Tag Archives: life

Denial, Vanity, Faith & Freedom

I have a paralyzing fear of doctors and hospitals.  I’m convinced that if I avail myself to examination, invariably disease, illness and likely death will follow.  Intellectually I understand this is irrational and yet I pride myself on being a rational man.  Nevertheless, I suffer under this enigma and struggle, even today, as I vacillate between what I know to be reasonable thought and action and that other world of inaction and dismissive denial.  I manage somehow to live in both worlds.

With my emotional dilemma as a backdrop, I begin this up until now untold story of my health care journey, reluctant in the telling because I am fiercely private, but important in the understanding that it might help others in similar circumstances.  Or maybe, more likely I suffer this unreasonableness alone.

In 2016, I grew tired of looking down and seeing the unsightly protrusion of what I came to understand was a condition called an “umbilical hernia”.  In more common terms, this condition causes your belly-button to pop out.  When combined with what is commonly known as a “beer-belly”, (which I was and am reluctantly fighting and yet cultivating), it made the overall condition rather unattractive.  I have been an active athlete all of my life and because I wanted to retain that level of activity, I conjured up all of the courage I could muster in order to visit with a surgeon who would relieve me of this condition.  Full-disclosure:  I was also highly motivated by no small dose of vanity and the come-to-find-out unrealized solution to my protruding gut.  The surgery fixed the belly-button but I was still stuck with the belly.

The surgeon dutifully visited me upon recovery and informed me that although he had successfully repaired my hernia, during the process unusual amounts of fluid were taken from my abdomen and additional testing was required.  I was scanned, examined and probed and told that it was very likely that I had lymphoma.  A few days later, after visiting with the oncologist it was all confirmed; stage 3-to-4 follicular lymphoma.

Aggressive chemotherapy was to begin, 6-courses of treatments three-weeks apart.   Good-bye hair, good-bye weight, and good-bye what was heretofore known as a daily and routinely expected quality of life free from illness.  Until it is taken from you, that assumption of good health as a guarantee is a life-changing adjustment in attitude.

The entirety of the experience completely reinforced that irrational side of my psyche concluding that the hernia operation somehow caused the cancer yet the rational me did come to terms with the reality that the hernia surgery actually saved my life, thanks to my own vanity.

So obviously I recovered, but the recovery wasn’t the typical story-book of ringing the bell to celebrate my last treatment and being ordained as “Cancer-Free”.  For me it was that purgatory of in-between.  The doctors were puzzled that they didn’t completely get rid of my cancer, but regardless, I was seemingly in remission and symptom free.  Now my world became that of the endless follow-ups, never allowing for the certainty of relief and again, playing right into my worst, irrational fears that were now becoming real.

The uncertainty is by far the hardest part.  I began to live life in segments, gleefully unburdened of my fears by a positive doctor visit or a lab test result that catapulted me into good spirits for about a single day and then turned back into the grim reminder that my good fortune is measured in the time frames between medical exams.  I feel like nothing can harm me, especially early on during those “good-news” times, but the shelf-life of that comforting certainty is short and quickly replaced with doubt, fear and a gloominess hard to describe unless you have experienced it yourself.  My life is lived in narrow slices of time.

My local, community health care providers were, I’m sure, happy to hand me off to the regional cancer research-university facility that would address the “in-between” condition of my illness.  And so began the 2-hour car rides back-and-forth to Rochester, NY in order to get a higher level of expertise and to hopefully address and arrest this limbo of not quite having cancer, but being threatened by it’s reoccurrence.

For the first few years, visits, tests, scans and exams were regularly 6-months apart.  For a guy like me, this is what that looked like.  After leaving a Rochester visit and being told that everything was stable and unchanged, I would be on cloud-nine.  The car-ride back would be joyful, the air cleaner and crisper, the sky bluer, the conversations, more important, more meaningful.  This state of glee would last for a few days and then normalcy would return, the reality that my life was rewarded to me by my doctors, but only rationed out to me in 6-month portions.

