Of course I whip it out, the cancer card is a great play in hundreds of situations. I don't really use it very often. When I do, it's to humiliate some ass weasel that's staring at me like leprosy has caused my nose to fall off. You've seen them, they look half scared at people that don' fit their idea of "normal". It's one of the few fun things I can do without having to really speak to them directly at all. I went to Sam's with Liz a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't having the best of days, but I like to spend time with her, so I went knowing I might have to sit down. About three quarters of the way to being finished with the shopping, I had to sit down or risk falling down. My head was kinda stopped up and consequentially so were my ears and it was throwing my balance off. Put Mr. Shaky leg in the mix and I had to sit, or fall. There was this cute a button six or seven year old hispanic girl that was standing close to the table where I was sitting. I had my head in one hand holding it up, hoping I wouldn't fall asleep. She moved a little closer, looked around, moved a little closer. She kept doing that until she was almost in my hip pocket and asked me if I was sick. I wrote yes, very sick on my pad and showed it to her. "Oh", she said, "will it make me sick too?" Nope, I can make you or anyone else sick. "Okay, what do you have?'. I'm always at a quandary as to how to answer that with a kid. Will they understand what I say? No, I'm not going to tell them I'm dying, that would scare them, and that a terrible thing to do to a kid. Here goes, I have bad germs that are all mine. They won't hurt anyone but me, and they make me pretty sick all the time. Before she could answer her dad grabbed her and rather roughly and left. Two years ago I'd have gotten up and we would have had a rather loud discussion about me having never seen a prick with feet. But as it stands, about all I could do was watch and shake my head. In his defense, he probably didn't want his little girl to talk to strangers. That I can understand, I was the same way with my kids, but God he went over board.
I've played it at Starbucks one morning this past week. I wanted a refill, got up and got in line, right ahead of a person taking drink orders over the phone. Really? You can't get the orders for drinks until you get to the store in person? People wonder why I have such a short fuse. Ninety percent of the time it's something close to that. I tapped her shoulder, when she looked I handed her this "Ma'am, I have cancer and my feeding tube is plugged, may I cut in so I can get hot coffee in it to clear the plug". Why you poor man, of course! Yeah, I wish. She let me cut in, but was pretty upset looking. Like I care if she's upset. I figure if you're too thick to realize you're ass is holding up everyone, you lose the right to be upset, in fact, everyone should tell you that you're being rude. Which is probably being rude as well, but at least it might make it into that thick skull your behavior sucks dick for skittles.
Tomorrow marks the day I started the tests for surgery in Houston. I had appointments with what seemed like seven million Doctors that week. I got to Houston at 0530 for a 0600 appointment to draw blood to see if I was stable enough for surgery. Physically stable, mentally is always kind of an iffy proposition for me. That's a year ago. Damn, I had pretty high expectations for everything going 100% and being healed up enough to go back to work. I blew that shit plumb out of the water. "The best laid plans of mice and men", right? Although, before seeing the CT results from the 15th of January, the surgeon and I both had those same expectations. The last visit I had with him prior to this final week of preparations, I'd told him I wasn't worried, how much or where it was going to be done wouldn't change my mind about being cut on. Oooops, I misled myself on that statement. When I saw the Doc on Wednesday the 16th, he told me it looked like I was all set, and they'd found a couple of places that the cancer had moved into. Okay, lets do this in six days then, I'm tired of waiting. Once again, not only Ooops, but big fucking Oooops. It's an "Ooops" because not knowing how much it had taken up, I didn't have any thought of getting myself a bit of Houston imbibing, or at least get roaring assed drunk one last time.
Alright, I'm gonna take a poll, do you all want me to tell about my feelings after the first surgery, clear through until they took me home or do you not want to know?
This being so close, I'm gonna just call it and go forward with the blog. Remember, I won't relate what or how I was feeling until I see the poll. It's six months since they found the return of Baxter, meaning according to the Dr's (my case went to the head, neck and throat panel) there was nothing more they could do, and they would help set me up with Palliative care.Which made my wife look up at the Doc and start to cry. Not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, I wasn't sure what Palliative care was, so while we were waiting for the next appointment I looked it up on google. Wow, Hospice, or just plain old stay home and get stoned all the time. Waiting for Death to get off the pot and do his thing. One of the things that he said was I'd bleed. No shit. It used to be one in a while. Then it was up to once a week, with a lot of bleeding all at once, then stop and not bleed again for a few weeks. Now it's all the time 24/7. Yesterday, or the day before, I'd bled enough out of my mouth that I drooled it clear down my chest. Strangely enough I must have gotten hot during my sleep that I took my shirt off. I swear though, if you'd just walked in and saw how I looked sleeping in my recliner, you'd won bets on whether or not I looked dead. I'm glad the kids didn't see that. Now the every day bleeding takes effect and that's going to increase, no two ways about it. As far as trying to guess when I'll kack, I ain't even gonna try. Eventually for certain.
I've got a few places in my neck that are hard as rocks and others that are more soft and much more tender. I don't know if that's normal or not. But then, my normal and all y'all's are two different things. I know I'm speeding right along, and I expect that to just get moving faster. I don't know, right or wrong, but I notice that and have a sneaky suspension that Baxter has his long distance/speed shoes on and is playing "Burn Rock Down Before He Has A Chance to Get Me". That would be my guess.
Random goofy thought, written in jest, but caused laughter: When all is said and done I'm having some of my ashes made into Lye Soap. That will lead to Ashes To Asses, Butt to Butt. That way everyone gets a little piece of my ass that some have dreamed about chewing out for years.
I'm writing this while sitting in Starbucks shoving a little dab of Java into my tube and have come to some conclusions.
First: Skin tight yoga pants aren't meant to hold back that kind of flesh flood that's bound to occur with
the Yoga pants. Blow out should occur near the Nuclear Camel Toe
Second: If you're over sixty, ladies, a mini skirt and go go boots aren't meant to make your varicose
veins attractive
Third: Fellas, Super Exposed Moose Knuckle is no more attractive than Nuclear Camel Toe. Looser
jeans, for God's sake, please, looser jeans
Fourth: Decide what the fuck you want before you get to the order/check out register. Stammering an
"I don't know" order does nothing but piss entire herds of people completely off. And when
that happens, don't act ignorant of the facts. You know you're a pain in the ass.
Fifth: Coffee is very HOT. Don't just slam it into your mouth, Rump Ranger, then spit it out. That
makes a mess, and only proves you're dumber than even I imagined. And also proves you're a
pig.
Sixth: And Final. Dude!! For God's sake do NOT wear spandex workout pants without underwear you
stupid bastard! Myself and hundreds of thousands of people don't give a rat's fucking ass whether
you're circumcised or not. Let alone just how unhung you appear.
The phrase for today is "Rump Ranger". Figure that one out on your own.
Love ya
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Things and Stuff
Anyway, I asked for and received a stronger dosage of morphine, and like the curious dude I am, I wait until late evening of the 9th to see how a full dose of 1ml is going to treat me. At first I thought, eh, big deal. Fifteen minutes later I stood up to make certain my ass was in the same place as where I left it. It was, but I had to find it with a map and compass. By 2300 hrs I was out, The Son woke me up and 0710 to take him to school. I came home, fed three cans of formula, because I wasn't up to feed only two, sat down and started the computer. I woke up again at 1115 hrs. I slept a bunch. Just a few minutes shy of twelve hours. The really cool thing is that I woke up for the first time in ten years without any pain anywhere! Damn, that was nice. But, now I have to find which dose will give me relief and still let me function. I tested, since the prescription calls for .25 to 1 ml every hr if needed. Okay, that's simple enough, and I had pain coming back. First try, 0.25 ml, nada. Second 0.5 ml, some but not quite. Third, 0.75 ml and that seemed to be the charm. Pain was gone, I could still function well, and it lasted close to 6 hrs. Sweet. Now I know when to med up to prevent getting behind the pain and to stay ahead of it. This ain't so bad at all.
I took a flashlight, grabbed a mirror and looked inside my mouth. Except in the last 3 weeks my right mandible isn't correct, and I can no longer open my mouth wide enough to really look. I'm talking with my Hospice nurse to see if he can get someone to check out my jaw to see if the cancer isn't off into the bone. I have a sneaky suspicion it is hanging out there, and possible close to my right inner ear. That will suck if that's the case. Back to my mouth. I look, I move the tongue around as much as I can. It still looks like I've got three tongues in there, judging by multiple ledges and thick spots. I see that my esophagus is almost 75% cut off from the front of my missing soft palate (which still lets me breath through my nose) back to nearly the very back of my throat. It has a nice little slat looking window for stuff I can't swallow to get into my trachea and aspirate it so I can cough it up and enjoy it twice. Shit.
I've also got spots that I can see that are (at least at that time) seeping a dribble of blood. That explains some of the funny taste in my mouth, and why it wasn't really showing up in my suction pot. Not enough to bother with, and I believe I aspirate and cough that back out through the trach as well. Once again, I apparently recycle myself. There are a couple of spots with lovely black dots in them. Visible cancer. I believe those to be Baxter's forward scouts. My tongue has gotten so thick on the left side now that I can't move it enough to see how that side of my mouth looks. I'm betting it's a lot like the right side of my mouth. No reason it shouldn't be, right? At least I have an idea of what's going on in the places I can see. I can't see down my trachea so I don't know really what's there. I do, however, cough up blood clots from time to time. Some are very soft like fresh blood, others are hard as rocks and are difficult to move out. I am wondering if those aren't from deeper in my trachea and are attracting mucus to seal up the leak. I know when I hack up one of the bigger clots, I bleed pretty profusely for ten or so minutes. Not gusher, but enough in that little dab of time that I can fill a hand towel fairly full of mucus and expectorated blood. The towel isn't dripping with the stuff, but it's damp from top to bottom. I knew all of this was going to happen, because I asked the Doc for worst case scenario and he told me quite a few things. Some of them he still down played, I believe. Some knowledge is better than no knowledge at all, though.
