I stint can't sleep!!!

What a nightmare!  I bet even Freddy Krugger hates stints in the esophagus.  This little bugger has me in so much pain that I can barely stand it.  It toys with me too.  I get to this point when I think I can just fall asleep and then BAH-WAMO!  The chest pains kick into overdrive and my throat starts burning.  I'm even jacked up on morphine and acid reducers.

Think that's bad?  Let me introduce you to an old friend, "The Heave Monster"  You remember that nasty cus don't you?  That feeling you get just before the contents of your guts come out of your mouth with Exorcist intentions.  Yeah!  That bugger.  Well let him hang out with a stint for a while.  WOW!  What a difference that makes.  You have no control over your stomach reflexes or the throat for that matter.  If it wants out it's gonna try, and fail miserably.  It's funny how this works.  You feel like you are about to blow chunks (I'm not talking about the clown either you sick bastards), then...NOTHING!!!  There you are positioned over the porcelain altar and everything is good to flow.  Nope, you feel that rise come up and then what feels like pressure build up and just when you think it's time to explode, it all settles down and just burns the throat and your chest starts to hurt real bad.  You pound on your chest, you jump up and down, you jerk around like a madman, and repeat steps one and two, then you cuss the damn dog for getting under your feet, and you stare at the innocent lady sleeping on the couch with a look that would probably scare the shit out of her if she woke up at that moment.  Then it all settles down and you feel like passing out, but wait there's more!  Just when you are about to fade to black; the hiccups start and the process starts all over again.

That my friends is how it has been all night.  I think I will just sit on the couch and read a Predator book that I picked up and see what happens.  Either I will get pretty far in the book and not remember a damn word of it, or I will remember, or I will fall asleep and deal with the burning throat when I wake up.  Last night I fell asleep on the couch all propped up and suffered when I woke up.  My wife said I looked peaceful and stuff when she got up and went to work.  Maybe that will work again.

This stint thing does have it's benefits though.  I'm not sure what the hell they are yet, but the doctors told me it's the last ditch effort before a feeding tube gets installed.  I haven't eaten anything all day.  I've drank Ensure and other supplemental drinks just to get the protein and vitamins that I need.  So I know that I am not just withering away with hunger pains.  Hell No!  I looked at myself in the mirror the other night in the hotel room, boy don't do that with a full body mirror (unless you're a hot ass model) and expect to see anything good.  I saw a skinny ass person standing in front of me with what looked like skin sucked tight over some bones.  I wonder if they need a toothless zombie on "The Walking Dead" show?  It wouldn't take much to kill it, just let it gum a body and starve.  I guess that wouldn't be active enough for a show.  It would be funny as hell to watch for a minute though.

Damn here we go again,  I'll be back!  Thank the maker for Lysol Click Gels (the toilet bowl cleaner)!  Those little bastards help keep the nasty aroma of the shitter down to a minimum, when you have your face bobbing in and out of the area!  All that heaving and no blood.  A damn good thing if you ask me.  It hurt just as bad as slamming your pinky finger in the car door, or getting your genitalia caught in a zipper.  A sharp quick pain that fades away in a little while and leaves one with a hell of a reminder.  Fold, tuck, shimmy, pull, or whatever you feel like doing just so you don't do that again. Except that I don't know what the hell I'm doing to make this happen.

I know my wife is sleeping good, I wish I could sleep like that.  She fell asleep on the couch and then went to bed and I swear that she damn near didn't miss a beat in the snoring category.  Funny thing about my wife and her snoring.  If she reads this she will probably kick my ass, but it is funny.  One night she fell asleep with a tommy problem.  I swear to you that this actually happened.  I shit you not!  She would snore loudly while inhaling and then when she exhaled, she would give out a little toot and say "cuse me" in a little voice and she repeated that for over an hour with each breathe.  You gotta love a woman that could accomplish making you laugh while she sleeps.  There is a sort of simplicity to life when you experience those moments.  "Snore, fart, cuse me"  Oh my, just thinking about that moment helped with the pain, or maybe it's the morphine.  I know that my wife is struggling with this stuff as well.  She sometimes has to go into another room when she sees me having trouble like what I described earlier.  There is nothing she can do to help or to ease the pain, and she knows it.  It bugs the hell out of her.  I know that it would piss me off, if I were in that situation.  At least at the moment she is not having to deal with it.  I watch her sometimes when she sleeps.  She looks so peaceful and content with the world.  I have no idea how she is dealing with all of this and not blowing up.  I'm not gonna say I'm expecting her to blow up, she has dealt with a lot of shit in her life, and I believe she has the mindframe to pull through this as well.  Don't get me wrong here.  I know that she is venting to someone when I can't hear her.  I would do the same if I were in her shoes.  A person has to vent.  Whatever she is doing, I hope she is able to continue to do it throughout this treatment.

