before this nightmare began but it’s not happening as I thought the script should read.
Not only do I feel like a Frankenstein project I’m looking like one too because the bone that they removed is sinking and creating a ridge along my temple. Looks so Goth! Not to mention starting to hurt a tad more.
If God has a plan, he’s not cueing me in to what it is. I know he wants me to be a friend and to help those in need, but I think I’m missing a point here as I need something too. I need to live a life where I can help my wife and be a father to my youngest son who is drifting away from me as I’m not the man I used to be and he’s as scared as his brother as to the future. I was hoping to have a long future but it’s getting hard to fight this as worry has set in again and worry takes the life you need for tomorrow away from you today. This battle I’m fighting is becoming like a loosing battle if I can’t get a grip on the battle plans.
Please God, I’ve never asked for anything for me but now I ask for one thing. I just want my life back.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Chapter 26, Ouch Nose surgery HURTS!
Chapter 26
Ouch nose surgery hurts!
Bag is packed for just in case St Johns decides they want to keep in over night or for a week again! Barbara and I head to the hospital while the sirens are going off due to tornados in the area. Oklahoma and Kansas are getting hit hard and it looks like we might be next but I’ve been waiting on this surgery for a few weeks and want this ride over with ASAP!
We get to the 3rd floor out patient surgery center to find out that they are running behind due to the tornado warnings so we have to wait for almost 2 hours and I finally get to get ready.
This is starting to get just funny as heck to me as I look back at having my first surgery getting the feeding tube put in and having to put the much dreaded hospital gown on but with putting in my CT Port I only had to take off my shirt and leave my jeans on. For my nose I get to wear the gown and now something new. Paper booties! No Sir, you can’t wear your nice warm socks with the non skid stuff on the bottoms! Yes I did have to wear the gown for the brain surgery but I did get to wear my socks! Go Figure!
I take the bed ride into the surgery pre op suite and before they turn the corner into the suite, I kiss Barbara good by and we hit the doors and go in and get the needles and pins stuck in me along with the EKG stickies put all over my chest which I ask them will you PLEASE take them off while I’m still knocked out as there is a LOT of hair under all those things and the nurses assure me they will! I meet the guy who is going to give me my nighty night stuff and I ask him if they are going to give me any morphine and he answers me in the affirmative and I tell him oh HECK no they aren’t! I tell him that stuff and I don’t get along very well together and that I try to throw up little brown rings because of ti so they give me a pretty red band to wear next to my ugly clear plastic one. This on says ALERGY on it with the word MORPHINE next to it and I know I won’t be looking for Johnny yelling for Ralph later today! They get me ready I see my Doctor and they roll me into the surgery suite and this room seems bigger than the last one I was in to have the head opened!
I watch as they hook me up to my IV’s and get the paper shields placed around my head and I hear the doctor tell the anesthesiologist to put me under and the comedian in me comes out and I tell everyone “Good night yall and have a fun time now, ya hear” and fall off the cliff into darkness! I didn’t know if I got a laugh out of that or not but it sure helped me.
I wake up with a wad of something stuffed in my nose and that fuzzy around the edges feeling that the use of good drugs leaves you with and see my wife at the foot of the bed as the nurses are doing their thing unhooking IV’s and pulling needles out of me asking if I would like a cup of coffee and something to eat and I brighten up as the last I coffee and food I’ve had was at 0000 hours last night or 12:00 for you non military types! COFFEE!! I manage to gurgle as I really needed that caffeine! Food was way down my list of needs at the moment.
Clothing that was warm being the second most important thing on that list! Especially my socks. I’m telling you St Johns has the best blanket warming system going but when said blankets don’t cover the little piggy’s I get cold fast. I ask about my socks and it’s fine with them so Barbara puts my foot warmers on and all is well with the world as a cup of coffee has materialized at my bedside and it’s gone in no time and I handed it back to the nurse with that lost puppy dog look in my eyes begging for another and she even asked if I wanted another! The grin told her everything as she went back for more and things were fine until I have to get up out of the warm bed into that meat locker and get dressed. No wonder people come out of a hospital sick! When it’s below 70* in there, pneumonia is the least you can hope for!
After the discharge papers and signing out and directions on how to care for the surgery site up in my nose and the wheel chair ride to the front door, Barbara and I head home where I lay down on the couch with Lacy the Yorkshire Terror on my chest and catch a nap due to movement makes the left over anesthesia work it’s way out of it’s hiding places and do it’s thing on you. I do talk to my Baby Sister and also let Face Book know I’m still alive and sit around the rest of the day wondering how to blow my nose. It leaks around the plug and it itches and my other nostril is running away like crazy and I know then that I will not make “Relay for Life” tomorrow which breaks my heart. Gee thanks cancer for another gift I didn’t ask for!
Sleeping is fun all propped up in bed and waking up several times to wipe all the blood leaking out from around the plug and I can’t resist the urge to blow the thing but knowing it’ll only cause a problem where I’ll have to go see another doctor for some other treatment stopped that urge in a New York minute! I’m getting way too many of those guys on my Christmas card list now I don’t need to add any more!
I can say that I don’t look anywhere as close to what I looked like after brain surgery! I just have two blue marks on my nose that Dr Highfill put on while in pre op. so he didn’t operate on my foot by accident or something else! They’ll be there until I can freaking touch my nose harder than a light scratching. So I look funny, that’s a whole lot better than looking like I got assaulted in a dark alley! I just look gross because that nice white plug is turning an ugly black from the blood. Squamous papilloma is so much fun to have and get rid of!
Lacy this little bundle of loving fur has not really left my side and I’ve been taking her out for her training walks but due to my left over dizziness from the brain surgery I’ve fallen several times once nearly on her and I make the decision that whoever it was who gave her to us will have to settle with the knowledge that as much as I love this little heart breaker and Barbara hasn’t laughed so much since April of 2008 we just can’t take care of her. She’s barely a hand full but she’s more than a handful taking care of her so I tell Barb that we need to take her back not only because of her being that handful but because she has this cough that concerned me as it’s getting worse and we can’t afford to care for her medically so we get her stuff and return to the store where she came into our lives.
We get the manager and talk to him and he agrees that the cough is inside the “medical return” policy of the store and I hand him a note to give to the person who got Lacy for us thanking them for thinking of us and explaining the reasons why we could not keep her, and we left, Barbara driving while I sat and cried alligator tears holding onto the little squeaky monkey toy she liked to play with and that now sits on my desk getting a squeeze every once in a while.
Saturday rolls around and Barb asks me if I can smell anything and I ask her why and she just looks at my nose in answer and I figure it’s starting to get a life of it’s own and there is nothing I can do about it until Monday morning when we go in for my follow up. I don’t go to church so as not to offend anyone and laze around truing to write but not accomplishing much but reading the news and making short quips on my Face Book page.
Monday is here and Barb and I head to the follow up and I’m so happy to have this plug removed. The nurse grabs it with a forceps and wiggles it around a bit them pulls it out getting a moan for her work from me and when is comes out the air rushes right on in! It’s been 6 months since I felt air flowing so freely through my nose. The nurse tells me how to care for it and tells me not to blow it for a couple of days but to use my NeliMed Sinus Rinse to clean things out and we’re good to do.
That’s another medical problem taken care of and here’s to hoping that nothing else comes along for many years but with my batting average the past 2 years I’ll try not to ginx it by saying anything!
I still have problems from that fun brain surgery and it’s pissing me off terribly. I’m so glad this desk weighs a few hundred pounds as I use it as a prop to stand up with and that there are couches, chairs tables and walls close by to lean against or hold on to as I walk. I do the old man shuffle as I move around, I do the stop to look progress reports that we see so many old folks do where we will stop and look around to see where the heck we are in relation to the last time we did it! Sitting in a moving car is not much fun from the vertigo and sitting on the back porch when it’s not raining and watching the birds fly around isn’t fun anymore for the same stupid reason! I want to fall out of the chair! Guess I’ll sit with my eyes closed and soak in the sun through my flannel long sleeved shirt as 80* isn’t warm enough!
Geeze, if Hollywood needs someone to play an old man they should give me a call as I need the money, the work shouldn’t kill me as long as I don’t play an old action figure or a love toy and I’m getting experience in Old Man Shuffle! And they can put their own teeth in my face! I also aren’t a “bad boy” or have the problems some of theses stars have like Lindsay and the police so getting to work isn’t a problem unless some other stupid medical problem crops up! I also have this lovely southern accent that not too many people can fake! I’m in the book Gimmie a call! LOL
I can read paper books pretty well but the computer is hard but for some reason I can play a game like “Starship Troopers” or Quake 4” just fine. I guess 3 dimensional life is too much for my brain but 1 dimension is ok. I don’t think I’ll be running out to buy a 3D HDTV any time soon!
I’m just hoping I can get this brain to get back to being a brain and not a fun center for more doctors! I really want a life back and any life will be better than this veggie state I’m going through! I miss driving the most and looking at the world as it goes by but that’s not an option now as it almost makes me sick! I really miss my motorcycle even if I can’t ride. It’s a man thing having a machine taken away is the same as loosing a diamond ring is to a woman.
I’ve even decided that when I die my body will be donated to science. Let the new batch of young doctors get the experience they need and also let the ACI see what they can learn about how cancer affected me to save someone else. I’ve even decided that I want a wake after the memorial service. I want there to be laughter as people recall some of the stupid “here hold my beer and watch this” episodes of my life and to all drink a coffee with a little Baileys’ in it for life and to look at the few pictures of me growing up. Now let’s not rush this as I still have a lot to live for such as this new thing called Bankruptcy to go through. Yes it’s another gift from cancer, that gift that no one wants but keeps on giving you things even if you don’t want those things!
Yesterday was Day 1, or the preliminary session with the court appointed lawyer, the next sometime in the next 90 days! Oh for a well paying job that I can just throw some money at the creditors and get back on with my life! Even a lottery ticket would be nice but they cost money and I’d rather feed my family first besides I only win the $3 ticket once a year and that doesn’t even pay for a month of tickets! LOL
I’m finishing up this chapter and realize that it didn’t take as long as the last chapter I wrote and wonder if maybe things might be settling down now that I’m getting more air into this skinny body of mine? I’ll try to work on that book a little after I go through this and clean up the misspellings and figure out how many keys I missed because this right eye is still a tad bit off.
Ouch nose surgery hurts!
Bag is packed for just in case St Johns decides they want to keep in over night or for a week again! Barbara and I head to the hospital while the sirens are going off due to tornados in the area. Oklahoma and Kansas are getting hit hard and it looks like we might be next but I’ve been waiting on this surgery for a few weeks and want this ride over with ASAP!
We get to the 3rd floor out patient surgery center to find out that they are running behind due to the tornado warnings so we have to wait for almost 2 hours and I finally get to get ready.
This is starting to get just funny as heck to me as I look back at having my first surgery getting the feeding tube put in and having to put the much dreaded hospital gown on but with putting in my CT Port I only had to take off my shirt and leave my jeans on. For my nose I get to wear the gown and now something new. Paper booties! No Sir, you can’t wear your nice warm socks with the non skid stuff on the bottoms! Yes I did have to wear the gown for the brain surgery but I did get to wear my socks! Go Figure!
I take the bed ride into the surgery pre op suite and before they turn the corner into the suite, I kiss Barbara good by and we hit the doors and go in and get the needles and pins stuck in me along with the EKG stickies put all over my chest which I ask them will you PLEASE take them off while I’m still knocked out as there is a LOT of hair under all those things and the nurses assure me they will! I meet the guy who is going to give me my nighty night stuff and I ask him if they are going to give me any morphine and he answers me in the affirmative and I tell him oh HECK no they aren’t! I tell him that stuff and I don’t get along very well together and that I try to throw up little brown rings because of ti so they give me a pretty red band to wear next to my ugly clear plastic one. This on says ALERGY on it with the word MORPHINE next to it and I know I won’t be looking for Johnny yelling for Ralph later today! They get me ready I see my Doctor and they roll me into the surgery suite and this room seems bigger than the last one I was in to have the head opened!