My damn right leg wears out way fast now. That's a change from a month ago when I was getting winded so easily. I don't get winded that easily now, but my right leg hates me for letting them cut out half of it's quad. It's carrying a grudge. I can walk about anywhere I want, and if I'm going to walk over a block or so I drag the O2 with me just in case. Kinda handy to have that, really. I was more silly than not for raging against the O2. I have decided that only showed me off as being dumb as a box of rocks. There are several people who would say "You just now figured that out?" Yes, I'm slow. It does bother me though, that it gets the shakes something fierce but never aches like I've over worked it. It just trembles like I've taken it as far as it can go, and pushed some more. Like doing heavy squats until you can't stand up to finish that last repetition. Only once the leg starts that, it's difficult to get it to stop. I feed it a little sugar water, and that helps to calm it down a bit. I'd rather use honey, but I'm not certain I can thin that enough to get it into the tube and not clog. That would be bad, m'kay? I expect my arms to do that, since my shoulders and neck are so dicked up. All of those contribute to my arm, shoulder, and neck weakness. My neck is very solid to the touch, like the muscle is in rigor mortice. With some lymphedema therapy (reduces the swelling in my neck and shoulders) and massage, I can get some muscle to relax. This is good since it helps with my range of motion, as well as my mental well being. I wonder from time to time, since the muscle is so much like a stone, if the cancer hasn't taken a liking to my neck. I hope not, that would really suck. Then the only recourse is decapitation. I'm not certain I could survive that. Not for more than a day or two anyway. Short blog today. I'm still adapting to the new morphine dose and a couple of other things, hope I'm adapted quickly.
Back in the early 70's we lived in Great Bend Ks, with the ass end of a mobile home backed up against the Arkansas river, and it's flood control berm. South Walnut, not the bustling, wealthy or even middle class side of town. It was us poor kids on our own down there. There were fun things to do though. There was a neglected Granny Smith Apple orchard. The fruit was tiny, double sour, and hard as a damn rock. A person with a half decent arm could knock the flyin piss out of someone. I know, because the neighborhood thug, an eighteen year old eighth grader named Devon, drilled me square in the temple with one. Liked to turned my damn lights out. That summer some folks from Louisiana moved into the park. I can see all three of the boys in that family clear as a fucking bell, but I can't remember their names, weird huh? Anyway, as is the want with us poor folk when new people move to town you gotta find out what type of people they are. I found out pretty fast these three douche drinkers weren't worth shit. They were gang up on a person if their bluejay mouth over ran their scrawny asses.
Anyway, these three little fuckers make buds with the eighteen year old eighth grader. How they did that, I'll never know. Looking back though, he had to be the only kid in grade eight that could legally buy beer. If he'd been half human, that would have made him pretty cool. All it did in reality was make him a stupid bitch that bullied kids five or six years younger than him. Okay, all that aside, this is what happened about two weeks before school. I'm out dickin around on the berm since it was big enough for vehicles and had a nice sand road on top. One of the peckerwood kids throws a rock and nailed me in the side. It was the oldest, the one that was my age. I decided I'd had enough of that little cock munch and was gonna drill his ass. Which I did. What I didn't see was Devon come up out of the cover on the river side of the berm. BOOM! Blind sided by a guy that was six or seven years older than me and had about a hundred pounds on me. I didn't go down, but turned and rammed an elbow into his nuts. Now he's howling, I didn't get a square shot or he'd gone down. I did, however, get some really good shots in before one of the peckerwood crew got behind me and knock my feet out from under me.
Devon was on me like white on rice. Beat the living shit right out of me, and I think may have put the boots to me while I was down. So now I'm limping home, the water works are on. My dad (who thought it was one of the peckerwood crew) said "Don't stand and bawl about it, either stop crying or go whip his ass." Yep, off I went, only I couldn't see at all out of my left eye and my right was going closed. Once again, I got a few good shots in on Devon, but, alas, once again he beat me blind. My dad apologized forever about that. I didn't see it like he should have, I didn't tell him an eighteen year old whipped my ass. Believe me, it wasn't the first ass whippin, and it wasn't the last, either.
I laugh about it now, but God almighty I got a beating. Twice!
Have fun today, kids. Do something I would (excluding jumping someone that has about 100lbs on you), and enjoy yourself
Hugs and shit
I took a flashlight, grabbed a mirror and looked inside my mouth. Except in the last 3 weeks my right mandible isn't correct, and I can no longer open my mouth wide enough to really look. I'm talking with my Hospice nurse to see if he can get someone to check out my jaw to see if the cancer isn't off into the bone. I have a sneaky suspicion it is hanging out there, and possible close to my right inner ear. That will suck if that's the case. Back to my mouth. I look, I move the tongue around as much as I can. It still looks like I've got three tongues in there, judging by multiple ledges and thick spots. I see that my esophagus is almost 75% cut off from the front of my missing soft palate (which still lets me breath through my nose) back to nearly the very back of my throat. It has a nice little slat looking window for stuff I can't swallow to get into my trachea and aspirate it so I can cough it up and enjoy it twice. Shit.
I've also got spots that I can see that are (at least at that time) seeping a dribble of blood. That explains some of the funny taste in my mouth, and why it wasn't really showing up in my suction pot. Not enough to bother with, and I believe I aspirate and cough that back out through the trach as well. Once again, I apparently recycle myself. There are a couple of spots with lovely black dots in them. Visible cancer. I believe those to be Baxter's forward scouts. My tongue has gotten so thick on the left side now that I can't move it enough to see how that side of my mouth looks. I'm betting it's a lot like the right side of my mouth. No reason it shouldn't be, right? At least I have an idea of what's going on in the places I can see. I can't see down my trachea so I don't know really what's there. I do, however, cough up blood clots from time to time. Some are very soft like fresh blood, others are hard as rocks and are difficult to move out. I am wondering if those aren't from deeper in my trachea and are attracting mucus to seal up the leak. I know when I hack up one of the bigger clots, I bleed pretty profusely for ten or so minutes. Not gusher, but enough in that little dab of time that I can fill a hand towel fairly full of mucus and expectorated blood. The towel isn't dripping with the stuff, but it's damp from top to bottom. I knew all of this was going to happen, because I asked the Doc for worst case scenario and he told me quite a few things. Some of them he still down played, I believe. Some knowledge is better than no knowledge at all, though.
My damn right leg wears out way fast now. That's a change from a month ago when I was getting winded so easily. I don't get winded that easily now, but my right leg hates me for letting them cut out half of it's quad. It's carrying a grudge. I can walk about anywhere I want, and if I'm going to walk over a block or so I drag the O2 with me just in case. Kinda handy to have that, really. I was more silly than not for raging against the O2. I have decided that only showed me off as being dumb as a box of rocks. There are several people who would say "You just now figured that out?" Yes, I'm slow. It does bother me though, that it gets the shakes something fierce but never aches like I've over worked it. It just trembles like I've taken it as far as it can go, and pushed some more. Like doing heavy squats until you can't stand up to finish that last repetition. Only once the leg starts that, it's difficult to get it to stop. I feed it a little sugar water, and that helps to calm it down a bit. I'd rather use honey, but I'm not certain I can thin that enough to get it into the tube and not clog. That would be bad, m'kay? I expect my arms to do that, since my shoulders and neck are so dicked up. All of those contribute to my arm, shoulder, and neck weakness. My neck is very solid to the touch, like the muscle is in rigor mortice. With some lymphedema therapy (reduces the swelling in my neck and shoulders) and massage, I can get some muscle to relax. This is good since it helps with my range of motion, as well as my mental well being. I wonder from time to time, since the muscle is so much like a stone, if the cancer hasn't taken a liking to my neck. I hope not, that would really suck. Then the only recourse is decapitation. I'm not certain I could survive that. Not for more than a day or two anyway. Short blog today. I'm still adapting to the new morphine dose and a couple of other things, hope I'm adapted quickly.
Back in the early 70's we lived in Great Bend Ks, with the ass end of a mobile home backed up against the Arkansas river, and it's flood control berm. South Walnut, not the bustling, wealthy or even middle class side of town. It was us poor kids on our own down there. There were fun things to do though. There was a neglected Granny Smith Apple orchard. The fruit was tiny, double sour, and hard as a damn rock. A person with a half decent arm could knock the flyin piss out of someone. I know, because the neighborhood thug, an eighteen year old eighth grader named Devon, drilled me square in the temple with one. Liked to turned my damn lights out. That summer some folks from Louisiana moved into the park. I can see all three of the boys in that family clear as a fucking bell, but I can't remember their names, weird huh? Anyway, as is the want with us poor folk when new people move to town you gotta find out what type of people they are. I found out pretty fast these three douche drinkers weren't worth shit. They were gang up on a person if their bluejay mouth over ran their scrawny asses.
Anyway, these three little fuckers make buds with the eighteen year old eighth grader. How they did that, I'll never know. Looking back though, he had to be the only kid in grade eight that could legally buy beer. If he'd been half human, that would have made him pretty cool. All it did in reality was make him a stupid bitch that bullied kids five or six years younger than him. Okay, all that aside, this is what happened about two weeks before school. I'm out dickin around on the berm since it was big enough for vehicles and had a nice sand road on top. One of the peckerwood kids throws a rock and nailed me in the side. It was the oldest, the one that was my age. I decided I'd had enough of that little cock munch and was gonna drill his ass. Which I did. What I didn't see was Devon come up out of the cover on the river side of the berm. BOOM! Blind sided by a guy that was six or seven years older than me and had about a hundred pounds on me. I didn't go down, but turned and rammed an elbow into his nuts. Now he's howling, I didn't get a square shot or he'd gone down. I did, however, get some really good shots in before one of the peckerwood crew got behind me and knock my feet out from under me.
Devon was on me like white on rice. Beat the living shit right out of me, and I think may have put the boots to me while I was down. So now I'm limping home, the water works are on. My dad (who thought it was one of the peckerwood crew) said "Don't stand and bawl about it, either stop crying or go whip his ass." Yep, off I went, only I couldn't see at all out of my left eye and my right was going closed. Once again, I got a few good shots in on Devon, but, alas, once again he beat me blind. My dad apologized forever about that. I didn't see it like he should have, I didn't tell him an eighteen year old whipped my ass. Believe me, it wasn't the first ass whippin, and it wasn't the last, either.
