It Takes Guts

Five months after graduating High School I decided to enlist in the Army. I decided I would be like my hero, my uncle, who flew aircraft in the Army for four decades. I decided I would try my limits, to be all I can be, to see if I was tough enough, to reach for my breaking point. All it took was fifteen minutes with my recruiting officer for him to tell me I didn't have the guts.

What is the purpose of this Blog anyways?

I had this idea of blogging (complaining) my physical problems. Don't quite know how. This blog has been sparse. I don't know how to make the right words to make me seen. Don't really want to be seen. It's not really about me. I have had about enough of me. But what I see in myself is a story. A representation of many who cannot speak. And while some might perceive my notes as all-about-me, they are not. I just happen to know my story better. Sure, it's a way to deal with my own problems. But if I can, in some way, help some one else deal with their pain, or the pains of their loved one, then I have succeeded. Sometimes it is best to let the language pour out all at once. It may look like a mess, but it is as raw as the truth of pain. Here is some such poured out pain: *, I am sorry, I guess I was not clear, too brief, too implied (misunderstood). I've had a lifetime of my own physical problems. I suppose, that as these years have gone by I have reached a point of some sort of numb sarcastic laughter at myself...some kind of crazy-out-of-my-mind kind of laughter maybe. Through the years I have become so familiar with the pains that they have become my intimate friends. Sometimes I imagine I'm held in some cage and strapped into some medieval torture rack. So all that stuff comes out when talking to other bodily tortured people...because I am assuming they understand. I try to not talk about it to other, more healthy people, about my trouble. A number of times I've told of my pains to the wrong people. I have mentioned my troubles in the form of apology, which comes from guilt, which comes from the wish I could be of some use. The responses were sometimes snide, always judgmental, (I'm quoting real quotes) "You're just making it all up", "You're not really sick", You just want attention", "You have no faith", "You must have sinned", All these things I've told myself already...there are a few other[s] which I have forgotten, which means I must be learning to forgive. And so I was referring to *'s 'no clue' comment. I know that one. I don't know the particular torture rack he's in, nor yours. But I can assume the psychology going on: a problem that is harder to deal with than the actual physical problem. And so I'm harder enough on myself without someone else joining in. And so I see your sensitivity shouting out. I know your sensitivity. I want to strike out with mine too often...often at myself. Too many scars. I am so sorry. We must be gentle, and kind. Like when I had those, particularly kind, nurses turn me over in the hospital bed; taking their time; sometimes five minutes just to turn to the other side...with quiet voice, lots of pillows to hold you in place, all the wires and tubes set right, the lighting just right, a fan to keep you cool...and all the response you can give is a grunt.

Contrast

The artificial sooth of Dilaudid coats my mind in feelings of warmth and whisper and diversions; enough to carry away, for a little while, my intestines and left leg. And though giving in to these worrisome and addict-able cures of discomfort bring out the red flags, I will thank God for their invention. And then here I wait. In a moment the orders will be given and I will drink the milkshake understood as a contrast. Afterwards I will be placed in another picture-taking machine through which we will see what picture the contrast has painted; the path every meal follows and the curves both narrow and wide; and the obstructions sure to be uncovered.
The sunlight is shinning through for a moment here, only, on this place of the sick. I penciled this into a notebook, in an x-ray room, during an eight and a half hour follow-through (that means they followed the glowing liquid from my stomach all the way down to the place where you clench for roller coaster rides), (all that time and that's minus my Colon), February 16, 2009.

Morning Wake

It is little after three am. I woke with a wince and a groan and this body and leg and gut; they pelted me with pains. In a dash I turned on the light to search for a pill. Turned on the light and saw from the far reaches of my eye, my Rose, lying there next to me, faced to the light. I winced and groaned again, to myself. Darn it I woke her again. And at a time when waking her leaves her awake. She returns not to her sleep. And I. I will fade soon under the influence of this pill I took. I wince and groan at the unfairness. No not any unfairness attended to me. The unfairness to my wife, who I love, who I dreamt of all night, who I loved in the dreams I dreamt all night.

My Bone

The pain in me, in my leg, in my bone. What is this pain in my leg? I began around at 5:30am to 6pm. It is now 8 o'clock. The pain is immense. It gathers to it attentions I would be having elsewhere. My breath thickens. My eyes roll.

Always Sorry

I try to keep my crying to myself. Doesn't do much good if I say, I try to keep my crying to myself; because, it sounds just like I'm crying out loud. Maybe I should be writing this in caps so you can hear the LOUD part or link this to some youtube of a crying baby. Baby. Is that what I am? A big baby? Maybe so. Maybe we are all a bunch of babies. We have our degrees and those subjective pain numbers we try to go by. And then we always see some story of someone else who's got is worse. The internet is where we can find the worser horror stories, and I think that if I read those stories, my pain will shrink a little--not. Baby maybe. But isn't it fascinating how little the physical becomes under these psychological dealings that become much more grand. As a man I have the DNA that says I should be at a job for 8 to ten hours. But my wife has to do that. She leaves for work every morning. I stay home to do the household chores...which doesn't bother me. I do them. It's my role. I can do them. No. I can't do them when I'm being tortured. So get to feel bad about that too. I give her repetitions of 'Sorry'--she tells me she doesn't want to hear it. I guess 'Sorry' is not really for the other. We say it to ourselves, not a 'Sorry' in a nice tone but in self-beratement. In our Western World of working hard and getting things done and having a clean and arranged house and car and... we who are stomped down by our own bodies, we feel as if we have become some lesser person who can't get it together, who can't get healing, who don't have enough faith, who are doing this on purpose because we are lazy and thus good for nothing. Once-in-a-while we all have someone or a friend try to help by telling us all the ways we just need to get it together. And boy does it hurt. And boy do we want to hurt them back. But notice, as you replay their mean words (how many times have you?), in your head, you find that it's all the same stuff you've been telling yourself the whole time. Guess it hurts more because they have only confirmed what you've been saying to yourself anyways. It all seems true at times: crying like a big baby; until, your body is run through that torture device again. And again you are reminded that you really do have some problems and pain. That it ain't all just in your head. That even trying to type this is difficult when the levers on my rack are being pulled right now. So there's my belly aching and blather for today. I will try to keep the rest of my crying to myself the rest of the day.

It's A Bloody Life

I have read a smidgen of response to 'Blood Meridian', a book I'm sure has been religiously deconstructed. So I’m sure this has already been hashed over: (I read the book, how-long-ago(?!) and this morning: the simple overarching tale: The protagonist in Blood Meridian named 'the kid', is another everyman or woman on their/our path through this Bloody life.
But like so much literature I read, and people, and even us Christians, we grasp for some implied and unsatisfying solution in some tucked paragraph of a book, of life or sport or mall-bought item or bottle or two million other distractions from our own Bloody lives... and so trip over the redemption we search for: Jesus. Then. It is there when my face is in the dirt that I am reminded to call of Him. And when I do, in spite of me and my reasonings and my messes and my troubles, I am amazed and humbled when I am consumed by His Spirit--so peaceful, so loving, so melting, so touchable, so refreshing, like a cleansing whiskey for the soul times two thousand, He makes all else and the fool I am seem temporal and nothing and all I know is Christ and Him crucified.