Is This The End Of The Road?

“A bend in the road is not the end of the road… unless you fail to make the turn.”~ Unknown

Tonight has just been gruesome. Filled with tears and the wonderment of what’s going to happen in the future.

I’ve reached a point in my life where I am going to have to sit down without distraction and decide what is going to be the best decision for my life.

Trust me, I don’t wish this battle on any one.

My sledge hockey career has come to a stop. Based on the fact that I have gotten sick many times or have been broke with no money to go travel to Houston at certain times  since the beginning of the 2013-14 season.

To be honest, I have not been on the ice at any capacity since our trip to Houston in May of last year. It has almost been a full year!!

And there has been a lot of personal factors along with that. Outside of failing health.

El Jefe, my wonderful friend and neighbor, passed away suddenly April of last year. He was my solid source of transportation for many seasons. After he died, I was nearly caught in a mess where I would no longer have transportation to/from practices. A few times I was lucky and fortunate enough to be able to catch rides from other teammates or another neighbor with a vehicle. But it got out of hand quickly and got real old fast for those who were driving here to come pick me up. And I had to let that go, so that I wouldn’t ruin the personal relationships I had with them.

Family would seem to be the logical step. But not in an unstable environment. Especially since my brother-in-law died one week later after El Jefe. My sister would not be able all of the time to handle her two children and come and pick me up for practices. Even though she did try last season.

THIS season… practices have been on Sunday mornings at 8:00 AM. And as much as I tried and pleaded and begged to get them to change it to a later time in the day, the team took what was given to them. And that very much was a factor as not too many people were wanting to drive all the way to get me and then drop me off at practice that early in the morning on a Sunday.

Not a lot was in my favor this season. Including the last trip to Houston a few weeks ago where (as I understood) they were going to be watching certain players as they played because so many people wanted to go to Boston in April for the tournament. Someone… is going to be cut. Too many interested players and only a few select spots on the team, according to tournament rules. There’s not ENOUGH players to make a SECOND team to go either.

The fundraising efforts that I attempted to carry out on my own with the help of another and split it… failed. We weren’t even close. So financially, I wouldn’t be going to Boston even if I was in excellent physical condition.

But I am not. It was explained to me that even if I got back on the ice tomorrow, I would have to be in peak condition for tournament play in less than two months. And it doesn’t seem all that possible as I am still unable to get on the ice.

So with all of this being a disappointing season. I do not know if I will ever see the ice this season. And with the way things are set up with the team as they are right now, transportation to/from practices and events … it just isn’t there. Its not in the cards.

Therefore I have been in tears, battling with the thought of whether or not to end my sledge hockey career with the Austin Blades.

This is a heavy burden as I sift through everything and attempt to make these life decisions with a clear mind.

 

In And Out Of Migraine City

“After I saw the first thing I ever did, I got a migraine.”~Claire Forlani

Such a brutal 24 hours or so. And its still not over for me as of yet.

Last night I was feeling quite strange as I began to shiver and shake from out of nowhere. I did check my temperature and found a fever.

Great. Just great. Sick during the summer? That’s not what I want.

Eventually I would some how fall asleep by some miracle. And then this morning, the shivers went away, the fever was gone, but my head hurt like crazy.

So now I have a migraine. Water overdosing: here I come!!!

But I was lucky enough to find a caring soul to actually take me to the emergency room to just simply DEAL with it. And  so I wondered what they were going to do. I mean, I wasn’t suffering any severe injury of any kind. It was just a migraine.

And before I knew it, a few hours later  I was back at home.

The nurse announced that I was sick. And also said that I had a migraine.

Well no shit, Sherlock. I told you that when you asked me the reason as to why I was there in the first place.

A few moments later was the lowering of trou, and a syringe in the ass and sent home.

Fantastic. What the hell was that all about??

I would find out within a matter of minutes.

Apparently, I had ceased to make any sense when I talked. I wasn’t forming any cognitive words in ANY language and I kept slumping over in the passenger’s seat.

Then I just kinda stared at my ceiling as it spun counter-clockwise. It was then that I began to wonder the meaning of life and where we come from. You know, all those big and heavy-hitting questions.

The next thing I knew I was sitting straight up, but on the floor.  And it was dark outside. How the hell did I get out of the wheelchair? And how did I do it without injuring myself??

If you see any part of MY DAY on your milk carton…. please let me know.

 

 

PTSD Day

“Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret and depression. Do not repeat them in the future.”~ Sivananda

June 27th is PTSD Day. Its not a celebration, but a day of awareness of what truly is said that there are scars with the illness that are unseen.

It is not only combat fatigue that is PTSD but victims of serious crimes such as sexual assault can suffer from PTSD as well. Both men AND women equally can suffer PTSD.

I never really gave it much thought in the past. I wondered if my younger brother had it because of his experiences with being in the military and his time at war.

But then things changed for me in the past few years, particularly just days before my birthday in 2011. And I have not looked back or been the same ever since.

As I said, victims of serious crimes and that I have been in the past. To the point where things were deadly. Now, I wonder what happened to life when I am having a very bad day.

Most recently its been an issue when my eight year old nephew was standing behind me and I did not know that fact, when he moved closer and bumped my wheelchair, my knee-jerk reaction was to throw an elbow backwards at his face. But I didn’t follow through with it as I realized where I was and that I was safe. The unfortunate part was that my sister, his mother, saw it and bitched me out. 

But that is part of what can happen with PTSD or at least with people who have dealt with the similar experiences that I have gone through in the past few years.

It has not been the easiest for me, but its not been the absolute worst in the world either. I know that there are other good people who are dealing with far more deeper issues than what I have.

