Successful Rehab through thought, word and deed.

My career plans always focused on working until I was 74. Joe Greer, a guy who was my mentor, worked until he died, and that came during his 74th year. I never knew a guy who loved his work like Joe did nor a man who was liked by so many of the people that he met in the day to day life of his career.

Like Joe, I really liked my career path and was lucky enough to like the guys I worked for during the times that I wasn't self employed. When I was working for Prairie, more often that not, it was a blast to go to work and I had no desire to retire.

Despite the health issues that brought about the inability to stay until age 74, retirement still came. Now that I'm on the 1% survivor list that made it through Glioblastoma, rehabilitation has been the focus of my thoughts.

With the changes of prescription medications that dealt with my brain swelling issues, changes in the side effects occurred. They were good changes. The meltdowns that came until June of 2012, were the most debilitating of all. Now that they're gone, a new feeling about my abilities have surfaced.

I'm not under the illusion that I could call Jay or Woody at Prairie Contractors and announce that I'm well and ready to come back to work. I'm real clear that I'm both disabled and unemployable. Despite that, I realize that my mind still operates somewhat like it used to. I still want to do stuff but the desire to do that and the inability to make that happen, has delivered a strange result. Instead of being down in the dumps or depressed about it, I used Tim Jr's suggestion to: "Pick another target, Dad".

With that in mind, I realized that there were times that existed when my skull wasn't hurting and my brain was functional enough to focus on a number of good things that I'm capable of influencing. As much as anything, that realization allowed me to pick another target and instead of making any attempt to return to work, I decided to return to "thought".

The thought part of that, surrounded helping the Veterans. Those thoughts unfolded into the idea of contacting like minded people to help me do what I can not do myself. More than anything, those contacts have already brought about offers to make introductions to attorneys who are veterans and web site gurus who can help with the formation and function that's needed to contact every Veteran in the Country. Those introductions have provided a path that allows me to play a huge part in the  production of a legally chartered organization that will have the technical capacity to reach out and contact all 22.7 million Veterans.

That may be a far cry from working for Prairie but it's actually every bit as much fun as working for Jay and Woody. In any event, I guess the point here has to focus on the values that come with thoughts, words and deeds that provides one with a gratifying transition from a medically forced retirement into a retirement that is just as productive as full time employment.

Having said these things, I'll invite those of you who are just entering retirement or getting close to it, to get ready for an opportunity to do some pretty fun stuff when you aren't out traveling the world or doing some of the other things you've seen as your retirement dreams.

Sooner than later, the paper work will be done and the beginning stages of building the web site will get underway. Get ready. More to come..