Dec
19

Recuperating

I thought this surgery was going to be a lot easier since I knew what to expect. That did not turn out to be accurate. This time pain has been more pronounced and the nausea came in with a vengeance.

The drugs help a lot, but they make me drowsy and lethargic.

Overall I am doing very well and I am hearing crackling and bubbling which is normal during healing. I go see the surgeon on Monday and finish the antibiotics the next day. I am hoping to be 100% before Xmas :)

Thank you for all the prayers and good thoughts!

Dec
15

Laugh while I’m out

Friday night I actually went Karaoke… and for the second time in my life I actually got up there and sang with Chimpotle… there is a video of it, but you have to talk to Sponge about getting it posted. I am sure Spyder will have the full details on the fun.

Has everyone seen the Bush shoe incident?

Where was the secret service dude that was supposed to take the bullet for the president? how did the guy get to do two? Is ALL the secret service taking care of Obama and leaving Bush alone? … someone is going to get a talking to.

You have to love Bush’s reflexes, almost like this has happened before… did he have to defend himself from things flying at him before?

And to think that a pretzel almost took him fro us!

Also, tomorrow at 10:00 A.M. I will be in surgery! Prayers and good thoughts welcome :) and also remember to be good to Bea :) I will be passed out and getting cut and lazered (is that a word?)… she will be the one awake and worried. If you have my cell number, you also have hers, just change the last digit to 5. I should be out of surgery around noon.

Dec
11

Parking Lot Wreck

I’m ok, I was not involved at all only a witness. The rise in gas prices got me into a very poor habit, waiting until the gas tank was almost empty to fill up. This is a bad practice for many reasons, and should probably change it again. There are many tips to saving gas and one of them is to fill up more often and not while rushed.

This morning I had to get gas. The weather and my schedule had me procrastinating and I would have made it to work, but probably had to hope the light did not come on in the middle of rush hour coming back home or during lunch. So I decided to get gas in the morning. Left home a little earlier than usual to compensate, but I did not expect how busy the gas station was going to be.

There was snow on the ground still so people were driving like idiots. I have talked about this in the past that for some reason people think snow is less dangerous than rain. When I saw how busy the place was, I almost turned around and went to another gas station. I ended up decided to just simply take the time and just wait there.

Then a rare phenomenon I have never experienced in KC. Parking lot rage. One of our visits to Chicago a fight almost broke out because of people wanting the parking lot we were in. They almost hit our car in the process that day. I avoid busy parking lots like the black plague. I dislike shopping in great percentage because of this reason. Now my view has been cemented, I will avoid busy parking lots at all cost. 90% of the time a shopping trip can be postponed to a better time than having to deal with people fighting over a parking spot.

This rage and this parking lot were a little bit different. Since there were lines at both ends of the pump lines, the rest of the parking lot had less driving space. Not sure if the snow made people blind, but honking to alert people that there was someone behind them that they were about to ram was turning into a full on concert. I partly blame this for what happened next.

Two cars started playing parking lot chicken and instead of taking the available parking spots they seemed to be wanting the same one. They were driving slowly while the honk symphony continued. Then a minivan start backing out without looking. The driver that was pretty boxed in at this point joins the symphony but the lady backing up was tuning it out. I did not have to read lips as the passenger of the car that was about to become crunchy mouthed mother(bleep.) Everyone looked at the guy holding his note now in a solo performance when the crunching noise of bumper on plastic mirror ended the current act.

I debated if I should stay there and be a witness, but there was enough people and fault was pretty clear. I just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. I felt bad for the guy that ended up without a side mirror because they are supper expensive (A lot more than you would think, specially if they have any kind of motor on them, I had to replace one before) and he will now be more of a target for the “popo.”

Dec
09

Steroids

After my last surgery there was a little complication that was addressed very quickly. It was stress related, and what it boiled down to was that one of my nerves was affected. The surgeon put me on antiviral medicines as well as steroids to make sure it healed better. My next surgery is already scheduled and I am going to make sure that I heal better this time before I am around any kind of high stress.

I hated taking steroids. While I know that they did their job healing me up faster and fixing the problem I had, their side effects are just not something I would ever like to feel again. I am not sure how anyone that is taking even a low dosage like I was can every say they had no clue they were given steroids.

Besides the shortened temper, the thing that I disliked the most was the ravenous appetite. Even when I had a full meal and I could not fit any more food into my body, I still felt hungry. It was a very uncomfortable type of hunger also, something I had not experienced before. I have a healthy appetite, but what I felt while taking those was just ridiculous.

They are out of my system completely now and I am glad, but I did come out of it with a good amount of knowledge. I knew before that I have never really experienced true hunger, but this gave me a good indicator of what being really hungry can be like.

I have great will power when it comes to certain things, however food has been my downfall when it comes to weight management. I like to eat. I joke about my metabolism being the only victim of the Y2K, but in reality I have worked out like crazy in the past and seen little results. I know that to get rid of my extra weight in and see quick results I have to starve my body. One thing I have never tried though is a running/walking regimen.

After my next surgery I will have had fasted for a couple of days at least and I am thinking of starting a new food regimen afterward. Not going to eliminate anything from my diet, just reduce portions or anything processed.

It will not be a new years resolution, but rather a life resolution to be healthier now that I am given the chance to have good hearing again. I have been putting some things into place little by little and I am going to try to achieve my goals with a variety of things. I am very thankful that I will continue to be able to hear, now I want to also make sure I do it for a long time.

Dec
04

Having a Story to Tell

I will leave the full movie review of the movie Australia to my wife because she has more to say about that movie genre than I do. I actually have not seen many of the epic classic movies that everyone has in the must see list. I will say that the message I took from the movie resonates louder in my head than I thought a simple philosophical monologue from a movie could. Then I remember that the movie crash also had a similar impact with me on with its opening monologue.

Blogs can make people seem very one dimensional. There are a lot of things that I would like to share, but they do not lend themselves to this format or are too personal either for me or the people involved. Last time I wanted to share something that I felt was very important to think about I was accused of joining a cult. Maybe it has a little to do with the titles of my posts.

The message I took from the movie’s attempt at Hollywood philosophy was that to have a life you have to have a story. To really have a story you have to belong, and to belong you have to have love in your heart. I generalize ideas because I think it makes them accessible to everyone. I think the most powerful message in the world is that love, that intangible thing, is what life is all about. How to obtain love and deal with it by feeling it, giving it, cherishing it… that is the hard part.

This movie takes a step in the right direction by calling it a story. Christians call it the “the walk,” Buddhist call it “the wheel of life,” and I think everyone has the same message of living your life with love in your heart. You have to live your life like you are going to tell the story to someone and you should make Love the protagonist of the story.

Go to top