It hasn’t been easy for me to deal with and it hasn’t been easy for me to explain either. But it was the beginning reason as to why I started with this blog. But in the almost two and a half years since then, its changed a little bit. To the point that I nearly have 90,000 total view stats.

AWESOME!!

My life isn’t peachy. My life isn’t perfect either. But then again, my life isn’t a miserable piece of shit either. Just my attitude sometimes. Sometimes days are good, days are great, and sometimes days just plain suck. But I am doing what I need to be doing in order to make it through each and every day that isn’t up to par.

I am thankful for the mental faculties that I’ve had to know to do something about the bad experiences in my life and try to make things better. Whereas there are plenty of people out there who just simply believe that they are stuck with the hand that they have been dealt in their own lives, and do not believe that they can do anything about it.

And so of course I am not going to get into specifics of what’s what. I feel that if you are lucky enough to know me personally then you probably already know. And if you are one of those people that already know, then that is why you are subscribed to this blog. Others have come since then, and I am thankful that the dozens of men and women have made that choice to pay attention to what this blog has to say. Whether happy or sad. Goofy or outrageous. Pathetic or nasty. No matter what you have been here. Thank you.

We’ll get through this together. One blog post at a time.

 

A Risk In The Balance

“At a time when we’re having to take such difficult decisions about how to cut back without damaging the things that matter the most, we should strain every sinew to cut error, waste and fraud.”~ David Cameron

My heart and prayers go out to those people effected by the events that transpired in Boston, Massachusetts today.

I sit here this evening with four days left before the birthday bash for Chuck Williams of SIX MINUTE CENTURY. I have yet to even buy my bus ticket and usually I would have had that done by now.

But about a week ago, I became sick. And its a long and gruesome process to feeling better. I have to take things day by day.

Sufficed to say that Saturday and Sunday were very good days where there was not a lot to contend with. Today however just wasn’t up to par with the past weekend. And I still have that decision to make whether or not to go to Houston this Friday evening.

The thing about Friday night shows is that it always comes up so quick. And I cannot explain it but Saturday shows they just arrive.

I know that I won’t be 100% by Friday. That’s a given. But I keep thinking that in the back of my head that IF this Friday could be like this past weekend then I won’t have much of a problem. However I am not assured of that to happen.

I could medicate the hell out of myself with medicine, but I won’t be as clear and “all there” so to speak. But if I pass on this weekend, it will be the second time I have missed the birthday celebration for lead singer Chuck Williams.

Last year was just a tragic time as I had lost my brother-in-law. I think a better way to define it was bad timing. It just wasn’t something that I had any control over.

But will my going to Houston this weekend cause me to pay a price that I truly am not able to afford? Had I been asked this question either last Saturday or Sunday, I would have told you that I had NO problems whatsoever.

I also don’t have the plans for a possible option B in place as far as traveling back home as I was offered a ride from one of my colleagues. I’m just not feeling 100% on that either. Perhaps I need more faith.

It just really stinks because over the past couple of years I have become really good friends with Chuck Williams. His birthday celebration is actually ON his birthday. How cool is that?!??

Not to mention that I will get some face time with Dr. & Mrs. Froth which always something that I look forward to. And there will be others there that I enjoy hanging out with. Including someone that I just met last month at the WELL OF SOULS show that I actually have some kind of curiosity and interest in getting to know better… without saying where its going to go from here.

I hate the feeling of not going because of my illness because it does in fact feel like I am letting people down. Even though I am aware that isn’t the truth. Disappointed people? Sure. We are all human.

So I ponder the implications of going while trying to recover. Whether to go and heavily medicate myself to a point where I can manage pain. And whether or not that will bite me in the butt in the end.

I am sure that the Centurion family would tell me that if I am just not feeling up to it, then not to worry. But I worry still regardless. The least I can do for my friends is to show up. But there would be some who could argue that if I am not 100% … then I am useless to my friends.

As I said, today was so very difficult for some reason. But I still have just a small window to figure it out.

 

Blog Hiatus

“Mourning is not forgetting… It is an undoing. Every minute tie has to be untied and something permanent and valuable recovered and assimilated from the dust.”~ Margery Allingham

So I never thought that I would be writing about this in my blog considering the fact that I have read many other blogs and the authors complaining about how they feel that they have neglected writing. And here I am writing that I’m going to stop for a while.

My brother-in-law has been in the hospital recently. His liver basically right now is gone. And with his medical condition as it is, (I don’t want to give out too much information) basically he’s going to pass away at some point. The doctors were given him just a few days because his kidneys were beginning to fail, but then the good news is that they started to bounce back. But because of everything else that is going on well.. as they say, “the damage has been done.”

I feel really rotten for my sister right now and what she is going through. There’s no way that I can fathom it. I have helped out in watching her two young children (ages 2 and 7 years old) while she went to the hospital, but then I got sick with an infection and very high fever and  couldn’t do it any more.

Nobody really knows how long this is going to last with my brother-in-law. He is coming home from the hospital, but will be in hospice care. And I can’t really say whether that’s good, bad, or what.

But I am going to do what I can to help out my sister. Especially after I start to feel better. I’m nervous though because I do have that sledge hockey tournament in Dallas, and then the week after that a weekend with SIX MINUTE CENTURY. I’m scared because what if he passes while I am gone or just before I am to leave? It’s a very difficult thing to consider or ponder.

However, I will be leaving the blog behind for a while. At least, that is the current way of thinking. I haven’t been doing it recently, because I have been sick. And yes, I know that is an excuse. But it is what it is and that’s the way it is.

Bear with me, please.