Another Day, Another Chance To Bleed A Little

   There are a couple of good things to talk about first. I took a shower last night without having a coughing fit so strong it makes me shaky, and I got sleep I wasn't expecting, or even wanted. The shower was easy, I fixed the spare trach tube up with a cut up collar and some tape so I could shower with one in. I believe that sucking in that hot moist air without a tube made the back of my trachea irritated and made me cough. With the tube in, it didn't put any kind of air directly on the back of my trachea so there was no need to cough. That's my story and I'll stick with it. The sleep on one hand was nice, on the other hand I wanted to go have coffee with the boys this morning. Missed that by almost three hours by the time I took The Son to school and got to Starbucks where I'm writing the blog from this morning. That first shot of coffee into the tube is always a minor shock. It's warm first on the right side of my body, then that goes around clockwise (if you're facing me) until it makes a warm trail. Then it seems like it just gets really warm all over all at once. This morning I shot it in quick enough to get a taste. Yes, I still like the flavor of the coffee. If I were a pessimist I'd be looking for the other shoe to drop since the morning started out so well. It's a bit brisk out, but the sky is clear and the sun rise came pretty quickly. Just a darn nice day all the way around.

  I'm still sleeping a lot more than I did as early as two weeks ago. At first that was bothersome, now I look at it like it's just something else to work around. I can stay awake past a couple of the long naps I fall asleep for now, but when I do that, I crash out around 1800 or so and wake up wide assed away at 0100 or so. Which wouldn't bother me if my oldest and my grandson weren't using the dining room for their bedroom. I don't like to have the lights on in case it wakes them up. Not fair to the little guy if PaPa can't sleep for shit. Strangely enough, the morphine doesn't make me as sleepy as picking up the newspaper or a book and reading a little does. Speaking of morphine, I am going to see if they can up strength just a touch. It's getting to the point it won't hold the jaw pain down. I would say the jaw pain is from the pec being tight and pulling it towards the left. That may be part of it, but it's not all. I've got some pain in the upper and lower jaw on the right as well. Like phantom pain from having the teeth pulled, and in the last five years I'd only had that a couple of times. Those few times the pain only lasted a minute or two and was gone. This is a new, and bothersome pain that just starts out and throbs away for seemingly hours on end. Then it will lie down for a few hours, I'll get all relaxed and shit, then BOOM! the nasty damn stuff is back. That may explain why I sleep so much, I do know that pain wears me out. It always wore me down a little in the past, but nothing like it does now. I suppose the body is pissed off at me for making it work so hard to stay mobile and breathing. The opposite of that, immobile and not breathing, doesn't seem like that much fun. Although, if it's like the dream I've been having riding the Fat Girl down some smooth highway in the High Lonesome is a pretty nice way to dream about the upcoming, date unknown, Critical Mass.

    I didn't want to disappoint, or make you think I was deceptive in my title this morning, "Another Day, Another Chance To Bleed A Little", because I am. I woke up at 0230 this morning, coughed really hard a couple of times and there she was!!! I'd upset something and it wanted to have a go at leaking. At first it was out of the trach, throat and or mouth all at the same time. Makes it look like a lot when in fact it's really not much. The trach quit rather abruptly, the mouth/throat is still leaking away, just not a lot at  a time. It's also about time. The bleeding business is almost set up on it's own schedule as of late. It broke it's own rule and had missed a couple of days that it was supposed to be doing it's thing. When it does that, it generally runs off at double or triple time until it feels like it's caught up. Today it jumped out on a good run, hung a spike up in the cinder track and nearly went down. I think that it startled itself by coming out so fast like it did, and now it's down to a trickle, I'm fairly confident that it's going to stop entirely in the next half hour or so. I had given some thought to the idea that the swelling was caused by a pool of blood hiding in some previously unknown fistula that headed off into the left side of my neck. Especially since that side was loaded with infection. After further reflection on that idea, I nixed it. Unless my mechanical diagnosing skills have completely failed, it couldn't just pool up from a fistula into the side of my neck, it would need to be a one way track for it to do that, and I didn't cough up infected fluid (thank God, I'd have shit my pants if that had happened). So no, it's not from a fistula. I did get a mirror and and looked into my mouth as best I could last night. Talk about a mess, it's a wonder I don't bleed a couple of buckets full every day from the nasty look thing.