I guess that will do it for the night.  I just had another spell in the throne room and this time I feel really tired.  So I'm going to try and get some sort of rest.  Have a good weekend folks and hopefully I get to see some of you soon.

It's Stint Time

Well I had a stint installed yesterday at the University of Utah. They placed it over the tumor (which has grown 3cm and is now 9cm long) and into my stomach. So hopefully in a few days I will be able to eat again. We have been in Salt Lake City most of the week. We arrived on Monday and will be leaving for home Friday morning. What a week it has been. The other night I walked into a Wal-Mart and was denied entry. I had on my Chemo bag and was told that I had to take it off or leave the store. I did talk to the assistant manager the next morning. She apologized for the employee's actions and told me that I was allowed in. I plan on writing a formal complaint to HQ when I get home. Some people just don't have the ability to show customers any curtacy when it comes to medical care. The lady that night was rude and like my wife said,  she profiled me as a thief. To think that she greets all medical patients with a bag connected to them this way is appalling. I went to a different store, and it just got robbed as I was walking in. The guy at the door asked me to place my bag in a locker. When I told him what it was he apologized and said to come on in. He politely handled the situation even after watching a man run from the store with a hand cart full of stuff.
Wal-Mart's Facebook page for that particular store apologized to me online and told me to come to the store and talk with the management. Which I have done. They apologized and told me that the associate will be told to let people with a bag hooked up to them is allowed in the store. I intend on writing HQ about it. Some people need more practical advice on customer service before they are dealing with them without supervision. Some people need to be recognized for their customer relations as well. I have most of the information that I need to write HQ a letter.
Anyways....
I woke up this morning with a case of severe heartburn. Hoochie momma! I sucked on some antacids and got the burn to chill a bit. So for the next few days I will have to be careful on what I eat. I should be able to eat normally by Monday. That will be just #buttmunchiecrunchy
We watched a couple movies while here. The Witch wasn't as good as the trailer made it out to be (2.5/7). Gods of Egypt was ok (5/7). The best time on this trip was spent with my wife on Wednesday. We went to the Clark Planetarium and the Leonardo Museum. We have memberships to them and the zoo thanks to some friends.  So we try to check them out while we have some down time.
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a good weekend.

Sickness and Ideas

One thing about having cancer is that getting things set up is an ongoing process.  I could see why some people chose to just deal with cancer on their own terms.  There is a lot of paperwork.  I bet We've done enough paperwork to supply a small army with ass wipe for a month.  What's funny about it is that if I fill out the forms, then I'm sure a mental hospital will eventually get involved.  Who really puts alien abductions and skittle farting unicorns onto medical forms?  Well I do.  I get so bored with some of these forms that I have to add some humor to them.  Come on!  Why ask a person, "Why do you think you have cancer?"  When a person is going through this shit, one tends to forget about all the other shit in life that use to get your panties in an up roar.  I don't have to deal with the crap I use to simply because I don't do a lot of stuff anymore.  I wouldn't say I miss those things.  I do miss leaving the house every morning.

OK here's a typical day.  You don't really want to laugh too hard, or have a sneeze fit, or the hiccups.  When those things arrive, you better be close to a shitter or have on depends.  The slightest jolt could send another sensation to your drawers or possibly through them.  Have you ever been so sick or disoriented that you don't know if your gonna puke, shit, piss, sneeze, or blow chunks everywhere while sitting on the throne?  Well I have.  It's not a fun scenario but at least I found some humor in it while lying on the bathroom floor.  A new invention idea popped into my head recently.  Add a garbage disposal to a tub.  That way when you feel like what I described above, you can lay in the tub and just the good times flow.

Another thing one should do is have someone else to talk to about ideas.  When your brain is on so many different drugs and stuff, your ideas may seems cool at the moment, but they really do suck.  Imagine a world if you will, where all vehicles had shitters in them.  What a smelly road we would travel on.  I thought of this while on the road and not really knowing where we were.

Hopefully you guys had a good laugh.

An old song redone...

