Well 2016 is well underway and we have all made it through the first month and a half and seem to still be chugging along. For now that is! Just when you think things can't get any worse something creeps up from the shadows of the past and hits you squarely in the head.
The past 5 years haven't been very kind to me or my health and I am always surprised when I think I have something licked and it turns out to just be a recurring item in my bizarre and strange world. I have known for a very long time that my body has a different notion of living than my mind does. My mind doesn't seem to think that there is anything wrong with me physically and my body seems to take pleasure in revealing at the most in appropriate times that the mind is lying to me. It seems almost like a dream now that I suffered from near catastrophic paralysis just 2 years ago when my spinal column was invaded by a nasty bacterial infection. Oh I made it through that lovely situation by living in a nursing home/rehabilitation center, months and months of therapy and intravenous drugs and slowly I recovered. Not fully, my strength never seemed to come back from that and the pain in my spine has never really gone away.
But nothing had prepared me for the news that I received this morning. Nothing could have at all!!
For those of you my faithful friends and followers that have been going through this journey with me you will see that no matter how many things change in ones life, there are just as many things that remain the same. When I got sick with my back trouble in 2014 my mother was going through something very similar. I got better, I can still walk and use my legs and my spine seems to be fusing at right locations to eventually lead to a full recovery. My mother on the other hand wasn't so lucky her doctors operated where my did not. My mother never walked out of that hospital, she was irreversibly paralyzed from the waist down. Damage to her spinal cord has made it impossible for her to walk and has dramatically changed her life. Tuesday she was supposed to go to the doctors about pain that she had been experiencing in her feet and she was hospitalized all over again. I found out this morning when I called her that she is also suffering acute renal failure, something that I am all too familiar with. Since I suffer from it constantly since my initial colon surgery in 2005. Yet, this was not the only thing that my mother was told she was told that the infection in her back is back and that she also has a lump in her breast which appears to be at this point cancerous. Now, please understand that I have known that my mother was experiencing problems that I could not even begin to imagine, but somehow I have always thought that my parents were invincible and that I would be the one that would leave the earth before them. Now, I am not so sure of that anymore and I am scared and worried about my mother.
But that wasn't all the news that I received today that has given me pause and the need to reflect. See the results of my test have come back as well and what I thought was just a benign growth on my right kidney has turned out to be a whole other creature indeed. This morning I was told in no uncertain terms that I need to have surgery that the tumor has grown vastly in just a few months time and now cancer threatens my entire core being once again. Funny just a few short months ago I was given a totally different outlook on my health and wellbeing by the very same doctors that are now telling me that my situation has turned from serious to grave.
Funny using that word to describe a state for which I have been preparing for since 1991. Since June of 1991 I have known that my health had taken a turn for the serious and that I would forever after have a complicated life ahead of me. But the Grace of God has seen fit to give me a pass for a very long time and has allowed me to share my life with many people that would have never had the chance to get to know me had I died all those years ago. Life hasn't been easy and at times I have feared for it, yet somehow I knew that my time and usefulness hadn't come to end. I felt that there were many things that I needed to do and say before I could finish what I had started here on Earth with my birth. So when the doctors told me this news that they were going to have to go in and despite them repeatedly telling me that I would not endure any more surgeries that my body had gone through enough and simply couldn't recover. What am I supposed to think and do now?
I do not fear death as I thought I might, I just don't feel like dying, I am selfish I guess because I want to live. I want to accomplish a few more things before I have to say good bye to this world. However, with the doctors not giving me much hope on this front anymore, I am just wondering how I am going to tell all the people that I love and who love me that I may not be seeing them anymore. I have lost so many people along the way to this point in my life. People who I felt deserved a more full and better life than I did. Yet, for whatever reason God chose them to come home and left me here to carry on. I knew in the back of my mind that things weren't right and that I probably wouldn't make it to my 50th birthday, but I thought as we all do that I would have more time. I am not afraid for myself, because I know that I am about to start a new adventure in a totally different way, I am scared for you those I leave behind in this world that has gone crazy, where total direction and certainty of our entire nation is left in the balance of chance and fate. This election year is shaping up in the most uncanny way, people don't recall history very well at all...Barry Goldwater entered into an election that was rudimentary and fundamentally the same as what is happening now. Untraconservative and Socialist squaring off. Both sides of the parties one so far right and the other so far left are going to cause such an unstable rift in our political landscape that our Nation will not recover fully from it this time.
