My Strife

A while back I promised to tell what my situation was, and now that things seem a bit more settled I feel I can open up a bit more. Make note that I am not doing this to garner pity, praise, nor anything of the like. It's just facts. Presented as accurately as possible considering some of my issues... one of them being memory loss during and around the initial event. But I digress, here is my deal.

In September of 2009 I had an episode of extreme adema (swelling due to unusual water retention). My legs were so bad that I could barely walk. My scrotum was the size of a grapefruit.... and my feet were so bad that I couldn't barely tell I had toes. I was serious. So I went to the hospital. They put me on a few drugs, and I spent the next week peeing like a fire hose. But it went down, and they figured out what caused it. It was a mistake in one of my medications.

So I go home and all is good until early December when I notice that it is starting again. Foolishly, I decided that I could treat it and stopped taking one of the meds I was on. Well, I stopped taking the wrong one, and it got worse. I was embarrassed and dreading going back to the hospital. The day before Christmas I was rushed to the ER, unable to walk, and fading in and out of consciousness. Eventually, I just blacked out.

The next 5 days were intense. My problem was less about the adema and more about something underlying. It seemed that for some time I had be hypoxic (having a lower then normal level of oxygen in the blood/brain). It meant that my brain was way over it's limit for CO2 and that was damaging my brain. So they put me on a special breathing apparatus and slowly over the course of 2 weeks I started 'waking up'. After another month in the ICU I was sent to a rehab hospital.

My lungs were working at about 25% normal capacity, and I was pretty confused. So, for the next couple months, my lungs eventually recovered. I lost a lot of weight (130 pounds) and I was thinking more clearly. My next challenge was learning how to do things again. I did fine with most of it until I tried to walk.

I have had hip trouble since my teen years when both of my hips were injured and required operations to keep them from falling apart. After those operations, I never walked right again. My hip joint has been disintegrating since then.... so walking would become a very difficult challenge.

I walked, with a walker. But this place I am at, you only get a specific number of days or rehab and if you don't get good enough by then, you have to fight with insurance to get more coverage. I have been here ever since... getting therapy for 6 weeks, then having it canceled, only for me to have to push someone to start it up again.

So when I am depressed, which is most of the time, it more then likely is due to this Hospital I am in. It's more or less a nursing home. Almost all the patients are 80+ years old. Most are also suffering from dementia or Alzheimer or something else. They scream for hours on end. They constantly treat the entire place like their bathroom, and the staff for the most part could care less.

This is an asylum/warehouse for the soon to be departing. Nothing more. Very few leave this place alive, and I am reminded of that time and time again when a roommate of mine dies. In the year and a half that I have been here I have lost count of how many have died in the same room as me. It saddens me to think that I really don't care anymore either.

I don't mean to whine, really I am above all that. But this is as bleak of a situation as I have ever seen and the outcome really can't be good. I try to keep positive, but it really does seem pointless.

When You Just Can't Stop

I know what has happened to get me to this place in my life.  Or I should say I know what things took place, I don't really know what happened.  

I was never a very active person.  Even when I was a kid, I was really a homebody.  I liked all the trappings of living indoors.. like heat, food, TV, plumbing, etc.. So it took a lot for my parents to try to get me to 'Go out and play'.  I was fine with staying in to play, and I showed it.  I was a husky kinda kid, but I was also tall and athleticly built.  I. started playing sports with Little League base ball which I failed at miserably at.  Seems that you can't play baseball if you are chunky.  It's harder to run in the feild and around the bases.  So, they let me pitch.  I took that up and was very good at it, I got to the point where no one wanted to be my catcher becauce I threw the ball way too hard.  Eventually I was cut from the team because they really didn't know what to do with me.  I shrugged and went home to watch TV feeling I had accomplished something.... to not have to go out and play baseball fit me just fine.

Next sport to come along was soccer.  I wasn't particularly good at it, but I was fair at playing defense, so that is where they stuck me.  I say stuck me because I knew being the fat kid that no one wanted me there. This is why I am such a social butterfly as an adult, btw, but more on that some ofher time.  So, I play soccer. I get on a good team even... we win... we win alot. 

Then one crisp Saturday morning in early October I was in a game and my life changed.  Myself and another larger player were both going after the ball.  When we colliged, my leg went one way and the rest of me went the other way.  I got up, and limped to the sideline.  It hurt, like more then anything I had ever felt.  But I was the tough big kid, so I decided it was nothing, and I told no one of the pain.  I had a noticable limp but I just told everyone that it was fine and I was sure it would be okay in a couple days.  Quickly days became weeks, and weeks became months.  I went for a routine physical at my doctor and he noticed my limp and I told him what had happened.  This was 6 months after the injury. He kinda freaked on me a bit and made me go see an othopedist that very afternoon.  Long story short by the next evening I was waking up from my surgery.  My hip had dislocated so badly that 4 pins had to be put into it to hold it together.  I spent the next few months on crutches, angry, bitter, and alone.  Thats when I found my friend.

Food was always there.  No matter how much pain I was in, physically, emotionally... it didn't matter. Food always made things better.  I started eating badly and obviously I wasn't getting much exercise, so I started gaining weight.  I eventually gained enough to make my other hip pop out of joint as well, requiring a similar surgery for that one as well.  After that, all hopes of any real exercise were gone, and I gained more, and more.  I went from being the husky kid that sucked at sports to the massive shut in that left his house pretty much just for school.  I was always embarassed by my appearence.  I took tons of abuse, even after I started loosing it and beating people up, it got better... for a time... but never went away.

