Life is a Bowl of Cherries

I have something to say this is my day after surgery and I am in quite a bit of pain. I am off to see pain management doctor and then I will be going to the pharmacist picking up more 5/325 hydrocodone-acetaminophen that is my current prescription right now but I'm getting more of the same. hopefully, I can get a return to work order from the doctors the surgeon's office line break

Surgery yesterday was a mixed bag I was scheduled for a check in at 10:30 am which I arrived for early at 10:15 a.m. I went back and waited for my surgery patiently but there were complications with the gentleman ahead of me I ended up waiting for help until 2:30 p.m. before being taken back for surgery. I finished the audiobook I was listening to for an upcoming review.

Once my surgery was completed I was rushed through the post-op process when I was woken up in the second area of post-op after having been observed in the first area. I was asked my pain level and it was 7 out of 10. I was given a significant amount of Fentanyl 8 mg/ml a pretty heavy narcotic. I was then told that I needed it to urinate before being allowed to leave she helped me out of bed hopefully into the restroom and observed me urinate it was at that point I knew I have been catheterized because it hurt like the Dickens. It still fudging hurts today. Had to use something to soothe the irritation.

The nurse walked me back to my bed and told me that my family was in the waiting room and that I should get dressed and I would be wheeled out to the vehicle that would be taking me home this whole process lasted less than 30 minutes which did not seem right and pair to my previous surgeries but I was giving my prescription and my follow-up orders when I got home the T-shirt I was wearing had a softball sized amount of blood over where the incision site was which was not for happy making

I had a family member retrieve my blowout bag from the vehicle while I went into the bathroom took my shirt off rinsed it with peroxide and warm water and clean the blood off then cleaned my stomach area around where the incision was chipped cracked and bleeding when they brought me the bag I cleaned it up the area and apply to 5 by 9 abdominal pad and retrieve the wide self-adhesive since we left so late I was unable to fill my pain med prescription from dr. Davis.

So I took my evening medication and took two extra of my pain medication which is 5/325mg hydrocodone-acetaminophen the same dosage that I was prescribed by Dr. Davis I laid down in my bed on my elevated which that I ordered just for the surgery because of standard practice for after surgeries I ate some pizza and drink a couple low sugar Gatorade’s and try to rest. the dog decided to sleep with me until around 9 pm at night she is now sleeping in the bed as I am writing my blog.

Living in Mohave County Arizona and being on the state's Medicaid system is a blessing and a curse you don't get the highest quality of care but you get what you pay for I really should not complain but seeing as how Kingman has only one hospital and Healthcare System it's a real pain because it's a monopoly and there's nothing else you can do for your health care needs.

I still have not dropped the deuce as I edit this a 5 pm so I am going to need to take some bloody Milk of Magnesia in the next 24 hours or crack open my emergency Mag-Citrate. Being on regular narcotic I am like Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory and have a Bathroom Schedule. I keep to it. Religiously. This is my third hernia surgery. The price I am paying a decade later for my partial colectomy surgery that removed 18 inches of my large intestine when I was having severe attacks of diverticulitis. 4 in 10 months. The open surgery weakened my abdominal wall and I lost about 60 pounds since the surgery. The surgeon who did the first surgery was not the best and had to do the second. Less than 2 years later I am back for the third. I was in pain for almost a year with this one but due to issues with rotating Primary Care Providers being a Medicaid Recipient. I have had 5 in the last year it has taken 11 months to get this resolved. So boys and girls if you have a career in EMS learn to deal with your PTSD in a healthy manner so they don't fire you and they have to take care of your career-related health issues.

If anyone is curious going WTF is the deal with these weird ass icons and avatars. My lazy ass loads them here so the God that is Googles and its data mining will let me use them without doing multiple uploads from my computer to my phone contact list. I am as lazy as shit. I keep my phone bare bones. I keep an Audible app, Authors DIrect App, Graphic Audio App, Kindle App, and the only app I have ever paid for Listen Audio Book player. It was well worth the $1.49 It plays everything and is the best app for reviewing audiobooks. I keep nothing personal on my phone. I do no email from it. I have a home computer with a VPN for that type of communication. I wonder why I keep a blog going most days. I do keep it up here as vanity I guess.

A Cold December Good Night

The cold seeps in as the emptiness cannot be filled. The darkness is so cold it burns. Longing to feel the touch of another human being…A simple act of human kindness or compassion to provide my soul some warmth in the cold of this night. I sit as the pain and cold covers me like a shroud. If you were to look into my eyes troubled eyes you could see the pain and doubt filling them at the prospect of facing another day. I am facing east contemplating the rise of the sun in 7 hours lowering his head into my arms as the tears begin to flow while I sit at the lonely picnic table in Centennial Park in Kingman, AZ during a record-setting cold December night wearing only jeans and a hoodie.