I watch as they hook me up to my IV’s and get the paper shields placed around my head and I hear the doctor tell the anesthesiologist to put me under and the comedian in me comes out and I tell everyone “Good night yall and have a fun time now, ya hear” and fall off the cliff into darkness! I didn’t know if I got a laugh out of that or not but it sure helped me.
I wake up with a wad of something stuffed in my nose and that fuzzy around the edges feeling that the use of good drugs leaves you with and see my wife at the foot of the bed as the nurses are doing their thing unhooking IV’s and pulling needles out of me asking if I would like a cup of coffee and something to eat and I brighten up as the last I coffee and food I’ve had was at 0000 hours last night or 12:00 for you non military types! COFFEE!! I manage to gurgle as I really needed that caffeine! Food was way down my list of needs at the moment.
Clothing that was warm being the second most important thing on that list! Especially my socks. I’m telling you St Johns has the best blanket warming system going but when said blankets don’t cover the little piggy’s I get cold fast. I ask about my socks and it’s fine with them so Barbara puts my foot warmers on and all is well with the world as a cup of coffee has materialized at my bedside and it’s gone in no time and I handed it back to the nurse with that lost puppy dog look in my eyes begging for another and she even asked if I wanted another! The grin told her everything as she went back for more and things were fine until I have to get up out of the warm bed into that meat locker and get dressed. No wonder people come out of a hospital sick! When it’s below 70* in there, pneumonia is the least you can hope for!
After the discharge papers and signing out and directions on how to care for the surgery site up in my nose and the wheel chair ride to the front door, Barbara and I head home where I lay down on the couch with Lacy the Yorkshire Terror on my chest and catch a nap due to movement makes the left over anesthesia work it’s way out of it’s hiding places and do it’s thing on you. I do talk to my Baby Sister and also let Face Book know I’m still alive and sit around the rest of the day wondering how to blow my nose. It leaks around the plug and it itches and my other nostril is running away like crazy and I know then that I will not make “Relay for Life” tomorrow which breaks my heart. Gee thanks cancer for another gift I didn’t ask for!
Sleeping is fun all propped up in bed and waking up several times to wipe all the blood leaking out from around the plug and I can’t resist the urge to blow the thing but knowing it’ll only cause a problem where I’ll have to go see another doctor for some other treatment stopped that urge in a New York minute! I’m getting way too many of those guys on my Christmas card list now I don’t need to add any more!
I can say that I don’t look anywhere as close to what I looked like after brain surgery! I just have two blue marks on my nose that Dr Highfill put on while in pre op. so he didn’t operate on my foot by accident or something else! They’ll be there until I can freaking touch my nose harder than a light scratching. So I look funny, that’s a whole lot better than looking like I got assaulted in a dark alley! I just look gross because that nice white plug is turning an ugly black from the blood. Squamous papilloma is so much fun to have and get rid of!
Lacy this little bundle of loving fur has not really left my side and I’ve been taking her out for her training walks but due to my left over dizziness from the brain surgery I’ve fallen several times once nearly on her and I make the decision that whoever it was who gave her to us will have to settle with the knowledge that as much as I love this little heart breaker and Barbara hasn’t laughed so much since April of 2008 we just can’t take care of her. She’s barely a hand full but she’s more than a handful taking care of her so I tell Barb that we need to take her back not only because of her being that handful but because she has this cough that concerned me as it’s getting worse and we can’t afford to care for her medically so we get her stuff and return to the store where she came into our lives.
We get the manager and talk to him and he agrees that the cough is inside the “medical return” policy of the store and I hand him a note to give to the person who got Lacy for us thanking them for thinking of us and explaining the reasons why we could not keep her, and we left, Barbara driving while I sat and cried alligator tears holding onto the little squeaky monkey toy she liked to play with and that now sits on my desk getting a squeeze every once in a while.
Saturday rolls around and Barb asks me if I can smell anything and I ask her why and she just looks at my nose in answer and I figure it’s starting to get a life of it’s own and there is nothing I can do about it until Monday morning when we go in for my follow up. I don’t go to church so as not to offend anyone and laze around truing to write but not accomplishing much but reading the news and making short quips on my Face Book page.
Monday is here and Barb and I head to the follow up and I’m so happy to have this plug removed. The nurse grabs it with a forceps and wiggles it around a bit them pulls it out getting a moan for her work from me and when is comes out the air rushes right on in! It’s been 6 months since I felt air flowing so freely through my nose. The nurse tells me how to care for it and tells me not to blow it for a couple of days but to use my NeliMed Sinus Rinse to clean things out and we’re good to do.
That’s another medical problem taken care of and here’s to hoping that nothing else comes along for many years but with my batting average the past 2 years I’ll try not to ginx it by saying anything!
I still have problems from that fun brain surgery and it’s pissing me off terribly. I’m so glad this desk weighs a few hundred pounds as I use it as a prop to stand up with and that there are couches, chairs tables and walls close by to lean against or hold on to as I walk. I do the old man shuffle as I move around, I do the stop to look progress reports that we see so many old folks do where we will stop and look around to see where the heck we are in relation to the last time we did it! Sitting in a moving car is not much fun from the vertigo and sitting on the back porch when it’s not raining and watching the birds fly around isn’t fun anymore for the same stupid reason! I want to fall out of the chair! Guess I’ll sit with my eyes closed and soak in the sun through my flannel long sleeved shirt as 80* isn’t warm enough!
Geeze, if Hollywood needs someone to play an old man they should give me a call as I need the money, the work shouldn’t kill me as long as I don’t play an old action figure or a love toy and I’m getting experience in Old Man Shuffle! And they can put their own teeth in my face! I also aren’t a “bad boy” or have the problems some of theses stars have like Lindsay and the police so getting to work isn’t a problem unless some other stupid medical problem crops up! I also have this lovely southern accent that not too many people can fake! I’m in the book Gimmie a call! LOL
I can read paper books pretty well but the computer is hard but for some reason I can play a game like “Starship Troopers” or Quake 4” just fine. I guess 3 dimensional life is too much for my brain but 1 dimension is ok. I don’t think I’ll be running out to buy a 3D HDTV any time soon!
I’m just hoping I can get this brain to get back to being a brain and not a fun center for more doctors! I really want a life back and any life will be better than this veggie state I’m going through! I miss driving the most and looking at the world as it goes by but that’s not an option now as it almost makes me sick! I really miss my motorcycle even if I can’t ride. It’s a man thing having a machine taken away is the same as loosing a diamond ring is to a woman.
I’ve even decided that when I die my body will be donated to science. Let the new batch of young doctors get the experience they need and also let the ACI see what they can learn about how cancer affected me to save someone else. I’ve even decided that I want a wake after the memorial service. I want there to be laughter as people recall some of the stupid “here hold my beer and watch this” episodes of my life and to all drink a coffee with a little Baileys’ in it for life and to look at the few pictures of me growing up. Now let’s not rush this as I still have a lot to live for such as this new thing called Bankruptcy to go through. Yes it’s another gift from cancer, that gift that no one wants but keeps on giving you things even if you don’t want those things!
Yesterday was Day 1, or the preliminary session with the court appointed lawyer, the next sometime in the next 90 days! Oh for a well paying job that I can just throw some money at the creditors and get back on with my life! Even a lottery ticket would be nice but they cost money and I’d rather feed my family first besides I only win the $3 ticket once a year and that doesn’t even pay for a month of tickets! LOL
I’m finishing up this chapter and realize that it didn’t take as long as the last chapter I wrote and wonder if maybe things might be settling down now that I’m getting more air into this skinny body of mine? I’ll try to work on that book a little after I go through this and clean up the misspellings and figure out how many keys I missed because this right eye is still a tad bit off.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Chapter 25
Chapter 25
February 2010
The call comes in! Surgery is scheduled for the 22nd. Great as I’m starting to have a few problems with my body not doing what I want it to do!
I want to stand up without the world spinning around me! I want to be in the sunlight without it hurting my eyes. I want these headaches that are getting progressively worse to stop! I want to walk without tipping to the sides!
I just want my life back as I thought it was supposed to be when I was told there was no more cancer! This isn’t fair! I’ve played by the rules and my body is taking it to another level! OK I’ll play along again!
I have decided that I will not ride the bike or drive the car as I’m having dizzy spells again but this time it’s not from vertigo but this stupid invader in my head! I just can’t take a chance of having a spell and causing an accident where either I or someone else is hurt or killed. Now this isn’t going well with Barbara as she hates to drive while I’m sitting in the car. I’m a big back seat driver! I’d be just as bad if I had a pilot’s license. If I’m not in control you ain’t doing it right!
I go in and have another MRI the week before the surgery date and then go in to see my new doctor, Dr. Scarrow, my Nureo surgeon, and he explains what they will be doing. I ask about a biopsy but he tells me due to the location and he shows it to me on the computer they have no choice but to go in and remove this lesion and then do the biopsy after they have it removed. This thing is located on the bottom of my brain sitting on the brain pan behind my right eye. It’s directly behind where the big tumor was behind my eye.
And it’s grown! It is now not measured in centimeters but in inches! It’s 1/2” x7/8” x1/2” or about the size of a jelly bean! Now it’s real, I get to have my skull split open and I have a short list of things I need to know such as what’s the long term effects of this going to do to me, how long will I be in the hospital and quiet a few other things. The main thing I need to know was the long term problems. His answer was I’d have a 10% chance of a stroke or seizures which I decide right away I can live with. He goes on to tell me that they will be drilling a series of holes in my skull and then sawing between them to remove the skull to get into my brain. This I figure out as I’ve done a little wood work in my life to understand that process. The cool part was this stage was going to be done by a robot!
Anyway all of these problems I’m experiencing are actually coming from all the fluid buildup from the lesion. Lets get this show on the road as I want my life back!
I also get measured for some special “socks” as they call them and am told all the things I can expect after I wake up and we get to go home to wait for Monday to roll around.
Monday the 22nd rolls around and Barbara and I are back in St Johns checking in at pre op. I get all the usual things done like get undressed and this time I can’t wear my jammies! I have to wear the oh so wonderful open in the back hospital gowns, but I get a break and can put 2 on one facing the wrong way to cover up the rear facing part of my body! And I can wear my socks! I get my IV inserted and I go to the bathroom so I don’t have any “accidents” and then I’m put on the bed! Bags are put up and hooked to my IV and I’m rolled out for another CT Scan before they open me up. On the way back my preacher Dennis Jennings is coming towards us and he escorts us back to the pre op room and we talk for a couple of minutes until the nurses come in to take me to surgery. Dennis offers a prayer and when done the nurses who actually prayed with us take me out for my next journey into the unknown that I’m starting to call my Frankenstein Experience!
Into an impossibly cold room that looks nothing like what you see on the TV except for the nurses and doctors and the fun begins for them because when they hit the plunger to shoot the sleepy juice in and it was lights out for me till get this, Tuesday afternoon!
I’ve been know to sleep for awhile but this was a record! I do remember someone in a dream offer me some orange sherbet. It was a great dream but when I woke up the pain hit until the pain meds kicked in. Oh crud! Morphine again! I hate morphine. It makes me try to throw up brown rings! But I have no choice in the matter. Barbara is standing there when I woke up and she asks me how I feel and I tell her like someone hit me in the face with a ball bat! The nurses are therealso and start to lok me over and ask me silly questions like what day it was which I got wrong right off the bat! It ewas Monday when they put me out but they didn’t tell me I wasn’t going to wake up till Tuesday! I did get the month and my name right which was a prize winner as I got to have COFFEE! I also got to have chicken noodle soup which is still on my all time favorites list and then someone puts a bag of ice on my right eye and side of my head. It hurt the eye but felt great on my head.
