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