Tag Archives: Cancer

Feeling better when I am feeling no pain.

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sprainedassSorry for the delay since my last update. Between the long holiday weekend, work, pinching a nerve in my butt crack and my calf muscle getting strained because of the whole “butt crack fiasco of 2013” things have been slipping around here.

So now that the pink elephant in the room about my butt crack pinched nerve has been established I’ll get that part out of the way first before I start getting calls/texts/emails by all you poop heads that this is some coming out of the closet post.  ITS NOT. Jerks.

Saturday I was invited by some close friends to go with them on their boat for a ride down the inter-coastal waterway for lunch and whatnot at a couple restaurants with boat access. “Sure” I said. “Sounds like fun” I said.

So we meet up 9-10 in the morning-ish. Where we started and where we were going is only about thirty miles as the crow flies probably less. However since we’re governed by law to not make any reasonable time with appropriate speed that somehow saves and protects fucking manatees the ride takes about an hour and a half almost two hours each way. Little side note. Manatee is an old indian word loosely translated to fat ass cow of the sea who knows not to stay out of shipping channels where boats go fast.

We get to this riverside seafood place called something like Guys Bananas or some such crap. Tiki huts, eighteen year old waitresses and hosts with ass and tits that should be criminal and makes me think back to my younger days and statutory rape laws with age of consent issues and none of the math works out in my head, but I digress.

We take a hightop table, order drinks and a bunch of appetizers to pass around and catch up.

I sit down in this pseudo wicker barstool thing. Whatever no problem. An hour goes by. Voice in my head, “this barstool is killing my ass,” I shift around get blood flowing again to where it needs to go. Another hour passes and voice in my head speaks up again, “ok you bastard I warned you an hour ago, now I’ll shut off the right leg.” So my right leg goes to sleep. I shift around try to get some circulation. I am not smart enough to bitch or stand up. In fact I wouldnt say “shit” if I had a mouthful. Its just not my nature to complain and the conversation was flowing and a nice time was being had. I’ll live and I simply ignore the voice in my head warning me something was not right with my bony no ass having self sitting on some shit barstool. I was engaged in conversation with my friends and periodically leering at way too young waitress girls with tits and much more healthier asses then this broken down old man currently has who was in an epic battle with it on some shitty barstool.

Then my friend Amy sitting across from me just stands up. “This chair sucks”. She is such a damn showoff sometimes.

We finish up, decide to check out another stop further down the river and settle the tab. I get up and of course since my right leg is asleep and numb, I do that whole slow hobble, slap your leg to get feeling back and pray I don’t fall on my face walking back to the boat. I  make it back to the boat get on board without incident or embarrassment and we sail on for our next destination. Rest of day leg is half asleep but things seem to be ok.

This was Saturday by the way.

Sunday, I can barely walk. My calf in my leg is essentially useless. Like a sprain or the worst charlie horse.

Monday same. What the hell is going on?

Tuesday same. Ok shit whats going on here. Logic tells me I probably just pinched a nerve in my ass or thigh and my calf is strained. Thats common sense logic. The pessimistic voice in my head that was warning me Saturday was now telling me shit like, “what if you didnt pinch a nerve and you have some kind of weirdo blood clot that you got from sitting on the shitty barstool Saturday and since you ignored it now its going to break free and kill you in your sleep?” Nah cant be. Right? Of course not. My luck would be what happened Saturday with the shitty barstool is merely coincidental and I just have some kind of cancer or disease in my leg and will need to get it cut off. Thats more my luck.

Tuesday while hobbling around work, making my plans to spend the next eighteen months of my life getting pieces and parts of my body chopped off to this mystery disease originating in my calf I am comforted only by the notion, that soon I will be losing a great deal of weight without the least bit of exercise or diet intervention. Might as well look at the bright side. Right?

This morning:
Mom: Maybe you should go see a doctor.
Me: Maybe you should kiss my ass. Think I want to know the truth?

My thoughts and standard beliefs are theres plenty of time to go to doctors and hospitals when I am unconscious or more then halfway dead.