The world is changing, governments have come and gone and yet the same old bigotry, hate and intolerance survives in the world. I have tried my entire life to bring hope and joy to those around me. I was successful a great many of those times, but there have been other times when I have failed utterly and miserably. I take what I have and what I have been given and I give without failing to those I see in need. My help is never enough but it is always on time. I am leaving this world without a legacy, I don't know who will be crazy enough to give as much as I do, so I don't know what is going to happen from here forward. All I know is that I still love each and everyone of you, there are others with my family name that will carry forth that love after I am gone. They don't know you, and some have never met me, I am sure they all know of me and who I am, but I have lived a life of my own choosing and I know that my death is going to come before any of us are prepared. I just know that time is running out and the my race is no longer important.
So in a flash just like that branch of the family tree that I am apart of seems to be about to disappear shortly and irrevocably forever.
To the rest of the Zepp clan, I stand in awe and amazement of where and how we all started and I am thankful that I was apart of your family. Many of you have accomplished some very amazing things and have overcome so much hardship and turmoil to get to where you are today. But you all have become successful in all your endeavors and have created something that is going to last way after you are gone. I unfortunately was not so lucky, there are many that will remember me in there hearts and minds fondly. But my choices and path have left no one and nothing. I have no children, I only have you my family and I hope that you remember me as I was a kind and gentle person who loved to help others.
I may not make it through the surgery and the treatments that are coming faster than a speeding bullet. My mother might not make it through her treatments and surgeries that are heading her way. So we are preparing you, making sure you are ready to LIVE! Because life is a banquet and there are too many people starving out there. So be true to yourselves and love each other and go forth into the world and make a difference.
As always my hopes and dreams are with you.
Uncle B
Showing posts with label end. Show all posts
Showing posts with label end. Show all posts
Friday, February 19, 2016
Monday, July 2, 2012
What would you do if you knew the world was ending?
I was watching a movie called "4:44" last night and it was about the world's last day, it is told from the point of view of an artist and a writer and how they spend their last day on earth. It got me thinking on what I would do if I knew that the world was ending at a specific time. I am not sure I could have handled the news of impending doom with such grace and conviction. Facing my own mortality has been enough of a struggle and I am thankful for the knowledge that no one knows the time or manner of my demise. I like the fact that the doctor's don't know if I am going to live or die tomorrow, that no matter their predictions and worrying and all their tests they cannot narrow down enough to give me a date and time that I may leave this earth.
For years now I have been beating the odds that have been stacked against me, and even when I longed for deaths embrace it wouldn't even come. You would be surprised at the depths and lengths I went to trying to make my end come forth. I did everything you can imagine to put my life in risk. I even lived on the street for several months, knowing full well that my health was in peril. See I had found out in October of 2011 that my kidneys had begun to fail and yet I chose the path that I was on and did nothing to change it direction. In my reckless haste I ended up loosing two of my dear and closest friends, my two dogs Skylar and Madison. I had left Texas to try and save Madison and all I did was postpone the inevitable. I got back to Atlanta the 3rd of January and by November they were taken from me and put to sleep. I wish things could have been different, but due to circumstances and choices I have made I sealed their fate and have to live with those consequences for the rest of my days.
Even now, knowing that my life is not going to get any different and that it is just a matter of time till end up dying. I hope that I have the grace and courage to face the end with dignity. See even after all my reckless abandon I am not sure that I really want to die. Even now, I am working with my doctor's to try and figure out the next steps in my healthcare and how they are going to address kidney failure and the advancing Hepatitis C. I believe that the next steps since my surgery was a failure, is going to be a series of dialysis and interferon treatments to address Hep C. But again, going to have to wait and see what they offer on July 9th.