As that date on the calendar for the next visit loomed large, the dread, the fear, the anxiety welled up inside of me.  I turned always to God for relief, and most times I was rewarded for my faith.  But other times, my self-doubts overwhelmed me and the silent, solitary struggle commenced a terrible cage-fight between courage and despair.  The terrifying reality to me was the fact that in that instance, I had to endure this alone, there was no one to solve this, no one to save me, it was me facing my own fears, my own mortality, my own test of faith.  I could not do it without God.

It took me a number of years to get more-or-less comfortable with my relationship with the Rochester caregivers.  The anxiety lessened to some small degree, but that old, irrational fear of more care yielding more bad-news and illness never completely disappeared.  It sounds stupid to say this, even as I write it and look at my own words, but it is the reality of what bounces around inside of my head.

And so finally, we get to the point several years ago when my providers agree that my situation has now evolved into a nearly 8-year remission and the prognosis seems promising and stable, so we go from a 1-year to a 2-year follow-up plan.  Again, the elation at the moment is hard to fully transmit to someone what has not experienced it.  In my mind, this has guaranteed me a disease free slice of life that just got thicker by a whole year!  I was bullet-proof, at least until this September.

I scheduled my CT scan for that 2-year follow-up.  My doctor in Rochester tells me that although there is no indication of any changes regarding my lymphoma condition, the scan has discovered something else.  Something is growing on my thymus.  (I had to Google it)  After a biopsy, sure enough it was cancerous and it, along with the thymus itself had to be removed.  Here we go again with the reinforcement of the irrational yet ironically, this time the follow-up scan for the lymphoma may save my life from an otherwise undiagnosed and symptom-free cancer that is totally unrelated. 

My surgery in late November was successful, except that the growth had penetrated into my pericardium as well as one lung.  Because of this, radiation is required and I start that course of treatment tomorrow, daily sessions, 5-days a week for 6-weeks.  Just like I did with the chemo, I plan on simply integrating this regiment into my normal day; treatment at 8AM, then to the YMCA for a light workout/shower, breakfast and then begin my day.

I don’t know what I’m in for, but I’m all in because I know that God has equipped me.  I’ve been saved twice in spite of my best efforts to ignore reality and then the Lord made it right. 

Here I go again and as always, thankfully shrouded in His everlasting protection.  Thank you Lord.

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Mixed Signals

All of my friends and colleagues were shocked and puzzled by my opinion about the ongoing saga concerning Kilmar Abrego Garcia and as you can see, (if you care anymore), it seems that I am right.  He is still here, even after presidential efforts to disappear him. 

Even after a carefully orchestrated and relentless character assassination campaign with zero proof, the Great Unwashed of the minimally informed that seek validation over truth have made up their small minds.  With the senseless murder of an innocent young girl followed by Charlie Kirk’s assassination days later, for many, the weight of the news cycle buries and paves over their desire to retain information or even muster up the will to care.

Fully armed and sure of their logical purity, I would ask the gang of “the-very-sure” that have the Garcia thing all figured out to consider the following.

Some few days ago, federal agents raided a Hyundai plant in Georgia and arrested some 300 Korean nationals on site.  After nearly a week of involuntary jail incarceration, the administration did an about-face, releasing all 300 and providing charter air service back to Korea.  Come to find out, upon further investigation, these detainees all had B-1 visas, allowing them to be in the US legally.

Trump originally declares they are here illegally.  A week later, he invites them to stay.

These men were engineers here to build the state-of-the-art car manufacturing plant.  Now, completion times have been moved back dramatically.  What Korean engineer in his right mind wants to visit America after this fiasco?

Nobody understands and lives by the mantra of, I would rather ask for forgiveness than seek permission that I do, but expedience needs to be curtailed by the rule of law and the Constitution when it come to human rights and the lives of people.  Those who look the other way or excuse Trump on the basis of what he can get done quickly need to square in their own minds the fact that when those they oppose do similar contradictory things, the scrutiny is higher.  This is the definition of a hypocrite.   

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Disconnected

NYS Governor Hochul (of all the unlikely people) demonstrated long over-due leadership by banning student cell phone use in public schools.  This begs the question of why local leaders controlling the 731 school districts throughout NYS failed to do so on their own?  Who in God’s name thought it wise to provide kids with another distraction or way to cheat?  Maybe with test scores being so abysmal, school officials hoped that the cell phone induced cheating would improve their numbers?