Didn’t I just post in this very blog not to ignore your health? Kids do as I say, not as I do.

So here we are Wednesday night. Guess what? Just a strain or something. Its not really hurting anymore and I can almost take a full stride. SEE I told you it was just a little fluke. Probably pinched a nerve in my ass or thigh and whatever my calf muscle took a vacation for a few days.

Yeah this has been the last few days. Now you’ll have to excuse me while I go pound some aspirin, to thin out my blood and prevent any clot that may be traveling to my heart or head waiting to kill me. I still am not going to a doctor though.

Love you all….. just in case.

Let ‘er rip tater chips.

A small update, some observations, an anniversary and other tidbits.

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newdayAs you may all know by now from a previous post about my cousins battle with cancer, its with a heavy heart I have to report that Jess lost her long and arduous battle this past Friday.

I have been thinking about her and her story for a few days now. I was debating how to frame and relate such a story of courage and grace. The hardest part for me is the simplest. Its so cliche to say, “so and so unfortunately lost their battle with cancer.” Its a normal statement. Factually its a true statement. As many of you know me, I tend to shy away from the cliche and normal. To say my cousin lost her battle with cancer is as far as I am concerned a load of BS. Jess won her battle. I’ll tell you why.

For over seven years, from the time she was diagnosed this girl had a smile and such a positive attitude in her treatment to try and keep this disease at bay. Never a complaint. Never a bad word. Numerous surgeries, radiation, chemo treatments. After each surgery or round of treatment, this girl went back to work. Sick, feeling like crap, tired, she held her head up high, smiled and moved forward. She enjoyed life to the fullest and when faced with setbacks in her treatment, it was always a “Whats next? We move forward with positive attitude.”

I can’t tell you the amount of strength, dignity, grace and positive attitude this young lady displayed throughout this whole rotten situation.

Obviously and as most people will agree when you have a family member go through something like this you tend to think about your own mortality. You wonder what you would do. How you would react. I did. If I am honest with myself and you the reader, theres a chance I’d try and do the right thing by being positive and setting an example in my head-on treatment and fight against this insidious disease. Then theres the very possible reality that after reaching a certain point, I’d simply throw in the towel, take out every line of credit I could get my hands on, and call it a party of the century with my closest friends. Booze, hookers, drugs, bank robbery, and dynamiting the IRS. I mean really whats to lose at that point?  Ok, I wouldn’t hurt innocent people, but you get the picture.

Thats me, and how I would have handled things. My cousin Jess is a much bigger and better person that I’ll ever be. She proved and showed the rest of us, that even when we’re saddled with insurmountable odds and a losing proposition you can still live with great happiness, and dignity no matter what the obvious outcome. That is a lesson I’ll forever take with me.

Did the cancer finally get my cousin Jess? Technically, yes, but Jessica did NOT lose the battle. No way. She won. She won in such outstanding fashion that her lessons and memory will live forever with those that met and knew her. I’ll call that winning every single day.

Moving along….

This blog in its current incarnation is officially one year old. I think technically the anniversary occurred last month but as you see it now its one year old. Its about where I expected it to be and for that I am pleasantly surprised. I have been mulling some small changes and updates with layout and graphics to keep things fresh. Fundamentally things will continue as they are and we’ll see where the next year takes us. I have some ideas and experiments swirling around in my head so stay tuned.

July already. Complete years and weekends go by so fast. Yet one single Monday at work can take the life right out of us five times over. Further proof life just isn’t fair sometimes. I don’t care though. July 31st I am going to see Black Sabbath and that doesn’t suck.

Let ‘er rip tater chips.

Did you know?

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pattonDid you know?

Did you know that humans (anatomically accurate and modern like you and me today) have been on earth dating back to the middle Paleolithic age? That’s about 200,000 years ago. Thats not Neanderthal man, or bi-pedal apes and evolution. Humans as you and I see each other with the same essential brain capacity for learning have been on this planet for about 200,000 years and thats simple fossil evidence backing that fact up. Good piece of time huh? Color TV, internet porn, canned Spam, the iPhone, thong panties, and self parallel parking cars. Not bad for 200,000 years. We sure have come a long way.

