Time and Again

This post is meant to give thanks to the many healthcare providers that have been extremely instrumental in my continued health. Yes it is true that almost weekly I have a myriad of medical appointments and lab work that needs to be done. Yet, if it wasn't for the diligent work of these health care professionals I would probably withered away and have died way before now.

As I am sitting here waiting to be seen by yet another doctor, I am reminded of how much hard work and long hours these professionals put in just to keep​ me as well as their other​ patients healthy and alive. I know that I would be hard pressed if I had to go without the medications that I am on. Monitoring of these medications and the effects that they have on my body are essential to my good health.

There was a period not so long ago when I was on an HIV regimen that wasn't closely monitored and my health severely suffered because of that. It was determined that the regimen that I was on had severely and irrevocably damaged my kidneys. Once it was discovered a monitoring program was soon put in place, but the damage was already extensive and done there was no coming back from it. Less than a year later a small tumor was found on my right kidney and my new journey had begun.

It has been a little more than a year that the tumor on my right kidney was found. The myriad of doctor's and healthcare providers I have been through in just that year alone has been staggering. I'm currently under the care of a urologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville and it looks like the year long journey that I have been on is finally drawing to a close.  This journey has been long and arduous starting with ultrasounds, then CT scans and ultimately ending in a series of MRI'S all of which had indicated continuous growth and the possibility of spreading.

You would think that after 25 years of battling this disease that I might have finally become used to all the test, treatments and surgeries that have resulted from having this disease. But, time and again cancer seems bound and determined to come back. It keeps these myriads of healthcare professional working harder than ever to get me to the state of wellness. Sometimes I dream of having just a few moments of good health to consider myself​ normal and healthy.

I guess as dreams go it isn't a bad one to have. But, no matter the circumstances I am under no illusions that I will ever be able to live my life as a healed, whole individual. That even through their best efforts medical science can only do so much to correct the damage that cancer has done to my body. I must accept the limitations and restrictions that have become my norm and rejoice in the continued life that God has granted me.

Remembering always that man can only do so much when it comes to this vehicle our mind resides in. God who is the Ultimate Physician is the only one with the power to restore me back to full health. I can never truly trust the findings of the world of medicine, because as been my case in the past the predictions that they provide me with have been far from accurate. Only God knows the time and place of my demise. Because everything that I have been through and continue to go through are what strengthens me and gives me the experience I need to get through the next phase of my existence.

See, I have become very familiar with living on borrowed time knowing that any moment might be my last. Knowing that each time I have to have an operation or treatment might be my very last. There seems to always be a new treatment or procedure that has yet to be tried. I'm comforted knowing that in all things God has me in the palms of His hands and that as long as I am needed here on Earth I will continue to make these recoveries and be able to give witness and testament to the miracles of God.

So no matter if time and again I have to be seen by doctor's, nurses, lab techs or other healthcare professionals I will always be in God's Grace and He will take care of my needs .

Rejoice for God is the Healer and architect of your body and can and will restore you according to His detailed plan regarding your life and work.

As always Live well, Love much and Laugh often.

Uncle B

Life Rarely turns out as planned

Being a Sagittarius I should know all about the dangers of planning because no matter how much work or preparation I put into things they never ever go as planned.  I can use this move as a prime example of what I am talking about and then take you even further into the discussion.  I paid the deposit on my place and was told I could move in right away.  The place came furnished to a degree, but I had my own stuff in my parents garage, and wanted my own stuff in the apartment.

The original plan was to head home to Pennsylvania to my mothers place.  I think that is where I am eventually going to end up.  But right now there is so much going on with my health that I didn't want to risk leaving my doctor's and the treatments that have already started.  So I am here for at least another 6 months or so.  Depending on my health and how I am handling the treatments.  So for now I am still sitting firm in Daytona.  Because of the original plan my ex and good friend Sterling Williams was going to come down from Atlanta and help me move either to my mother's or into the new place.

Once it was decided that I was going to stay here and finish out my probation and fight the courts on this last charge.  I started looking for a place to live, knowing that I only had till the beginning of the New Year to find a place and get settled. Once I found the place and started posting pictures of it on Facebook, Sterling and others contacted me and told me that they would help me move.  Now, in my heart I knew that this was going to easily, that it was not going to turn out the way it was planned.  My feelings of this nature are rarely wrong and this was no exception.  Sterling was unable to make it due to transportation difficulties, I go sick and so did my friend Johnathan.  Nothing that has ever come to me so easy ever flowed according to the plan.