Hello Internet, my old friend.  I’ve come to talk to you again.  Because a vision softly creeping, left its seeds while I was sleeping.  The vision that was planted in my brain still remains.  Within the sound of keystrokes.  In restless dreams I browsed alone.  A shallow screen of a darker tone.  Beneath the halo of a dim lamp, I turned my collar to the cold and damp.  When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a LCD light, that split the night, and touched the sound of keystrokes.  In the naked light I saw Ten thousand people, maybe more.  People talking without speaking.  People hearing without listening.  People writing words that voices never share, and no one dared disturb the sound of keystrokes.  “Fools,” said I, “You do not know, silence like a cancer grows.”  Hear my words that I might teach you.  Take my arms that I might reach you.  My words like silent raindrops fell and echoed in the posts of silence.  People bowed and prayed, to the LCD God they made.  The screen flashed out it’s warning, in the words that it was forming.  The screen said, “The words of the Prophets are written on the subway halls and Facebook walls and whispered in the sound of silence…

That is a rendition of Paul Simon’s “Sound of Silence.”  I decided to share this version with you, because the original was written in 1963 - 1964 and it fit the scene then.  So to fit in the world today a few things needed to be changed.  Especially when dealing in the form of communication that we tend to default to today.  Last night as I was lying in bed, I was thinking about the stuff I saw online.  Of course I was listening to music.  The version of this song I heard was by Disturbed.  I began to ponder on the song and how it seemed to fit the mood on Facebook.  Many people post things on that website, that probably shouldn’t be shared worldwide.  Yet we do so, and we do it more frequently than we speak with our mouths.  In essence the sound of silence is replaced with the sound of keystrokes.  The darker tones that people share online cast a shadow over the enlightened words of encouragement.  Stop and look at the screen while on Facebook and you will see that most of the encouraging messages are written on pictures or drawings that are shared.  The same could be said about the negative messages.  We went from a social society of meeting friends in places to talk about the trials of life, to one that would rather copy and paste pictures and drawings of short messages from behind a screen.  When we use to talk to others face to face, we could see the meaning as well as feel it.  Now we are left to interpret the meaning on our own.  Sometimes that message is interpreted wrong, and we get offended by the lack of attention we intended to receive.

I see people trying to spread good messages, but they are shrouded by asking people to “Like, Share, and Reply with a certain word.”  What is sort of funny about this is that a bunch of us use a device that could be used to actually hear the other person’s voice, but we’d rather post on Facebook or use the same device to send a text message one after another to hold a conversation for several minutes.  Don’t people miss the sound of a friend’s or loved one’s voice?  The personal interaction has evolved from a physical one to a hidden one.  Let me explain that a little more.  We use to have to leave the comfort of our home to go visit a sick friend or family member.  Once there we could talk about our lives and see the other person’s reactions as we spoke.  Now all we have to do is get online and write on their Facebook wall or send them a text message.  Our physical reactions as we communicate this way are hidden, the other person never gets to see it, unless they are right there next to us as we send the message (which I have seen a group of people sitting at a table talk to each other without ever speaking a word).  I’ve seen this sort of behavior seep into other aspects of life as well.  I know several people that are old enough to get a Driver’s license put off getting one.  I use to think it had to do with laziness, but now I see that it has more to do with the way we interact with others.  We don’t need to have a vehicle to visit others.  All we need is a device to send messages, and we can do so while lying naked in bed or on the shitter and no one would be the wiser.

Motivation is key.

The deal with waiting is the questions begin to emerge in different ways.  I still haven't heard anything.  My Dr. said that the pains should be getting better and not worse.  So what does that mean?  Only time will tell.  This morning I have the opportunity to listen to my music channel on SiriusXM.  I haven't heard that channel in a long time.  I use to jam to it at work.  I miss those days.

So today I feel like crap.  I feel like I have the flu.  I don't have a temperature or anything, so that is good.  I don't need to see a doctor today....knock on wood.  I hope this passes soon.  I have some stuff that I would (no need) to get done.  I don't think I need help today.  If I do I will call people.  So since I got my jams working in the house (finally!), I might be able to get motivated in the right direction.  Music has helped me in the past.

So what do you guys do to get motivated?

I'm also going to shave!  Damn this mug is getting pretty hairy and itchy!  I kissed my wife and my whiskers poked her...LOL.  The grey is kinda cool, but the patchy stuff is wrong.  IS that the chemo?  Who knows.  I'm losing the hair on my noodle.  I think that has more to do with age then chemo.  Oh yeah...Papa Roach!

