From the frying pan to the fire

There are some days that it just isn't worth getting out of bed. Today was one of those such days for me. How much trouble can one Sunday bring. Well if you are wondering it can bring a whole handful of them. Trust me when I say that it was no picnic here in the glorious gleaming metropolis of Daytona, just a continuation of a terrible week, that was full of stress and aggravation. It has been already two whole weeks here in this house and still I am waiting on the owner's to finish up the extremely long list of unfinished items. Thank God the bedroom and bathroom doors were finally put in.

As the severe winds and storms lashed out at my new home I understand the reasoning why the rest of the windows have to be totally replaced. The makeshift curtain that I made out of a bedsheet flew across my room as the wind came rushing in around the old rotted frame. Hail fell from the sky and the rotten wood along the edges of the roof finally ripped off and fell to the ground. All of this should have been done prior to anyone occupying the house, but alas it hasn't been.

The weekend has passed and I never saw any of the owner's show up to paint the house, which by the way I was called Tuesday morning of last week to remind me that they would be here bright and early Saturday morning to begin painting. I was also told that later Tuesday afternoon that someone needed to be at the house because the electrician would be here to looking to why the second bedroom has no power. Here it is early Monday morning a week later and little has been done to our house. It is awfully funny how the landlord had told us prior to moving in that everything had been finished and that the house had been sitting empty for 3 months till he could find just the right tenants to move in. Well if this place is finished then I am probably the exact tenant that he needs here. 

But enough of that aside for now, why was today the perfect day for me to stay in bed? Well for one my best friend's ex boyfriend who stole my pain pills, got himself arrested and then showed up at my house the very next day apologizing for his behavior and assuring me that he had over $300.00 for me. All he has to do was go down to police property and get his things. This took over 5 hours to complete and when he got back instead of the $300 he only had $120. My friend needed to borrow most of that to get caught up on his bills but low and behold the guy took off again with not only my $120 he also got my friend for $50 more dollars. I waited all day and dude never came back or reached out to me at all. So not only am I out my pain pills, I am also broke and I feel bad that my friend lost his money and I have been unable to help him out.

On top of all of this it was 4 years ago that I was notified that my sister had died and left this tired old world behind. Now truly her two sons are orphans and I am the only person left to take care of them. Not that I haven't been doing this already for over 15 years.  In all honesty it was knowing that she was still here even though she was paralyzed and on respirators that gave me the strength to try and be a good parent and role model. I know that in many ways I was not prepared for the responsibility, nor had I experienced enough if my own life to be much more than a good friend to these young boys. Much too my shame it is also when I learned about drugs and the hard truths about addiction.  As I lay under my blankets and think of all these things something comes to me just before midnight. I must have done a fairly good job with both of the boys, neither of them have really ever been in trouble, both of them are working, both of them are married and I am a grandfather/granduncle 4 times over. I ended up legally adopting them when it became clear that there was no hope of recovery for my sister.

So even though today was a very hard and lonely day for me. I at least realized that everything happens for a reason and though I did so many things wrong, I must have done some very right. I may be stressed out about this house, my health and my troubled relationship, my lack of money and my deep feelings of dispair, depression and loneliness. I have still got my family and everything that I have accomplished and been through to sustain me during these especially hard times. I just have to keep in mind that this too shall pass as all things before them. Much love my family. I love you dearly you keep me going even when I feel that all has been lost.

As always Live well, love much and laugh often.

Uncle B

Uncontrolled Fear

For the past 2 weeks I have been facing a fear that has become uncontrollable the longer that I have been dealing with my medical situation.  If you are familiar with my blog you will have undoubtedly read that I was told that I have a tumor growing rapidly in my right kidney.  Even worse than that the lab results that were taken this past Thursday show that my kidney functions are steadily on the decline.  This coupled with the fact that I have several other terminal illnesses that my body is also dealing with.  This has not left me with a comfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach.  I am not sure what the right course of action is at this moment in time is for me and the treatments that the doctors are suggesting.

What is funny is that I am not afraid for myself.  I am afraid for the ones that might be left alone if I were to die.  Now that I have broached the subject of death, I might as well elaborate on what I am talking about and dealing with.  See I have known for a little while that I had the tumor, what I didn't know was the possibility of it being cancerous.  That pushed it into a realm of unworldliness for me.  I have faced cancer 4 other times in my life and I have managed to get by and survive.  Sometimes in tact and other times not so unscathed by the tragedy.  The last round was back in 2012 and I ended up with a second stoma that I now have to take care of daily, as if one wasn't enough already right.   But through it all I managed to survive only to break my leg a few weeks later.  I am a person who just doesn't have good luck at all  when it comes to my body and my health. 