Did you know that from when the Wright brothers flew in the air under power for the very first time in human history, 65 years 7 months and 3 days later man stepped foot on the moon? Think about that for a minute.

We’ve been roaming this earth in our current form for a little more then 200,000 years. It took us less then seventy years from the very fist time we learned to fly, until we set foot on something other then earth 250K miles away in space.

In the grand scheme of things sixty-five or seventy years is but a blip a fraction of time in 200,000 years of human exisitence. One day we said “shit we can fly” and from that moment on a short sixty-five and a half years later we walked on the moon.

Imagine in human existence we made fire, the wheel, hunted animals, made communities, countries, governments, gun powder, war, electricity, cars, and in all that learning, living, and conquering in about a fraction of a bit of time taught ourselves to fly and then left the planet.

What have we done since the moon? Where has our human spirit of creation, learning, exploring and understanding taken us? I suggest and it is my opinion, FUCK ALL. We have done squat in 40 years.

Sure, some may argue we created cell phones, internet, satellite TV, shitty AOL and Amazon customer service phone centers in India and Pakistan. What is all that in the big picture? Its nothing. Its lazy, and greedy. I like lazy and greedy too, but really what have we done? In fundamentally five minutes of human history we learned to move through the air and then walk on another celestial body. Since that time, we have spent about half of what it took to learn to get to the moon and back, figuring out a way to get pizza delivered in thirty minutes or less and to send pictures of our cocks to hot women on the internet!

In 200,000 years of modern human history, I have to watch a family member in the prime of her life battle cancer!?

The smartest minds on this planet in sixty-five years found a way to lift a man off the ground and send him to the moon and back. Yet in 200,000 years those same smart minds have to look a mother and father in the eyes and say we don’t know what to do our how to cure your child of cancer. The same cancer those minds have known since about 300 BC. Thats about 2300 years for all you keeping score at home on your Gregorian calendar bingo punch cards.

There is something seriously the matter with this picture. You will notice I have left out religion and politics in any of this for reasons or blame. Blame rests solely on all of our shoulders. We have become lazy, and greedy. Lazy in that we have lost our desire to learn and conquer. Lazy to create. Lazy to elect representative government who fails to drive us to greatness with human interest at stake rather then their own.

Greedy because its more profitable in the therapeutic maintenance of terminal disease rather then its simple eradication. Greedy because hard on and erectile dysfunction pills are quicker to make, market and get FDA approval then say curing diabetes, congenital heart disease, and cancer.

We did this to ourselves. We all have to shoulder this blame. The only positive thing in all of this is, and its especially true for me and my fellow americans, is that we can at any time stand up and say, “WTF stop this madness.” We can demand accountability from our elected representatives or remove them from office. We can stop ignorance and the dumbing down of the general population by the mainstream media. We can take the money or raise the money and demand our brightest brains to cure disease. We can stop taking from one another and giving to others for someone else’s profit. We can empower industry to create what we want and need. We can learn, we can create we can cure. We are still free.

In California a 16 year old high school girl on a whim because she is pissed about her cell phone battery always draining, puts her head to work. She creates a super capacitor that can potentially charge a cellphone in 20 seconds.

How much money and computing power does our government spend in an hour, day, week, month, year dealing with taxes and the IRS?

How long would it take the scientists with all that IRS operating budget and computer power to say map all the human genetic code to cure disease?

Its not hard. All we have to do is demand it. Want it and we can make it so. When do we stand up? When do we say stop? Our governments and societies want this to look impossible. They are in business to stifle our will. Its not hard to change this. All we have to do is want it. We’re still free. We’re still the greatest and smartest generation. My only worry is for how long?

Let ‘er rip, tater chips.

Lance Armstrong and Neil Armstrong. Three nuts and a trip to the moon.

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LanceIf you’ve been watching the news lately then I am sure you know the name Lance Armstrong.