Then I notice that I need to go to the bathroom and that’s when I’m told Mr. Purdy you have a catheter in so you don’t need to go to the bath room! WHAT?? And of course I reach down under the covers and sure enough there it is the infamous tube! OH freaking great! At least I was a sleep when this one was put in but I really don’t want to go through another one being pulled out! The United Nations has a rule against cruel and unusual punishment! I guess this is going to happen tomorrow but again I’m wrong as They don’t want me up and wandering around until I’m feeling a little bit better!
The good thing about this ordeal is the biopsy of the thing in my brain came in Tuesday evening and it was great news. There was only 2 things that this could have been. One was a new cancerous tumor or it might be a radiation narcissus tumor. We were hoping for the latter and that’s what we got! Nothing now to worry about now except keeping air going in and air going out.
Wednesday rolls around and I’m moved out of ICU into another room and I fall asleep after they hit me with some more morphine and wake later and For some reason that I’ve noticed every time I wake up and a nurse is around I’m asked if I know what day it is the date and my name which is actually really funny as it goes like this,
“Mr. Purdy do you know what day it is?”
“Yep, its Wednesday right?”
“Well that’s right Mr. Purdy! Do you know your name Mr. Purdy?”
“AHHH, Mr. Purdy???” Hoping I can get a laugh out of her, but for some reason when doing the 20 questions after surgery, humor is not a good thing to be trying for!
“No Mr. Purdy, what is your first name?”
“ahhh, George???” and I get the pat on the arm reward that nurses are so good with! And that’s the end of the “Do you know show?”
Then I am asked a question I can’t answer. “Have you seen your surgery site yet Mr. Purdy?” and I have to answer no not yet but she has an ulterior motive for that question and it’s called Physical therapy! I need to get out of bed and walk so I don’t get any more blood clots and I’m ready to go exploring!
As we walk past the mirror over the sink she stops and lets me look and I’m standing there looking at someone who looks like he’s been on the loosing side of a baseball bat fight! I tell you I looked like crap! My right eye was completely red! I had a black eye the likes of which I’ve never had even in my worst fight! It was from my eye lid all the way down to below my nose and another bruise from in front of my ear to the corner of my mouth!
I turned to her and asked her if the surgery team had assaulted me or if they at least got the tag number of the truck that ran my arse over! I finally got a laugh out of a nurse!
The scar from the incision started from the center of my fore head at the hair line and went up onto my head and came around and down in front of my ear and stopped right in the center of the ear! And it was ugly! I really looked like I was in a horror movie and I was the new Frankenstein!
We finished our little walk and I didn’t even look in the mirror when we walked by it! That guy I last saw in it scared me to death!
Barbara and Jerry, my youngest, came in and Jerry looked me over going wow Dad a few times and I told him to take a few pictures which he did! I have them on my Face Book page along with a few other pictures!
They finally decide to let me out on Friday and this is when we find out a small problem. On the way home Barbara is not driving the way I would have driven home and what’s worse she pulls into the driveway of a house I have no idea as to who lives there and I’m getting really mad at her and ask her where we are and she answers me ”babe, we’re home” and now I’m panicked! WHAT? Did you sell our house while I was in the hospital? And she looks at me in fear and tells me to go in and see my sons and Abby our cat!
I go in and I don’t recognize a thing except for my two sons and my cat Abby! N3eedless this scares Barbara badly and it does have my attention! It wasn’t until later that night that I figure out that it is my house and things settle down some.
We were told that there would be a “little” short term memory loss but this was a big surprise! And it scared the hell out of us! Once I got those memories settled the rest come together!
I’m having the usual problem that brain surgery gives a person which, having been back for my follow ups Dr. Sarrow assures me is normal. Things like dizziness or vertigo, numbness of the surgical site and pressure from the fluid build up and bleeding from my ear and nose. Memory loss is making me nutts as I had written 6 chapters of a story and after the surgery I’ve been able to do ½ of a chapter! I can’t get a train of thought to come together as I’ll be going along and it’s like hitting a wall! Some call it writers block but for me it’s a complete blank wall. My spelling is terrible and because of the fuzziness in my right eye the keyboard is off center and I miss a lot of keys and even though I’m a 4 fingered typist this is terrible! I’ve spent 3 hours on this little chapter and it shouldn’t have taken me even 30 minutes.
I’ve become an old man in the last 3 months since the pressure started to build up in my brain and until it goes down I still am an old man at 55. I stand up and I’m glad that this desk is in front of me to grab hold of and I’m glad there are a lot of things in the house for me to reach for to steady myself in case I start to tip over. When I go outside I have my trusty friend Mr. Cane to keep me upright!
It’s April now and the last 3 months have been a joy to live! Yeah right! It’s been an aggravating pain in the arse! There have been some good things thats happened such as I finally got Disability which is a laugh as what I make in a month I used to make in a week! I have food stamps which is another laugh as it’s only $250 a month for a family of 3 so Barbara and I get to go to the shelters and food banks for handouts. We were able to finally pay the lawyer to start the bankruptcy proceedings after we got my tax return, and we now have the case number and a date and the phone is finally quiet! NO calls from bottom feeder collection agencies! I also sold my motorcycle to help pay on my second mortgage so we wouldn’t loose the house but getting Medicaid is a problem. My son has his and I get to pay $499 a month out of that large $1500 I get for disability unless I can rack up that same amount in doctors bills which is called a spend down which I still don’t understand!
I had someone ask me why don’t I let the house go? Well rent is about the same or more for what we need! And that’s actually taking a step down from what I have here! So I’ll keep the house thank you! Besides we were able to get a HUD help deal from the bank we have which was a surprise as this bank to remain nameless has been a PITA to work with! They reprocessed my pick up truck, hounded us to death on the second mortgage even after they heard what I’ve been through since April of 08. It’s true some banks have no heart and this bank was voted in the top 5 best banks in America this year. You’ll have to wait till I pick my arse up off the floor from LMFAO!
I guarantee if I can get someone to buy both of these loans from them I’ll jump on it in a heart beat!
I miss my bike. It’s been a great therapy group for me even if I can’t ride right now. Just going out and sitting on it helped, polishing it helped and just sitting next to it helped but now I miss just going down to the garage to visit it! Yeah Cancer the freaking gift that just keeps on giving even when you don’t want the damn gift!
Like what’s next on my agenda. Yep something else has “popped” up! If I can remember correctly back in about 1998 I went to a doctor about a little “bump” that had appears in my nose. The doc cut a bit off and when the biopsy came back said it wasn’t benign and not to worry about it. Well I didn’t and it just sat in there and didn’t do anything until all the radiation and chemo was over then it started to grow like a freaking weed! Well when they had me out on the table in Feb they cut a piece off and sent it in for a biopsy also. It came back as a type of HPV. (Human Papillomavirus) I freaked when I looked it up but they only show it as a sexually transmitted disease. OK why is it my freaking nose? My doctor can’t figure that out either as there is no sign of any “warts” on my body! But May 13th I get to go and have more sleepy juice and another knife put in me! They need to do this as this growth exploded and grew like wild fire and has almost closed off my right nostril and we need to stop it so it doesn’t get into my sinuses or throat. Another reason is it needs to be removed is it can turn into cancer. OH CRAP! There’s that “C” word again! I’m telling you I’m turning into a freaking science experiment! Here I am broke and I’m going in for more surgery! I need to get back to writing on my story and try to sell it so I can get some money in here but the funny thing is, if I do sell it and it sells a million copies and I get a whole dollar a copy I’ll loose 1/2 of it to all the banks, credit cards, hospitals and others I had to file bankruptcy on! They’ll put a hold on it till they get theirs! I love leeches! But I do have to say Chase Bank has been the best to work with! I guess because they are Springfields largest employer next to Kraft! Lets hope I can get the brain cells to working and I can get this story written as I’m pouring out tears writing the wrong things in here!
February 2010
The call comes in! Surgery is scheduled for the 22nd. Great as I’m starting to have a few problems with my body not doing what I want it to do!
I want to stand up without the world spinning around me! I want to be in the sunlight without it hurting my eyes. I want these headaches that are getting progressively worse to stop! I want to walk without tipping to the sides!
I just want my life back as I thought it was supposed to be when I was told there was no more cancer! This isn’t fair! I’ve played by the rules and my body is taking it to another level! OK I’ll play along again!
I have decided that I will not ride the bike or drive the car as I’m having dizzy spells again but this time it’s not from vertigo but this stupid invader in my head! I just can’t take a chance of having a spell and causing an accident where either I or someone else is hurt or killed. Now this isn’t going well with Barbara as she hates to drive while I’m sitting in the car. I’m a big back seat driver! I’d be just as bad if I had a pilot’s license. If I’m not in control you ain’t doing it right!
I go in and have another MRI the week before the surgery date and then go in to see my new doctor, Dr. Scarrow, my Nureo surgeon, and he explains what they will be doing. I ask about a biopsy but he tells me due to the location and he shows it to me on the computer they have no choice but to go in and remove this lesion and then do the biopsy after they have it removed. This thing is located on the bottom of my brain sitting on the brain pan behind my right eye. It’s directly behind where the big tumor was behind my eye.
And it’s grown! It is now not measured in centimeters but in inches! It’s 1/2” x7/8” x1/2” or about the size of a jelly bean! Now it’s real, I get to have my skull split open and I have a short list of things I need to know such as what’s the long term effects of this going to do to me, how long will I be in the hospital and quiet a few other things. The main thing I need to know was the long term problems. His answer was I’d have a 10% chance of a stroke or seizures which I decide right away I can live with. He goes on to tell me that they will be drilling a series of holes in my skull and then sawing between them to remove the skull to get into my brain. This I figure out as I’ve done a little wood work in my life to understand that process. The cool part was this stage was going to be done by a robot!
Anyway all of these problems I’m experiencing are actually coming from all the fluid buildup from the lesion. Lets get this show on the road as I want my life back!
I also get measured for some special “socks” as they call them and am told all the things I can expect after I wake up and we get to go home to wait for Monday to roll around.
Monday the 22nd rolls around and Barbara and I are back in St Johns checking in at pre op. I get all the usual things done like get undressed and this time I can’t wear my jammies! I have to wear the oh so wonderful open in the back hospital gowns, but I get a break and can put 2 on one facing the wrong way to cover up the rear facing part of my body! And I can wear my socks! I get my IV inserted and I go to the bathroom so I don’t have any “accidents” and then I’m put on the bed! Bags are put up and hooked to my IV and I’m rolled out for another CT Scan before they open me up. On the way back my preacher Dennis Jennings is coming towards us and he escorts us back to the pre op room and we talk for a couple of minutes until the nurses come in to take me to surgery. Dennis offers a prayer and when done the nurses who actually prayed with us take me out for my next journey into the unknown that I’m starting to call my Frankenstein Experience!
Into an impossibly cold room that looks nothing like what you see on the TV except for the nurses and doctors and the fun begins for them because when they hit the plunger to shoot the sleepy juice in and it was lights out for me till get this, Tuesday afternoon!
I’ve been know to sleep for awhile but this was a record! I do remember someone in a dream offer me some orange sherbet. It was a great dream but when I woke up the pain hit until the pain meds kicked in. Oh crud! Morphine again! I hate morphine. It makes me try to throw up brown rings! But I have no choice in the matter. Barbara is standing there when I woke up and she asks me how I feel and I tell her like someone hit me in the face with a ball bat! The nurses are therealso and start to lok me over and ask me silly questions like what day it was which I got wrong right off the bat! It ewas Monday when they put me out but they didn’t tell me I wasn’t going to wake up till Tuesday! I did get the month and my name right which was a prize winner as I got to have COFFEE! I also got to have chicken noodle soup which is still on my all time favorites list and then someone puts a bag of ice on my right eye and side of my head. It hurt the eye but felt great on my head.