Since 1992, I have been in a struggle for life versus cancer.  Each time I go into the battle weighing my options.  Most cases the quality of life is the most important factor I look at.  Because there are a few things that I fear such as living as a vegetable or being confined to a wheelchair or having another stroke that limits my mobility further than the spinal fractures have already produced.  My life has not been a paved road with roses, I have had more surgeries and procedures than most people have in an entire lifetime.  At the age of 23 I had my first bout with Cancer and here we are 24 years later and I am still dealing with it.  Sometimes the reason for the tumor has been because of radiation disease, however the treatment options have always been the same.  Surgery and then preventative chemotherapy.  What most people don't know is that each time you have chemotherapy the less likely the treatment will work for you.  Just like everytime you have an operation and go under anesthesia it is harder and harder to come back.  With both of these things being said having close to 29 abdominal surgeries and countless other biopsies, colonoscopies, and other treatments, how hard do you think this surgery is going to be for me?

I am a big proponent of hoping for the best and planning for the worst, because I know how much my body has been through over the years.  Which means I have every right to feel afraid.  Because time is very short on my end, I am trying to get everything wrapped up that I possibly can so that if a complication comes up there is a plan of action.  Now I am not saying that something is definitely crop up, but as my medical track record goes out of every 5 surgeries a complication had arose and I had to stay in the hospital way longer than was expected.  So at this point I have weighed this in my analysis of what is best way to proceed when dealing with the surgery and the doctor recommendations.  But here is another fun fact that goes into my equation.  I believe in the power of pray and I know that God is the ultimate healer and that if it is His will I will be completely healed from this an there will be no decline in my comfort of living.

Fear is one of the hardest emotions to pin down and overcome.  Fear is a force that needs to be reconned with.  It is an emotion that can hold you in place, and keep you from moving forward and taking the chance or surgery that is needed.  Fear is something that each of has from time to time.  Having fear doesn't mean that you are weak or that you are a chicken.  Fear is a normal reaction to scary situations and exploring unknown things.  Yet what makes one brave is confronting and dealing with the fear you are feeling.  You can also keep fear in check and use it to garner strength, the same with anger.  Anger is an emotion that can creep in at the most unexpected time, such as when you are frightened or scared.  It is triggered by the feeling of helplessness in that situation, but you must remain calm, know in your heart that this is only a momentary thing, that it will pass and you will not have to deal with it again.  Each time you conquer a fear you will be so much stronger and it will become easier to face the next fear that comes up,

Fear is something that can be beaten, you can gather greater strength and knowledge the more you face and control.  You may be wondering what my decision is about my surgery.  Since I have been worrying about this so much I decided that the best option for me was to have the surgery and face the outcome.  I doubt that my quality of life will improve, but I don't see how it could possibly diminish either by having it.  i have weighed both sides of the coin from the result of all the test that have come back.  My kidney function isn't improving and the medication that I take is building up a toxicity in my blood stream that the kidney can no longer filter out for me.  So at this point it seems that the best option for me to pursue is the one of having the tumor removed and sending off to see if it is malignant or benign.  Like I said earlier in the blog is that I am not afraid of dying and that is true.  I have a fear for those that I have left behind, for those people that I have been trying to help and all of those that I have helped and those that depend on my opinion and me.  But I know in the long run that everyone will be fine.  I just hope and pray that they remember me and do for someone else what I have done for them.

2016 was supposed to be a spectacular year with low or no incidences of health issues.  Lord knows that I would have love that, because in 2015 I only spent 4 days in the hospital versus the year before when I spend almost 10 full months in the hospital.  Life seemed to be getting better for me if you compare 2013 to now.  This time things feel different too me and I fear that I am going to have to face this surgery all by myself.  Long time readers will know that my biggest fear is dying alone and forgotten.  I have done so many things in my life for others that I believe that it will be very hard for anyone who has met me to forget me totally.  But the alone part is the hard thing that I am wrestling with now.  Because I am not sure what the outcome of this surgery is going to be, or where for that matter.  My VA doctors are wanting me to go to Tampa to the VA hospital there,  keep in mind that I live in Daytona Beach which is close to 3 hours away.  I do have an alternative plan when the Urologist here in Daytona could operate on me and bill the VA or medicare which ever one decides to pay. 

Weighing the pros and cons of a situation is one of my ways of dealing with problem situations and which ever column comes out with the list amount of entries is usually the way that I go.  But I also try to analyze the consequences of the choice that I have made.  If the cost and risk outweighs the benefit and least amount of consequence I move in that direction.  Each individual decision has a certain amount of risk involved and it is up to you to weigh the risks against the rewards and make a choice.  You can also try and mitigate some of the risks to make the rewards that much better.  I don't know what you are going through or if this might help someone else out there that might be going through something similar, but I hope that I can reach at least one person that might need the advice. 

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

Lost, Alone and Scared

Over the past few days my world has been in a constant state of flux. Meaning that nothing has been constant, everything has been in perpetual movement.  When that happens the mind looses focus and thoughts can drift impossibly far distances. Emotions which are tied to thoughts are also out of flux with the rest of your body and you withdraw from the physical.  Now to explain this is rather difficult but I think this is a possible reason why we sometimes can be in a crowd and feel all alone.  See it doesn't matter what you are going through when the mind detaches and starts roaming and grasping at straws and random thought patterns, we become un-anchored to the the world around us.  We have a tendency to wrap up in these thoughts and can't fight our way back to ground.  I described that on my Facebook page on Saturday. My emotional state was such that I was upset, angry, profoundly sad, and I couldn't tell you which way was up or down.  I felt trapped in a surreal place of existence and I couldn't quite wrap my head around reality.

