Slowing Down

 
   Yes, I'm slowing down. Not because I want to slow down, I'm being forced that direction from the fucking cancer. As I found out today, it's getting more and more difficult to skip things like pain patches. Just two short months ago, I forgot to put on the pain I was wearing at that time. Hell, no big deal, I ached a bit more, but a half dose of morphine and even that quit. I figured it out after counting half doses of morphine I'd take that day and thought "Oh Shit! That's three times what I normally take!!". Well, I went to checking allllllll over my little baaaaaawdy and couldn't find a Fentanyl patches anywhere. Whoops. So I stacked on the proper number and laid waste to the pain with simple patches. Oh the wonderful thing about drugs, they do their number, by cracky! So, today I took off the ones that were due to be changed, only spaced it out because I was far more thirsty and hungry. Besides, Liz likes to help with that and it was only an hour or so until she walked in the door. Did we change then? Why hell no, I had to feed and Liz had a couple of errands to run so I skipped it again. Long story short, I was getting some real live bone pain in my upper and lower jaw. There was a time, after ten to fifteen hours I'd have had to take a dose of meds to slow it down enough to sleep. I hit the recliner, Liz went to get the patches and a little tegaderm to help hold it in place, and I'd already gone out. I took some of the meds I'm supposed to and they knocked me flat on my back. I vaguely remember showing her where I'd like them, then her putting them on me. After that, I don't remember dick. I was told that they tried to wake me up a couple of times, but I'd say something stupid, never open my eyes, and out I did stay.  That's more than a little bothersome to me. There's nothing I can do about it. It's my body reacting to the combination of some pain that was getting higher I could handle, drugs, and lack of sleep the night before. Nothing associated with bedtime at my house, I just didn't sleep well. It happens, and it's going on right now as I work on todays offering. We file this under "Shit I Can't Control That Really Pisses Me Off".

      I can tell I'm slowing down mentally as well. It's the little stuff, things that happened before I got cancer. Now, though, it's more an annoyance than anything, but it's getting worse. I'm going out on a limb and say that part of that is (maybe even a large part of that) is drug induced. I'll go even farther out on that same limb and add that it's the combination of the drugs, cancer, and more than likely at least a mild depression. Oh My God!!! I said the "D" word! Yeah, well don't go corn flakes on me out there, hear? I'm fairly certain, at least in my own mind, (find the funny in that and I'll share my jaw breaker) that a mild to deep depression is pretty common among cancer patients, and more so with us poor fuckers who are out of medical options and are "Terminal". I'm gonna do this, because it made me chuckle. Lack of sleep and some good chemicals may be the cause of my chuckle. "Terminal parking is limited to section 8 of your ailment map". I wonder what kind of brakes you'd need to go from Terminal Velocity to Terminal Parking and at your perfect spot? After all, the Terminal Parking stops pretty rapidly after Critical Mass has been achieved.
  I've just reread the previous paragraph. If that isn't proof I'm slowing down mentally, I'm not certain there can be more proof. Not crazy or ultimately eccentric, just slower. Part of that, I think, is the frustration I feel, as well as others, that I have to write everything down now to just join a conversation. As an example, Thursday the regular Morning "Mud Men" (that's an oil field job as well, hence the quotation marks) were having a talk about how we probably need to quit constantly electing incumbents. Toss that into the whole salad bowl with other political ideologies and we come up with what I was saying ten years ago. They were also acting like this was some kind of brand fucking new idea that's never been dreamed up before. I am so pissed off that if I could have, I'd shot at them with lung oysters fresh out of the trach tube. No, that's not how you do things anyway. You say something along the lines of "Oh my gosh! We talked about this for the last ten years and you said I was a fucking idiot! Now you're puking back what I've said, and you're a genius! Fuck me with a cactus, it finally soaked in, but give your mentor in this case his props, it wasn't all your "New Fangled" idea.".
So what I wrote to be read for me was this "After ten good years of thought, a little introspection of your own, some extra reading, I'm glad you've found a way to say 'Thank you, Rock. I should have been paying more attention then.' You're welcome, by the way. Over the next month we have to muster having an original thought. You'll have to learn that one at an accelerated  pace. I'm running short of time, darn it".  Yep, the old mind is slowing down. Trust me, if you get the chance, drop by the Starbuck's on North Midkiff. It's the south east side of the HEB parking lot. Go in at, oh say 0520. Ask those guys that take up the nice chairs, and at least 3-4 double tables about me. They'll tell you straight, no bullshit, about any topic you care to discuss with them. The group consists of an attorney, a heart specialist who got his degree via the Navy for "X" number of years in service after he graduated, a petroleum engineer from the Colorado School Of Mines, a well educated Land Man who has carved out a spot for himself by being frugal (no, he's not cheap, he's frugal. He thinks before jumping) a man who works for a company that builds and installs natural gas meters and meter runs, and myself. Good men, bright.

