Did I ever tell you about the time I was wrong?

Did I ever tell you about the time I was wrong?   It doesn't happen often, but when it does, boy am I wrong.

So about 8 weeks ago I couldn't poo.   And yes, in the interest of keeping this as non-gross as humanly possible, I will be using the term "poo" so deal with it.

Anyway, I couldn't go poo.   Given the amount of stress I was under at the time, it was understandable.   I tend to have a very sensitive bowel system that is easily thrown into flux.   And considering this was about the time I decided to sell my home; my boss finalized selling my job; and I felt like the chapter of my life I was currently in was stuck in a run-on sentence, then it is very easy to dismiss constipation as merely a reaction to life.   However, the constipation didn't end.

Two weeks later, when a poo arrived in my toilet, it was thin and very difficult to produce.   My post-poo wipe revealed blood on the paper.   Something was amiss, but I wrote it off as hemroids and stress.   What else could it be?

One week later it dawned on me that I had not been eating for the past two weeks.   I had lost about 20 pounds and no matter what I tried to eat, a gag reflex prevented anything but soup from going down.    Now concerned, I decided to look for myself and see if anything weird was going on in my...um, rectum.   

Standing in my bathroom with my boxers round my ankles, and my head peeking through my legs, I spread my buttcheeks, took a deep breath, and looked and then quietly freaked out.   I saw growths around my anus.   To WebMD I ran.

WebMD is not a friend for the record.  If you go symptom shopping on that site, you can basically diagnose yourself with anything, and this was no exception.    They gave me a short list of ailments that had my symptoms and the words "colon cancer" stood out as did "rectal cancer."    Given the growths I saw, I leaned towards rectal, but didn't want to admit to myself something so embarrassing was going on with me.  I am prone to hypochondria after all, so I decided to show my dad my butt (he is a doctor) and see what he thought.

It was not easy to ask someone to look at your butthole for the record.   It doesn't really come up in conversation naturally, but after two days of shameful planning, I did and he said he thought it was hemroids, but wasn't sure.  He recommended I schedule an appointment for a colonoscopy.  Reluctantly, I did.

The night before the butt probe, I decided to stay at my parents' house for the moral support.   I didn't want to admit it to anyone, but I was scared.  I knew I had rectal cancer.   Those growths could be nothing else from my perspective.   And it is a good thing I stayed there too because there is no way in Hell I could have drank that prep-shit without them basically forcing me via parental willpower to keep drinking.

The next morning, after another awful bout with that dreaded prep-shit, we drove to the GI office and soon I was out like a light and the procedure began. 

I came to in recovery and there was a sense that something serious had happened while I was out.   My mom was there and had that "mom is worried" look on her face.   I then heard my dad was on his way.   This was not looking good.   Lucky for me, the post-anesthesia was having a nice dulling effect on my nerves and I was remaining outwardly calm.

Turns out the colonoscopy could not be performed due to a massive tumor in my rectum.  The biopsy came back a little later and confirmed I had stage 3 rectal cancer.   A few scans later also showed it is in the colon as well.

I know what you are thinking: how were you wrong?  You said you had cancer and you did.c

Simple: I also have hemroids and that growth I saw that caused the panic that made me find the cancer actually was just a harmless little hemroid.   I was wrong.

So now I begin my treatment.  6 weeks chemo/radiation, then about 6 weeks rest, then surgery, and then more chemo/radiation.   The outlook is quite good and I am not fearing dying or anything like that.    I have had to move in with my parents for the next year while I undergo treatment.   A side-effect of being single is that you have no significant other to aid you in times like this, but I am blessed with parents who redefine everything positive about parents.   I could no do this without them and feel I must thank them every chance I get.

I will keep you updated as this goes on now that I finally have something to blog about.       

So...

So G-d speaks through the Pope and the Pope said he was too old to continue...

Pardon Me Whilst I Vent

Here is what I see as the ignored Libyan issue that is of vital importance and why I have problems with it: we helped AQ take Libya. It is central to this story and is being overlooked in an election year where taking small talking points out of context is more important than looking at larger and more complex issue.

As I recall, and I admit it may be flawed, but Benghazi was the starting point of a Civil War against Kaddafi; it was also a known Al Qaeda stronghold. The main group behind said uprising, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group or LIFG was known to the State Department as an AQ group whose leader was caught in 2002 fighting in Afghanistan against us and sent to Libyan prison. In 2006, the State Department declared the LIFG an AQ offshoot and forbid assistance.

Fast forward to the Civil War. We gave aid to the LIFG in their war against Qaddafi based on a threat to destroy Benghazi civilians; the main source of this info was the LIFG. We decided to help the rebels in the spirit of an Arab Spring we didn’t understand, but were too eager to make friends in the region and hoped despite decades of their hating us after our help that this time would be different.