I laugh about it now, but God almighty I got a beating. Twice!
Have fun today, kids. Do something I would (excluding jumping someone that has about 100lbs on you), and enjoy yourself
Hugs and shit
Thursday, January 9, 2014
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Now What?
It seems just when I get to feeling pretty decent the damn cancer or some part of my body comes up with ways to simply fuck it up. Monday was going just great! I had a really good and responsive lymphedema therapy session. Text Liz to see if she wanted to see "Grudge Match" with me, and she did. I got The Boy to school with plenty of time to make my early therapy appointment. Got to the movie with Liz, get a seat and it turns out there are only four of us in the theater. Damn nice for a change. This, though, was my fuck up. Since there were people in there with us I didn't use my suction like I should have and I accumulated a lot of secretions that made it incredibly difficult to breath at times. I should have gotten up, gone to the can, and suctioned my stuff out. I'd been on a secretion making binge lately, and this has happened once before. I don't know why I'm making so much gunk, but my body is right now and I have to really watch it. Well, we get home, and I'm horribly uncomfortable. I try hacking up the goo in my throat, and it's so thick and there's so much of it I get the heaves. Which, by the way, is far better than vomiting, believe me. The trouble is, the heaves take as much out of me as vomiting does, and it hoses me up for hours. The hours go by and it turns out I got a lot of sleep, good thing.
Tuesday, The Boy has to wake me up to take him to school. That means I've had at least 5 hours of straight sleep without waking up. That's a real good thing. I get home, feed and sleep some more. The day went like this, after the morning drugs and feed time. Feed, nap for 30 minutes, awake for 45 to an hour, sleep 30 minutes, feed, awake for 45 minutes to an hour. It ran along like that just fine. I found a water line had broken and was running like a maniac. I showed Liz where to turn it off. Made her a list of stuff she needed, and went to my massage. Got home and she had the entire thing about fixed. I did a little "show me how", which involves me pointing and giving advise, and Liz doing the work. It will stay with her longer that way. I figure if it works with oil field guys and pumping, pulling unit work, or roustabout work, it will be easier still for Liz. Good afternoon that I really enjoyed. I napped again.
Liz is tired and her back hurts from being on her feet so long at work today so she trundles off to bed. I'm still making an overflowing amount of secretions, which is bother some but not imperative that I do something other than suction it out. Or so I thought. I skin out of the trach tube because it's a pain in the ass to wear taking a shower. It soaks up water, gets heavy, and if I don't get a dry one it right away the one I showered with drips a stream down my back. So I've take to removing it the last two days. Here's the problem. It seems when I take it out, I get a coughing fit, and end up with either the heaves or a real vomit moment. That's what happened tonight. I got a coughing spell going and couldn't get it slowed down long enough to suction my throat. When it did finally slow down enough, I've got a damn mucus plug in my throat, I can't draw air through my mouth or the trach stoma. That's enough to spook ya. It ebbs again, I'm able to breath a bit now, only it's a real struggle. I go find Liz, get her to give me a hand, because after 20 minutes of bathing, vomiting, and fighting for each breath, my body is shot and I've got the shakes like an old alkie that is looking for a drink right before the DT's hit. Scared her a little, not to mention made me just a bit jumpy. I got Sarah to help her clean the bathroom a bit, while I sat curled up in a damn ball in the recliner, trying to get everything back in order. I did, finally.
Later I'm eased back about to doze off for what I hope is a nice night's sleep, when Sarah comes in eating a fried egg sammich. She powered it down even though it had some kind of bag smelling shit that Flax Seed bread is giving off after she toasted it. Five minutes later she says she's gonna shower. Comes over and says "Look at this rash. It just popped up after I ate that bread. I get up and wave her over with me, grind up a couple of Benedryl tablets. I'd prefer liquid, but ground up and not taken with a lot of water goes to work pretty quickly. I also snag the phone and find a contact number for a friend of mine who's wife is a nurse. I dialed it and had Sarah ask about the rash and if we needed to take her to the ER. Nope, we'd done everything correctly, and I had her stay awake for a couple of hours to make sure her breathing stayed on the regular and even side of the table. So, when she bombed out, I stayed awake and watched over her for a while, and napped a bit in between as well. Honestly, if not for the two episodes with "Let's Keep Roc From Breatthin" the past two days would have been better than most of the holiday fun this year. Damned stuff anyway!
I was setting around thinking how far south my physical abilities have gone and feeling pretty good that I'd come to terms with that since I am going to croak, and my body is going to use up more and more of itself fighting to stay alive. That's not a bad thing, really, as long as I get enough oxygen to think straight, I can do the weakening thing better. I don't like it, but I can cope with it.
I thought back to when I first went to work for Anadarko in 1989. We used to get a list of "PM" to do. Preventative Maintenance. I actually preferred doing that to anything like pumping, even though I did it while I relief pumped when I wasn't on the roustabout gang the first couple of years. One of the things was greasing all the spots on a pumping unit that needed them. Wrist pins (keeping in mind if it blew out the back of the bearing rather than the relief zirk), saddle and tail bearings, electric motor bearings, things like that. Well, after pumping and gauging and doing the PM stuff, I'd get bored and start doing shit that today if I got caught they'd run your ass off so fast it would make your eyes water. Like walking the top rail of the angle iron fences around the pumping units and well heads to grease the wrist pins. No, I wouldn't shut the unit off either. It could get a little hinky if the top rail got wiggly, but it was a challenge. My favorite and I did get busted on this one, was to walk the rail greasing wrist pins, then go up the ladder and grease the saddle bearing, and walk the walking beam back to the engine or motor and grease the tail bearing. Anyway, I'm up on this 640 Conventional Lufkin greasing the wrist pins and just finishing the saddle bearing. I climb up on top of the walking beam, look around and don't see a damn soul anywhere, and nonchalantly head down the beam toward the saddle bearing. A 640 has a really wide walking beam, so it's not even like I had to concentrate a lot getting there. I sit down, grease up the tail bearing, turn around and head back. No sweat, this one is only running eight strokes per minute in the long hole, so it's an easy walk. Except when I got down, there was one of the bosses with steam blowing out his ears. Remember, this is back when if you fucked the pooch, they'd come down on your ass like a ton of bricks. There wasn't any "be nice" classes, there was chew you out, make certain you understand, then forget about it. If you did the same exact thing again, they'd more than likely run your ass off. Oh buddy, I got reamed out pretty well. I can't even remember what all was said except for "Are you out of your fucking mind?" (first thing said) and "Anyone sees you pulling that shit again, Mister, I'll see your ass gets run off so fast your fucking head will spin." Good thing about those ass eatings? No one carried a damn grudge if they were worth anything. Thirty minutes later the same boss asked me to come give him a hand, I did and not a word was said about what I fucked up doing. Looking back, yeah, he was right. I violated about Ten Million OSHA and Anadarko Safety rules. Those ass eatings I never minded. It was the ones that I've gotten just because the boss wanted to eat someones ass out and I was handy.
Back in 2012 I was putting some new equipment on a pumping unit and polish rod. A load cell for the Pump Off Controller. I called a couple of guys to come make sure I didn't get hurt, and to hand me tools and the like. We were using 456 Weatherford units on the wells, with long stroke, and running them with Fiberglass. The Strokes Per Minute weren't over ten, but it was a long way off the ground to reach the clamps and hanger bar. I got my truck pulled up where I could climb up and grab the reins on the hanger bar and pull myself up. About five or six hand over hand moves, with a rein (here the entire thing is called a bridle, or "bridal" if you weren't certain and guessed) in each hand. I can stand inside the hanger bar then, and work close enough to the top that I can pass the old load cell and the clamp over the top and down to the guys helping me. They were both cracking up, because they'd seen me do that several times, and one afternoon when the weren't busting ass they both tried to climb one, and couldn't quite do it. Not the safest, but it was the fastest. I did do something I never EVER did when someone was around, and this is the one and only place I'll even say anything about it. Did I though, or am I just pullin your collective legs? I'd shut the unit down, change out the load cell cable, and instead of just climbing up onto the flow line to hook it in, I'd start the unit, take the cable end in one hand, grab one side of the bridle, and hook the cable end in while riding the unit up and down with one hand. But, seeing as how that's really dangerous, and I was the safety bitch at the time, did I do that or not?
Love y'all, thanks so much for the support, prayers, and bullshittin with me when you can.
Tuesday, The Boy has to wake me up to take him to school. That means I've had at least 5 hours of straight sleep without waking up. That's a real good thing. I get home, feed and sleep some more. The day went like this, after the morning drugs and feed time. Feed, nap for 30 minutes, awake for 45 to an hour, sleep 30 minutes, feed, awake for 45 minutes to an hour. It ran along like that just fine. I found a water line had broken and was running like a maniac. I showed Liz where to turn it off. Made her a list of stuff she needed, and went to my massage. Got home and she had the entire thing about fixed. I did a little "show me how", which involves me pointing and giving advise, and Liz doing the work. It will stay with her longer that way. I figure if it works with oil field guys and pumping, pulling unit work, or roustabout work, it will be easier still for Liz. Good afternoon that I really enjoyed. I napped again.
Liz is tired and her back hurts from being on her feet so long at work today so she trundles off to bed. I'm still making an overflowing amount of secretions, which is bother some but not imperative that I do something other than suction it out. Or so I thought. I skin out of the trach tube because it's a pain in the ass to wear taking a shower. It soaks up water, gets heavy, and if I don't get a dry one it right away the one I showered with drips a stream down my back. So I've take to removing it the last two days. Here's the problem. It seems when I take it out, I get a coughing fit, and end up with either the heaves or a real vomit moment. That's what happened tonight. I got a coughing spell going and couldn't get it slowed down long enough to suction my throat. When it did finally slow down enough, I've got a damn mucus plug in my throat, I can't draw air through my mouth or the trach stoma. That's enough to spook ya. It ebbs again, I'm able to breath a bit now, only it's a real struggle. I go find Liz, get her to give me a hand, because after 20 minutes of bathing, vomiting, and fighting for each breath, my body is shot and I've got the shakes like an old alkie that is looking for a drink right before the DT's hit. Scared her a little, not to mention made me just a bit jumpy. I got Sarah to help her clean the bathroom a bit, while I sat curled up in a damn ball in the recliner, trying to get everything back in order. I did, finally.