  I've gotten a little, scratch that, a LOT complacent when it comes to stretching my neck to help maintain decent rotation on all planes of movement. I'm going to ask Liz to KTape my that tendon area that is the bottom tie down for the pec muscle they put in my mouth. As easily as I dismissed the KTape early on, I can say with all honesty it works. I'm not entirely sure how, and I'm going to ask one of the PT folk, it works. It is stretchy, so I'm going to fancy a guess and say that once it gets some tension, it works at flex and release, flex and release, the affected area and in essence massages the muscle or tendon making them relax and allows for better movement. A stunningly simple concept that makes me scratch my head and wonder why in the hell I didn't think that one up on my own. Short sightedness once again keeps me from being so incredibly wealthy that even the Sultan Brunei calls and asks for investing advise. (Not going to happen, I don't believe). That, of course, is my Walter Mitty moment. At any rate, the KTape will help so I'm going to shave my chest down the scar tissue and up to the tendon/muscle/I'm not sure what it is, and my range of motion should improve a bit.

   A couple of things that happened while wearing my kilt, that will at first glance, appear that I used some fairly poor judgement. You all can decide for yourself, but be kind, after all I'm dying. (I'm laughing at pulling the "The cancer is killing me" card)

    My first bike in well over 20 years was a little Yamaha Roadstar 1100 Silverado. Nice little bike, and it was a good bike to have for a couple of years to get me back in the riding groove after such a long break. Anyway, I found I could strap my golf clubs to the bike by setting the bag on the passenger floorboard, and tying the middle to the back rest. This particular day I was just going to go hit some balls so I put the kilt on. Yes, I went Regimental. I'd ridden the bike in my kilt before, but on this occasion I'd forgotten to tuck the kilt in under my legs so it didn't fly up and embarrass the neighbors. I idled the fifty yards or so to the stop sign at the end of my block, looked, hung a right and started out. I hammered the throttle, grabbed a gear or two up, and at forty-five mph my kilt caught air and flew clear up over my forehead. Did I panic? Ya damn right I did! Well, for a split second anyway. I reached up and pulled it down, and stuck a hand full of kilt under my left thigh. Not until I got one honk with a laughing car driver, and one nice wave from the lady in the lane next to me. Bless her heart
  Liz and I went to Las Vegas for our anniversary (she's gonna shoot me, I can't remember which anniversary) and I was wearing the kilt while we were visiting several casinos along the strip. Riding the escalator to cross over on the way to New York New York, I got a sudden breeze directly across both my ass cheeks. I reached back and smoothed it down. I no sooner moved my hand and it happened again, this time it came with "I told you that's what they wear!!". A lovely little old lady had yanked my kilt up and was showing her friend and several other people what I didn't have on under it. Oh, they just giggled!!!
   Standing in line at Starbucks one morning, my work schedule then I had some weekdays off, and having just finished a work out that was damn good, I was looking forward to a nice cuppa joe and a sit out on the patio to enjoy the nice spring weather. Move up a spot and wait, move up a spot and wait. Move up a spot and the back of my kilt is up to almost my neck. Followed with "Oh My God!!! He's naked!!!' Well, no, I was Regimental again, since I failed to throw some clean drawers in the gym bag for after my shower. At least this nice lady was late twenty's early thirty's and pretty damn hot looking. Hot looking and as red faced as a baboons ass. This time I laughed a lot.
   A few douchenozzles will try and pick a fight with or try to make fun of  men in kilts. I think it's because their girlfriends or wives find a man in a kilt irresistible. Anyway, Liz and a few of our friends (I'm old enough to be 3/4 of our friends daddy or at least big brother) went out to drink, shoot pool, and in general just laugh our asses off. I was a year out of my last cancer treatment from the first go round. We are all upstairs at a bar shooting pool and just having a good time in general. Of course some dick weasel keeps coming over and bumping into me on purpose. I ignored the stupid bastard a few times, but Mr Temper kept asking how long I was gonna let this little fellatio giving moron get away with this bumping into me. Not long, it turned out. "Got a problem, boy?". He allows only fags and pussies wear a skirt. I corrected his idea of the difference between a kilt and a skirt. "It's not a skirt, it's a kilt. The difference is, when I have this kilt on, the only thing I have on under it is your girl friends lipstick". He seemed to take offense to that, and said we needed to go outside. Bear in mind we are upstairs in a bar, and the stairs are damn steep. "Suits me, head out, I'll follow".  His buddies just sat there staring. The stairway was out of their line of sight, that was a good thing. The ass hat stepped onto the first step going down and I pushed his ass as hard as I could. He was bouncing pretty well when I turned around. I got all set for him to come barreling back up the steps to take a swing at me. Nothing. I wait. Nothing. Hmmm, steep stairs. I better take a look, I might have screwed the pooch and really hurt the moron. Nope, he's not lying down there, there's no EMTs, no cops, just a really drunk girl that gave up trying to climb the stairs. His buddies came by the table asking where their friend went. "He went down stairs. I haven't seen him since". For the next couple of days I kept looking for cops or something on the news about an injured man who fell down the stairs at Woofers and Tweeters. Ha! Dodged that bullet too.

 Alright, girls and boys, I'm finished for today. Go out and play nice. Laugh a lot, that stuff is contagious and everyone likes a good laugh.