Life has a very funny way of dealing out the hands that we get.  I know some people who are the perfect picture of health, never getting sick, then there are folks who like me seem to find themselves subject to various illness and hassles.  I am not sure how up to date I have been keeping you, I know that it has been quite awhile since I had a chance to sit down and write.  But, another example of planning going totally wrong is the life that I originally tried to build here in Daytona.  It sure started out good and the first 9 months I accomplished a lot of things and even became rather successful.  It was when I went to California that was the unexpected wrinkle in the plan.  My friend Mike Reed had unexpectedly passed away at the age of 50 and left his wife, Judy and her daughter Amanda out there in Los Angeles. One day I would like to go back out there and make amends for the mistakes that I made when I was out there.  But, that is going to have to wait to see how my health holds up.

Before I went to California I was talking to my ex Bobby O'hara and for months I thought he was going to move down here and we were going to try and get our lives clean and see how we did as a couple being sober.  But every time it seemed like he was going to finally come down something  would always end up happening and he never came down. At the same time I was talking to my ex Kerry Rutherford, and I wasn't sure which way my heart was pulling me but I struck out and took a chance.  I went to California to help my friend Judy and to bring Kerry back from the west coast to the east coast.  I know now because hindsight is 20/20 that I should have left things alone. The fact of the matter was that I was clean of Meth from March of 2012 till December of 2012 when I met up with Kerry.  He wasn't even off the plane for an hour before he wanted to go out and get high.  I should have known then that the plans that Kerry and I had made over the phone and internet for months wasn't going to work out.  But, I put a lot of effort and energy into the relationship, came very close to loosing my life and did manage to lose almost everything I owned.  I realize now and it is way too late that my heart had led me down the wrong path and I should have waited for the person that I really cared about and who cared about me.

Kerry and I had plans lots and lots of plans but none of them ever seemed to take off.  I was going to write and start my video blog and he was going to help me.  He was going to start writing music and try and kick his career back off.  Here we are 2 years later and neither of those things ever came about.  Kerry is back in Atlanta and as far as I can tell he is doing well for himself and I am hoping that he will be able to beat the addiction that him and I faced together.  Luckily, my poor health has taken the ability to party away and not only that I am also on probation for the first time in my life. Bobby was so concerned about my health and came down to help me move but at the time that he came I had no place for him or I too stay.  He also seemed to think that I was constantly high. What he didn't know or understand is that I was in such pain from osteomilitis and it was causing my mood to swing in the extremes.  I didn't know what was happening to me at the time, I just knew that my back was hurting more and more every day and that it wasn't getting any better.  So, without understanding and not being in a position to really help Bobby he moved on to Jacksonville where he is doing fantastic for himself.  I have to say that I am so proud and happy for him.  He is working and has a place to live and is doing really well for himself.  I understand that he recently got back with his ex and I wish him all the luck and good will in the world.

Each and everyone of us takes a stance in life and we look  back at the journey we have taken.  I can almost certainly promise that as we look back on our life that we are never satisfied or happy with the way that things turned out.  Each of us had a different idea and plan as to how our lives were going to.  Funny that they road we took didn't lead us to the destination we had planned for ourselves but took us exactly where we needed to be.  I never thought looking back over 46 years that I would be alone and starting out all over again. I had the career, the dream job, the houses, the cars, everything that I had ever wanted.  But in 2005 thing were going to change my life forever.  I lost my career do to having radiation disease that was stronger than the cancer that I had faced and survived.  This was the changing point in my life, the point where health would take the center stage and dictate every  move and situation that I would find myself in.  Even now, I am trapped in a situation where I am being forced by health stay here in Daytona.  As of last Friday I was told that my health situation was going in the wrong direction.  My kidneys, liver, spleen, bladder, small intestine and part of my stomach have all started to fail. If the labs that I am taking and doing in the morning do not show a vast improvement in kidney and liver functions.  It will be time for dialysis, and the outlook for me surviving that is slim to none, I was also told by the neurosurgeon that it is totally impossible to operate on my back and that I was going to have to live with the pain.  I couldn't have possibly planned a life like this if I had wanted to.  I am not sure that I am ready to put my faith in the hands of the Doctors.  I rather take my chances with God.  See, eight months is not long enough for me to accomplish what I need to do.

I believe that I was given glimpses of my life so that I can correct the wrongs that I had done to other and heal the breaches and rifts that I had created.

See nothing really goes as we plan and life surely never turns out as planned as you can see!

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B