Then I notice that I need to go to the bathroom and that’s when I’m told Mr. Purdy you have a catheter in so you don’t need to go to the bath room! WHAT?? And of course I reach down under the covers and sure enough there it is the infamous tube! OH freaking great! At least I was a sleep when this one was put in but I really don’t want to go through another one being pulled out! The United Nations has a rule against cruel and unusual punishment! I guess this is going to happen tomorrow but again I’m wrong as They don’t want me up and wandering around until I’m feeling a little bit better!
The good thing about this ordeal is the biopsy of the thing in my brain came in Tuesday evening and it was great news. There was only 2 things that this could have been. One was a new cancerous tumor or it might be a radiation narcissus tumor. We were hoping for the latter and that’s what we got! Nothing now to worry about now except keeping air going in and air going out.
Wednesday rolls around and I’m moved out of ICU into another room and I fall asleep after they hit me with some more morphine and wake later and For some reason that I’ve noticed every time I wake up and a nurse is around I’m asked if I know what day it is the date and my name which is actually really funny as it goes like this,
“Mr. Purdy do you know what day it is?”
“Yep, its Wednesday right?”
“Well that’s right Mr. Purdy! Do you know your name Mr. Purdy?”
“AHHH, Mr. Purdy???” Hoping I can get a laugh out of her, but for some reason when doing the 20 questions after surgery, humor is not a good thing to be trying for!
“No Mr. Purdy, what is your first name?”
“ahhh, George???” and I get the pat on the arm reward that nurses are so good with! And that’s the end of the “Do you know show?”
Then I am asked a question I can’t answer. “Have you seen your surgery site yet Mr. Purdy?” and I have to answer no not yet but she has an ulterior motive for that question and it’s called Physical therapy! I need to get out of bed and walk so I don’t get any more blood clots and I’m ready to go exploring!
As we walk past the mirror over the sink she stops and lets me look and I’m standing there looking at someone who looks like he’s been on the loosing side of a baseball bat fight! I tell you I looked like crap! My right eye was completely red! I had a black eye the likes of which I’ve never had even in my worst fight! It was from my eye lid all the way down to below my nose and another bruise from in front of my ear to the corner of my mouth!
I turned to her and asked her if the surgery team had assaulted me or if they at least got the tag number of the truck that ran my arse over! I finally got a laugh out of a nurse!
The scar from the incision started from the center of my fore head at the hair line and went up onto my head and came around and down in front of my ear and stopped right in the center of the ear! And it was ugly! I really looked like I was in a horror movie and I was the new Frankenstein!
We finished our little walk and I didn’t even look in the mirror when we walked by it! That guy I last saw in it scared me to death!
Barbara and Jerry, my youngest, came in and Jerry looked me over going wow Dad a few times and I told him to take a few pictures which he did! I have them on my Face Book page along with a few other pictures!
They finally decide to let me out on Friday and this is when we find out a small problem. On the way home Barbara is not driving the way I would have driven home and what’s worse she pulls into the driveway of a house I have no idea as to who lives there and I’m getting really mad at her and ask her where we are and she answers me ”babe, we’re home” and now I’m panicked! WHAT? Did you sell our house while I was in the hospital? And she looks at me in fear and tells me to go in and see my sons and Abby our cat!
I go in and I don’t recognize a thing except for my two sons and my cat Abby! N3eedless this scares Barbara badly and it does have my attention! It wasn’t until later that night that I figure out that it is my house and things settle down some.
We were told that there would be a “little” short term memory loss but this was a big surprise! And it scared the hell out of us! Once I got those memories settled the rest come together!
I’m having the usual problem that brain surgery gives a person which, having been back for my follow ups Dr. Sarrow assures me is normal. Things like dizziness or vertigo, numbness of the surgical site and pressure from the fluid build up and bleeding from my ear and nose. Memory loss is making me nutts as I had written 6 chapters of a story and after the surgery I’ve been able to do ½ of a chapter! I can’t get a train of thought to come together as I’ll be going along and it’s like hitting a wall! Some call it writers block but for me it’s a complete blank wall. My spelling is terrible and because of the fuzziness in my right eye the keyboard is off center and I miss a lot of keys and even though I’m a 4 fingered typist this is terrible! I’ve spent 3 hours on this little chapter and it shouldn’t have taken me even 30 minutes.
I’ve become an old man in the last 3 months since the pressure started to build up in my brain and until it goes down I still am an old man at 55. I stand up and I’m glad that this desk is in front of me to grab hold of and I’m glad there are a lot of things in the house for me to reach for to steady myself in case I start to tip over. When I go outside I have my trusty friend Mr. Cane to keep me upright!
It’s April now and the last 3 months have been a joy to live! Yeah right! It’s been an aggravating pain in the arse! There have been some good things thats happened such as I finally got Disability which is a laugh as what I make in a month I used to make in a week! I have food stamps which is another laugh as it’s only $250 a month for a family of 3 so Barbara and I get to go to the shelters and food banks for handouts. We were able to finally pay the lawyer to start the bankruptcy proceedings after we got my tax return, and we now have the case number and a date and the phone is finally quiet! NO calls from bottom feeder collection agencies! I also sold my motorcycle to help pay on my second mortgage so we wouldn’t loose the house but getting Medicaid is a problem. My son has his and I get to pay $499 a month out of that large $1500 I get for disability unless I can rack up that same amount in doctors bills which is called a spend down which I still don’t understand!
I had someone ask me why don’t I let the house go? Well rent is about the same or more for what we need! And that’s actually taking a step down from what I have here! So I’ll keep the house thank you! Besides we were able to get a HUD help deal from the bank we have which was a surprise as this bank to remain nameless has been a PITA to work with! They reprocessed my pick up truck, hounded us to death on the second mortgage even after they heard what I’ve been through since April of 08. It’s true some banks have no heart and this bank was voted in the top 5 best banks in America this year. You’ll have to wait till I pick my arse up off the floor from LMFAO!
I guarantee if I can get someone to buy both of these loans from them I’ll jump on it in a heart beat!
I miss my bike. It’s been a great therapy group for me even if I can’t ride right now. Just going out and sitting on it helped, polishing it helped and just sitting next to it helped but now I miss just going down to the garage to visit it! Yeah Cancer the freaking gift that just keeps on giving even when you don’t want the damn gift!
Like what’s next on my agenda. Yep something else has “popped” up! If I can remember correctly back in about 1998 I went to a doctor about a little “bump” that had appears in my nose. The doc cut a bit off and when the biopsy came back said it wasn’t benign and not to worry about it. Well I didn’t and it just sat in there and didn’t do anything until all the radiation and chemo was over then it started to grow like a freaking weed! Well when they had me out on the table in Feb they cut a piece off and sent it in for a biopsy also. It came back as a type of HPV. (Human Papillomavirus) I freaked when I looked it up but they only show it as a sexually transmitted disease. OK why is it my freaking nose? My doctor can’t figure that out either as there is no sign of any “warts” on my body! But May 13th I get to go and have more sleepy juice and another knife put in me! They need to do this as this growth exploded and grew like wild fire and has almost closed off my right nostril and we need to stop it so it doesn’t get into my sinuses or throat. Another reason is it needs to be removed is it can turn into cancer. OH CRAP! There’s that “C” word again! I’m telling you I’m turning into a freaking science experiment! Here I am broke and I’m going in for more surgery! I need to get back to writing on my story and try to sell it so I can get some money in here but the funny thing is, if I do sell it and it sells a million copies and I get a whole dollar a copy I’ll loose 1/2 of it to all the banks, credit cards, hospitals and others I had to file bankruptcy on! They’ll put a hold on it till they get theirs! I love leeches! But I do have to say Chase Bank has been the best to work with! I guess because they are Springfields largest employer next to Kraft! Lets hope I can get the brain cells to working and I can get this story written as I’m pouring out tears writing the wrong things in here!
Chapter 24
Chapter 24
December 2009
Well my "employer" decided that he didn't want to take a chance of me driving his truck "in case I have another dizzy spell" so he let me go and when I tried to apply for unemployment he told DOE that I had quit! WHAT?? He was given a copy of my doctors work releease! He just couldn't pay the unemployment due to that bottom feeder he had his truck leased to and as I found out he was the one who told Randy not to put me back in the truck!Something about not wanting me to haul his freight, I think that moron better be glad I'm not one of those who sues on the drop of a penny!
But I tell you it's hard to get a job these days! I'm back to trying and I'm to experienced for most of these companies and they don't want to pay what an experienced driver is worth! It's turning out that a lot of these companies are going for the government tax money and hiring trainees so there are two money makers. One is they can hire someone for 1970 wages of 20 cents a mile AND get tax money from out of our pockets for hiring an unemployed person from off the street! The American people are getting burned on another "socialist" program! The bad thing is over half of these trainees don't survive a couple of months in a truck as it wasn't what they thought it was! Trucking ain't for sissys!
December comes and I have another problem crop up. My right leg from the knee down swells up to as big as my skinny thigh! Well this is a Friday so as usual dummy me thinks what the heck it’ll go down in a day or two.
Wrong again Einstein! By Monday I’m in tears from the pain so I head to the clinic to see what’s going on this time! Well the NP checks me out and sends me down to my most favorite hospital in the world, St. Johns for an ultra sound.
I get in there and I didn’t escape until SATURDAY! Yep once again I’m captured and placed into a room after the ultra sound finds a large blood clot in my lower leg! I have an IV with Heparin, a blood thinner being pumped into me with the usual saline. I have to call my wife to come down with my FAG bag. You do remember what FAG means right? Fast Action Bag and nothing mean towards another persons lifestyle!
Barbara walks in later and looks at me and shakes her head knowing I’m not liking being in here and starts to ask the questions that I couldn’t answer on the phone and which I really have no answers for yet. All I can tell her is it’s a blood clot and I’m getting a blood thinner and I had no idea yet how long I’m going to be in here.
She helps me get into my nice and warm flannel jammie bottoms and don’t even go there people! Hospitals are freaking COLD and get the nurse to unplug me from the IV so I can pull on my warm, yes you got it, jammie top! Along with the non slip socks!
She talks with the nurse and can’t get the answer she wants and then talks with me for a while and heads on home leaving me with the laptop and my own little world!
Then like every other time in here at 5:30 in the morning the parade starts with first vitals and then blood being pulled and a doctor I’ve never met from Jordan Valley Medical Clinic where I had gone yesterday comes in and we have a talk.
He can’t understand why I have a blood clot as I’m not the usual candidate for them as I have good blood pressure, good cholesterol and I’m not over weight.
He decides to check with Dr’s Kim and Holden to see if it might be another hold over of all things, cancer! I know he heard my heart hit the floor when he said that because I know the look on my face told him volumes.
There is that freaking word again! CANCER! It’s only been just over a year and it’s come back to haunt me for the 3rd time! “Cancer”, I think, “the freaking gift that keeps on giving! And I don’t want this freaking gift!”
Well Tuesday I have all three doctors in my room discussing what they think is going on so I get a new pill to take called Coumadin and I’m being set up for another CT scan from the neck down and an MRI of the head for Wed and Thursday!
The CT comes back clean! Nothing found from the neck down! YEEEESSSS! BUT the results of the MRI aren’t so good. Remember back when in August they found that tiny little lesion in the front temporal lobe? Well that “tiny” little thing has grown fairly fast and is just under ½ centimeter big!
Isn’t that just great! Another darn invader has assaulted me! We’re “thinking” one little cancer cell got loose from all the stuff we threw at it and for some reason traveled all around my body and came to rest in my brain behind where this nightmare started! What are the odds!