Later I'm eased back about to doze off for what I hope is a nice night's sleep, when Sarah comes in eating a fried egg sammich. She powered it down even though it had some kind of bag smelling shit that Flax Seed bread is giving off after she toasted it. Five minutes later she says she's gonna shower. Comes over and says "Look at this rash. It just popped up after I ate that bread. I get up and wave her over with me, grind up a couple of Benedryl tablets. I'd prefer liquid, but ground up and not taken with a lot of water goes to work pretty quickly. I also snag the phone and find a contact number for a friend of mine who's wife is a nurse. I dialed it and had Sarah ask about the rash and if we needed to take her to the ER. Nope, we'd done everything correctly, and I had her stay awake for a couple of hours to make sure her breathing stayed on the regular and even side of the table. So, when she bombed out, I stayed awake and watched over her for a while, and napped a bit in between as well. Honestly, if not for the two episodes with "Let's Keep Roc From Breatthin" the past two days would have been better than most of the holiday fun this year. Damned stuff anyway!
I was setting around thinking how far south my physical abilities have gone and feeling pretty good that I'd come to terms with that since I am going to croak, and my body is going to use up more and more of itself fighting to stay alive. That's not a bad thing, really, as long as I get enough oxygen to think straight, I can do the weakening thing better. I don't like it, but I can cope with it.
I thought back to when I first went to work for Anadarko in 1989. We used to get a list of "PM" to do. Preventative Maintenance. I actually preferred doing that to anything like pumping, even though I did it while I relief pumped when I wasn't on the roustabout gang the first couple of years. One of the things was greasing all the spots on a pumping unit that needed them. Wrist pins (keeping in mind if it blew out the back of the bearing rather than the relief zirk), saddle and tail bearings, electric motor bearings, things like that. Well, after pumping and gauging and doing the PM stuff, I'd get bored and start doing shit that today if I got caught they'd run your ass off so fast it would make your eyes water. Like walking the top rail of the angle iron fences around the pumping units and well heads to grease the wrist pins. No, I wouldn't shut the unit off either. It could get a little hinky if the top rail got wiggly, but it was a challenge. My favorite and I did get busted on this one, was to walk the rail greasing wrist pins, then go up the ladder and grease the saddle bearing, and walk the walking beam back to the engine or motor and grease the tail bearing. Anyway, I'm up on this 640 Conventional Lufkin greasing the wrist pins and just finishing the saddle bearing. I climb up on top of the walking beam, look around and don't see a damn soul anywhere, and nonchalantly head down the beam toward the saddle bearing. A 640 has a really wide walking beam, so it's not even like I had to concentrate a lot getting there. I sit down, grease up the tail bearing, turn around and head back. No sweat, this one is only running eight strokes per minute in the long hole, so it's an easy walk. Except when I got down, there was one of the bosses with steam blowing out his ears. Remember, this is back when if you fucked the pooch, they'd come down on your ass like a ton of bricks. There wasn't any "be nice" classes, there was chew you out, make certain you understand, then forget about it. If you did the same exact thing again, they'd more than likely run your ass off. Oh buddy, I got reamed out pretty well. I can't even remember what all was said except for "Are you out of your fucking mind?" (first thing said) and "Anyone sees you pulling that shit again, Mister, I'll see your ass gets run off so fast your fucking head will spin." Good thing about those ass eatings? No one carried a damn grudge if they were worth anything. Thirty minutes later the same boss asked me to come give him a hand, I did and not a word was said about what I fucked up doing. Looking back, yeah, he was right. I violated about Ten Million OSHA and Anadarko Safety rules. Those ass eatings I never minded. It was the ones that I've gotten just because the boss wanted to eat someones ass out and I was handy.
Back in 2012 I was putting some new equipment on a pumping unit and polish rod. A load cell for the Pump Off Controller. I called a couple of guys to come make sure I didn't get hurt, and to hand me tools and the like. We were using 456 Weatherford units on the wells, with long stroke, and running them with Fiberglass. The Strokes Per Minute weren't over ten, but it was a long way off the ground to reach the clamps and hanger bar. I got my truck pulled up where I could climb up and grab the reins on the hanger bar and pull myself up. About five or six hand over hand moves, with a rein (here the entire thing is called a bridle, or "bridal" if you weren't certain and guessed) in each hand. I can stand inside the hanger bar then, and work close enough to the top that I can pass the old load cell and the clamp over the top and down to the guys helping me. They were both cracking up, because they'd seen me do that several times, and one afternoon when the weren't busting ass they both tried to climb one, and couldn't quite do it. Not the safest, but it was the fastest. I did do something I never EVER did when someone was around, and this is the one and only place I'll even say anything about it. Did I though, or am I just pullin your collective legs? I'd shut the unit down, change out the load cell cable, and instead of just climbing up onto the flow line to hook it in, I'd start the unit, take the cable end in one hand, grab one side of the bridle, and hook the cable end in while riding the unit up and down with one hand. But, seeing as how that's really dangerous, and I was the safety bitch at the time, did I do that or not?
Love y'all, thanks so much for the support, prayers, and bullshittin with me when you can.
Monday, January 6, 2014
So I'm Late Again
For some reason I can't get my crap together to do anything at the time I like to normally write this, at 0300 or earlier. Lately I just can't do that. I can get up at 0245, but by the time I get done diddling around, it's time to take a kid to school or go to therapy. Part of that is that I can't get enough sleep. I'll bet over the weekend I slept fourteen to sixteen hours a day. Including a lot of day time sleeping. Not napping, I mean like two or three hours of that sleep stuff. I fell asleep writing the blog more times in the last couple weeks than I can count. While that keeps my legs warm from the battery, it doesn't do much for keeping up properly with the blog. I plan on asking if all this sleeping is something normal, well as normal as cancer can get. I know it's odd.
At first I thought it was lack of oxygen. So I hooked myself up to the oxygen generator, and started breathing away. No change. I fell asleep right away, but with the extra oxygen I woke up three hours later very refreshed. Two hours later I was back asleep for another 2 hours, then awake, then asleep then awake, then sleep. I slept so much I got a letter from Rip Van Winkle telling me to cease and desist. That's a lot of sleep if Rip thinks I'm horning in on his territory.
I'm fairly certain that the overabundance of sleep is caused by my cancer. I have no scientific proof that's the reason, but I feel it way down to my bones. I've said before that the cancer is a sneaky bitch. I mean, really, without something happening, what other than my cancer brought on that infections. I wash properly. I try not to dig at the sore or itchy spots. The chicken shit stuff, by forcing me to use a trach tube, has left my skin paper thin in spots. I'm half afraid to even wash the paper thin area to keep an infection from occurring but if I don't watch it it's bound to get an me again. So washing the paper thin spot is very good ideas, just to be safe. At this point I'd rather be overly cautious than to have a spot that's not quite clean, and have the damn infection pop up somewhere else that might do serious damage. If all that I'd gone through to have some damn infection take me out would just piss me off. I've got more invested in Baxter than to let some Johnny Come Lately steal his thunder from me reaching Critical Mass. Besides, the infection I did have blew a hole in the side of my neck big enough if I had a nice bolt I'd put in it and walk away like Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein Creation. The spooky thing about that particular spot is that's in the area I had surgery to take a tumor from around my carotid artery. There is some other stuff going on I'm going to have to talk to Hospice about as well.
My jaw that is left, you know, the right side, feels terrible. It won't open much anymore without pain. The spot it ties into is tender and sore, with I get that stabbing pain in my jaw it's immediately followed by the same stabbing pain in my right ear. Almost like an ear ache. But after nearly 14 days of antibiotic and it's not cleared up, I'm voting for something other than an ear infection. Mostly because it's fine until that side of my job begins to act badly. Last night something in that side of my jaw snapped hard and I didn't even have Chance here to make funny faces at. Well, since it was around 0100 I didn't have anyone up to tell me it wasn't a real pain in the neck (rim shot). After one of those big, really heavy pains, I was up the rest of the day any way. By the time I got to therapy this morning the jaw had laid down just a touch. Now after three hours since I had a dose of morphine, I'm getting to the point it's acting up again. If I'm going to go with Liz to the movie this afternoon, I'm gonna have to load up on some morphine so I can enjoy the movie, and hopefully not pass right out. Yes, the jaw pain is frustrating, as well as just plain painful. But the redeeming quality is that is at least I know I'm not alone in the severe head pain arena. I'll ask more from Hospice tomorrow, maybe they will have some insight.
We're having a little cold spell here, and it kind of reminded me of working on the rig with Dad. In particular one winter in 1984. God, it had gotten cold. Not over 25 for a high in a couple of weeks. It had snowed, and unlike some of the previous snows this one stuck like it had no intention of leaving anytime soon. We were up on the Lowe Pasture north of Rolla out on the National Grasslands. Cold oh baby it was cold. Then the wind decided to get up and it got miserable. I was working floors again because the old derrick hand came back to work. We had to run in a packer and and be ready to acidize the next day. We got our shit tied in and ready to run, and were rigging up the tubing tester so we could test the work string going in the hole. All the time he's rigging up the guy is bitching about the cold, and asking if we were certain we were gonna run in the hole. Yes and Yes. He tell us he's put salt in the water and it should be 13# brine. Fair enough, that won't freeze. The derrick man gets up in the air, and it's not so bad because we had the weather sides on the derrick hooked up. The floor, however, is a cold Son of a Bitch. Nothing to break the wind, and there's plenty of it. I knew from experience that I was gonna get soaked, so I put on my rain suit and got ready. One more time. "Damn Chuck! It's cold and windy! Can't we do this tomorrow.?' No.
