Tune In Next Week

   That's the best I can say. I had a PET scan today after waiting a week. The results have been forwarded to the Doctor and a course of action will be decided upon.
   What course of action that's going to be, I don't know. Since they didn't get the results from the biopsy to us until last Friday (they had them Wednesday) it was today (Friday) that I got my PET scan.
   It's good to have friends. One went with us to the hospital. And waited with Yvette while they did the procedure. 
   They injected radioactive sugar into my veins and then scanned my body to see where in my body the sugar was being taken up. The sugar was all evidently going into this lump in my neck.
   But before they too me out to the trailer to do this stuff. Reverend Jamie prayed for me, that it hadn't spread and they would be able to treat it and get rid of it. When she got up to pray, Shawn, the lady that was taking me to where they are going to do the procedure put her hand on my shoulder and bowed her head. Okay, I don't know this woman, but I like her already.
   Turns out what the Reverend prayed for has been spot on so far. 
   The test showed a SUV of 14, not sure exactly what that means, but it only showed activity in the spot that's swollen.
   So hopefully by Monday afternoon we'll know a course of action.

That's On My Bucket List

      How often do you hear that phrase? Once a day? Once a week? Once a month? I know there are people that have them. Written out. And will check stuff off as they accomplish it.
   I don't have one. Maybe I'm unmotivated. Maybe I'm lazy. Maybe I just can't take the time to organize my thoughts and come up with a list. Cause writing stuff down can be hard.
   Or maybe it's because I worry that if I wrote stuff down like that what do I do when I get everything on the list done? What if I forgot where I put the list and can't add anything else. Maybe I NEED to write a bucket list.
   Let me see:
Win the lottery. That's a good one, kinda selfish, but I'd tithe. And pay the taxes on it.
Develop Dairy Gerts. That's another good one. It's been in my head for a long time.
Grow a strain of hemp that's profile is 70:1 CBD to THC. Good medicinal value.

Get even with my wife. Okay, that's just petty.

   
   It's also the one that's going to be the easiest to accomplish. And I hate that. Tomorrow, I'm going to have a PET scan. They're going to introduce radioactive substances into my body to determine where the bad cells are. The cancerous cells. It's scary. And kind of exciting. Peter Parker got bitten by a radioactive spider, they made a comic book and movies about that.
   "But how is that getting even with your wife?" you might ask.
   Well that's simple. See for several years now, I've gone and sat at the hospital while they took her off and did stuff to her. 
   Removed cysts from her wrist. They looked like kernels of popcorn. At least the one that the doctor didn't remove and I later popped out of her skin did.
   They did a hysterectomy. That's where they take out the hysterical part. And it worked, she was no fun to be around for a few days.
   Repaired her rotator cuff and mended a labral tear. As opposed to a labial tear which is nowhere near the shoulder. Autocorrect must be confused.
   Upper and Lower GI. They make you be cleaned out then stick cameras in body openings to take pictures. The pictures were beautiful and all looked about the same to me. But I already knew Yvette was a beautiful person inside. 😋
   A HIDA scan. Some test where they inject radioactive tracers (hmm she didn't get super powers, darn) to determine how your liver and gallbladder are working. Hers was functioning at 9%. 35-70% is considered normal. Then the doctor told her that her gallbladder couldn't be the problem, that her pain wasn't in the right place. That the gallbladder pain COULD NOT be crossing over from where the gallbladder is to where she was having pain. Maybe it was because her boobs were too big. Ummm, she's having pain on one side, she has 2 boobs.Then another doctor told her that he didn't think it was gallbladder pain, but he would remove it.
   Gallbladder removal along with two gallstones. I hoped we could take them home and make a set of earrings, but they said no.
   But tomorrow, tomorrow she has to sit and wait while they do a procedure on me. 
   And that, I HATE. I don't want her to have to sit there and wait for them to do the PET scan on me. But she's going to have company. She'll have someone to sit with her and wait.
   I had Brayden. Not a great conversationalist, but he kept me occupied while I waited when he went with us to the tests. 
   And then we wait for the results. And find out what they're going to do based on the results. And when we find out, I guess I'll write something else. 
   But honestly, the waiting on this one test is probably going to be as hard on Yvette as me waiting while they did those tests and surgeries on her. 
   So I'm getting even with her and I hate it.😞

Can I Trouble You for a Second -- Revisited

I need prayers.  