They pull all the blood thinners from me and are thinking surgery ASAP! On Friday I have 5 doctors in the room with me. From Dr’s Kim and Holden, the Dr from Jordan Valley and now a Nero surgeon and a plastic surgeon. We’re discussing which type of surgery we’re going to do. The first problem is they have NO IDEA as to what this thing which is being called a “lesion” is. They can’t do a biopsy on it as it’s in a bad place! So what are we going to do? Open brain surgery or what I was hoping for cyber knife. But genius here had to ask a silly question a question that made all 5 of these doctors stop talking and look at me as if I dropped something nasty on the floor, but then they had to think about the question which was” After all of this radiation I’ve taken to the head from Tomo therapy to the CT Scans how much more can I take?” Oh yeah I can ask some hard questions! So I get the ole “We’ll get back with you on this” answer!
Friday late afternoon comes around and I only have 2 doctors in the room with me this time the Nureo surgeon and a surgeon who is going to put a new part in me called a filter. It’s going to be placed in my Inferior vena caua vein that is the return vessel from my lower body to catch any pieces of this blood clot that might break loose as it gets smaller. This will happen on Saturday and when they’re done and I wake up from the sleepy juice I get to go home! OH YEAH!
Well I woke up and I have another new scar on my neck and Barb and I head home. We’ll be waiting for the call as to when they want to remove my new “friend” in my head.
Christmas came and went and this year was worse than last year. We didn’t even put up a tree. There was no point to it as there would be no money for presents for under the tree. But family members did send gift cards and money so the boys didn’t go completely without but it tore me apart. I’ve never felt so sad or useless as I have this Christmas. I just hope I’ll be able to have something under the tree next year.
December 2009
Well my "employer" decided that he didn't want to take a chance of me driving his truck "in case I have another dizzy spell" so he let me go and when I tried to apply for unemployment he told DOE that I had quit! WHAT?? He was given a copy of my doctors work releease! He just couldn't pay the unemployment due to that bottom feeder he had his truck leased to and as I found out he was the one who told Randy not to put me back in the truck!Something about not wanting me to haul his freight, I think that moron better be glad I'm not one of those who sues on the drop of a penny!
But I tell you it's hard to get a job these days! I'm back to trying and I'm to experienced for most of these companies and they don't want to pay what an experienced driver is worth! It's turning out that a lot of these companies are going for the government tax money and hiring trainees so there are two money makers. One is they can hire someone for 1970 wages of 20 cents a mile AND get tax money from out of our pockets for hiring an unemployed person from off the street! The American people are getting burned on another "socialist" program! The bad thing is over half of these trainees don't survive a couple of months in a truck as it wasn't what they thought it was! Trucking ain't for sissys!
December comes and I have another problem crop up. My right leg from the knee down swells up to as big as my skinny thigh! Well this is a Friday so as usual dummy me thinks what the heck it’ll go down in a day or two.
Wrong again Einstein! By Monday I’m in tears from the pain so I head to the clinic to see what’s going on this time! Well the NP checks me out and sends me down to my most favorite hospital in the world, St. Johns for an ultra sound.
I get in there and I didn’t escape until SATURDAY! Yep once again I’m captured and placed into a room after the ultra sound finds a large blood clot in my lower leg! I have an IV with Heparin, a blood thinner being pumped into me with the usual saline. I have to call my wife to come down with my FAG bag. You do remember what FAG means right? Fast Action Bag and nothing mean towards another persons lifestyle!
Barbara walks in later and looks at me and shakes her head knowing I’m not liking being in here and starts to ask the questions that I couldn’t answer on the phone and which I really have no answers for yet. All I can tell her is it’s a blood clot and I’m getting a blood thinner and I had no idea yet how long I’m going to be in here.
She helps me get into my nice and warm flannel jammie bottoms and don’t even go there people! Hospitals are freaking COLD and get the nurse to unplug me from the IV so I can pull on my warm, yes you got it, jammie top! Along with the non slip socks!
She talks with the nurse and can’t get the answer she wants and then talks with me for a while and heads on home leaving me with the laptop and my own little world!
Then like every other time in here at 5:30 in the morning the parade starts with first vitals and then blood being pulled and a doctor I’ve never met from Jordan Valley Medical Clinic where I had gone yesterday comes in and we have a talk.
He can’t understand why I have a blood clot as I’m not the usual candidate for them as I have good blood pressure, good cholesterol and I’m not over weight.
He decides to check with Dr’s Kim and Holden to see if it might be another hold over of all things, cancer! I know he heard my heart hit the floor when he said that because I know the look on my face told him volumes.
There is that freaking word again! CANCER! It’s only been just over a year and it’s come back to haunt me for the 3rd time! “Cancer”, I think, “the freaking gift that keeps on giving! And I don’t want this freaking gift!”
Well Tuesday I have all three doctors in my room discussing what they think is going on so I get a new pill to take called Coumadin and I’m being set up for another CT scan from the neck down and an MRI of the head for Wed and Thursday!
The CT comes back clean! Nothing found from the neck down! YEEEESSSS! BUT the results of the MRI aren’t so good. Remember back when in August they found that tiny little lesion in the front temporal lobe? Well that “tiny” little thing has grown fairly fast and is just under ½ centimeter big!
Isn’t that just great! Another darn invader has assaulted me! We’re “thinking” one little cancer cell got loose from all the stuff we threw at it and for some reason traveled all around my body and came to rest in my brain behind where this nightmare started! What are the odds!
They pull all the blood thinners from me and are thinking surgery ASAP! On Friday I have 5 doctors in the room with me. From Dr’s Kim and Holden, the Dr from Jordan Valley and now a Nero surgeon and a plastic surgeon. We’re discussing which type of surgery we’re going to do. The first problem is they have NO IDEA as to what this thing which is being called a “lesion” is. They can’t do a biopsy on it as it’s in a bad place! So what are we going to do? Open brain surgery or what I was hoping for cyber knife. But genius here had to ask a silly question a question that made all 5 of these doctors stop talking and look at me as if I dropped something nasty on the floor, but then they had to think about the question which was” After all of this radiation I’ve taken to the head from Tomo therapy to the CT Scans how much more can I take?” Oh yeah I can ask some hard questions! So I get the ole “We’ll get back with you on this” answer!
Friday late afternoon comes around and I only have 2 doctors in the room with me this time the Nureo surgeon and a surgeon who is going to put a new part in me called a filter. It’s going to be placed in my Inferior vena caua vein that is the return vessel from my lower body to catch any pieces of this blood clot that might break loose as it gets smaller. This will happen on Saturday and when they’re done and I wake up from the sleepy juice I get to go home! OH YEAH!
Well I woke up and I have another new scar on my neck and Barb and I head home. We’ll be waiting for the call as to when they want to remove my new “friend” in my head.
Christmas came and went and this year was worse than last year. We didn’t even put up a tree. There was no point to it as there would be no money for presents for under the tree. But family members did send gift cards and money so the boys didn’t go completely without but it tore me apart. I’ve never felt so sad or useless as I have this Christmas. I just hope I’ll be able to have something under the tree next year.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
04/2008 Tuesday
As you know from reading my last blog I know that I have what is known as Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma, (I'll call it NC from now on) a cancer that grows above the throat in the sinus cavities.
Dr. Highfield called me today at 1400 as I was driving on the PA Turn Pike heading west coming back home. He sounded a "little" guarded" as he spoke with me and what he told me was a little on the scary side.
He confirmed that I DO have NC and it's more advanced that he previously thought after viewing the CT Scan and from the results from the biopsy he took last Friday. It is about the size of a golf ball and has spread into the area above the throat and into my lymph system and top of the right lung. His recommendation is that surgery is out of the question as it could be to "damaging" to me so he says that chemotherapy and radiation treatments are how we will treat this invader. He has set me up for a PET scan this Friday and an appointment with another Doctor, and is still working on an appointment with an oncologist.
Dr. Highfield told me that the treatments will start with chemo and radiation to jump start the treatment and then I would be doing both over the course of 6 weeks. The radiation treatments will be 5 times a week and he was uncertain about how many more chemo's I would do.
I'm telling you, this is how I've always wanted to start a summer off, by being completely hairless and throwing up like I'm pregnant or out on a night on the town! I just hope the stupid hair that God strikes all men with in their later years falls out also but doesn't come back! And maybe my hair will come back like Tom Cruz's! Keep dreaming dude!
After talking to the Doctor, I called home to Barbara. We discussed those things we knew were about to happen. Mainly, me not being able to work, how we would pay bills, put food on the table for the boys, buy clothing for a rapidly growing son Jerry, who at 14 is now 5'8" and 150 pounds and not slowing at all! Buy meds for her and the meds we know I am about to start on!
After 15 minutes or so, Barb got to the point where it was to hard to talk about and started to get upset and cry. We said our good-byes then and I sat there and looked out the windshield for a few minutes in a kind of unbelieving trance of the immense burden I was about to put on my family.
15 years Barb and I have been married, never a single bounced check, never really wanting for anything as I did make a good living as a truck driver even though it does suck only seeing my family on weekends or MY weekend which is normally a Thursday and a Friday. Yes things had gotten a little tight the past year as it was with just about everyone else in America but this was going to be the death of a happy family!
I sat there thinking about the speal I would tell the bill collectors when they called, how I would be "Pissed off" at them and how I would have to deliver it to them!
Now it was time to call my sister Carol who lives north of Atlanta. She gave me a few tips I need to bring up with my insurance company and we talked for a few minutes until it was MY turn to let the tears flow. She and I both started and we had to hang up. It's hard to talk and cry on a cell phone.
The trees blooming, beautiful mountain views, I never saw them as my mind wasn't in the truck as I kept heading home.
I'm home now on a Wednesday night. I have a lot to do tomorrow, calling the insurance company, motorcycle title screw up and a few other loose ends and things to tie up and then see about Friday. Barbara and I have already started the arguing that goes with a high stress situation. I need to chill! The carpet can get stretched later if we can manage to keep the freakin house! Paint? Not in THIS lifetime that is turning out to be a 2 month year! Is THIS what makes normal humans go crazy? I better go back and read the ACS page about support groups!
05/01/2008 Thursday
I had a great day today just riding around on the bike. We went to Mitsubishi and traded the lease in on another as the new Lancer is cheaper than the Gallant, is brand new AND costs less on insurance than the Gallant! It also gets about 5 miles more on gas mileage than the Gallant also! Saved about $200.00 there so that helps out in the next 2 upcoming months where there won't be any pay coming in!
I also went to the bank that Pro Cycle had used MY paid off motorcycle in some kind of money laundering scheme and started the process of getting that stupid lien taken off! Can you believe that I've been riding my bike with the wrong VIN numbers on the pink slip for over 2 years! But it was better than sitting around worrying about what’s about to happen tomorrow! I hate a thief!
05/02/2008 Friday
I went to the hospital today for a PET scan. That was so freaking BORING! After they inject you with the radioactive isotope they have you lay there in a barely lighted room where you can't listen to music, read or knit a sweater! For some reason the cancer cells attract the molecules in the stuff like sugar and if you have a "stimulated" brain then it gives a false reading. So anyway, I lay there and even dozed off till the nurse came in and took me back to the PET/CT machine where she strapped me down, made sure my head wouldn't move and asked me what kind of music I liked! HUH? Oh, 80's rock will do, and she left, turned on the thing and away I go. But of course no music until the head and brain were done! Let us not stimulate that brain! As if it's NOT being stimulated! All of the questions and need to do's running around in between the ears should make it look like my brain is completely saturated with the little demon cancer cells!
The PET scan done I go home to try once again to get the title fixed on my bike, but that’s a goner because the bank didn't get it right on the lien release! I also have to go see my new bestest friend in the world, Dr. Kim. He'll be my radiologist for the rest of my life!
The first visit to St Johns Cancer Center here in Springfield, Mo. Is a little daunting, it’s a nice place to visit, but, I wouldn't want to live there as if I now have a choice!
Met a couple of nurses who will be on my "team" but ask me their names and I'll have to lie to you because I was to over whelmed by what was taking place.
