Don't Over Do It

I've created a little concern in my family that I might overdo it now that I've been given a bit of freedom from the hospital. I know that it's easy to fall into a daily concern for your loved ones as they watched me sitting on the hot seat like I was at the time. I clearly understood what it was like for them to wake up every day wondering if this was the last day.

From my perspective, after wondering the same thing myself, my recently found reprieve from death by brain cancer, sparked the need I have to catch up to all the things I've wanted to do since the tumor was found on June 22, 2009. Give or take a little, that's been almost 39 months back.

I had a tremendous amount of "inside information" that was given to me by Guy Kinnebrew, a high school buddy that works at the VA in Shreveport. Guy gave me a booklet that had all kinds of stats in it about Glioblastoma and the survival rate of those who had it. I'll admit that it wasn't pretty and a 95% fatality rate wasn't anything to ignore or be in denial of, but Guy and I both began to look at the 5% that made it passed the 12 month mark and from there, I began to chase the twelve month and one day mark.

I never did buy into the thought that I was in denial about my condition. When you have a skull saw cut a hole in your skull the size of a baseball and a brain surgeon removes part of your right temporal lobe with the tumor, denial is impossible to exist. The pain was something I'd never experienced before even with history of breaking my arm when I was in the 9th grade.

I had 64 metal clips attached to my skull with 32 metal clamps that forced my skull back to it's original shape. One day, when I sneezed in Joey's front yard, I experience a level of pain that I'd never imagined possible. It was like someone had stabbed me in the head with an ice pick. There's an experience that rules out denial.

I had a picture taken of the clips and sent it out in an email to everybody on my email list. I wanted everybody to know that there was no way in the world that anybody could be in denial about that and experiencing the pain myself, made it impossible for me to not know where I was and what I was  going through.

I knew that I looked like hell and that losing 54 pounds during chemo and puking my stomach inside out during the time frame when chemo was underway, was the only visual reality that existed for everybody in my family.

Despite that, I still had the feeling inside that the chemo and radiation wasn't going to last forever and that after a few months, I wouldn't be getting the daily shots of radiation and the almost hourly trips to the nausea department. Eventually, all that went away and even though I still looked like hell, I wasn't puking anymore and I was gaining weight.

Now that all of that is behind me, I wanted to do something to make up for all the things I wasn't able to do since the brain surgery. Friends and family have told me that the greatest thing I did during that time was surviving and that I don't need to go back and make up for lost time.

I guess I don't have a come back reply to that except to say that it's real easy to think that way when you've never been forced to sit on the edge of the bed for 3 years.

Having said all that, I plan go back to the hospital and begin my physical therapy and leg strength exercises that will hopefully put the swing back in my walk. I've already stopped using the walking cane and I feel better about the picture of me walking up-right and without the stagger that comes from atrophy.

I guess that's about it for today. Just wanted ya'll to settle in to the idea that I'm working hard to return to some degree of physical normalcy but I'm not overdoing it. Forget the mental part, I have a doctor's excuse and I plan on riding that as far as it will take me.