Could you pray for me? 

Prayers Needed!

     If you have very many friends on Facebook, you probably see one of those phrases every day. Possibly even several times a day. To me it's pretty simple. I can either ignore their plea, or I can take a few seconds and ask God to help them through their problem. I may click on like, or I may not. Sometimes I might even comment that prayers have been sent.

       I grew up in church. I hadn't accepted Jesus then, but I knew who he was. I knew about praying too. We would have 3 or 4 every church service. Short and Simple Prayers. Long Involved Prayers. Loud Prayers. Whispered Prayers. (I hated the whispered prayers. You were never sure when they finished. And everybody was looking around to see if the persons lips were still moving)

     The idea of asking someone to pray for you, that was kind of unheard of when I was a child. I'm not sure how old I was the first time I was in a church service and the pastor asked for prayer requests. 

     But now. Oh, now, with Facebook and text messages and Twitter. It's easy to ask the world for prayer requests. And like I said, I'll probably pray for you. I don't care if you're Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist or anything else. You want prayer, you got it. You ask for positive thoughts, you're probably gonna get a prayer said for you. I'm not going to judge whether you're worthy of my prayers. That man I'm praying to, I'll let him be the judge.

     And I hope you don't judge whether I'm worthy to be praying for you. Again, Somebody already has that job. 

     But if I ask for prayers, just know this. I don't care WHO you're praying to. If you pray to God, He will hear your prayers. If you are praying to Allah for me, God will hear your prayers. If you're praying to the left field wall in Wrigley Field for me, God will hear your prayers. 

     Omniscient. It means All Knowing. That's what God is. He knows your needs. He knows my needs. And I'll let him decide whether my prayers are worthy. Cause that's His job. It's not mine, it's not yours. It's His.

     And if you think the left field wall of Wrigley Field is God, I'll be praying for you.

   I wrote this almost 4 years ago. Why am I revisiting it?  My viewpoints haven't really changed. But my situation has. I really have no idea what inspired my writing it originally.

 BUT

 About 2 weeks ago, I went to the Doctor. I've had a lump in my neck for about a month. It started after I'd been doing some cleanup in the yard. Mowing and trying to clear out some blackberry vines and honeysuckle and poison ivy and weeds that were at the back of the yard. Lots of dust and flying bits of plants. Shortly after that I had a little bit of a sore throat and a slight earache. No big deal.

   The sore throat and the earache went away. But I had what I thought was a lymph gland that was a bit swollen. I didn't go to the doctor cause, well, I don't go to the doctor for every little ailment or ache. I mean, hey, I just went to the doctor back in December for a physical. 

   But that swollen lymph node, it didn't go down. And it got a little bigger. Then, I was looking in the mirror and I realized, that lump had gotten a lot bigger. Like the left side of my neck is now sticking out further than my jaw. Maybe I SHOULD go see a doctor about that.

   The doctor (nurse practitioner) looked at it, felt of it, asked if it hurt, left the room to get a tape measure, and said we're gong to get that looked at 'just to rule out anything bad'. She got a CT scan scheduled for the next day, and INSISTED that I keep that appointment. 

   HMMM. Maybe it's not something simple.

    Then 2 days later, I had to go to Memphis for a biopsy.

   That's DEFINITELY not something simple. The results came back as cancer.

   So Friday, 2 days away, I'm going to have a PET scan. They want to see where all the cancer is.

   So, what I would like, if I may ask this of you, is for you to pray that this cancer hasn't spread. That it will be in just this lump in my neck, and the doctors will be able to get rid of it. Thanks!

One Little, Two Little, Three Little

JICAMA!

   Yes, I now have 3 Little Jicama plants up and growing. 

   And I hope to have more. I have 8 seeds planted in the back yard. Because my wife won't let me plant a garden in the front yard. 

   Ah well, maybe next year. Cause really, I've got a lot of things I'd like to plant. Purple Asparagus maybe. 

   

What the Jicama Doing?

A little play on words. Very punny.