Dr. Kim comes in asks a few questions and starts HIS exam. He starts with the usual feeling of the neck pokes around in the mouth a little then the fun part of squirting linolcane (?) (it’s just like the dentists uses when he pulls a tooth) in the nose and goes on safari with a nose probe! OMG! DOC! HEY! DUUUUDE! He's all the way past the tonsils and into the lung!
Ok Mr. Purdy say "E"
.... yer chitting me, right Doc?
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
ok Mr. Purdy Puff your cheeks out
??????
OK, Now, just breathe naturally through your nose!
%$(()%@&@*@%*( KIDDIN!. I know he can tell what color underwear I’m wearing he’s got that scope so far down my throat!
That done we have "THE TALK"
Condensed, it's something like this. This is advanced Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma. Only about 2000 people in America get this cancer. I screwed up as I said before and didn't listen to my body! It's into the top of my throat. There is no surgery for this and the radiation and chemo therapy will be at least 6 weeks long. Because the radiation is being applied to my head I'll have to have a feeding tube and a CT port for the chemo inserted into my body. The first 2 or 3 weeks won't be to bad with the radiation as it is a cumulative thing and actually won't show any "bad" effects until that time when my body has adsorbed more of it.
I'll get to ride my bike, drink GALLONS of fluids, eat as much food as I can because, the feeding tube is because the radiation will be "destroying" my throat and swallowing will become difficult! It will start with food being creamed and blended; drinking it until I can't swallow anymore then it'll be syringe time! Right into the stomach!
When Dr. Kim told me I wouldn't be drinking any more coffee I was almost speechless! NO COFFEE? Hell Doc, just shoot me now! I don't know what will be worse, the effects of radiation poisoning or the headaches from caffeine withdrawal! But another reason for no caffeine products is that the caffeine keeps your bodies cells from retaining the moisture which I will need when I start my treatments.
I'll figure that out when the time comes! Now what was the name of that guy testing radio waves to kill tumors? (REALLY, let me know!)
Then the chemo is started! Apparently, I'm lucky here. It'll (as it stands right now) only be applied every 21 days. But I'll have lost all of my hair by then and be applying eye brow liner so it LOOKS like I have some left! He jokingly said I pretty much won't have to worry about ever having to shave around the neck (look at my pictures and tell me I'm a happy camper!)
Another bad thing with having radiation applied to the head and neck area is I will get to loose the REST of my teeth! I can expect my saliva glands to dry up and pretty much stop working for the rest of my life giving me "dry mouth" (yep, the same as a pot smoker gets, but without the munchies!) The only GOOD thing about that is COFFEE! (after treatments!) The bad thing about no saliva is it has something to do with keeping your teeth and gums moist and with out a certain amount, your teeth will decide to go bad along with the added effects of the radiation treatments doing wonderful things to the jawbone and it's almost best to have them removed before this happens as pulling teeth from "brittle" bones is NOT a good thing! Awww, whats a broken jawbone to not enjoying a good steak?
So that is my day for today. The GREAT thing is, I will be leaving tomorrow for another run to NYC and when I get back I go in for an MRI, an appointment with a dental hygienist and what ever else the doctors can come up with! I do know I'll wake up to another dawn in the morning.
I'll have time to myself to do a little crying (really needed now) figure out how to raise a 14 year old with no income, support a wife who's health is deteriorating, with no income, and help a 23 year old mentally handicapped step son get on with his life, again with no income.
Late night in bed
Barbara and I cry ourselves to sleep tonight, It's the first time we have gone to bed together in years and the first time in years that we actually held each other as we fell asleep. I'm sorry sweetheart that I'm letting both of us down and I pray that I'll be here in five years to keep holding you.
05/03/2008 Saturday
It's kind of like a reprieve. I get maybe 2 more weeks of work in before this dance starts! I really hate it that I did buy tickets for it. Hate the fact that the music sucks big time and REALLY hate the fact that someone went and locked the freaking doors to the dance hall so I'm stuck dancing with the ugly lady and I have to keep dancing until the music stops!
I'm making another run to NYC, and I'll be stopping in Williamsburg Monday evening for another night at my "home away from home" for another good dinner at a restaurant that I haven't decided on yet! I'm thinking Sea off of Bedford Avenue on I think N7 or N6. Maybe I can talk someone in joining me! I really hate to eat alone these days and to tell the truth I hate being alone even in the truck! I never got along being stuck in a closet with anyone except for Jerry my son when he was younger, and today I actually had to put the cell on charge as I had a lot of incoming calls and I think I went about 45 minutes before I would call someone else! Not to mention all of the text messages! You know texting really drains a battery! I don't know how this will work on weekdays when minutes aren't free! Maybe all of my friends and family will get on Sprint. Or maybe they'll all chip in and get me a free cell! LOL. Oh that’s right, I have the CB! Oh well drivers, the ratchet jaw rides again! LOL!
Well it's late and I've made the bunk in the truck one more time. Let’s see if I can go to sleep without having weird dreams, crying, or having more of those night sweats that have been plaguing me lately! At least I KNOW I'll wake up!
On a different note before drifting off, I'm wondering if any of you might know a tattoo artist that can come up with a tat of me about 6-8" high, standing in front of my bike, The grim Reaper in a pile at my feet (like Beetle Bailey after the Sarge has stomped all over him) with me breaking Reapers Scythe over my knee and the caption going 3/4 circle around the picture saying "What part of "NO!" did you NOT understand?" I have 2 more I want for when I have beaten this crap and I'll put them in later!
See ya'll tomorrow!
05/06/2008 Tuesday
I had a really nice day yesterday, I got my deliveries off drove over to where I like to park on Meeker Ave between N6 and N7, went on a “walk about” trying to decide on where I wanted to eat. After hitting Bedford Ave I finally decided on S&B a Polish place with good cooking and veggies! I was thinking about Sea but I guess I just wanted to watch everyone walking and so I sat in the front, looking out the windows people watching as I ate my beef stroganoff, spinach, and green beans, with of course, COFFEE! It's a different world now that you know you're not the indestructible person you thought you were!
It's funny when you watch a movie and one of the characters is dying and they talk about the colors being so much better or the look of a leaf, and it's true! You DO look at everything in a different light. Colors, shapes, textures and even people! The feelings that pass through you as you try to take it all in and the smiles that come to your lips as you remember things in your past. The thought that your life passes in front of you before you die is so much different when you've been given 5 years and then "we'll see" because you now get the chance to actually look at EVERYTHING you've done back through the years and analyzed every freaking detail! Why, why, why did you do some of the things you've done, and why, why, why, didn't you do this differently and that differently or why didn't you say this then instead of that? I guess the old phrase about horses and barn doors, huh. That’s life as the song goes.
There are so many things going thru my mind now, sitting here in Wheeling, West by God Virginia that I can't find words for or where to start to put them to words.
I'm heading home and I know this is my last run for a while. Thursday I have an MRI. Friday, the Dietitian and Dental Hygienist. Monday I get a CT port put in to a vein, fitted for a mask, I think on Tuesday, Wednesday I go in for surgery for a feeding tube and might get to stay the night there, OH Whoppie do da day! I hope I get to ride my bike after the tube is in as I know that the hard stuff is about to start. I KNOW I want a little alone time Sunday, and I pray for a beautiful sunny, warm day!
And to the idiot trucker who came on the CB while I was talking to another driver who had gone thru chemo asking why I didn't save HIM and the rest of the healthy the expense of running up HIS insurance and commit suicide. I told you on the CB and now. Kiss my royal red ass! I've got way to many people in the world I haven't pissed off yet with you being just one of them so I won't get off the merry go round just to make your silly ass happy! I'm keeping all of my toys in this playground just to make you miserable! I'll take them home when I'm ready, AND to piss you off! You and those who think like you can all take a dive off the high dive into the shallow end of life! As I've said and will keep on saying "The dance has started and they locked me in the dance hall!" This has become an exercise of mind over matter. I don't mind because you don't really don’t matter! To bad you weren't man enough to come up and introduce yourself as I really wanted to see what a moron really looked like! Coward behind the microphone of the CB! Thank you for giving me another in a long list of reasons to fight this thing that has turned mine and so many others lives upside down!
I'm hungry and the truck stop has, well, passably decent food, a shower and bed. G’Night all. :)
04/2008 Tuesday
As you know from reading my last blog I know that I have what is known as Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma, (I'll call it NC from now on) a cancer that grows above the throat in the sinus cavities.
Dr. Highfield called me today at 1400 as I was driving on the PA Turn Pike heading west coming back home. He sounded a "little" guarded" as he spoke with me and what he told me was a little on the scary side.
He confirmed that I DO have NC and it's more advanced that he previously thought after viewing the CT Scan and from the results from the biopsy he took last Friday. It is about the size of a golf ball and has spread into the area above the throat and into my lymph system and top of the right lung. His recommendation is that surgery is out of the question as it could be to "damaging" to me so he says that chemotherapy and radiation treatments are how we will treat this invader. He has set me up for a PET scan this Friday and an appointment with another Doctor, and is still working on an appointment with an oncologist.
Dr. Highfield told me that the treatments will start with chemo and radiation to jump start the treatment and then I would be doing both over the course of 6 weeks. The radiation treatments will be 5 times a week and he was uncertain about how many more chemo's I would do.
I'm telling you, this is how I've always wanted to start a summer off, by being completely hairless and throwing up like I'm pregnant or out on a night on the town! I just hope the stupid hair that God strikes all men with in their later years falls out also but doesn't come back! And maybe my hair will come back like Tom Cruz's! Keep dreaming dude!
After talking to the Doctor, I called home to Barbara. We discussed those things we knew were about to happen. Mainly, me not being able to work, how we would pay bills, put food on the table for the boys, buy clothing for a rapidly growing son Jerry, who at 14 is now 5'8" and 150 pounds and not slowing at all! Buy meds for her and the meds we know I am about to start on!
After 15 minutes or so, Barb got to the point where it was to hard to talk about and started to get upset and cry. We said our good-byes then and I sat there and looked out the windshield for a few minutes in a kind of unbelieving trance of the immense burden I was about to put on my family.
15 years Barb and I have been married, never a single bounced check, never really wanting for anything as I did make a good living as a truck driver even though it does suck only seeing my family on weekends or MY weekend which is normally a Thursday and a Friday. Yes things had gotten a little tight the past year as it was with just about everyone else in America but this was going to be the death of a happy family!
I sat there thinking about the speal I would tell the bill collectors when they called, how I would be "Pissed off" at them and how I would have to deliver it to them!
Now it was time to call my sister Carol who lives north of Atlanta. She gave me a few tips I need to bring up with my insurance company and we talked for a few minutes until it was MY turn to let the tears flow. She and I both started and we had to hang up. It's hard to talk and cry on a cell phone.
The trees blooming, beautiful mountain views, I never saw them as my mind wasn't in the truck as I kept heading home.
I'm home now on a Wednesday night. I have a lot to do tomorrow, calling the insurance company, motorcycle title screw up and a few other loose ends and things to tie up and then see about Friday. Barbara and I have already started the arguing that goes with a high stress situation. I need to chill! The carpet can get stretched later if we can manage to keep the freakin house! Paint? Not in THIS lifetime that is turning out to be a 2 month year! Is THIS what makes normal humans go crazy? I better go back and read the ACS page about support groups!
05/01/2008 Thursday
I had a great day today just riding around on the bike. We went to Mitsubishi and traded the lease in on another as the new Lancer is cheaper than the Gallant, is brand new AND costs less on insurance than the Gallant! It also gets about 5 miles more on gas mileage than the Gallant also! Saved about $200.00 there so that helps out in the next 2 upcoming months where there won't be any pay coming in!
I also went to the bank that Pro Cycle had used MY paid off motorcycle in some kind of money laundering scheme and started the process of getting that stupid lien taken off! Can you believe that I've been riding my bike with the wrong VIN numbers on the pink slip for over 2 years! But it was better than sitting around worrying about what’s about to happen tomorrow! I hate a thief!