The first two tests went fine and yes he had some extra salty water. He went to test another, nothing, pulled it out, turned it so I wouldn't get drenched, told him to let it rip. He did. nothing. We took about his handle and all from the hose. No, it didn't freeze, but it slushed. I'd never seen any shit like that in my life. We didn't test in the hole, we ran in, dropped the tool to test the packer. Every thing is drown. It all tested fine, and we were all set for an acid job and clean out the next day. It turned out 50, with no breeze and a lovely snow melt that lasted 2 weeks
Have fun and dance a little
At first I thought it was lack of oxygen. So I hooked myself up to the oxygen generator, and started breathing away. No change. I fell asleep right away, but with the extra oxygen I woke up three hours later very refreshed. Two hours later I was back asleep for another 2 hours, then awake, then asleep then awake, then sleep. I slept so much I got a letter from Rip Van Winkle telling me to cease and desist. That's a lot of sleep if Rip thinks I'm horning in on his territory.
I'm fairly certain that the overabundance of sleep is caused by my cancer. I have no scientific proof that's the reason, but I feel it way down to my bones. I've said before that the cancer is a sneaky bitch. I mean, really, without something happening, what other than my cancer brought on that infections. I wash properly. I try not to dig at the sore or itchy spots. The chicken shit stuff, by forcing me to use a trach tube, has left my skin paper thin in spots. I'm half afraid to even wash the paper thin area to keep an infection from occurring but if I don't watch it it's bound to get an me again. So washing the paper thin spot is very good ideas, just to be safe. At this point I'd rather be overly cautious than to have a spot that's not quite clean, and have the damn infection pop up somewhere else that might do serious damage. If all that I'd gone through to have some damn infection take me out would just piss me off. I've got more invested in Baxter than to let some Johnny Come Lately steal his thunder from me reaching Critical Mass. Besides, the infection I did have blew a hole in the side of my neck big enough if I had a nice bolt I'd put in it and walk away like Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein Creation. The spooky thing about that particular spot is that's in the area I had surgery to take a tumor from around my carotid artery. There is some other stuff going on I'm going to have to talk to Hospice about as well.
My jaw that is left, you know, the right side, feels terrible. It won't open much anymore without pain. The spot it ties into is tender and sore, with I get that stabbing pain in my jaw it's immediately followed by the same stabbing pain in my right ear. Almost like an ear ache. But after nearly 14 days of antibiotic and it's not cleared up, I'm voting for something other than an ear infection. Mostly because it's fine until that side of my job begins to act badly. Last night something in that side of my jaw snapped hard and I didn't even have Chance here to make funny faces at. Well, since it was around 0100 I didn't have anyone up to tell me it wasn't a real pain in the neck (rim shot). After one of those big, really heavy pains, I was up the rest of the day any way. By the time I got to therapy this morning the jaw had laid down just a touch. Now after three hours since I had a dose of morphine, I'm getting to the point it's acting up again. If I'm going to go with Liz to the movie this afternoon, I'm gonna have to load up on some morphine so I can enjoy the movie, and hopefully not pass right out. Yes, the jaw pain is frustrating, as well as just plain painful. But the redeeming quality is that is at least I know I'm not alone in the severe head pain arena. I'll ask more from Hospice tomorrow, maybe they will have some insight.
We're having a little cold spell here, and it kind of reminded me of working on the rig with Dad. In particular one winter in 1984. God, it had gotten cold. Not over 25 for a high in a couple of weeks. It had snowed, and unlike some of the previous snows this one stuck like it had no intention of leaving anytime soon. We were up on the Lowe Pasture north of Rolla out on the National Grasslands. Cold oh baby it was cold. Then the wind decided to get up and it got miserable. I was working floors again because the old derrick hand came back to work. We had to run in a packer and and be ready to acidize the next day. We got our shit tied in and ready to run, and were rigging up the tubing tester so we could test the work string going in the hole. All the time he's rigging up the guy is bitching about the cold, and asking if we were certain we were gonna run in the hole. Yes and Yes. He tell us he's put salt in the water and it should be 13# brine. Fair enough, that won't freeze. The derrick man gets up in the air, and it's not so bad because we had the weather sides on the derrick hooked up. The floor, however, is a cold Son of a Bitch. Nothing to break the wind, and there's plenty of it. I knew from experience that I was gonna get soaked, so I put on my rain suit and got ready. One more time. "Damn Chuck! It's cold and windy! Can't we do this tomorrow.?' No.
The first two tests went fine and yes he had some extra salty water. He went to test another, nothing, pulled it out, turned it so I wouldn't get drenched, told him to let it rip. He did. nothing. We took about his handle and all from the hose. No, it didn't freeze, but it slushed. I'd never seen any shit like that in my life. We didn't test in the hole, we ran in, dropped the tool to test the packer. Every thing is drown. It all tested fine, and we were all set for an acid job and clean out the next day. It turned out 50, with no breeze and a lovely snow melt that lasted 2 weeks
Have fun and dance a little
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Work And Hopefully Do Not Nod Off
Yeah, do not nod off. I started the blog 3 times during the day yesterday. After the third time of having at least two pages of nothing but commas I hung it up. I'd nod off, finger still pressing the last thing I typed and it would just run away with itself until I woke up. So, I gave in to the idea of trying to write while getting the sleep during the day that I didn't get at night. I got antsy Thursday night, when I was supposed to be sleeping. I'd had a couple of coughing fits that came very close to coughing and vomit fits. Not wanting to be caught unaware and being woken within nano seconds of barfing, I chose stay awake. Wise choice, since I did pitch a couple of gigunda coughing spells, and nearly barfed during them both, I counted staying awake a win. And actually, staying awake was a double win, I got to give Liz a hug after she helped me out a little. I love getting and giving a big ole hug to Liz. Even before I got cancer again, it made my day to get a hug from my Sweetheart. With any luck, at the end of the day, we could play Snuggle Bunnies. Yep, I miss that a lot. Over twenty years of going to sleep with the same person, and have them next to you when you wake up, is probably the best feeling I've ever had. On that front, yes, Cancer sucks dick for skittles.
Weird shit is going on. I mean, more weird than the hole in my neck being so infected and draining that infection for almost four straight days. I'm typing away, and I know that with all the swelling and stuff that my neck has been pulled forward, and that makes a lot of different muscles and tendons tighten up. It's a cascading series of bio mechanical failures that add up to extra pain I don't need and probably part and parcel of some of the time I spend fighting to draw enough air to work and walk around with. So I'm working now on trying to get that shoulder and shoulder blade back into neutral where they belong. It's time consuming and somewhat painful, but in the long run it's worth it for the added movement in my neck and head. I was diddling around on the FaceBook the other day, typing in what I hoped would be a witty response to a question (hoping because I was ass deep into a cruise on the SS Morphine), when I feel and "hear" a pop. "Hear" is in quotation marks because our bodies are made up with a lot of water and other liquid in it. A person can "hear" the pop or snap because the liquid is a great conductor of sound, and while no one else heard it, you certainly can. The pop came from a spot close to where they dragged my pec up and shoved it in my mouth. They have to leave it attached to my chest for the blood veins and artery to keep it alive.
So, POP goes the pectoral, and I hop up, yank my shirt off, and start checking for very read spots or worse bruised looking areas. I've torn enough muscle to start looking for a bruise. Just because it's internal doesn't mean that sudden release of blood from a tear won't bruise. In fact they make some lovely purple and blue bruises. No bruising, but Lord that damn spot is tender to the touch. Forty Eight hours until Lymphedema Therapy where I can get the spot looked at from a professional Physical Therapist. Still, no bruising but I'm losing a bit of head and neck movement, and the area is getting more tender than it was the first day out. So, finally at Therapy and my therapist is going over the area and can't find any tears or pulls, or so it seems. What she has found are a couple of places where the muscle is anchored in a couple of spots. It's those two areas that are the most tender. So now I'm looking at the kinesiologist chart and seeing what might have caused this damned ouchie I've got.
Mechanically, I get the idea from just looking at the chart. Therapist confirms my suspicion. Since the surgery my neck and head have pulled almost straight forward and down. That stresses everything along the line. It did pop. but not as in a tear or super pull, it was simply resetting the out of kilter tendons and all. It helped my posture some, and I'm working on fixing it on my end, so I don't have to hear that POP and pee pee my pants just a little because the pain is such a bear.
The other weird thing is using the O2 more than I expected. Okay, okay, I didn't use it first because I thought I didn't need it. Then I go out fiddling around with Liz and end up sounding like a freight train with a bad valve on the steam piston. Lots of chugging but no real Chugging. So yeah, I had to piss the vanity and do what is right. Suddenly, and amazingly, I could breath easier. Along with that went walking better, and having a lot longer fuse. I'd say that was a secret that I had a short fuse, but of course that would be a lie. When I'd get winded, it pissed me off to no end that I couldn't keep up. I know, I know, it's okay to need help. Of course it is, for the rest of the world population, but not myself. I am supposed to be above needing all this silly extra equipment. Which of course makes me a hypocrite. Yes, yes it does, and here is why in one statement: Try taking my Fentanyl patch and Morphine away, shocking things may happen. One scenario is me catching someone taking my patches and Morphine and shoving their OWN boot so far up their ass they have to yawn to tie a knot. Pointing out how the drugs are accepting outside help, and yet seeing the O2 bottle as something to loathe. Hypocrite. I love my wife and kids to death. Enough so that I'd step in and take a bullet. But it bothers me on a personal level to ask them for help, and in all honesty it shouldn't. I'm working on that, in fact I've had the oldest daughter help me with bandages and the like for the big assed hole in my neck that was draining. Oh! The big assed hole had stopped draining late this evening, and now has a bandaid on it instead of the giant 4X4 square of gauze to contain the drainage. Little less freak looking now.
That, kids, is how things have gone the last 3-5 days. But much less than it could be, since I'm seeing lots of moving activity around the neighborhood. That serves as a reminder that if I don't fly right, I could end up at Hope House, patiently awaiting the bottles to talk to her. At any rate, it's time to let doc have some of the decisions like painting the outside, weight training (which I gave up because my Pectoral isn't on my chest anymore. It's inside my mouth. As an added bonus that should crack you up, one of my skin grafs has hair growing on it. Some times any amount sounds gaggy, I know, but this is there to prove it's still alive and not dead and trying to give me a wonderful bacterial infection. Thank you Pectoral muscle for giving us something to do. Namely finding something else to profoundly confuse and not always amuse me. At any rate, this is the end of today's blog. I'm feeling petty chipper this morning, even though I dozed off and I'm missing coffee with the boys.