That's a jicama (pronounced hick a ma) plant. Just sprouted. I hope it grows and produces. I don't know if it will taste the same grown in West Tennessee as it does grown in Mexico or South Texas. 
  It's sometimes called a Mexican Sweet Potato. It kinda looks like a turnip or rutabaga. 
   One day while I was still in Texas one of my customers called out to me while I was working and yelled "Hey Guero! Ven Aqui!" (basically Hey White boy, come here)
  I figured they were going to offer me something to eat, cause they had done so before. Barbacoa Cabrito. Cordero Guisada. Tamales made with different types of meat. 
  But this, it looked like French Fries. But they were a little crunchier, and kinda sweet. Different. Sprinkled with Chile powder. And some Lucas. 
   Muy Bien! Mi Gusta! 
   Meg Brown posted about growing jicama so I asked her if I could get some seeds and she sent me some. I'm very grateful to her and I hope I can grow some jicama of my own.

Happy Birthday To Me

         Me and birthdays have a kinda bad history.
       Not horrible. But less than ideal.
     This year my wife made me a beautiful cake. She put it in the microwave to keep the dogs from getting it. We had them in the house because it was around 10 degrees. Somebody. I won't mention any names but it was a boy child that's a teenager took the lovely cake out of the microwave to cook himself some lunch. He left the cake on the counter and are his lunch. Then he went to the living room to watch TV. Cake still sitting on the counter.
     When we heard the plate hit the floor, my wife said "Who left the cake on the counter?" It must have been a good cake, the dogs ate most of it before we could get in there.

     But it was better than my 20th birthday. It was on a Thursday. I worked 3rd shift then. Going in at 11,  getting off at 7. But the guy who worked 2nd shift said that he would swap shifts with me. I would work 2nd shift for him and my regular shift on Wednesday night then I could be off Thursday night to celebrate. Then Friday night we would each work our regular shifts. AWESOME! I'd get to work 40 hours, he'd get to work 40 hours. PLUS, I'd get paid a birthday bonus of 8 hours. And get to celebrate my birthday with some friends (or at least people I liked celebrating with)🍕 🎂 🍻
     So I go to work Wednesday at 3 and work 16 hours. I got off at 7, go run around for a little while and go home to sleep at 1. I set the alarm for 7:30 cause that would give me time to take a shower and make the party.
     My plans got interrupted when the phone rang at 2:55. The guy from 2nd called in sick. They need me to come in and work his shift. Ummmm, it's my birthday. I worked his shift last night. He's supposed to work his shift and mine tonight. He said he might make it in later, so maybe you'll stop be able to go celebrate.
Sorry, Charlie.
     I called a couple of the friends that I was supposed to meet up with and told them I might be late, but go ahead with the party. Nothing to worry about there, they were going to party regardless. He didn't make it in later. He didn't make it in to work 3rd shift. He didn't make it in Friday for his shift either. Guess who got to work another double? You've got 3 guesses and the first 2 don't count.
🎯
     If you're keeping score at home. It worked out to me having 2 8 hour shifts, 2 16 hour shifts, 1 15½ hour shift. 63½ hours worked. Plus 8 hours of bonus pay. Best check I got the whole time I worked there.
     The guy from second shift, he got fired. Turns out he had been stealing tickets and turning them in on his time sheet. It wouldn't have been discovered if he hadn't missed 3 days of work.

     I did get a fantastic gift this year:

     

I Don't Have Any Vegetarian Friends

Sorry, Angy.

A discussion on the twitter yesterday got under my skin a little bit. People were talking about having ______ friends. I let it kinda slide on by, cause I was trying to work at the moment. But I would like to comment now.

   I don't have any vegetarian friends. Nor do I have any gay friends. No black friends. No white friends. No Hispanic friends. No atheist friends, nor Christian friends either. If someone is my friend, I don't 'qualify' them. They are my friend . (read that as FRIEND PERIOD).

  Friends are the people you can not see for weeks, or months, sometimes even years and start up a conversation. They may ask you about your family, or not mention them at all. Friends are something that you collect as you go through life. You may meet 20 people when you start a new job, and wind up with 3 of them as what you would truly consider a friend. Or you may be lucky and all 20 of them become someone you consider as your friend. 

  Now to clear things up though, I have friends (or used to) that are homosexual, black, white, hispanic, asian, jewish, catholic, christian, wiccan, atheist, vegetarian, vegan, native american, next door neighbors, miles away on the internet.

   But I don't classify them. They are or were just friends.

Some people I almost expect them to parade me around showing me their various collection of friends.

BTW Left-handed, Lesbian Lebanese friends are VERY RARE.

Thank You for reading and Good Day!

Nelson

This was one of the first posts I wrote in a blog that doesn't exist anymore. But I kept a copy of it.