Did any of the geniuses that manage our schools really believe cell phones would have no negative effect?  As it stands, kids are completely intoxicated by their phones.  For many, their social skills suck, they can’t carry on a reasonable conversation and their attitudes, well they suck as well.

History is a fine teacher and I’m old enough to have a historical perspective based on my own experience and I can tell you this, with certainty.  The overwhelming majority of school leaders from 50+ years ago would have banned cell phones from day one.  This is because back then, leaders actually led.  They didn’t  wait for legislation, regulation or questionnaires to know what was smart and what was stupid and allowing cell phones in schools is on its face stupid.  What passes for leadership in schools today is little more than cowardly custodianship.

Waiting to be told what anyone with a pulse knew was a problem and then applauding the effort demonstrates how leaderless our schools actually are.  You see, the youngest members of the educational establishment just coming aboard are also from the cell phone dynasty and have the same social issues and screen addictions as their students.

And to cap off what is already a colossal joke, the governor allots $13.5 for phone storage bags.

Seriously?

Again, common sense goes something like this.  Kids, you have 3 choices when it comes to your phones.  1.  Leave them home, (best choice.)  2.  If you drive, leave it in your car.  3.  Leave it in your locker with the ringer off.  There you go, common sense solution and $13 million saved.

What the hell is wrong with these people?  This is the best we’ve got?  Talk about phoning it in….  

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The Unspeakable Truth

Conservative ask, “What do they, (Liberals) want, what’s the end-game” when attempting to analyze their policies, practices and motives.

It is this.

Control, Revenge, Punishment, Domination.

Today’s liberals deplore personal freedom because it defies the want of their desire for oversight and control.  Preferred is a Master Plan that usurps the individuals for the greater good of the entire group.  Individual freedom is impossible to control and monitor and therefore needs to be suppressed and eliminated.  The basis for this level of control is that the over-Lords believe they are smarter than the hoards.  In their need for self-justification, liberals feel that these great unwashed masses, for their own good, need to be managed by the benevolent intelligentsia they think that they are.

Our founders were rich, white, slave-holding men and therefore have no moral authority.  This allows for the attacks on our Constitution and is essential to justify the dismantling of America.

The USA has been too white, too male, too rich, too fortunate and too dominate.  We stole this land from the Indians, we used slaves to enrich ourselves, we killed millions in Imperialist wars, marginalized women and dropped the atomic bomb on civilians.

Liberals have opened the borders and looked the other way while the gradual browning of America takes place and with it, in theory, millions of new liberal voters.  White men are vilified and systematically replaced with affirmative action candidates that represent a higher degree of importance on checking off boxes than actual competence.

Inflation, purposefully foolish monetary policy, confiscatory tax-policy, manipulated interest rates and energy policies designed to be very costly are all intended to steal our wealth.  “Fair Share” tax schemes fleece the wealthy while the Earned Income Tax Credit pays the poor back much more than they contributed.  We pay people to be lazy while strangling the producers, innovators, entrepreneurs and risk-takers with regulations, prohibitions and artificial barriers.

Once personal transportation ends, and it will if we go 100% electric, with it goes our freedom of movement.  Add to that a digitized currency and all personal freedom is gone.  Anonymity passes into history and everything you do and everywhere you go becomes data.  Once we become a part of a vast database, that data can be parsed, analyzed, manipulated sold and reorganized.

When the people who deplore personal freedom have enough data about you to know everything, you too will be manipulated.  Digital currency divulges your diet, drinking habits, whereabouts, wants and whims.  Your cell phone provides constant location monitoring and your vehicle calculates your speed, accuracy and efforts to thwart the laws of the road.  Privacy dies side-by-side with freedom and the world is a more predictable place for sure, however not a world in which I care to live.

Personal freedom is the bedrock of the fully actualized human experience and we are on a path that exchanges that necessity for the oppressive pit of damnation brought to you courtesy of the liberal notion of perfection by domination.

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