Treading Lightly

One of my favorite movie lines is from the movie Con air. It is about bad convicts who are being transported on an airplane, and while in air, they take over the plane. After taking control, they are playing the song Sweet Home Alabama on a radio. The character played by Steve Buscemi looks at the character played by Nicolas Cage and says, "define irony, a bunch of convicts singing and dancing on a plane by a band that died in a plane crash". I have my own definition of irony. The first day of a long awaited spring, and it's freezing cold and snowing. Gotta love it. Me and my guys got to spend over an hour standing on the highway last night, after people decided to start playing bumper cars on the frozen bridges. Come on warm weather!

I am going to to go in a different direction. They are subjects with which I will tread lightly. Most of you who know me know that I don't get too involved in political banter, try not to rail too much about the going's on in the world, and try to mostly mind my own business in general. But the last few weeks things have happened and are happening in this world that give me pause. The first is Washington. I never cease to be amazed at what they do. I am fully convinced that there is some sort of alien bubble around them that prevents their return to reality. I will keep most of my personal opinions about them, and the health care bill, and the president, to myself. What I will say is as a working, tax paying American, I do not like what I see and hear coming from Washington. We are headed in a bad direction. Then there is the Southern Baptists'. I have mostly lost touch with them and what they do or don't do. But Kenneth Star as the president of Baylor University? Really? I won't even go into that. Then my current favorite is the Tulsa County Sheriff attempting to take control of local Police Departments in an attempt to create a metro department. Make no mistake, it is basically a hostile take over where the municipal officers like me have no say at all. I would love to go into all the details and how I feel about it but that would take an entire book to cover it all. What I will say is that it is simply an attempt by the Mayor of Tulsa and the Sheriff to gain more control and power, and destroy the Fraternal Order of Police in Tulsa County. It will cause good, hard working Police Officers to lose their jobs and their retirement pension for no other reason than power and control by political leaders who are power hungry. The cities we work for are not broke. One of the cities affected has had the best and fastest growing sales tax income in Tulsa County for the last year or more. We as Officer's are very much afraid that we could be unemployed sometime over the next two years, for no other reason than power and money. Period. It is a scary and sobering possibility.

So, I know some of you may be asking, where did this all come from? I came home the other day, after hearing the news about the Sheriff's plans, and after a not so good day at work, and was very scared and angry. My thoughts were two fold. What is it about power that makes people loose touch with reality? The saying power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, keeps running through my head. It seems to me that more and more we seem to be losing the freedoms this country was founded on. I hate to sound like some sort of extremist because I am not, but at some point when do I say enough is enough and become at least more active in saying enough is enough. I was having a conversation with a friend the other day. He said something very interesting. He said his wife looked at him and asked him, when was the last time you prayed for our government? It took me back for a moment. I haven't done that in a very long time. I think I will start. I think we all need to. I really will stop before I voice too many of my personal opinions.

The second, and more pertinent thought for me, was control. Another one of my favorite movie lines is from "Day's of Thunder". Nicole Kidman's character tells Tom Cruise's character, "control is an illusion you infantile egomaniac". It always hits me between the eyes. Control. One of the biggest lesson's I have learned in life is just how little control I have. Sure I can control if I go to work or not, or if I wash the car or not, or if I put the trash out. But I cannot ultimately control the weather, what goes on in Washington, or Tulsa County, or cancer. I went through a rough period in life several years ago and one of the biggest lessons that I had to work on was control. I began to understand that I cannot control people. No matter how bad I want to, no matter how hard I try, I cannot control people and what they do or say. I also cannot control life and what goes on. I had to begin to learn how to take care of me and my decisions, and let go of everything else. Don't get me wrong, I am not very good at it. But what I began to learn, and have been reminded of lately, is that control is somewhat of an illusion. And if I spend my time upset, mad, or worrying about things I ultimately cannot control I am waisting my precious time and energy. When you get that "phone all" from the doctor who says "I don't normally do this over the phone but in your case time is of the essence", you have cancer, you learn a lot about control! So I have had to step back, take a deep breath, and do my best to give these things that are going on to God and trust they will work out. Besides if I did have that kind of control I would probably just mess things up even worse. God knows better then me for sure.

On the health front. Not much new. I have had pneumonia for the last couple of weeks and have been at home again on the couch. I hopefully am on the down hill slide now. Unfortunately I think Rebecca has it now! I go to my regular doctor on Monday with some new issues to deal with. I will go to the Oncologist in May for my next check up. Other than that we are very ready for some spring and warmer weather. We are very ready.