Now, go forth and multiply! No, too Old Testament. Do to Wango Tango. No, no, too Gonzo. Go forth and make certain the life you're living is full of new and exciting things (ps: every life is full of new and exciting things. you just gotta figure out which ones are most important and the most fun)
Today's blog is brought to you by the letter 16, and a number 2
HAHAHAHAHA The Blog was a failure. I dozed off typing it!!! HAHAHAHA
Weird shit is going on. I mean, more weird than the hole in my neck being so infected and draining that infection for almost four straight days. I'm typing away, and I know that with all the swelling and stuff that my neck has been pulled forward, and that makes a lot of different muscles and tendons tighten up. It's a cascading series of bio mechanical failures that add up to extra pain I don't need and probably part and parcel of some of the time I spend fighting to draw enough air to work and walk around with. So I'm working now on trying to get that shoulder and shoulder blade back into neutral where they belong. It's time consuming and somewhat painful, but in the long run it's worth it for the added movement in my neck and head. I was diddling around on the FaceBook the other day, typing in what I hoped would be a witty response to a question (hoping because I was ass deep into a cruise on the SS Morphine), when I feel and "hear" a pop. "Hear" is in quotation marks because our bodies are made up with a lot of water and other liquid in it. A person can "hear" the pop or snap because the liquid is a great conductor of sound, and while no one else heard it, you certainly can. The pop came from a spot close to where they dragged my pec up and shoved it in my mouth. They have to leave it attached to my chest for the blood veins and artery to keep it alive.
So, POP goes the pectoral, and I hop up, yank my shirt off, and start checking for very read spots or worse bruised looking areas. I've torn enough muscle to start looking for a bruise. Just because it's internal doesn't mean that sudden release of blood from a tear won't bruise. In fact they make some lovely purple and blue bruises. No bruising, but Lord that damn spot is tender to the touch. Forty Eight hours until Lymphedema Therapy where I can get the spot looked at from a professional Physical Therapist. Still, no bruising but I'm losing a bit of head and neck movement, and the area is getting more tender than it was the first day out. So, finally at Therapy and my therapist is going over the area and can't find any tears or pulls, or so it seems. What she has found are a couple of places where the muscle is anchored in a couple of spots. It's those two areas that are the most tender. So now I'm looking at the kinesiologist chart and seeing what might have caused this damned ouchie I've got.
Mechanically, I get the idea from just looking at the chart. Therapist confirms my suspicion. Since the surgery my neck and head have pulled almost straight forward and down. That stresses everything along the line. It did pop. but not as in a tear or super pull, it was simply resetting the out of kilter tendons and all. It helped my posture some, and I'm working on fixing it on my end, so I don't have to hear that POP and pee pee my pants just a little because the pain is such a bear.
The other weird thing is using the O2 more than I expected. Okay, okay, I didn't use it first because I thought I didn't need it. Then I go out fiddling around with Liz and end up sounding like a freight train with a bad valve on the steam piston. Lots of chugging but no real Chugging. So yeah, I had to piss the vanity and do what is right. Suddenly, and amazingly, I could breath easier. Along with that went walking better, and having a lot longer fuse. I'd say that was a secret that I had a short fuse, but of course that would be a lie. When I'd get winded, it pissed me off to no end that I couldn't keep up. I know, I know, it's okay to need help. Of course it is, for the rest of the world population, but not myself. I am supposed to be above needing all this silly extra equipment. Which of course makes me a hypocrite. Yes, yes it does, and here is why in one statement: Try taking my Fentanyl patch and Morphine away, shocking things may happen. One scenario is me catching someone taking my patches and Morphine and shoving their OWN boot so far up their ass they have to yawn to tie a knot. Pointing out how the drugs are accepting outside help, and yet seeing the O2 bottle as something to loathe. Hypocrite. I love my wife and kids to death. Enough so that I'd step in and take a bullet. But it bothers me on a personal level to ask them for help, and in all honesty it shouldn't. I'm working on that, in fact I've had the oldest daughter help me with bandages and the like for the big assed hole in my neck that was draining. Oh! The big assed hole had stopped draining late this evening, and now has a bandaid on it instead of the giant 4X4 square of gauze to contain the drainage. Little less freak looking now.
That, kids, is how things have gone the last 3-5 days. But much less than it could be, since I'm seeing lots of moving activity around the neighborhood. That serves as a reminder that if I don't fly right, I could end up at Hope House, patiently awaiting the bottles to talk to her. At any rate, it's time to let doc have some of the decisions like painting the outside, weight training (which I gave up because my Pectoral isn't on my chest anymore. It's inside my mouth. As an added bonus that should crack you up, one of my skin grafs has hair growing on it. Some times any amount sounds gaggy, I know, but this is there to prove it's still alive and not dead and trying to give me a wonderful bacterial infection. Thank you Pectoral muscle for giving us something to do. Namely finding something else to profoundly confuse and not always amuse me. At any rate, this is the end of today's blog. I'm feeling petty chipper this morning, even though I dozed off and I'm missing coffee with the boys.
Now, go forth and multiply! No, too Old Testament. Do to Wango Tango. No, no, too Gonzo. Go forth and make certain the life you're living is full of new and exciting things (ps: every life is full of new and exciting things. you just gotta figure out which ones are most important and the most fun)
Today's blog is brought to you by the letter 16, and a number 2
HAHAHAHAHA The Blog was a failure. I dozed off typing it!!! HAHAHAHA
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Into The New Year
Well, I had to take a break and go to get lymphedema therapy, and when I got back home I reread what I'd written, hated damn near every word and shit canned the whole deal. This is my "Do Over". Why a "do over"? Simply put, because I fucking can, so there. That's in part, true, and in part not so true. Yeah, it's my blog, so I can set the rules, but it's also in how I had shit so jumbled up even I couldn't decipher what in God's name I'd written. I have got to stop trying to write or do much of anything if I've had a hit on the old sublingual Morphine bottle. If I don't, then what is often my thought is entirely different and indecipherable when it hits the page. Not so odd given it's nature to begin with.
It's been a weird Christmas/ New Years season for me this year. I was really looking forward to Christmas and New Years, then to get hit with a wicked assed infection in a spot where I'm fairly positive the Infectious Disease PA at MD Anderson thought they saw a spot, only to have it not be there eight days later on sonogram or CT Scan either one. Well, we all thought it was just a little water taking up space where they cut a tumor off my carotid artery. When I get a chance, I'll ask someone to see if an infection can lie dormant and kick off again if something triggers it. Wouldn't that be some shit now, huh? So we got that healed up, but man, it stole a lot of my energy and drive for the next 7-10 days. To be on the safe side I'm taking another seven days of antibiotic. That being said and done, I had a blast watching the kids (six year old Bo, along with the 27 yr old, and the 19 and 15 yr old babies of mine) open gifts. It really was one of the most fun Christmas's I'd had in a long time. It made what may be my last Christmas a true pleasure and joy. Having the Oldest Son and his family come visit for 4 days was really nice as well. I'm glad he's found someone that he's comfortable around (which means he's comfortable with himself, first. no easy feat there), and who also loves his company as well. And whose son has taken to my son like a daddy and friend both. That's damn nice for both of them.
I had, at one time this morning thought about putting in some of the stories of my Great Granny Wilson and other family members just for something fun to do. I'm still kicking that around, so don't jump ship on me yet. But, there's the physical and mental stuff to go over and get out of the way first and foremost. Without further ado, here we go: The infection that came on so fast and had my neck so swollen may have been a hide out kinda of thing. Only kicking in when everything was just right. Star Trek stuff that. I wish now that I'd taken a sample of the damn stuff so Hospice could have gotten a decent look at it from a lab point of view. My hindsight has always been way better than my on site decision making. But I think that's the norm, isn't it. I've had some honest to goodness pain in the right side of my lower jaw, which makes since because it's the only part of my jaw that's left. I'm hoping it's a muscle thing and not a cancer thing. Man, that would be super painful if the cancer would jump off into my bones, and since it had on the left side of my jaw, I don't see why the right side should get off any easier. Along with that has been a marked loss of my ability to get a good long, deep breath. It seems I was panting more and my heart was just hurtling along trying to get the oxygen to the places that need it. As much as I hate to admit it, the oxygen machine does me a lot of good. My pulse rate is down and my oxygen level is holding pretty steady now. The old cancer is just hop, skip, and jumping along on its own timeline and agenda. That tells me that it's moving along fast enough to make me wonder how much time I really have left. I can't let that bother me though. Okay, that's a pretty good summary of what's going on. Except that the hole in the left side of my neck where that infection burst through is still weeping off and on. Mostly off and on with mostly off the last couple of days.
So, when I was a kid around Thanksgiving and Christmas, depending on where we had the meals and other stuff, I got to see my only surviving Great Grandmother. In fact, Nora Wilson was my only surviving great grand parent, bar none. I don't remember meeting George Wilson, which would be my Great Grandfather. George and Nora Wilson would be my dad's maternal grand parents. I never met Great Grandfather Smith, dad's paternal grand parent. Nor did I get to meet the Rockwell or Green great grandparent's, they were my mom's grandparents. Kind of a drag, because at the time, I didn't even think about recording some of Granny Wilson's stories she told. And that puts me at a terrible loss, I believe. To put it in perspective. We go up and spend weeks or longer orbiting earth. I've seen the guys walk on the moon. Granny Wilson came to Kansas from Missouri shortly after her birth. Her family, the Lewis's were some of the first to leave Boonesborough and go to the frontier in Missouri. Yes, that Daniel Boone. Anyway, they moved into Kansas in a covered wagon. When she'd grown up enough, George Wilson and half of my family was on it's way to being. So, in her lifetime, Granny Wilson got to see aircraft that barely cleared the ground up to Jumbo Jet that can cross the ocean and safely land in less than 12 hours. She saw it go from a travel across the state go from a couple of days to just a few hours. She's seen the world go from full of exotic places to a world that can be reached in several ours and far more safely. In some cases the changes are so dramatic that they might be hard to believe. In her lifetime Granny Wilson saw things change faster than anything happening right now. It's amazing and a bit frightening how the country and world has moved ahead in the last 100 plus years, except we can't seem to get passed the point of trying to kill ourselves off with new and more lethal weapons. Strange isn't it?