05/02/2008 Friday
I went to the hospital today for a PET scan. That was so freaking BORING! After they inject you with the radioactive isotope they have you lay there in a barely lighted room where you can't listen to music, read or knit a sweater! For some reason the cancer cells attract the molecules in the stuff like sugar and if you have a "stimulated" brain then it gives a false reading. So anyway, I lay there and even dozed off till the nurse came in and took me back to the PET/CT machine where she strapped me down, made sure my head wouldn't move and asked me what kind of music I liked! HUH? Oh, 80's rock will do, and she left, turned on the thing and away I go. But of course no music until the head and brain were done! Let us not stimulate that brain! As if it's NOT being stimulated! All of the questions and need to do's running around in between the ears should make it look like my brain is completely saturated with the little demon cancer cells!
The PET scan done I go home to try once again to get the title fixed on my bike, but that’s a goner because the bank didn't get it right on the lien release! I also have to go see my new bestest friend in the world, Dr. Kim. He'll be my radiologist for the rest of my life!
The first visit to St Johns Cancer Center here in Springfield, Mo. Is a little daunting, it’s a nice place to visit, but, I wouldn't want to live there as if I now have a choice!
Met a couple of nurses who will be on my "team" but ask me their names and I'll have to lie to you because I was to over whelmed by what was taking place.
Dr. Kim comes in asks a few questions and starts HIS exam. He starts with the usual feeling of the neck pokes around in the mouth a little then the fun part of squirting linolcane (?) (it’s just like the dentists uses when he pulls a tooth) in the nose and goes on safari with a nose probe! OMG! DOC! HEY! DUUUUDE! He's all the way past the tonsils and into the lung!
Ok Mr. Purdy say "E"
.... yer chitting me, right Doc?
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
ok Mr. Purdy Puff your cheeks out
??????
OK, Now, just breathe naturally through your nose!
%$(()%@&@*@%*( KIDDIN!. I know he can tell what color underwear I’m wearing he’s got that scope so far down my throat!
That done we have "THE TALK"
Condensed, it's something like this. This is advanced Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma. Only about 2000 people in America get this cancer. I screwed up as I said before and didn't listen to my body! It's into the top of my throat. There is no surgery for this and the radiation and chemo therapy will be at least 6 weeks long. Because the radiation is being applied to my head I'll have to have a feeding tube and a CT port for the chemo inserted into my body. The first 2 or 3 weeks won't be to bad with the radiation as it is a cumulative thing and actually won't show any "bad" effects until that time when my body has adsorbed more of it.
I'll get to ride my bike, drink GALLONS of fluids, eat as much food as I can because, the feeding tube is because the radiation will be "destroying" my throat and swallowing will become difficult! It will start with food being creamed and blended; drinking it until I can't swallow anymore then it'll be syringe time! Right into the stomach!
When Dr. Kim told me I wouldn't be drinking any more coffee I was almost speechless! NO COFFEE? Hell Doc, just shoot me now! I don't know what will be worse, the effects of radiation poisoning or the headaches from caffeine withdrawal! But another reason for no caffeine products is that the caffeine keeps your bodies cells from retaining the moisture which I will need when I start my treatments.
I'll figure that out when the time comes! Now what was the name of that guy testing radio waves to kill tumors? (REALLY, let me know!)
Then the chemo is started! Apparently, I'm lucky here. It'll (as it stands right now) only be applied every 21 days. But I'll have lost all of my hair by then and be applying eye brow liner so it LOOKS like I have some left! He jokingly said I pretty much won't have to worry about ever having to shave around the neck (look at my pictures and tell me I'm a happy camper!)
Another bad thing with having radiation applied to the head and neck area is I will get to loose the REST of my teeth! I can expect my saliva glands to dry up and pretty much stop working for the rest of my life giving me "dry mouth" (yep, the same as a pot smoker gets, but without the munchies!) The only GOOD thing about that is COFFEE! (after treatments!) The bad thing about no saliva is it has something to do with keeping your teeth and gums moist and with out a certain amount, your teeth will decide to go bad along with the added effects of the radiation treatments doing wonderful things to the jawbone and it's almost best to have them removed before this happens as pulling teeth from "brittle" bones is NOT a good thing! Awww, whats a broken jawbone to not enjoying a good steak?
So that is my day for today. The GREAT thing is, I will be leaving tomorrow for another run to NYC and when I get back I go in for an MRI, an appointment with a dental hygienist and what ever else the doctors can come up with! I do know I'll wake up to another dawn in the morning.
I'll have time to myself to do a little crying (really needed now) figure out how to raise a 14 year old with no income, support a wife who's health is deteriorating, with no income, and help a 23 year old mentally handicapped step son get on with his life, again with no income.
Late night in bed
Barbara and I cry ourselves to sleep tonight, It's the first time we have gone to bed together in years and the first time in years that we actually held each other as we fell asleep. I'm sorry sweetheart that I'm letting both of us down and I pray that I'll be here in five years to keep holding you.
05/03/2008 Saturday
It's kind of like a reprieve. I get maybe 2 more weeks of work in before this dance starts! I really hate it that I did buy tickets for it. Hate the fact that the music sucks big time and REALLY hate the fact that someone went and locked the freaking doors to the dance hall so I'm stuck dancing with the ugly lady and I have to keep dancing until the music stops!
I'm making another run to NYC, and I'll be stopping in Williamsburg Monday evening for another night at my "home away from home" for another good dinner at a restaurant that I haven't decided on yet! I'm thinking Sea off of Bedford Avenue on I think N7 or N6. Maybe I can talk someone in joining me! I really hate to eat alone these days and to tell the truth I hate being alone even in the truck! I never got along being stuck in a closet with anyone except for Jerry my son when he was younger, and today I actually had to put the cell on charge as I had a lot of incoming calls and I think I went about 45 minutes before I would call someone else! Not to mention all of the text messages! You know texting really drains a battery! I don't know how this will work on weekdays when minutes aren't free! Maybe all of my friends and family will get on Sprint. Or maybe they'll all chip in and get me a free cell! LOL. Oh that’s right, I have the CB! Oh well drivers, the ratchet jaw rides again! LOL!
Well it's late and I've made the bunk in the truck one more time. Let’s see if I can go to sleep without having weird dreams, crying, or having more of those night sweats that have been plaguing me lately! At least I KNOW I'll wake up!
On a different note before drifting off, I'm wondering if any of you might know a tattoo artist that can come up with a tat of me about 6-8" high, standing in front of my bike, The grim Reaper in a pile at my feet (like Beetle Bailey after the Sarge has stomped all over him) with me breaking Reapers Scythe over my knee and the caption going 3/4 circle around the picture saying "What part of "NO!" did you NOT understand?" I have 2 more I want for when I have beaten this crap and I'll put them in later!
See ya'll tomorrow!
05/06/2008 Tuesday
I had a really nice day yesterday, I got my deliveries off drove over to where I like to park on Meeker Ave between N6 and N7, went on a “walk about” trying to decide on where I wanted to eat. After hitting Bedford Ave I finally decided on S&B a Polish place with good cooking and veggies! I was thinking about Sea but I guess I just wanted to watch everyone walking and so I sat in the front, looking out the windows people watching as I ate my beef stroganoff, spinach, and green beans, with of course, COFFEE! It's a different world now that you know you're not the indestructible person you thought you were!
It's funny when you watch a movie and one of the characters is dying and they talk about the colors being so much better or the look of a leaf, and it's true! You DO look at everything in a different light. Colors, shapes, textures and even people! The feelings that pass through you as you try to take it all in and the smiles that come to your lips as you remember things in your past. The thought that your life passes in front of you before you die is so much different when you've been given 5 years and then "we'll see" because you now get the chance to actually look at EVERYTHING you've done back through the years and analyzed every freaking detail! Why, why, why did you do some of the things you've done, and why, why, why, didn't you do this differently and that differently or why didn't you say this then instead of that? I guess the old phrase about horses and barn doors, huh. That’s life as the song goes.
There are so many things going thru my mind now, sitting here in Wheeling, West by God Virginia that I can't find words for or where to start to put them to words.
I'm heading home and I know this is my last run for a while. Thursday I have an MRI. Friday, the Dietitian and Dental Hygienist. Monday I get a CT port put in to a vein, fitted for a mask, I think on Tuesday, Wednesday I go in for surgery for a feeding tube and might get to stay the night there, OH Whoppie do da day! I hope I get to ride my bike after the tube is in as I know that the hard stuff is about to start. I KNOW I want a little alone time Sunday, and I pray for a beautiful sunny, warm day!
And to the idiot trucker who came on the CB while I was talking to another driver who had gone thru chemo asking why I didn't save HIM and the rest of the healthy the expense of running up HIS insurance and commit suicide. I told you on the CB and now. Kiss my royal red ass! I've got way to many people in the world I haven't pissed off yet with you being just one of them so I won't get off the merry go round just to make your silly ass happy! I'm keeping all of my toys in this playground just to make you miserable! I'll take them home when I'm ready, AND to piss you off! You and those who think like you can all take a dive off the high dive into the shallow end of life! As I've said and will keep on saying "The dance has started and they locked me in the dance hall!" This has become an exercise of mind over matter. I don't mind because you don't really don’t matter! To bad you weren't man enough to come up and introduce yourself as I really wanted to see what a moron really looked like! Coward behind the microphone of the CB! Thank you for giving me another in a long list of reasons to fight this thing that has turned mine and so many others lives upside down!
I'm hungry and the truck stop has, well, passably decent food, a shower and bed. G’Night all. :)
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
April 25, 2008
Ever wonder how you'll react when you're told that you have something wrong with your body? You know the lump of flesh you've been trapped in for, well, all of your life? You actually think that YOU are in control of it until you get to a point in life where you notice little things that you never had a problem with, having problems. And you're not controlling everything the way you used to!
Add to the fact that most men have this thing about not going to a doctor unless they have a gun held to their head or we are only bleeding out of every pore of our body, and then there are those of us where the almighty dollar says you work till you drop! I fall into all of those categories. (Try spending 3 months in an Army hospital and you'll understand the aversion to doctors and hospitals on my part!)
Well several weeks ago I went to my doctor because my wife was threatening to sleep in another zip code when I come home off the road due to my snoring!
Ok, I did have 2 lumps come up on my neck which another doctor had treated last year with some meds and they pretty much went away. Well they are back so I just decided to kill 3 birds with one stone so 2 weeks ago I'm sitting in Dr. Haversticks office doing the touchy feelie thing and he hands me a script for two meds. One is for the ear and lump infection and another for the sinus infection with the instructions to come back in a week when the meds are gone.
This week rolls around, Ok, Doc here I am and well the ear infection is gone, the sinus is kinda clear and the lumps are still there and starting to get sore. He pulls out the ole scope thing; you know the one that he uses to look into all of those dark places that you can't see in yourself! As he looks into my nose, his eyebrows go up like Mr. Spocks of Star Trek, mumbles a little and tells me that I need to go get a CT Scan. NOW! He walks out and about 2 minutes later in walks the nurse with the directions to the hospital and she tells me I need to put my helmet and leathers on and go, NOW, as they are waiting on me, NOW! All of these NOWS are starting to worry me a tad so I walk out of the doctors office and jump on the bike and head to St. Johns.
I get to the place and a nurse is waiting for me at the door having been told that I was riding a motorcycle and she had no trouble identifying me when I walked in the door carrying my helmet with all the leather draped on me!
She walks me into the area where they prep patients getting scanned and has me sign a paper and tells me we’ll finish the paper work when I’m done.
They do their deal, get an IV in, throw me into the tube and take the pictures. Done. Call your doctor tomorrow and I'm outta there after finishing the paperwork! Great, I talk to the doctor the next day and he says that he'll call me Monday.