My tears begin to freeze to my face as I bury my head in my arms. For all hope is gone. I think back to earlier in the day when I read that damned letter from social security denied my claim from the law advocate judge. How that cruel cunt twisted his visit with his mental health counselors cherry picking thinkings taking partial statements and using them out of context with other statements from a different counselor a year later. Then not using anything from either of his primary care nurse practitioners in their records of his care or his medical condition. Only going by what the State Paid Doctor and Psychologist said when I saw them each in 2015. And what the Judge observed on her monitor in my hearing in my little closet of a room.his courage to finally speak. She treated him as less than human. All he wanted was to take be heard and treated with respect and dignity. He has lost all hope in everything again. Through this process, he had found his way back to the Catholic Church but now he is questioning his motives for that quest for faith. He called the crisis line right away and promised not to kill himself that first night. Each day that followed was filled with finding a reason to go on. One of the earliest was to speak to the lawyer to find out why this happened, what are my options if I appeal, can I go back to school during the appeal time? I feel the judge lashed out cruelly and hurt me beyond measure. I had been fragile before ever since my hearing on July 17th of 2017 and now I am finally irreversibly broken.

The call of the bottle had never been stronger but I will not give into that demon again and the same with mixing that with the pain medication and anxiety medication. I would rather live with the pain the demons that come with the meds. With my head in my arms, the demon apathy wins the battle for his soul this day as my tears have frozen. The emotional pain was so strong I never felt the physical pain of the cold and numbness my body experienced…I begin to remove I clothes as I enter the final stages of hypothermia. Falling back onto the park bench with one arm outstretched reaching for someone or something only I could see in my final semi-lucid moments.

Sold my Soul to the Company Store

My like the song I have been doing a great deal of selling lately. My not my literal soul but it has sure felt like pieces of my soul. I have no wife and no children through no great fault but fate and my life choices of work over personal time in my 20's and when not working drinking until blackout drink. Not a great appeal there for the ladies. In my 30's most women were on the rebound from a bad early marriage and had a ton of issue that would get taken out on me when dating them. They would hurt me before I could hurt them. Or they would say since I had no bio kids of my one we would need to break up before things got too far along because. She was done having kids without talking to me. All this leads to where I am today. A physical and emotionally broken man. Waiting on a judge to make a ruling to decide my fate of how badly I am broken. But with the wheels of bureaucracy moving at the speed of most government workers. My long term disability has run out and the time I had planned on having to wait from that to the hearing was longer than expected as they changed the rules on that again. So time to sell the least things of value that I had not already sold up to this point. I had sold all my firearms and ammo for a song. THe guy got a hell of a deal. Now It was time to sell off my DVD's collection and Easton Press Book Collection. It has been a hellish 2 weeks of selling but I made $570 in sales after eBay takes their cut, and shipping I made $465. That was only 10 sales. I sold Er the complete series, Supernatural seasons 1-11, Seasons 2 & 3 of Six million dollar man, and scrubs the complete series and the rest were book sales, one single book animal farm for $43, a set of 4 books for $130, 2 for $35, 4 for $60. The Easton Press books are hard to price. The ones from the science fiction collection I started on auction at $40. The books from the 100 Greats Stories Ever Written are more common and I price buy it now at $25 with the best offer set to auto sale with the offer of $20 or better.

Clawing my way back

Almost five months and no blog. I originally thought Hell just skip one month no big deal no one but me reads this drivel. This is just my ramblings and a place to vent my spleen. Well if I still had one.

One month became two, then three, then four, and now five. To the point, I only read the blogs that get sent to my email each day all two of them. The depression has messed me up, dear imaginary readers and friends. Shit, I only used the pool for one week this summer. That was my excuse to put off carpal tunnel surgery. My daily links on the internet I used to read became less and less to the point I look at the book of Face once or twice a day. I will now spend time on Instagram though Scrolling and look at people I would never have the courage or ability to talk to because of my issues and places I would never be able or travel to for the simple reason of poverty and my mental health issues and anxiety. I have not left the area I live in with a radius of 35 miles since 2012.

My medication management doctor visit was today. I am now to be on Lexapro 10 mg. That is the magic cure all vitamin oil; that will make the sun shine, rain stop, crops grow, and the baby Jesus himself stop crying. Can we get an Amen? Hallejuha from the crowd! My dear readers may sense my reluctant sarcasm just a wee bit. The nightly youtube hypnosis/mindful meditation videos that put me to sleep are doing as much or more than any pill has so far. If I had the love, trust, compassion, and kindness of a woman I would probably be in a better place as well. The kind of woman I am attracted to would be even better. Maybe someone unconventional would not judge me and take a second to see me but the dream is a bridge to far dear readers but if she is out there I always thought she might look like this.

For a man my age, I have a laundry list of medications like that of someone who should be in a nursing home. But it is explainable but still, makes for a rough day just taking meds and trying to survive hour by hour. Having faith in a higher power and trying to believe that I am a part of gods plan. But there are days that I am weak and the dark one is stronger and I just start to give in to the all the different pain and just want the physical and emotional to stop. Or to be endurable for a reason. I try to set small goals each day. So I can smile and feel like I accomplished something. Looking at this from the outside seems absurd. Next thing this wacko will do is give himself a gold star each day for the smallest thing. But you know what? If I have to do that insane level of self-reward to keep from giving up and checking out the next plane of reality to see if there is one or not? If heaven is real for the 2 minutes I will get while being judged by St. Peter before the quick trip to Hell or if I really luck out go to Purgatory.