Granny Wilson had a brother visiting her, or so goes the story, who brought his two greyhound dogs with him. Granny had caught the dogs coming out of the cool cellar where she kept the eggs so they'd not spoil and so you could eat eggs for breakfast in the morning. I'm not certain which kid was in charge of egg gathering. Depending on the year, it may even have been my Grandmother Mildred. That's kinda cool. Anyway, G Grandpa Wilson was off working someplace and that may have been the norm about that time in history. So, Granny catches the egg suckin dogs coming out of her cool cellar. She snags the 45/70 Springfield, and a couple of shells. She drops both dogs before they know whether what's hit them. It turns out that they are too big for her to carry the rest of the way out of the cellar. There they lay until GPa Wilson and her brother got home. There were some words spoken, according to my dad, but the brother got the dogs the rest of the way out of the cellar and left the next morning himself. Granny Wilson may have weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet. She delivered thirteen children over her life. She lost twins that died of smoke inhalation from a fire at the house. So eleven kids lived. She sent her sons off to WWII and all of them came home. My Grandmother Smith had her two oldest sons in WWII as well, and they both came home. A Marine who did a tour on Saipan as a BAR gunner. Her oldest did his time with the 555th Wolf Pack Anti-Aircraft battalion, across Europe, and saw the horrors of concentration camps.
They way my dad and his brothers and sister (Grandma and Grandpa Smith lost a daughter, but I can't remember from what) were raised would absolutely give the Politically Correct sissies coronary's, but they also learned to be self sufficient. My dads brothers tied him up to a tree once when he was little so he wouldn't tag along with them and their Uncles. I believe Uncle Tubs and Tom were about the older brothers ages. Dad went home, got a 22 rifle and kept them pinned for a while, even when he knew his ass was grass later. Dad also said at one time when he was six or seven, that his oldest brother Bill had done something to piss him off, and I can't remember what it was now. So dad goes to see his mom, my Grandmother Smith, who wouldn't have said a cuss word if her life depended upon it, and asked her "What does (insert slang for sexual congress here) mean?" According to dad, Gma about had a stroke, and asked where he'd heard that word. Dad said "Well, that's what Bill says he's been doing to Billy Clapper" who was a neighbor girl about Bill's age. Yes, Dad fixed Bill's little red wagon that day, but I'm almost positive that Bill got even some how somewhere. Imagine that happening now. CPS would have had all the kids picked up and shipped off to foster homes while the Grand Parents were placed under arrest and would have to fight for custody of their kids. What a crap hole we've slipped into.
I'm going to end this with a disclaimer. The Egg Sucking Dog Caper I got first hand from Granny Wilson a couple of times in 1972 and 1973. In 1975 I got moved up to the "adult" table. It paid to work on a rig when you're only 14, then turn 15 right before Thanksgiving. The "What Does (blank) Mean Paradigm" I heard from Dad a couple of times growing up. Surviving family, if this is wrong anywhere let me know. As much as I hate to admit it, this blog has taken me all day to get down because my chemo brain rerouted so much shit it was hard to dig up the times and places. There are a couple of stories that I will try and relate involving my dad, his best friend in high school and a couple of bonehead brothers that were too stupid to be drafted, but still in high school and picking on a guy, that if my memory is correct, was a little light in his loafers. We'll see how that goes.
Shortly after gaining access to the Big Table at family Holiday Functions, my Grandad Smith had a huge black walnut tree he cut down kick back and break his knee. The Fam goes up to visit and help with some things the Grandparents needed done before it got blisteringly cold. Dad and I had gone squirrel hunting about 200 yards north of the homestead in a set of woods that bordered the north side of Reece Kansas. We walked from Grandad's house into the woods, then East to darn near Harley Bolton's Machine Shop. Harley built his own steam engines to scale using his machine shop. It was neat as hell to go watch one run, and only now when I'm in my 50's do I realize what a great mechanical mind Harley possessed. Building a scaled down version of a steam tractor that actually ran and drove is no small effort. Boy, the shit your miss when you're a kid. Anyway, Dad and I bagged around 5 or so squirrels for breakfast, which of course meant that I got to clean them since I was the youngest hunting. Strange now that shit always went that way. Glance HERE, if you are squeamish move on to the next paragraph NOW. Gandma fried the squirrels, heads and all, and being more than a little perplexed I asked my dad why. "Because we are having fried squirrel, eggs, and biscuits with squirrel gravy. You use the heavy end of your table knife, and crack open the heads and put the brains on your eggs". Bullshit. Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit. I thought that, I wasn't stupid enough to say it out loud. Sure enough, when the squirrels were finished, and the scrambled eggs safely secured upon the plates, dad and Grandpa used the heavy handle on the table knife, cracked the skulls open, and put the brains on their eggs. Not to be left out, and wanting to look like I knew a thing or two myself, I followed suit. It was actually damn tasty. Unfortunately, Grandad Smith died before I got another chance to run down some squirrels for our cold fall morning breakfasts. That was the first and last time I'd had squirrel brains and eggs. I would love to be able to share that time with Dad and Grandpa just once more. (Sigh)
Pick up Reading HERE!
After breakfast we went out to split some wood for Granddad and split a cord of hard wood for ourselves. I started out with an axe, splitting the really big pieces at least in two. After that, to make them easier to handle and so they'd fit the pot belly stove Granddad had, I was splitting them with a 20lb sledge and a steel wedge. I didn't know that the 20lb sledge hammer was supposed to be really heavy and hard to swing, I was just splitting wood and listening to my dad, Granddad, and I think, Uncle Bill shoot the breeze. Clay was running around there somewhere too, I'm sure. Anyway, after about an hour of splitting wood, the hammer started getting real heavy and I started missing the wedge, or clipping the edge of it. I got the same old, "Dammit, hit it straight on or you're going to get yourself hurt". No shit. Ya think? Wanna swing the bitch for an hour yourself? Once again, it's so very true that it's the thought that counts. What I really said was "okay". I missed the wedge and clipped the side of it. A piece of that steel wedge shot straight up the handle of the hammer and buried itself in the outside edge of my bicep. Ouch. I had taken my long sleeve shirt off and was in a tee shirt. I said "son of a bitch", and dad looked at me. Everyone looked at me in fact. I had this neat little hole in my bicep, and when I set the hammer down, blood took a nice big SQUIRT then started running like a mad man out of the hole. "Go to the house and get a band aid, I'll put away the tools and we'll go to the doctor to see what they can do." I believe there were some G D's, and fucks in there as well.
We got to the doctor, he sprays something on it that at least numbs it up a bit, grabs a small pair of forceps (for all I know they were his roach clip) and dives in trying to get a grip on the piece of steel. And that's what he asks dad. Steel or iron. Steel. Good, he says, because I can play chase me with that all day in his arm and not grab it. We opt to leave it in. Suits me, another really neat scar to show the girls. Here I am, damn near 40 years out from that, and the thing is still cool. You can feel it under the skin of my arm. When I lifted more, it was easier to see and feel since I had far less body fat around it. It set off a metal detector at the Midland Airport. They wanted me. Then again. Then again. Then again. Going over the same spot at least half a dozen times, the rubbing my shirt like they could feel a detention device under a long sleeved shirt. I finally, after 5 tries, got me arm out of the shirt, showed the moron the scar, put his finger on top of the steel, then he wand it one more time. Either he got really excited and came a little, or he got bored, because after it set the wand off ONE MORE TIME, he let us go wait on our plane to Las Vegas. Where, in a strange quirk of fate, I didn't get pulled out of line, but an older Jewish couple did. How did I know they were Jewish? They had concentration camp numbers tattooed into their arms. I wanted to kick that stupid son of a bitch that pulled those two people our of line right square in the nuts so hard, he'd have to sneeze to take a piss.
All right, that's the Long Effing Blog That Got Restarted Twice. I hope it doesn't bore you to death.
Later Gator
It's been a weird Christmas/ New Years season for me this year. I was really looking forward to Christmas and New Years, then to get hit with a wicked assed infection in a spot where I'm fairly positive the Infectious Disease PA at MD Anderson thought they saw a spot, only to have it not be there eight days later on sonogram or CT Scan either one. Well, we all thought it was just a little water taking up space where they cut a tumor off my carotid artery. When I get a chance, I'll ask someone to see if an infection can lie dormant and kick off again if something triggers it. Wouldn't that be some shit now, huh? So we got that healed up, but man, it stole a lot of my energy and drive for the next 7-10 days. To be on the safe side I'm taking another seven days of antibiotic. That being said and done, I had a blast watching the kids (six year old Bo, along with the 27 yr old, and the 19 and 15 yr old babies of mine) open gifts. It really was one of the most fun Christmas's I'd had in a long time. It made what may be my last Christmas a true pleasure and joy. Having the Oldest Son and his family come visit for 4 days was really nice as well. I'm glad he's found someone that he's comfortable around (which means he's comfortable with himself, first. no easy feat there), and who also loves his company as well. And whose son has taken to my son like a daddy and friend both. That's damn nice for both of them.
I had, at one time this morning thought about putting in some of the stories of my Great Granny Wilson and other family members just for something fun to do. I'm still kicking that around, so don't jump ship on me yet. But, there's the physical and mental stuff to go over and get out of the way first and foremost. Without further ado, here we go: The infection that came on so fast and had my neck so swollen may have been a hide out kinda of thing. Only kicking in when everything was just right. Star Trek stuff that. I wish now that I'd taken a sample of the damn stuff so Hospice could have gotten a decent look at it from a lab point of view. My hindsight has always been way better than my on site decision making. But I think that's the norm, isn't it. I've had some honest to goodness pain in the right side of my lower jaw, which makes since because it's the only part of my jaw that's left. I'm hoping it's a muscle thing and not a cancer thing. Man, that would be super painful if the cancer would jump off into my bones, and since it had on the left side of my jaw, I don't see why the right side should get off any easier. Along with that has been a marked loss of my ability to get a good long, deep breath. It seems I was panting more and my heart was just hurtling along trying to get the oxygen to the places that need it. As much as I hate to admit it, the oxygen machine does me a lot of good. My pulse rate is down and my oxygen level is holding pretty steady now. The old cancer is just hop, skip, and jumping along on its own timeline and agenda. That tells me that it's moving along fast enough to make me wonder how much time I really have left. I can't let that bother me though. Okay, that's a pretty good summary of what's going on. Except that the hole in the left side of my neck where that infection burst through is still weeping off and on. Mostly off and on with mostly off the last couple of days.