Because of a promise I made I can't divulge all the details of what I am going through but I can tell you this much.  When you care and love someone and they are lost to you for whatever reason, your mind creates solutions and equations and thousands of excuses as to what is really going on.  Problem with all of these scenarios that are playing out in your head, you have no foundation or basis in which to draw from, so your thoughts become cyclical, and you go from thinking the worst to the best, and before you know it your orientation is totally screwed up.  Sometimes we find ourselves in a place of emotional discovery, where you find out that what you once thought was not reality, even though all indicators seemed to point to a fact, when you finally get up on it, you realize that you had misread them, or mislabeled them as fact when they were just feelings.  Which is the funny thing about feelings, they can feel so real that you can almost believe them as fact, when in most cases they aren't, they are just interpretations of the facts that the brain and heart can process.

I can tell you it is a terrible feeling waking up one morning and finding out that everything you once believed in was a lie, that what you thought of as fact, was just in fact illusion created by yourself to keep from facing the truth.  Trust me when I tell you that it is a hard pill to swallow.  Humans are amazing creatures, we have not only the ability to reason, but we also have the ability to feel, and when you put reason and feelings together we get a sort of mental image, problem is that feelings are not as reliable and our images are easily shattered.  When something happens in your life that causes you to doubt everything it is very hard to pull yourself back together.  See, I am not a stranger to the world of addictions and drugs. I am not a stranger to lying to myself to make myself feel better, but I have learned over the years how to come to deal with these falsehoods, and I stand before you a different person.  See I am brutally honest with myself and those around me these days, because I hate to have the feelings of being lost, alone and scared.  I would rather get the initial shock and pain over with than have to deal with it on an on-going form.  So, I gave up on trying to kid myself.

However, there comes a time when we run into individuals that aren't quite at the level that you are. You have asked them repeatedly if they care about you and love you, if they are sure that you are the one they want to be with.  If they aren't at the same place you are, the answer you might get may leave you totally wondering as to your position. See I am a firm believer that everything starts with self and works its way outward. So if you are honest and truthful with yourself you have a greater ability to accept the things that are handed to you.  Some things you wouldn't even expect that hit you with a firm foundation of reality and truth behind you, you will be able to face them and overcome them with ease.  But, every so often something comes along that blind sides you. Something that comes from an unexpected corner, a place where you weren't looking or had thought you had gotten past, and it can rip your sense of reality right out from under you.

You may not understand what I am talking about or where I am coming from with this, and that is absolutely okay.  What I want you to understand there are times when you can be lost, alone and scared and it is not of your own doing.  You can feel those feelings under many different circumstances and I am beginning to understand the amount of pressure that it can put on another person who cares about you.  See, I am beginning to understand the physical and emotional toll of my health conditions on the person that I love.  I am beginning to understand that he has to stand there and watch as my health deteriorates and it makes him feel powerless and vulnerable and angry that there is nothing he can do to make the situation for me any better.  See I can understand him feeling lost, scared and alone during these times and there is nothing I can do to ease that burden from him.  The exact same thing is true for someone doing drugs and the other one not.  The person who is sober might think that they have the power to change the other person but they don't.  You are not a god, you don't have the power to rescue someone else.  The just don't understand that they are loosing not only themselves to it, but you as well. The hardest thing is for you to watch someone circle the drain.  Somewhere you have to be the stronger person and cut them loose and let them go.

2013 is about to start and you don't want to start it off on the wrong foot. There is nothing you can do to change either of the above situations, so inevitably you are going to have to walk away.  The situation is toxic for both of you and you are going to have to cut it loose or end up dragging yourself through the proverbial gutter.  It is hard to say these things because I know that they hurt.  But as sure as I am sitting here today, I realized that some situations are just beyond our control and reasoning. There is nothing I can do to alter either of the scenarios mentioned above.  This is for you, the one that asked me the question what to do if your partner has left you and decided that the drugs are more important than you. I have to tell you a hard truth, I am familiar with the world of drugs, and the effect that they can have on someone.  You are going to have to cut the string and let them go. No matter what happens from this point you must stay strong to yourself and your convictions.  If you give in know you have lost the battle.  I know this from experience once you give in and let someone back into that world it is virtually impossible to get them back out again.

I wish you the best of luck my friend. Because I know how hard it is at this time of year to be going through this alone, but believe it or not I am in a similar situation here in Los Angeles.  I can't go into details as I said earlier, but I do totally understand your feelings of isolation, loneliness and heartbreak at what you are going through.  I sympathize with you and I too am going to have to make a tough decision and pray that God will give me the strength to make it through this with my spirit and heart still intact. I hope you understand that you are not actually giving up on the person. It is going to take more than you to break the hold of the drug that has your friend.  I would never advise someone to give up on another person.  I am not giving up on my friend, I am not supporting or condoning his behavior, but I can't watch it tear apart my relationship and my life again. So if it takes me letting him go and moving on so be it. Lord is my witness that is the last thing I want to do. But, I know I can't make him change and I am not enough of a substitute.

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B