But each morning I still get up claw my way back to the starting line and try for one more day and hope that maybe that today will be better. Maybe someone will smile at me. Maybe I will be able to leave the house and not be afraid. Maybe if I post something it will start a conversation that will carry over to the real world. Hope is such a dangerous deadly gift.

March Maddness!!!!!

Well It is that time of Year again... College Basketball Who THE FUCK care!!! The shit screws up my daily routine and messes with my limited amount of enjoyment I have in life from a few television programs. All so College players who you know the majority are not real students just there to play ball before going pro to play ball. I could go on and go full on racist but i am trying to be a better man.

I am still battling with my mental health issues. some days are good some days not so much. My life got much more busy but not filled in any meaningful way though. I have started physical therapy again for my neck and back. The first session really seemed to help and felt really good and relieved a great deal of pain. I only get a total of 15 sessions so I will make the most of them. For my dizziness and bad headaches I was referred to an Ophthalmologist i filled out the paperwork did intake interview talked to his assistant and did the ear chart with and without my glasses. I was asked how long since my last exam. I said 3 1/2 years. I was told "Well the headaches and dizziness are probably due to the fact you need bifocal glasses now. You did not do very well on the eye chart. But since you have cancer in your family history we will send you for an MRI and blood work. Your insure does not cover a regular eye exam or glasses but does cover the other testing." Then leaves the room smiling as the assistant schedules the testing. I was so beyond pissed off. The insurance company will spend thousands of dollars on tests on a maybe long-shot but not $60 for an eye exam and $100 glasses to take care of dizziness and headaches. But the would solve a problem Doctors don't like simple solutions when they can bill insurance. Oh well...

just going to Keep my eyes on the road ahead.

Depression KILLZ

First off this is not an attention getting cry for help from another sad lonely blogger in his mama's basement. I don't have a basement I live in Arizona and for some reason they don't have basement's in homes here. I share a home with my mother though from mutual need and we both pay for everything equally. So i am not a snowflake sponge. I am a 46 year old man who has worked since 16 years of age and now I am fully broken physically and mentally.

I no longer go by Grumpy EMT as I was forced to leave EMS and changed my posting name to Grumpy Joe. Today's blog is going to be about physical and mental well being. My physical and mental health have been in decline since 2008. My work life took a major hit then career wise and my emotional stability went into decline. My physical health was up and down as well with weight-loss and weight gain. I was forced out and fired from my EMT job in 2013 my emotional and physical health was not good at that point. I took 2 bad jobs before getting a good job working with children and families before my health finally reached the breaking point. I went out on long term disability in August of 2014 and filed for Social Security Disability in December of 2014.

My mental health has always been a problem I dealt with through denial.

I could no longer do that since I was at home every day. I started mental health counseling. I was very resistant at first but went to the one on one sessions and the group sessions as it was my only social outlet. When I was forced out of EMS I lost my entire social circle same thing when I went out on long term disability. Besides work friends I only have 3 friends and they all live a minimum of 5 hours away.

So after all my time on groups and my individual counseling sessions. I have finally found a place to be honest about my suicidal thoughts, and share about my previous attempts, my assaults, my night terrors, and my PTSD, with the flashbacks. Many days still feel like this,

Even with medication I just hope for a better tomorrow.

Not So Happy New Year 2017

Well sitting here still alive writing another blog so the computers did not take over and Skynet did not come one line at midnight. So that is a plus I guess and Betty White is still alive as the total shit show that was 2016 is finally fucking over. We can all be thankful that Hillary did not get elected and Trump will be in office in 20 days but I hate to see the damage the fucking Kenyan will do on the way out the door. Son of a Bitch stuck it in Israels ass dry at the security council. I really hope Mossad pays his ghetto Chicago ass a visit once out of office and tells him Bibbi says hello. Wishful thinking. I would hate to see any secret service guys get hurt protecting him and his worthless old lady.

For myself the depression has becoming overwhelming. I hits in waves that feel like drowning. I just feel so fucking alone that i long for death. I want to be around people and talk to someone, anyone, but am utterly terrified to go out and do this for fear of rejection. I make excuses for not leaving the house. For not leaving my room. The only time I do is for my meals, my morning walk, evening walk, and doctor appointments/shopping trips. I want to talk with people so badly but when I am on the phone I can't get off soon enough but when I am off I want to kick myself cause there is so much more I wanted to say. I am just happy to listen. I rarely will text the two people who are my closest friends for not wanting to bother them. I enjoy hearing from them so much. I just feel like I am taking away from their time with their families and other interests. I am really just not that significant in the overall picture of things really. I think about killing myself multiple times daily. The only reason I do not go through with this is because my Mom would not see me in Heaven and could not afford to have my remains cremated. I come closer to wanting to do this more each day. The physical pain is awful and the emotional pain is unbearable. I have been walking a razors edge since July 12th 1988.when I got out of the military. Despite all of the success I have had in life and the good I have done I can not mentally change that time I spent there and fix what is broke in me. Maybe this year will bring a change that can help me to heal but I have been hoping for that for 29 year. Wish in one hand shit in the other see which fills up first.