Alright I'm out of here.  If I hear from the doc, I'll let you all know.

A mixed up round.

So this round trip took an extra day.  Not because of the weather like in the past.  It was due to having to retake a scan.  I had a scan done in Casper, WY.  The images my Dr. got were out of focus, only in one view, and the place that did the scan didn't even have me take any contrast or dye.  Thier report said that chemo is working.  My Dr. asked me about the pains I was having.  I told him that the pains are getting worse and that eating is getting harder to do.  So he asked me to stay another day to re-take the scan.  I should know more about that tomorrow.  To add insult to injury, I forgot my chemo pump back home.  I had to wait for a guy to bring me a new one.  It took several hours to get to me, and I'm very grateful that he got to me at all.  The folks out of the Rock Springs IV place are just as awesome as those in Huntsman.

I hate not knowing how the tests went.  The waiting sucks major ass.  I know that I will get some news in the next few days.  Is it good or bad or do things look the same?  I thought about what it could mean if the pain is getting worse and eating is getting harder, but what do I do or say when the Dr. says the scans look good?  I've told him my concerns and he said he would look into it.  So at least I won't be in the dark too long.

The money is starting to get low now.  I no longer have medical insurance through BCBS.  All I have to rely on right now is IHS.  Which is helping.  We have to get an OK from them to do anything right now, and I'm sure that one day soon they will say no.  They've said it before.  I have filed for disability (not sure if I qualify).  I will be talking to them again in the near future.  I also have an appointment with my financial counselor through Huntsman tomorrow.  Hopefully things work out.

This round has left me doing a lot of questioning.  Maybe it's the chemo brain effect, maybe not.  WHat I do know is that my body is telling me it hurts.  It sucks to know that I won't be able to do much tomorrow, especially without any pain medication, which I do have.  I have to rely on the stuff just to get dressed and out of bed.  This isn't like dealing with the pain from an injured spine.  I wish that was all I had to deal with, at least I was able to work with that.  Not this shit.  Cancer has changed my life in many ways that I thought it could never do.  I have to depend on others to do things like drive me places, help with household chores, and even remind me to do stuff.  I feel like a worthless prick on the days that I just lay on the couch or in bed and do nothing.  Those days are increasing as well.  When will that end?  I know, when I get passed the cancer bullshit.

On the brighter side of things, I have a good team looking after me, and we are all communicating on the next steps (even though we have to wait for results) to take next time.  So I know that things will workout.  I pray a lot for my family and friends.  I seldom pray for myself, it just kinda feels wrong to do.  I've asked God to do a lot for me in the past.  So I kinda keep it on the down low, since cancer is more important than making it to a fucking movie or living till a cd comes out.  That's the kinda shit I use to ask for.  So yeah, it feels too selfish to ask for a cure to cancer at this point.  Right now the feelings of my family are more important.  So I try to make them laugh, since I already made them cry.  I'm not putting up a front with them, I'm being honest with them.  I just hate to see them cry or suffer.  A quality I wish more people in my life had.  I know some people that put themselves before anybody else.  I wish they could see how that is hurting the ones that love them deeply.  It won't until they walk across a bridge that they will never get to cross again.  By that time it might be too late to fix any problems.  I know a bunch of selfish fuckers too.  Everything they have or do is better then anyone else and there is nothing that anyone can do better then they can.  Well I've got a challenge for them, get cancer fucker and see how you do!  Not that I wish this shit on anyone!  But hey, fuck it, if I can do this and I'm an average guy; then an almighty bastard should cruise through this with no issues.

Sorry for the language tonight.  I'm just a tad bit pissy and yes I have chemo pumping through me right now.  Is that an excuse?  OK, maybe not.  I get it.  Maybe I'm just tired.  Now don't get rude with me on the subject.  That's kinda the point of this blog right?  To tell it like it is.  I'm just trying to share my thoughts and feelings here.  I will say this though; I've heard from people recently, that I haven't heard from in a long time.  I didn't mean that in a bad way.  No!  I mean that in a good way.  We all have our own lifes to live.  Our paths have gone different ways.  So since I started this blog, I have been in contact with people that I normally wouldn't have.  It's kinda nice.

OK my blog is messing up tonight, something about saving to the server.  SO I'm going to end for the night and publish this and see how it goes.  SO if you can't read the last part, then you'll just have to wait until I fix it.  OK here goes......LAST PART!!!!!  LOL.