Keeping my mouth shut

 Well, with the family drama over the last couple of days off my chest, I find myself back doing what I probably should have done in the first place. Kept my mouth shut. I've been pretty good at that for forty years or so, you'd think I'd know better. But I'm stubborn. That should pretty well wrap up this topic for another 40 years or so

  Going to Fort Worth today on what will more than likely be my last big (if 350 miles or so is big) road trip. Going to watch the Women's Team Challenge Highland Games, and The Celtober Throw Down on Saturday and Sunday respectively. How long I can stay at Sunday's games is dependent on how tired and worn out I am after Saturday. Saturday, though, I'm hoping to see several friends and family at the games. It's not a full blown Festival, but is a set of games with very good athletes. That being said, it would be great to see friends, and have them cheer the ladies on with me. I tell you straight from the heart that nothing helps you throw better than a crowd cheering for your efforts. It's a nice thing, and great for your moral. It's like having something besides besting a PR or your competitors, it's like adding a reason to throw farther. The crowd is a good motivator.
 Unfortunately, I'm getting weaker as time goes along. Regardless of what I'm doing to slow that down, it marches forward. Liz got me two handicapped parking space placards for the cars. There's something I never thought I'd have to use. Even before I got cancer again, I figured that if I had to have those to park somewhere, I'd give the keys to the car up. Well, oops, that's not gonna happen. But I will use the placards. Why? Because I'm lazy that's why! HA!! Not exactly true, but close enough. It is nice to not have to rely on my right leg holding up long enough that I'm not down to a snail pace walking, just to get inside a business. That just frosts my cupcakes. Having a major body part like that wear out so quickly on me. Missing pieces or not, it should know better than to lie down on me like that. It just won't listen, dang it. I'm contemplating taking the walker that I got when I first left MD Anderson. I only used it for a couple weeks after we got home. Probably should have longer, but it steamed me to have to rely on the walker for stability. Never mind that my right leg was still bruised and tender, and adjusting to the piece of quadricep they cut out being gone. Oh no, don't be caught with a walker! My vanity knows no bounds. I suppose I better take it just in case. Damn it.

   My darn skin around my tracheotomy is paper thin. Part of that is the way my neck changed after the surgeries. I was supposed to be away from the trach tube months ago. But with the second and third surgery so much damage was done that it left me unable to swallow. They weren't going to put in a permanent trach either. Because right up until my first reconstructive surgery and finding cancer again, I was making slow but steady progress on the swallowing and speaking part of my recovery. That's in a large part, thanks to the efforts of Michelle Trant, SLP. She helped me find the drive to get better and helped shine a light toward the end of the tunnel for me. How to work around the permanent damage, and make the rest of what was left to me work better. I truly thank her for that.  Had the cancer not returned, I feel pretty confident I'd be swallowing at least pudding and things like that by now, and might even have the trach out and healed up. Alas, that is not to be. And within the last couple of weeks my voice is getting weaker and harder to understand. I don't consider what Michelle and I did as wasted time at all. It was worth while, in that I gained a lot of self confidence that I didn't have. It helped me get out among the public, which I didn't really want to do anymore, what with the trach tube, feeding tube, and the inability to speak. Now I don't really care. People wanna stare, or hide their eyes, or look at me like I'm a freak, that's fine. I have this nice spot on my white Scot/Irish ass they can kiss. I am what I am. This is all part of me giving my best fight possible to beating the cancer. None of it is a failure, it's all a win. The cancer will take my body, but it can't take that part of my that said, "Yes, Doc, let's do what we have to do the beat it." I win regardless.

   My hospice nurse says my lungs are not noisy. That's a good thing. Perhaps all this blood is from irritation from the coughing. Which irritates my lungs and throat and makes me cough, which makes everything bleed, which irritates my lungs and throat and makes me cough. Well, you see where it's going. I'm not so sure that there isn't some cancer cell growth going on in my lungs, or near them somewhere. In the last couple of weeks I find myself being winded much quicker that usual. I can recover fairly quickly, but I have to be setting to do that. I will huff and wheeze like a leaky steam engine as long as I'm standing. I don't know if that has anything to do with my legs getting weaker and demanding more oxygen to keep me upright or not. But it's something. I figure it's all part of the cancer advancing. At any rate, I cough for more blood as of late than I did in the past, and it lasts longer. Knowing this was going to be the case, and not really knowing when that might rear it's ugly head is the thing that bugs me. If I'd gotten even a ballpark guess at what stage I could expect the bleeding to increase, that would have helped me prepare better. Guess work and I don't get along well. I'd much rather have even a wide margin of error, than now answer at all. I can see the Doctors position as well. If they give X for a time period and it turns out Y was the time, and Y was much less, some ass weasel would sue them. Such is the sad thing about today's society. Had they told me X, and it turned out to be Y on a shorter time frame, I'd stick my tongue out at them and say "Ha ha, you were wrong, neener neener". but that's me

  I've tried to get things squared away with people. If I've missed anyone, it's not for lack of trying. I've made mistakes like every other normal person, and I hope I've taken care of that with people I may have shorted in some way. I always like to take care of the things like that. It's a good thing to take care of the things we've done. Make sure the slate is clean, so to speak. I'm hoping mine is.

 Book of Rock: Somewhere there is someone wishing they had your life. Live it like that someone could come take it from you. Make your life the desirable and enviable thing it should be. We should all live our lives in the manner that makes us happy. Both on a physical plane, but on a spiritual plane as well. I don't care what your beliefs are, make them part of your life.
 An enviable life doesn't have to be filled with monetary or possession success. A truly enviable life is one that you live doing what makes you and your family happy. If you're happy with where you are in your life, live that part LARGE! Big enough for people to see and think "Damn, why can't I do that?"
 The simple truth is they can. Everyone's good life is as different as we are as people.
 Hell, my life is grand. I've been some places, seen some things, married the one person that I think I was meant for all along. I've got 4 kids I'm wildly proud of. That's got to be an enviable life.


   Hang tough, be yourself. No one else can do that for you