It's a bit late in the morning for when I normally write this up. I've been either feeling rough, or stare at the computer and think "Man, I need to write something. Oh hell, later". Yeah, later is right. I'm one of those guys that "later" becomes "fuck it" if I just don't sit down and do what I know I need to get done. So here I am. While I'm at it, I've got a couple of friends that seem to be having a rough time right now with complications from surgery, a bout with pneumonia, and one that's having pain and trouble breathing. He's in my boat, terminal prognosis, real trouble that's getting worse in his lungs. While you all are at your daily routine, how about throwing those three people in your prayers or good thoughts, please? They are all three good people, won't hurt anyone a bit if you toss in a second or two for each of them.
The spot on the side of my neck that was infected and terribly swollen, split my skin open and has been draining since early Monday morning (0100-0200), is starting to look a little better. It was a bit startling that I got an infection that got so bad so fast. The real swelling began Sunday evening and was up and painful in three hours. To me, that's damn fast. Anyway, it's almost stopped draining entirely, and the swelling is nearly all gone. It's open in a bad place, now that I think about it. Near my left carotid artery. Had I enough sense to worry, I'd be wondering if the surgery there didn't have something to do with that, if I were a conspiracy theorist. I'm not, so having a tumor around that same artery when I went in for surgery the first time is quite the coincidence. At least it's healing up a little, finally.
I have a massage at 1400 hrs today. I'll have to gauze and put tegaderm over the damn spot. That way the therapist is safe from the hole in my neck, and still help me with some incredible stiffness in my back and shoulders. It actually certainly helps me get long better during my time between lymphedema therapies. I've also text my lymphedema therapist about being able to do therapy with the bad spot in my neck. I hope she has a plan for the rest of my back and shoulders. The therapy does me a wonder of good as far as keeping swelling down in my neck, which also helps with pain. I can't say enough about keeping the pain down and how much that helps my attitude all the way around. I'm telling ya, it's not just my ability to keep a positive attitude, it's me and a lot other people to help out that is a lot of my positive attitude. That makes it easier to be myself, and to also much easier to fight with the cancer. That in itself is a tremendous help. I may not win the fight, but here in the middle, it's sure nice to step into a corner filled with so many people. I think that's cool.
This infection that popped up in my neck certainly made me think more about my mortality. Funny that, since I'm running at Terminal Velocity that I'd be suddenly struck with mortality. I mean, shit, I'm already dying, what could an infection possibly do to make me think about my life? I'm not real certain how or why it came around like it did. I know I didn't think I was immortal. Maybe it's not all that deeply hidden, and the infection just brought me that much closer to the end, and a bit faster. I figure at this point, anything like that infection just tosses a little gas on the fire. I am pretty sure, too, that it takes a toll on my body. It's already fighting a battle the poor thing can't win, only to have an intrusive damn thing like an infection thrown in the mix. I was concerned originally after it burst through my skin, that the amount of fluid, both infection and blood, was so high that I had something far more serious. That would have been the shits. I'd already told my oldest son I'd be here for the weekend before New Years. I damn sure didn't want the infection to help cancer make a liar of me. It's certainly not any fun. When it first blew out, I had a jacket on, no shirt. I had lain at just the right angle that it drained down the inside back of the jacket, and on my own back and neck. It didn't hurt, but I felt damp and something smelled just awful. That, I think, was what bugged me worse than anything. That smell of infection and other stuff that was draining had my head running in fifty different directions. I was remembering the smell from last January when my first muscle flap necrosed. I could smell it every time I yawned. Scary shit that. Anyway, I didn't panic, but it certainly made me think a bit about what would have happened if that had burst somewhere else, or if it had weakened my carotid enough to blow it out. I'd have bled out internally very fast. Or had it blown out and gotten into somewhere it could have really done damage, like my inner ear. Or into my sinuses. I can't imagine, now, how badly things could have gone. I feel pretty fortunate that things are actually going my way with this who terminal life stuff. I'm pretty glad it turned out like it has, so far. Easily controlled with antibiotic, and already slowing up on draining. Even that's not a given. I've drained more this morning since my shower than I did over night. That's a little weird.
Man, I couldn't have been more than three or four. I got our garden hose, one of those cheap vinyl jobs, and had climbed out on a tree limb and tied it off. I was making a Tarzan vine to swing on. Around the property the house we lived in sat on was a 2 3/8" tubing, and 3/4" sucker rod fence. It probably wasn't six feet high, but when that's twice as high as you are, that seems WAY tall. The tree I tied the hose to the limb on sat right on the edge of that fence and side walk. There was a branch that was pretty big around that ran out from the trunk over the sidewalk and fence. It was what I planned on using for a launch pad. So, I drag the hose over to the branch, reach way up on the hose, and run out from the trunk down the branch until the hose caught and dragged me through the air. I sailed WAY out over the sidewalk and fence, over the yard and it circled back into the tree where I landed in a "Y" in the trunk. All I had to do to do it again was pass the hose around the outside of one trunk and start over. That worked pretty damn well for the first six or eight attempts. The last one, I can see plain as day in my minds eye. I had those little red Keds like kids used to get. You know, with the little white tips and the crinkly crepe looking soles. A pair of blue shorts, and a white tee shirt that had various kinds of dirt and grass ground into it. So, I head down the branch, the hose gives me that way high pull out over the side walk and fence and back into the yard. I could have sworn I was swinging three or four hundred feet, might have been more like eight or ten. When all of a sudden I was flying straight out, toward the huge funeral tree (cedar, they are always in abundance at cemeteries) and hit the ground flat on my back. Mom saw it, so did a few folks over at Betty's Place. A beer joint that made the best burgers on earth. They all got to me about the same time. I was trying to get up. It was hard to catch a breath 'cause I'd knocked the wind out of myself. I do know that after I got up and around. I had to take a bath, and I couldn't leave the house the rest of the day. Damn. I heard years later one of the old dudes thought I needed mouth to mouth, I did not. Once, when I was about 17 mom was telling that story to some people that the hose untied. I said "No, it broke. The vinyl could'nt stand being twisted and pulled in one place like it did." She started to argue, and to my surprise, because I didn't see my dad until way late that night, he said "Beverly, he's right. Remember? I had to go up and untie the piece of hose." That settled it. I remember as well, that I wasn't allowed to touch any hose we had ever again.
One other time I remember having to spend the day inside, I'd gone out with mom, who was watching my little brother in his stroller. They'd moved the house next to ours out and to another part of town. What that left was a huge foundation and basement made up of limestone blocks that were probably three feet square. I wasn't supposed to be anywhere near it, but I'd wooled my way down into the foundation anyway. I came up with a "kitty frisbee". A cat that had been crushed flat by one of the blocks, then gotten stiff. That way you could carry it by it's tail. I had my Great Granddad Wilson's stetson on, and climbed out to show mom. According to her I said "Look mom!! A flat cat!" I remember getting scrubbed within an inch of my life, my ass eaten out for going into the foundation, and promises of a spanking if I did it again, and promises of a spanking if I picked up anymore dead critters. Sheesh, party poopin parents
Have fun, kids