Well Monday finds me back in NYC as I am every Monday and he calls and tells me I need to be in his office Thursday at 3:30. Now, here’s the thing about being a truck driver. Sometimes your dispatcher can't get you home exactly when you need to be home like 3:30 Thursday, so my wife goes in my place and talks to him then he calls me just after I get across the In/Il state line. After the hellos, he explains that there is a problem. He tells me that the lumps in my neck and the sinus infection are being caused by the same thing. It’s a 14 letter word that I still can't pronounce called Nasopharyngeal Cancer. Not to worry, IF, we've caught it in time there is a GOOD chance that we can treat it with out to much trouble! But you NEED to be at the hospital tomorrow so we can fast track this and get this started, see you tomorrow and goodbye!
OH FREAKIN GREAT! He DID say the "BIG C" word! BUT it's not as if you weren't expecting it! I've been alive long enough to know that when someone (A doctor) won't explain something on the phone to you unless your better half is sitting in front of him, it's NOT going to be GOOD news! Besides, you kinda expected it because the headaches were getting worse and there was a little blood on the tissues when you blew your nose and you do know how to Google on the internet!
Oh, well, I talk to my wife for a little while and hear the strain in her voice and continue to head home. After a few minutes the happy voice that I was talking to her in changed to her "worry" voice. It's starting to sink in. He DID say the "C" word.
I've always told everyone around me especially my wife that there is nothing written down, no instructions, papers, stone tablets, nothing, nada, zilch that says you HAVE to worry about a single thing in life, as worry will only lead to ulcers and a stroke! Well, it’s time to worry! Big time! All of the What Ifs start running around loose in my head. What will Barbara do? She can't work because of HER medical problems, What about my son? He's only 14! DAMN, I have GOT to be here to see him graduate from high school, get married (but not to young, PLEASE, Son!) There is a laundry list of things we haven't done together or I need to teach him about. What about my mentally handicapped stepson? He needs me as much as everyone else in the house.
I CAN"T have this cancer! It's all a bad dream and this nightmare will end when I wake up! Wake UP, WAKE, UP, STUPID!
Yeah dummy, you puffed on those cigarettes for 39 stupid years before you quit! Why did you think you were so cool smoking? Now look at yourself! You quit on February 26th 2007 and 25th of April 2008 the doctor is telling you that you have cancer. Yeah, it's not the deadliest of them, not by a long shot according to the American Cancer Society's web site, but it's enough to still screw up your life for however long it will take and that’s all that’s needed to push this household or any household into bankruptcy!
WHY is it always AFTER you quit that stupid habit that you find out the wonderful news! All of the thoughts running thru my mind and 295 miles later the tears start. I know Dad, MEN don't cry, but, screw it I'm feeling sorry for myself now. Hell yes I'm scared. There are very few things in this world I'm scared of! Police officers ink pens and my wife! No man on this planet scares me, no one alive am I scared of as I'll spit in your eye and charge hell to tear you a new ass if you screw with me or the ones I've promised to protect, no matter how much bigger than my 5'8" 150 pounds you are or what equalizer you might be holding!
But this, this, THIS, disease that I can't put my hands on and tear out of my body could take me down! I take off my glasses and wipe the tears out. Ok dummy, you've had your cry, that’s all you get for the time being! You have a son to raise, a handicapped step son to help along and a wife who will need your help in the near future! Time for crying when you grow OLDER and die!
I'm NOT giving up! Like I've been saying for years, "I'll make it to my own funeral late, sliding in sideways and yelling WOW, What a freakin ride that was!" 54 is way to young to end now!
Well Friday was better than Thursday in a few ways! After reading the CT scan and figuring that the thing is about the same size as golf ball and is around my optic nerve (the reason I'm having such killer headaches and want to pull the offending eye out by the roots!)
A biopsy was performed on the "growth" in my sinus and it's in the lab and I will be told Tuesday as to our next plan of attack! That will be on Friday at 0930 again! I do know that this is a "treatable" cancer growth, IF we have gotten to it soon enough, BUT because I am like of most males, I procrastinated going to a doctor in the first place and that will make the treatment longer! You guys and he men take note of this! Wimp out and go to the doctors when you KNOW something is wrong!
The treatment for this type of cancer is 2 of 3 things, these being surgery, radiation and chemo treatments. Hopefully we will be doing the Surgery and radiation treatment so I will be able to work, BUT, it is a 5 day a week for 6 weeks typical treatment!
I am looking at possibly going bankrupt because working as a local driver will NOT bring in the rate of pay I do need to keep my head above water, that is if I am able to work while under going treatments, but I guess the bill collectors, the scum they are, will just have to settle for $5 or $10 a month till I get back up on my feet or take the pennies on the dollar the judge will give them if I file bankruptcy! Hopefully they went to college and took preventive management and figure out the dollars a month are a lot better than a few pennies! Me I won't worry about my credit as I'd rather be alive and broke than broke and dead! Credit can be brought back to life! Medical science hasn't gotten quiet that far yet!
April 25, 2008
Ever wonder how you'll react when you're told that you have something wrong with your body? You know the lump of flesh you've been trapped in for, well, all of your life? You actually think that YOU are in control of it until you get to a point in life where you notice little things that you never had a problem with, having problems. And you're not controlling everything the way you used to!
Add to the fact that most men have this thing about not going to a doctor unless they have a gun held to their head or we are only bleeding out of every pore of our body, and then there are those of us where the almighty dollar says you work till you drop! I fall into all of those categories. (Try spending 3 months in an Army hospital and you'll understand the aversion to doctors and hospitals on my part!)
Well several weeks ago I went to my doctor because my wife was threatening to sleep in another zip code when I come home off the road due to my snoring!
Ok, I did have 2 lumps come up on my neck which another doctor had treated last year with some meds and they pretty much went away. Well they are back so I just decided to kill 3 birds with one stone so 2 weeks ago I'm sitting in Dr. Haversticks office doing the touchy feelie thing and he hands me a script for two meds. One is for the ear and lump infection and another for the sinus infection with the instructions to come back in a week when the meds are gone.
This week rolls around, Ok, Doc here I am and well the ear infection is gone, the sinus is kinda clear and the lumps are still there and starting to get sore. He pulls out the ole scope thing; you know the one that he uses to look into all of those dark places that you can't see in yourself! As he looks into my nose, his eyebrows go up like Mr. Spocks of Star Trek, mumbles a little and tells me that I need to go get a CT Scan. NOW! He walks out and about 2 minutes later in walks the nurse with the directions to the hospital and she tells me I need to put my helmet and leathers on and go, NOW, as they are waiting on me, NOW! All of these NOWS are starting to worry me a tad so I walk out of the doctors office and jump on the bike and head to St. Johns.
I get to the place and a nurse is waiting for me at the door having been told that I was riding a motorcycle and she had no trouble identifying me when I walked in the door carrying my helmet with all the leather draped on me!
She walks me into the area where they prep patients getting scanned and has me sign a paper and tells me we’ll finish the paper work when I’m done.
They do their deal, get an IV in, throw me into the tube and take the pictures. Done. Call your doctor tomorrow and I'm outta there after finishing the paperwork! Great, I talk to the doctor the next day and he says that he'll call me Monday.
Well Monday finds me back in NYC as I am every Monday and he calls and tells me I need to be in his office Thursday at 3:30. Now, here’s the thing about being a truck driver. Sometimes your dispatcher can't get you home exactly when you need to be home like 3:30 Thursday, so my wife goes in my place and talks to him then he calls me just after I get across the In/Il state line. After the hellos, he explains that there is a problem. He tells me that the lumps in my neck and the sinus infection are being caused by the same thing. It’s a 14 letter word that I still can't pronounce called Nasopharyngeal Cancer. Not to worry, IF, we've caught it in time there is a GOOD chance that we can treat it with out to much trouble! But you NEED to be at the hospital tomorrow so we can fast track this and get this started, see you tomorrow and goodbye!
OH FREAKIN GREAT! He DID say the "BIG C" word! BUT it's not as if you weren't expecting it! I've been alive long enough to know that when someone (A doctor) won't explain something on the phone to you unless your better half is sitting in front of him, it's NOT going to be GOOD news! Besides, you kinda expected it because the headaches were getting worse and there was a little blood on the tissues when you blew your nose and you do know how to Google on the internet!
Oh, well, I talk to my wife for a little while and hear the strain in her voice and continue to head home. After a few minutes the happy voice that I was talking to her in changed to her "worry" voice. It's starting to sink in. He DID say the "C" word.
I've always told everyone around me especially my wife that there is nothing written down, no instructions, papers, stone tablets, nothing, nada, zilch that says you HAVE to worry about a single thing in life, as worry will only lead to ulcers and a stroke! Well, it’s time to worry! Big time! All of the What Ifs start running around loose in my head. What will Barbara do? She can't work because of HER medical problems, What about my son? He's only 14! DAMN, I have GOT to be here to see him graduate from high school, get married (but not to young, PLEASE, Son!) There is a laundry list of things we haven't done together or I need to teach him about. What about my mentally handicapped stepson? He needs me as much as everyone else in the house.
I CAN"T have this cancer! It's all a bad dream and this nightmare will end when I wake up! Wake UP, WAKE, UP, STUPID!
Yeah dummy, you puffed on those cigarettes for 39 stupid years before you quit! Why did you think you were so cool smoking? Now look at yourself! You quit on February 26th 2007 and 25th of April 2008 the doctor is telling you that you have cancer. Yeah, it's not the deadliest of them, not by a long shot according to the American Cancer Society's web site, but it's enough to still screw up your life for however long it will take and that’s all that’s needed to push this household or any household into bankruptcy!
WHY is it always AFTER you quit that stupid habit that you find out the wonderful news! All of the thoughts running thru my mind and 295 miles later the tears start. I know Dad, MEN don't cry, but, screw it I'm feeling sorry for myself now. Hell yes I'm scared. There are very few things in this world I'm scared of! Police officers ink pens and my wife! No man on this planet scares me, no one alive am I scared of as I'll spit in your eye and charge hell to tear you a new ass if you screw with me or the ones I've promised to protect, no matter how much bigger than my 5'8" 150 pounds you are or what equalizer you might be holding!
But this, this, THIS, disease that I can't put my hands on and tear out of my body could take me down! I take off my glasses and wipe the tears out. Ok dummy, you've had your cry, that’s all you get for the time being! You have a son to raise, a handicapped step son to help along and a wife who will need your help in the near future! Time for crying when you grow OLDER and die!
I'm NOT giving up! Like I've been saying for years, "I'll make it to my own funeral late, sliding in sideways and yelling WOW, What a freakin ride that was!" 54 is way to young to end now!
Well Friday was better than Thursday in a few ways! After reading the CT scan and figuring that the thing is about the same size as golf ball and is around my optic nerve (the reason I'm having such killer headaches and want to pull the offending eye out by the roots!)
A biopsy was performed on the "growth" in my sinus and it's in the lab and I will be told Tuesday as to our next plan of attack! That will be on Friday at 0930 again! I do know that this is a "treatable" cancer growth, IF we have gotten to it soon enough, BUT because I am like of most males, I procrastinated going to a doctor in the first place and that will make the treatment longer! You guys and he men take note of this! Wimp out and go to the doctors when you KNOW something is wrong!
The treatment for this type of cancer is 2 of 3 things, these being surgery, radiation and chemo treatments. Hopefully we will be doing the Surgery and radiation treatment so I will be able to work, BUT, it is a 5 day a week for 6 weeks typical treatment!
I am looking at possibly going bankrupt because working as a local driver will NOT bring in the rate of pay I do need to keep my head above water, that is if I am able to work while under going treatments, but I guess the bill collectors, the scum they are, will just have to settle for $5 or $10 a month till I get back up on my feet or take the pennies on the dollar the judge will give them if I file bankruptcy! Hopefully they went to college and took preventive management and figure out the dollars a month are a lot better than a few pennies! Me I won't worry about my credit as I'd rather be alive and broke than broke and dead! Credit can be brought back to life! Medical science hasn't gotten quiet that far yet!
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