So, when I was a kid around Thanksgiving and Christmas, depending on where we had the meals and other stuff, I got to see my only surviving Great Grandmother. In fact, Nora Wilson was my only surviving great grand parent, bar none. I don't remember meeting George Wilson, which would be my Great Grandfather. George and Nora Wilson would be my dad's maternal grand parents. I never met Great Grandfather Smith, dad's paternal grand parent. Nor did I get to meet the Rockwell or Green great grandparent's, they were my mom's grandparents. Kind of a drag, because at the time, I didn't even think about recording some of Granny Wilson's stories she told. And that puts me at a terrible loss, I believe. To put it in perspective. We go up and spend weeks or longer orbiting earth. I've seen the guys walk on the moon. Granny Wilson came to Kansas from Missouri shortly after her birth. Her family, the Lewis's were some of the first to leave Boonesborough and go to the frontier in Missouri. Yes, that Daniel Boone. Anyway, they moved into Kansas in a covered wagon. When she'd grown up enough, George Wilson and half of my family was on it's way to being. So, in her lifetime, Granny Wilson got to see aircraft that barely cleared the ground up to Jumbo Jet that can cross the ocean and safely land in less than 12 hours. She saw it go from a travel across the state go from a couple of days to just a few hours. She's seen the world go from full of exotic places to a world that can be reached in several ours and far more safely. In some cases the changes are so dramatic that they might be hard to believe. In her lifetime Granny Wilson saw things change faster than anything happening right now. It's amazing and a bit frightening how the country and world has moved ahead in the last 100 plus years, except we can't seem to get passed the point of trying to kill ourselves off with new and more lethal weapons. Strange isn't it?
Granny Wilson had a brother visiting her, or so goes the story, who brought his two greyhound dogs with him. Granny had caught the dogs coming out of the cool cellar where she kept the eggs so they'd not spoil and so you could eat eggs for breakfast in the morning. I'm not certain which kid was in charge of egg gathering. Depending on the year, it may even have been my Grandmother Mildred. That's kinda cool. Anyway, G Grandpa Wilson was off working someplace and that may have been the norm about that time in history. So, Granny catches the egg suckin dogs coming out of her cool cellar. She snags the 45/70 Springfield, and a couple of shells. She drops both dogs before they know whether what's hit them. It turns out that they are too big for her to carry the rest of the way out of the cellar. There they lay until GPa Wilson and her brother got home. There were some words spoken, according to my dad, but the brother got the dogs the rest of the way out of the cellar and left the next morning himself. Granny Wilson may have weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet. She delivered thirteen children over her life. She lost twins that died of smoke inhalation from a fire at the house. So eleven kids lived. She sent her sons off to WWII and all of them came home. My Grandmother Smith had her two oldest sons in WWII as well, and they both came home. A Marine who did a tour on Saipan as a BAR gunner. Her oldest did his time with the 555th Wolf Pack Anti-Aircraft battalion, across Europe, and saw the horrors of concentration camps.
They way my dad and his brothers and sister (Grandma and Grandpa Smith lost a daughter, but I can't remember from what) were raised would absolutely give the Politically Correct sissies coronary's, but they also learned to be self sufficient. My dads brothers tied him up to a tree once when he was little so he wouldn't tag along with them and their Uncles. I believe Uncle Tubs and Tom were about the older brothers ages. Dad went home, got a 22 rifle and kept them pinned for a while, even when he knew his ass was grass later. Dad also said at one time when he was six or seven, that his oldest brother Bill had done something to piss him off, and I can't remember what it was now. So dad goes to see his mom, my Grandmother Smith, who wouldn't have said a cuss word if her life depended upon it, and asked her "What does (insert slang for sexual congress here) mean?" According to dad, Gma about had a stroke, and asked where he'd heard that word. Dad said "Well, that's what Bill says he's been doing to Billy Clapper" who was a neighbor girl about Bill's age. Yes, Dad fixed Bill's little red wagon that day, but I'm almost positive that Bill got even some how somewhere. Imagine that happening now. CPS would have had all the kids picked up and shipped off to foster homes while the Grand Parents were placed under arrest and would have to fight for custody of their kids. What a crap hole we've slipped into.
I'm going to end this with a disclaimer. The Egg Sucking Dog Caper I got first hand from Granny Wilson a couple of times in 1972 and 1973. In 1975 I got moved up to the "adult" table. It paid to work on a rig when you're only 14, then turn 15 right before Thanksgiving. The "What Does (blank) Mean Paradigm" I heard from Dad a couple of times growing up. Surviving family, if this is wrong anywhere let me know. As much as I hate to admit it, this blog has taken me all day to get down because my chemo brain rerouted so much shit it was hard to dig up the times and places. There are a couple of stories that I will try and relate involving my dad, his best friend in high school and a couple of bonehead brothers that were too stupid to be drafted, but still in high school and picking on a guy, that if my memory is correct, was a little light in his loafers. We'll see how that goes.
Shortly after gaining access to the Big Table at family Holiday Functions, my Grandad Smith had a huge black walnut tree he cut down kick back and break his knee. The Fam goes up to visit and help with some things the Grandparents needed done before it got blisteringly cold. Dad and I had gone squirrel hunting about 200 yards north of the homestead in a set of woods that bordered the north side of Reece Kansas. We walked from Grandad's house into the woods, then East to darn near Harley Bolton's Machine Shop. Harley built his own steam engines to scale using his machine shop. It was neat as hell to go watch one run, and only now when I'm in my 50's do I realize what a great mechanical mind Harley possessed. Building a scaled down version of a steam tractor that actually ran and drove is no small effort. Boy, the shit your miss when you're a kid. Anyway, Dad and I bagged around 5 or so squirrels for breakfast, which of course meant that I got to clean them since I was the youngest hunting. Strange now that shit always went that way. Glance HERE, if you are squeamish move on to the next paragraph NOW. Gandma fried the squirrels, heads and all, and being more than a little perplexed I asked my dad why. "Because we are having fried squirrel, eggs, and biscuits with squirrel gravy. You use the heavy end of your table knife, and crack open the heads and put the brains on your eggs". Bullshit. Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit. I thought that, I wasn't stupid enough to say it out loud. Sure enough, when the squirrels were finished, and the scrambled eggs safely secured upon the plates, dad and Grandpa used the heavy handle on the table knife, cracked the skulls open, and put the brains on their eggs. Not to be left out, and wanting to look like I knew a thing or two myself, I followed suit. It was actually damn tasty. Unfortunately, Grandad Smith died before I got another chance to run down some squirrels for our cold fall morning breakfasts. That was the first and last time I'd had squirrel brains and eggs. I would love to be able to share that time with Dad and Grandpa just once more. (Sigh)
Pick up Reading HERE!
After breakfast we went out to split some wood for Granddad and split a cord of hard wood for ourselves. I started out with an axe, splitting the really big pieces at least in two. After that, to make them easier to handle and so they'd fit the pot belly stove Granddad had, I was splitting them with a 20lb sledge and a steel wedge. I didn't know that the 20lb sledge hammer was supposed to be really heavy and hard to swing, I was just splitting wood and listening to my dad, Granddad, and I think, Uncle Bill shoot the breeze. Clay was running around there somewhere too, I'm sure. Anyway, after about an hour of splitting wood, the hammer started getting real heavy and I started missing the wedge, or clipping the edge of it. I got the same old, "Dammit, hit it straight on or you're going to get yourself hurt". No shit. Ya think? Wanna swing the bitch for an hour yourself? Once again, it's so very true that it's the thought that counts. What I really said was "okay". I missed the wedge and clipped the side of it. A piece of that steel wedge shot straight up the handle of the hammer and buried itself in the outside edge of my bicep. Ouch. I had taken my long sleeve shirt off and was in a tee shirt. I said "son of a bitch", and dad looked at me. Everyone looked at me in fact. I had this neat little hole in my bicep, and when I set the hammer down, blood took a nice big SQUIRT then started running like a mad man out of the hole. "Go to the house and get a band aid, I'll put away the tools and we'll go to the doctor to see what they can do." I believe there were some G D's, and fucks in there as well.
We got to the doctor, he sprays something on it that at least numbs it up a bit, grabs a small pair of forceps (for all I know they were his roach clip) and dives in trying to get a grip on the piece of steel. And that's what he asks dad. Steel or iron. Steel. Good, he says, because I can play chase me with that all day in his arm and not grab it. We opt to leave it in. Suits me, another really neat scar to show the girls. Here I am, damn near 40 years out from that, and the thing is still cool. You can feel it under the skin of my arm. When I lifted more, it was easier to see and feel since I had far less body fat around it. It set off a metal detector at the Midland Airport. They wanted me. Then again. Then again. Then again. Going over the same spot at least half a dozen times, the rubbing my shirt like they could feel a detention device under a long sleeved shirt. I finally, after 5 tries, got me arm out of the shirt, showed the moron the scar, put his finger on top of the steel, then he wand it one more time. Either he got really excited and came a little, or he got bored, because after it set the wand off ONE MORE TIME, he let us go wait on our plane to Las Vegas. Where, in a strange quirk of fate, I didn't get pulled out of line, but an older Jewish couple did. How did I know they were Jewish? They had concentration camp numbers tattooed into their arms. I wanted to kick that stupid son of a bitch that pulled those two people our of line right square in the nuts so hard, he'd have to sneeze to take a piss.
All right, that's the Long Effing Blog That Got Restarted Twice. I hope it doesn't bore you to death.
Later Gator
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)