What all of you don't know is that my struggle has been a silent one, and one that was hidden from most people that were not close to me. I kept hidden from everyone around me the depths of my despair and surrounded myself with others who were as damaged and hurt as I was. These people accepted my drug use as being a part of them and not some design in a greater scheme of personal destruction. I would like you all to know that something amazing happened on this journey, it was an unexpected development and something that I never thought could possibly happen. People started looking at me with eyes of respect. Admiring my will to survive and the courage to continue to fight. What I kept hidden was my overwhelming desire to through it all in. I had been fighting this battle for 20 years and I am tired. However, as I started talking to others and finding out the strength and courage they were taking from my experiences, I knew that I had to continue that there was a lesson here that needed to be taught. So after learning all of this I gathered my courage around me and made a call to my dad. I told him about my health condition and the severity of it. He offered to let me come and stay with him and my step mom for awhile till I get back on my feet.
I wasn't here even a month when I had to have emergency surgery because my colon ruptured in 2 places. I have had 4 surgeries since March and I am still here. I am still fighting and I have taken up several causes to help shift my mental focus and energies towards others who are in need. So here is the crux of the matter of this entry, do you want to live your life with love, laughter, grace and dignity? I know that I do. I want to live my life as an example to show others that life continues and goes on even in the face of terminal illness and disease. I want others to know that life and living is a matter of the mind, even if your world seems to be collapsing around your ears. Positive thinking and personal involvement in living are necessary to achieve a lasting and fulfilling life. Remember your family and love them because Life is not worth living without family.
Self destruction and a defeatist attitude cannot win out if you stay positive and strong in your beliefs. It is important to remember yourself and those who are with you in your struggles. You never know that when you see someone it might be the last time you ever get to see them. Live life every day like it is your last one, and take time to always enjoy those around you and appreciate them, because they are struggling with you and feel a pain as deep or deeper than you can imagine. They struggle and rail against what is happening to you and they watch on helplessly knowing that they can do nothing but be there for you. Tell them thank you and you appreciate the sacrifices they are making for you and tell them how much they have made your life so much easier. Everyone needs to be loved and appreciated and you need to recognize the struggles they are going through with you and alone. Sometimes they feel so overwhelmed and burdened to the breaking point. Give them a hug, a kiss, a shout of recognition will go a long way to ease their pain and burden. Trust me I know what I am talking about here.
So again I ask you what would you do if you knew the world was ending? I know what I am going to do, and what I have been doing since I found out how sick I really was. I am reaching out across the miles and the hurt and the pain to those who suffered with me and cared for me. Whose life's are entangled with mine, and without whom I wouldn't be here today. I know I cannot thank them enough, I cannot make up for the past hurts, but I can move on knowing that I have made my peace with them and have thanked them and acknowledged everything that they did for me. I want every day that I live to be full of nothing but laughter, love and joy, and I want to bring that and so much more to everyone around me. I ask that you keep me in your thoughts and prayers, and I ask that you look inward to yourself, and take the time to smell the roses, acknowledge those around you, sincerely see the choices and sacrifices they have made for you and tell them thank you and how much you love them.
Keep a smile on your face, joy in your heart and positive outlook on the future and you never ever know how long that is going to be. You might be like me and outlive all the dire predictions and doomsayers and you could and probably will out live them all.
As always my hopes and dreams are with you,
Uncle B
For years now I have been beating the odds that have been stacked against me, and even when I longed for deaths embrace it wouldn't even come. You would be surprised at the depths and lengths I went to trying to make my end come forth. I did everything you can imagine to put my life in risk. I even lived on the street for several months, knowing full well that my health was in peril. See I had found out in October of 2011 that my kidneys had begun to fail and yet I chose the path that I was on and did nothing to change it direction. In my reckless haste I ended up loosing two of my dear and closest friends, my two dogs Skylar and Madison. I had left Texas to try and save Madison and all I did was postpone the inevitable. I got back to Atlanta the 3rd of January and by November they were taken from me and put to sleep. I wish things could have been different, but due to circumstances and choices I have made I sealed their fate and have to live with those consequences for the rest of my days.