   There are a lot of things about me slowing down. I work at it, and my stamina is still slowing down. I'm going to take a guess and say that's because my cancer is taking so much energy, I run out of gas pretty quickly. I hate to show it, but I can't help doing so from time to time. I'm going to have to get a cane, at least for a bit. That, too, goes into the file "Shit That Pisses Me Off That I Can't Change". The cane will go right beneath the "walker". Yeah, I have a walker as well. It stays in the hall where I can see it every day, just to keep my pissed off level at the proper position.

  Okay, I'm about finished with today's doings. Let me see if I have something fun stacked away inside my noggin that is just screaming to come forward.

  There were times when I was younger that I wasn't always being as careful as I probably should have been. I know, I know hard as hell to believe, but it's true.

   Friends of my parents had a trampoline in the back yard of their house, near the pool, but sadly not close enough for a good jump to even get close to hitting anything but cement. We were told, as well, that we could play on the trampoline as long as it was one at a time. You could get really hurt if you did doubles. It was okay as long as there was an adult around, because they could yell, and if you ignored them you got your upper lip thumped. Sweet Jesus that HURT!
  So, I'm bouncing away and my little brother gets pissy about wanting to jump on it as well. Okay, shit, hop on. Boink, about two feet, boink, about two feet. I say, let me on and I'll rocket your little ass WAY high. OOOOOO he liked that!
  So I hop on, got the timing right on the first one, he did go WAY the fuck up there. Missed a bit on the second. The third one was the killer. Completely out of synch now, I was coming down as he was headed up. We were too close together. BOOOOOOM!! Good lord that hurt!!! I'd hit the point of my chin squarely on the top of his head. It didn't knock me out, but for a solid minute (there's a bit more, but I had to get this out of the way first), I was working on gettin my wobbly ass off the trampoline and onto the grass so I could at least sit down. It hit hard enough it felt like I had "sugar sand" (really fine grains) in my mouth that were a few teeth that ground down. So, there I sit, spitting up blood, and made the damn fool remark "Hey Clay, are you okay? That was a pretty hard bump." He's checking himself out and I hear as he rubs his hand over the top of his head "yeah, I'm…(looks at his hand) buuulEEEEEEEEEEEDIIIIIIIIINGGGG!!!!" sounded like a fucking air raid siren. Or at least a klaxon dive signal from a WW2 submarine movie. Well, because I was older and supposed to know better, I'm getting my ass reamed while Clay gets ice cream because he has a bump on the head and a itty bitty cut.

   Here's one for some of you. Did anyone ever have a Peter Pan Ice Cream parlor before DQ went "Brazier"?

  All righty, then children. The bare bones, honest truth is I'm slowing down because the cancer is killing me. I see it more, not only because it's inside me, but because of the little things that are becoming more difficult. 99.9% of the time I'm solid on my walking and all. Lately I feel a bit less confident in my footing in some places. Alleyways, uneven parking lots, that kind of stuff. While I'm losing it in my own eyes, I try not to let people see. I try to walk at a slower, but measured pace. All that's getting harder to do.

 I thank all of you who follow this from the bottom of my heart. You all, at times when I'm not my strongest for that day, are the buffer between my family and myself. If I get angry there you are, giving me the space and time I need before I say something hurtful. Bless all of you. Now it's time for that surprise, pre-cooked, heat it up and chow down breakfast I'm going to fix the family.

Give someone a hug. Might change both of you, if even for just a second.