If you have breathed oxygen in the last forty-four years then I am sure you have also heard of the name Neil Armstrong.

Neil ArmstrongBoth of these men share the same last name though not directly related to my knowledge. Both of these men also played a highly pivotal role in shaping american history. It also turns out that chances are relatively high that both men may be in fact liars.

Lance Armstrong if you’ve been under a rock was an american racing bicyclist. After losing one of his balls to testicular cancer, Lance fought back and in the most triumphant way won the worlds premier bicycle racing contest, “The Tour de France” not once but seven times. Thats more wins then any other living soul. It turns out ole’ Lance pedaled his ass to seven wins with the help of illegal performance enhancing drugs. He has subsequently been stripped of his Tour titles and banned from competitively walking across the damn street for life.

We all know who Neil Armstrong is. He was the first american astronaut to successfully fly, land, walk on and return safely from the moon. In 1969 Neil landed on the moon with his pilot buddy Edwin “Buz” Aldrin. When Neil stepped off the lunar lander he spoke the most famous words in human history. “That’s one small step for [A] man. One giant leap for mankind.” Throughout his life Neil Armstrong maintained he just came up with the famous quote after takeoff and during the actual moon landing in the lunar lander. As it turned out ole’ Neil decided not to grace the earth with his presence one more time for good last year. Neil’s brother has since come forward and proclaimed that Neil showed him the famous quote some months before the actual moon mission in a drunken game of checkers, gin rummy, Jenga or whatever other games the most elite engineering, aeronautical, flight test pilots do when getting ready to strap their asses to the most explosive, highest powered, and complex flying machine of all time headed for the moon.

So here we are, two world famous well known men. Technically speaking both lied. Look at the perception of these men today. Both overcame seemingly insurmountable odds, were the best of the best and inspired millions of people all over the world for years to achieve and overcome.

I guess you can argue one lied and made millions of dollars with the false pretense of being an athletic superhero. The other lied about a simple quotation whom never basked in the spotlight or accepted his super human hero status. A super human status he most certainly was in all respects entitled to claim.

In the end what did the lies cost? In the case of Neil it shows he was a little more down to earth human and completely aware of the significance of the milestone in history he was about to partake. It would have been nice to know and see this side of Neil in the following years after his history making space flight. He wasn’t all straight laced, icy, engineering to the minutest detail type we thought he was. Neil was human and fallible.

As for Lance, well he may be a slightly different story. He clearly lived behind the illusion of his lies and in some cases broke his legal foot off in the asses of more then one person who questioned his integrity in regards to doping. Lance is paying the price for it now too.

To me the question isn’t whether he should or shouldn’t have doped, but how he lived with the lies of doping. Here’s a little clue about doping and the Tour de France. About 80% of the competitors are doing it, so in as far as an unfair advantage and soiling of the integrity of the race, thats a mountain of bullshit only the likes of a government run department of losers would make a big deal over.

Where Lance fucked up is that he believed the lies and used them to prop himself up to sponsors and advertisers. He should have kept his mouth shut about any and all doping, walked away from all accusations and never commented publicly about anyone or thing that claimed he was a cheater. Would he have still been caught and paid the price? You betcha. However he could have laid back, threw his hands in the air without the label of worlds biggest hypocritical asshole, and just said “I cheated and lied because it built and funded the LIVE STRONG foundation for 15 years.”

People will look past a bullshitter and liar whom’s lies and bullshit was used as a means to an end for a serious problem like cancer, or world peace. You go off sticking your one nut root into Sheryl Crow and sue the ass off some team assistant and newspaper that prints a story about you cheating when you know damn well you have and you can kiss your ass away. You my friend are next in line to a tearful Oprah Winfrey interview on a failing cable channel of depressed chick garbage programming. No offense to any and all you maybe  depressed Oprah channel garbage watching ladies.

In the end lying is a selfish act that doesn’t hurt you until it hurts others. If you’re going to consciously hurt someone else with lying, then you better make damn sure you’re curing cancer or walking on the fucking moon.

Let ‘er rip tater chip!