Wow, That's Odd. Then Again

 
   Well, yeah, it was odd, but then again what's not been a little odd the last couple of years, right? This is one, that for me kinda tops the flippin list….sorta. Okay, so here's the set up. I wasn't going to sleep last night anyway. None of that "Oh My God!! You need your rest!" poop, if you please. I needed my rest when I was healthy and had worked 85 or 90 hours in an eight day work week. THAT'S when I needed my rest. By the by, I could get that on call by being in the field for a couple of 30 hour days. Haven't had to do that in around 4 years before that fucker Baxter showed up and spoiled my plans. Dammit! Sorry, I digress almost diagonally. I wasn't going to sleep because I've had a real mess today with my super excessive mucus production, also known as "Baxter Tried To Drown Me Today".  So I'm up, watching the Walking Dead, (yeah, odd) and I doze off. Wasn't more than twenty minutes tops. Woke up, had to go to the head, and discovered I was bleeding from a spot that wasn't anyway near my throat or mouth. Seemed like it was really a cooker too, fouling up what looked like quite a bit of clothing in the immediate area of the nice stream. That's not nearly as squirrelly as this….I woke up with "The Night Chicago Died" rattling around in my head. My God, it was awful when it was on the radio twenty or thirty times a day when I was a kid. Signs that I'm losing it, that isn't only a sign, it's a Dive Klaxon on a submarine. Wow.

    It's not like this entire twenty months hasn't been odd, for gosh sake. It's been extra odd. I never had the symptoms of a freakin mouth and throat cancer, not one. No sore throat, no trouble swallowing. My voice didn't get gravely. What I did feel was slow and off my step just a hair. I first noticed that I lost something the first weekend in May. I couldn't find my second turn with the heavy or light weights either one at the Texas Celt Fest in Arlington, Tx. Gone, vamoosed, split, hit the road Jack. I asked the Judge, he thought I was starting okay, but he wasn't sure what came next. Neither did a couple of other guys. That was my fifth of six total throws. I asked a guy in the stands if he'd video my next throw (I went to one turn the second throw of this series and got decent light weight distance). To my surprise he said sure. He videoed, I looked. Boom, there it was plain as my broken nose. I didn't seem to know where I was in the trig. It wasn't like you could see me stop and look, but my feet and hips did. Okay, bad day. Everyone has them.
  Then I was wearing out quickly in the gym. It was summer, I was working my ass off. The boss and I were working on producing even better reports for the pumpers and himself. The more information we had, the better we make our field, the better and more efficient the wells pumped, the more efficient the wells pump, means more or at least stable production. We were also drilling. You drill, after it's all frac'd and ready to go, I ordered sucker rods so we could get the oil out of the ground. That requires a rod design that won't over tax the gearbox on the pumping unit. Not wanting to spend the time, every time we got a new well, I set a basic rod design that one could use, then tweak it to match the specific well, we were rocking. In June the man in charge of our maintenance, took fourteen days to have a huge bike ride. I got the honor of rebuilding a tank battery that had ten, 4 X 20 heater treaters that were in pretty crappy shape. The rest wasn't too whippy either. I had ten days to get it up in shape and ready for at least 4 or 6 new wells. First week, seven days straight, close to being finished. Every day a 12 hr day. The next 3 days, two 14 hr, and the last was only 6 hrs. We did it. Three gangs and myself, much gnashing of teeth and rending of cloth, but finished and some nice work on the floor. Granted I was 51, the oldest guy on the location, the next oldest was 42. So I wrote off being tired at the gym because I was busting hump.
  Anyway, short story long, I was checked and CT'd in May on my regular schedule. Cleared that fine, and they slipped me to once a year instead of twice. August, Radiation Oncologist date. Checked fine, looks good. Up to once a year with that Doc as well. I was stoked like a Mo-Fo. It was so nice to have two more check ups in the next two years and have it completely over with I could have danced a jig on TV. Wow, That's Odd. It got me this time. Baxter the Bastard Cancer, poster boy for perseverance, ya got me.

Wow, that's odd. I started this at 0530, it's almost 1100 now. There's something said for cleaning the kitchen, fixing the gang some breakfast, and of course, cleaning the kitchen again. Now it's time to get my ass outta bed and meet the world. Crossing my fingers of course, that I don't blow out another unexplainable bleeder. Sheesh