Fast forward again: Kaddafi is dead and the rebels won. Their first act: They fly an AQ flag in Benghazi; a clear sign of who exactly won the civil war.

Fast forward one last time: a riot that ends with our embassy overrun and 4 people killed including a US Ambassador; the first killed in over 30 years. The spark of said riot is the current distraction, but not the issue. The issue is this: given all I have listed above which is all easily confirmed, why would we depend on the rebels to defend an embassy in a known stronghold of the enemy we are currently engaged in a world wide war against?

Obama’s statements and Romney’s statements are distractions from a major FUBAR in our national security. It is an easy way to get us fighting amongst ourselves in an election year and ignoring the main people who FUBARed it and are NOT subject to election. This entire affair must be looked into, not from the perspective of a video or who said “terrorism” and when, but why we helped rebels we knew were allies of an enemy we were fighting in other countries.

In light of the recent talk of Syria and their civil war, the time is well past now to look into what went wrong with Libya and how we ended up aiding our enemies before we possibly do it again: Most of the time the enemy of my enemy is just another asshole who will end up screwing me over too.

Eaten Alive- 70's Cheese

Wow did I watch a bad movie last night: Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive. Now I am a Tobe Hooper fan for the record. Besides Texas Chainsaw Massacre (both 1 and 2), Salem’s Lot, and The Funhouse (all horror classics), he is the man who Steven Spielberg turned to for a director of what is still the best haunted house movie ever made; Poltergiest. But Eaten Alive, his second movie, is trash…fun trash, but trash. Such trash in fact that I needed a shower after I saw it to get the stench of it off me. What else can you say about a movie where the first spoken line is Robert England saying “My name is Buck and I’m here to fuck?” Yes, this is where Tarantino got that famous line in Kill Bill Vol 1 from.

The pattern is basically this: girl goes to swamp motel (why?) and Judd (the innkeeper) gets horny. She turns him down so he feeds her to his crocodile. Another girl comes with man. Judd kills man, feeds man to his crocodile, kidnaps girl, forgets about her for most of the movie, and kills others who come to have sex at his swamp motel (why?) Repeat until clean which won’t ever happen while watching this movie.

Here’s the thing about Eaten Alive; it is just so damned weird that makes you stick around until the end. The sets, costumes, lighting, everything works…even the over the top acting. The couple that arrives with their girl and dog (actually named Snoopy) obviously has a very interesting back story, but Hooper ain’t going to tell you any of it. All you need to know is the husband is a nut, the wife is a bitch, the daughter is a whiner, and the dog is croc-food. Then there is Judd…

Like other Hooper villains, he is insane, but is lucid in his insanity. He knows he is totally gone and enjoys that fact. He almost seems as bewildered as the audience as to why people keep coming to his swamp motel (why?). He rambles to himself about nothing which is the bulk of the script and has zero back story. Not that Hooper isn’t a story teller, but like the couple, and Buck, and everyone else in this movie, what happened before the credits are not a factor in the tale. In fact, what happens after the opening credits is not a factor either: it is just a ride of weirdness, cheese, and a healthy does of 70’s Grindhouse Misogyny.

I cannot recommend this movie to most people, which would mean I heavily DO recommend it to some. If you loved MST3K, this is the movie for you. It provides an endless supply of joke set ups. Get drunk; get high; get friends and have fun.

The best part of this movie is finding the source of "My name is Buck and I love to fuck."   

In an Empty Wedge Issue Do We Trust

How much vindication does one supposedly omniscient and omnipresent Supreme Being need? Why is it a story whether the DNC included him or not? I am pretty sure between putting “In G-d We Trust” on the currency and our pledge to be one nation under him that he is fairly secure in our feelings on the subject. Do we really need a party platform to include trust in him?

Besides, I am pretty sure the omniscient and omnipresent Supreme Being knows better than any of us that everything a politician says is a lie. I would think he would be more comfortable if they just left him out of this nonsense.

Amen

Change Changing Changes

So this is the year of change it seems. A change at my old haunt online has driven me from posting there. A change in a good friend’s behavior has changed multiple aspects of my life and a change at work has made my job more secure. My sister is changing her location. My niece has returned to school.

As with most changes: some are bad; some are good; and the vast majority of changes require time and distance to properly evaluate on the grand scale of life. I will however gladly accept that we are busy at work; very busy. If the other changes were the Karmic price I had to pay, then I would gladly pay even more.

Rush sang: No changes are permanent, but change is. It has been a good 10 years since the last change in my life; I am due and welcome it. Let’s see where you take me change. Let’s ride!