Slowly but surely, food got it's hooks into me.  No matter how bad life got, I could always feel a little better when I had a good meal.  I could be alone, and happy with the right menu.  It was a sort of love affair, but like most affairs, the reckoning came.  

I had health problems throughout my life.  I eventually go type 2 Diabeties, Sleep Apnea, and a heart rythm issue from my continued wait escalation.  The entire time I went threw the drugs, the insulin, the nights laying in bed unable to sleep because of my heart palpitations, I never once really blamed it on food.  I blamed it on myself, my genetics, my up bringing, my friends/lovers.... you name it, I could find an excuse.  But all along, food was the one thing that never waivered.

Now, last year I almost died, due to complications with my lungs due mostly to my weight.  I went threw hell, litterally and I am still in a rehab facility trying to recover from it.  My biggest and constant issue is again with food.  I was ok when I was on their menu, eating only what I was given and occassionally stuff friends had brought in for me.  I lost a total of about 130 pounds.  I was proud to tell people this.  I honestly was hoping that I could loose more, and that food was no longer my enemy.  I was wrong.

Near the end of last year one of the staff members here in my facility told me that we were allowed to order food from the outside whenever we wanted.  So, after a couple weeks I decided to try it.  I figured I would get something on occassion as a treat.  So I ordered a little something from the local Dominos, mostly thinking that it wasn't going to be that great but it was something different for a change from the rather poor quality slop they were giving me.  But there was a problem....

It was wonderful! It was like I had never eaten before.  For the first time in a year or so I was full and happy on something I did with no one's help.  That started the terrible downward spiral that I am now in. 

Advance to now.  In the past month and a half, I have gotten food delivered almost every night.  In the past 3 months I have gained back 40 pounds.  I have spent littlerally hundreds of dollars.  Now I realize that all along, food has had control over me, and I am powerless against it.  I know I am killing myself, but frankly I am not sure that I care anymore.  I mean, yes, I care, I want to live... but I don't know how to stop this.  Litterally, I think about food all day. I lay in a bed, thinking of what I will eat that night.

I get physical thereapy every day or not, depending on if anyone wants to show up, and I get 10-20 minutes of bed exercises or to walk with my walker about 30 feet or so and back to my bed.  I would walk more but since it is so inconsistant I am left unable to walk more because of the muscle atrophy and pain.  I so want to get out of this place, but I can't if they do not help me.  But guess what... the food is still there. Staring me into my grave.

The End

So, things are changing here. Everything in my life has come to an end of one kind or another. I am still in the "hospital" trying to get well enough to leave.  In my time here, I have lost much.  I've lost almost all my friends, or at least went from friend to 'some poor guy that I really should talk to more, but he's SO depressing.' Whatever.  

I've lost some people that are very dear to me, in one form or another, and I don't know if I will ever see them again.  I have lost the support of my family, for a much as they 'love' me, they have not raised a finger to do anything to help me.  I guess that is to be expected, after all I am the one that left home first, moved to the other side of the country, and refused to move back.  I guess this is what I get for being so independent.... to have that very save independence stripped away.  

I talk like I know that I can leave this place tomorrow and be fine, but deep down, I do not know for certain.  Far as bad as this place is, at least they are able to keep me alive.  They check my vital signs.  They make sure I take the meds I need.  They help me with more... personal... business that personally I don't know if I could ever do for another human without the though that they probably were better off with a bullet in the head then to suffer this kind of indignity.  I must commend them, even with all the chaos and strife and just utter madness, at least I can say that they took fair care of me.  Some of my nurses in fact have taken excellent care of me, unfortunately, too many of the others were so bad.  They really need to reevaluate life.  If you choose to be a Certified Nursing Assistant, and part of that job is helping people urinate and defecate, then you have to do that, and do it in a professional manner.  It saddens me that not all take it serious.  

The important things...those that make me who are am are lost.  But they are not far.  Someday, when I am back on my feet, I will regain them and be whole again.  I know this to be true just as well as I knew that I would live threw the medical problems I had that put me here.  I am nothing if not a tough mother fucker.  I face a lot of challenges ahead.  But I am here, saying I am ready for them, and I will take them all on, as I always have, facing them.  If you think I have done amazing things in my life, your in for a lot more..... I don't lie down and die for anyone, nor anything.... and I promise to spit my last breath into the eye of the reaper himself.

I couldn't put it better myself....

Oh so true.  Year after year good new shows get cut down before they reach their full potential. So many mindless reality shows are cheaply 'entertaining' people due to their empty sensationalism and fake caring for the welfare of the populace.  

When will people realize that its this empty mockery of 'reality' that is making Hollywood lazy.  Why are there no good unique new movies?  Because fools would rather stay home and watch 'Survivor' or 'Cake Boss' or 'Toddlers and Tiaras' or whatever other drivel the networks pass off as programing these days.  It's lame, people don't spend money to see films, they get crappy  movies.  

Oh but what about Avatar you say?  Avatar is visually spectacular,yes, but the story is old and worn out.  It made some money so that should give us a year or two of possibly decent movies. We can only hope.

This One is for You

Yep, this one is for you. In this case the you is those involved in remaking the A-Team. May they sucketh the big one. Why would someone do this? Really? Is there really that much money in this franchise? They had a popular show for a while but it was SO cheesey! I mean when trucks flipped from an 'explostion', you could clearly see the ramp they hit. The acting was totally over the top. I will admit I loved the show. I was also like 11. Hollywood really needs to start brainstorming and stop taking every crappy old tv show and ruining it's original magic. The A-Team worked because it was cheesey and horribly acted. Now they will take if and fit it into the confines of a Hollywood action blockbuster with huge explosions and possibly decent actors. The Horror.....the horror.....