Even now, knowing that my life is not going to get any different and that it is just a matter of time till end up dying. I hope that I have the grace and courage to face the end with dignity. See even after all my reckless abandon I am not sure that I really want to die. Even now, I am working with my doctor's to try and figure out the next steps in my healthcare and how they are going to address kidney failure and the advancing Hepatitis C. I believe that the next steps since my surgery was a failure, is going to be a series of dialysis and interferon treatments to address Hep C. But again, going to have to wait and see what they offer on July 9th.
What all of you don't know is that my struggle has been a silent one, and one that was hidden from most people that were not close to me. I kept hidden from everyone around me the depths of my despair and surrounded myself with others who were as damaged and hurt as I was. These people accepted my drug use as being a part of them and not some design in a greater scheme of personal destruction. I would like you all to know that something amazing happened on this journey, it was an unexpected development and something that I never thought could possibly happen. People started looking at me with eyes of respect. Admiring my will to survive and the courage to continue to fight. What I kept hidden was my overwhelming desire to through it all in. I had been fighting this battle for 20 years and I am tired. However, as I started talking to others and finding out the strength and courage they were taking from my experiences, I knew that I had to continue that there was a lesson here that needed to be taught. So after learning all of this I gathered my courage around me and made a call to my dad. I told him about my health condition and the severity of it. He offered to let me come and stay with him and my step mom for awhile till I get back on my feet.
I wasn't here even a month when I had to have emergency surgery because my colon ruptured in 2 places. I have had 4 surgeries since March and I am still here. I am still fighting and I have taken up several causes to help shift my mental focus and energies towards others who are in need. So here is the crux of the matter of this entry, do you want to live your life with love, laughter, grace and dignity? I know that I do. I want to live my life as an example to show others that life continues and goes on even in the face of terminal illness and disease. I want others to know that life and living is a matter of the mind, even if your world seems to be collapsing around your ears. Positive thinking and personal involvement in living are necessary to achieve a lasting and fulfilling life. Remember your family and love them because Life is not worth living without family.
Self destruction and a defeatist attitude cannot win out if you stay positive and strong in your beliefs. It is important to remember yourself and those who are with you in your struggles. You never know that when you see someone it might be the last time you ever get to see them. Live life every day like it is your last one, and take time to always enjoy those around you and appreciate them, because they are struggling with you and feel a pain as deep or deeper than you can imagine. They struggle and rail against what is happening to you and they watch on helplessly knowing that they can do nothing but be there for you. Tell them thank you and you appreciate the sacrifices they are making for you and tell them how much they have made your life so much easier. Everyone needs to be loved and appreciated and you need to recognize the struggles they are going through with you and alone. Sometimes they feel so overwhelmed and burdened to the breaking point. Give them a hug, a kiss, a shout of recognition will go a long way to ease their pain and burden. Trust me I know what I am talking about here.
So again I ask you what would you do if you knew the world was ending? I know what I am going to do, and what I have been doing since I found out how sick I really was. I am reaching out across the miles and the hurt and the pain to those who suffered with me and cared for me. Whose life's are entangled with mine, and without whom I wouldn't be here today. I know I cannot thank them enough, I cannot make up for the past hurts, but I can move on knowing that I have made my peace with them and have thanked them and acknowledged everything that they did for me. I want every day that I live to be full of nothing but laughter, love and joy, and I want to bring that and so much more to everyone around me. I ask that you keep me in your thoughts and prayers, and I ask that you look inward to yourself, and take the time to smell the roses, acknowledge those around you, sincerely see the choices and sacrifices they have made for you and tell them thank you and how much you love them.
Keep a smile on your face, joy in your heart and positive outlook on the future and you never ever know how long that is going to be. You might be like me and outlive all the dire predictions and doomsayers and you could and probably will out live them all.
As always my hopes and dreams are with you,
Uncle B
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)