Remember everyday, to put one foot in front of the other, drink a lot of water, and don't forget to breath..........

Hello Again

Wow, it has been a while. In many ways it seems like just yesterday this journey started, and in some ways it seems like years ago. One thing I do know is that I haven't done a very good job keeping everyone updated on how things are going. One problem has been this Blogger site changed it's log in process. For those of you who know me well know that I am computer illiterate and get easily frustrated. I have tried several times to log in but have not been able to. Instead of taking my time and trying to figure it out, or asking for help, I just stop trying! I really don't even know what I did to get logged in this time, but somehow I did. I do apologize for not keeping everyone updated, hopefully I have the log-in issue fixed and will do a better job of updating.

Well, the short version is, everything is clear! I have had three more moles, or bumps, removed and checked, and all came back fine. I had a CT Scan done of my neck and chest area because of a new cough, and it was clear as well. I continue to see three different doctors every three months. The regular trips to the dermatologist have turned out to be very humbling. Keep in mind, as we have stated before in the blog, we are forever grateful for the dermatologist. I truly believe it is because of her actions, and getting us to the surgeon as fast as she did, is a big part of why I am well today. But, and I won't go into explicit detail, but every three months I have a full body scan done to check for any new spots. And when I say full body scan, I mean full body scan. The way the Lord brought me into this world, with three to four women in the room kind of body scan. As Forrest Gump would say, that's all I have to say about that. My arm is healing well. I had my last visit with the surgeon in February and he said it is doing well and will continue to change in color and form over the next year. I did have quite a bit of pain in my arm for the first several months but that too seems to be almost gone. I have no feeling on the graft itself due to the removal of the nerves in that area. I had a new first experience the other day with it. As I was getting ready for work I noticed a small scratch and scab right in the middle of the graft and had no idea how it got there. Reminding me I have to be careful because I can hit it and not even realize that I have done anything to it. I will also have to be very careful with it in the sun. The doctor told me that sunlight can damage the graft if I don't keep it covered or keep sun block on it while I am outside. I told my wife one day that the cancer has seemed to open Pandora's box to a whole slew of other health issues. I am on several new medications for blood pressure and acid reflux. I started having a very hard time sleeping just after the surgery which finally led to me having a sleep study done. The result was I stopped breathing 87 times in an hour. Now I have a CPAP machine that I wear while I sleep. It is taking some getting used to but I am finally able to sleep again which is wonderful.

Speaking of cancer. Two years ago I took part in the Relay for Life event in Owasso. Most of you have probably heard of it. It is a fundraising event for cancer research. Companies and people form teams and ask for donations. Then the teams walk laps for the donations. I have to be honest, the reason I did it two years ago was because Rebecca was on her team from work. And I was there because we were dating and I was there for her. This year, as you can imagine, it means a great deal more to me. We will once again be on the City of Owasso team. I will get to wear the "Survivor" t-shirt and take part in the "Survivor" dinner. And we will walk to raise money. And yes, we may be asking for donation's from many of you. I normally don't like to do that sort of thing. I don't like being pestered by fundraisers and don't like doing it to others, but this is something we feel strongly about. I don't know what it is, but it seems like there are more and more people we know who are being affected by cancer. I know of two people who have lost their battle with cancer just in the last month. One of whom was not much older than me. I will let you know more over the next few weeks.

I did something I haven't done since all this started. I went back on my logs and read them again from the beginning. I know the biggest reason we started this was to keep everyone informed. And yes it was therapeutic for me. But I became even more grateful I did this as I read them. It was such a tremendous reminder for me of the things we have been through. And it also answered some questions for me. One of the biggest is yes, it is easy for me to forget as I put more time between me and the beginning. I really needed that. It has become easy for me to forget some days. I have had more day's than I care to admit that I have gotten caught back up in the things in life that really don't matter. I whine to much about things that don't matter. I have allowed things, people, and situations to rent space in my brain when I shouldn't. I must remember my own words, all that really matters is family and friends. I am going to make an effort to blog again on a regular basis, if for no other reason than to help me stay focused.

Thank you again to each of you for all of you love, support and prayers. May God bless each of you the way he has us.

Remember everyday to put one foot in front of the other, drink a lot of water and don't forget to breath......