It's Right on the Tip of my Tongue (Part 1)

   Or maybe not. They didn't say anything to me. Or maybe they did and I just didn't hear them. I was rather out of it at the time. I know when I got back to my room, they had told Yvette that they saw something so they decided to biopsy it.
   I know they biopsied something on the back of my tongue. Lingual tonsils.
   I never knew anything about lingual tonsils until Monday. That's when the nice lady from the doctors office told me they were going to do a tonsillectomy. I did ask how they were going to do a tonsillectomy when I had my tonsils removed years ago.
That's when she said something about they didn't take all my tonsils out.
   I didn't question too much. I figure they're doctors doctors, this is the stuff they do, I put my trust in God. And we've played that God will guide the surgeons hands.
   So we get to the hospital at 8:40. They said to be there by 9:00. Elicia drove us to Memphis and waited with Yvette while they did the "procedure". And there was a lot of waiting to do. After that got me all signed in and into my room the nurse is going through and telling me all the stuff I've got to do: Take off all your clothes, put on these special socks, put on the gown, use these special cloths to wipe down your body to sterilize it, take the special swabs to wipe inside your nose, get in bed and wait. I did all that stuff and when she came back I asked for a bigger gown. Then she told us that my surgery was scheduled for 1:00. That I would be taken down to pre-op around 12, then surgery would take about an hour, I'd have about an hour in post-op, back to the room for about an hour, and I should be released by 4:30.
   ::SIGH::
   Okay, when Yvette was having surgeries/procedures/whatever we get get signed in and they'd usually have her in pre-op an hour after we are supposed to be there.
   11:30 Elise, my nurse comes in and says there is an emergency and my tee time has been moved back a bit. They'll come get me when they're ready for me. I haven't had anything to eat or drink since midnight and you're telling me it's going to be longer before I can have the procedure. And have anything to eat or drink?
   1:30 Elise comes back again and says they're still working on the emergency.
   2:30 Elise comes back and tells me they're going to move us down to the 1st floor because they close where I was at at 3:00
   4:30 I think, they come to get me to take me to pre-op (or the anaesthesia doctor) as one nurse put it.
   5:42 I think was the time they rolled me into the operating room. And that's all I remember until I woke up in recovery.
 

The Toughest Parts of Parenting a Daughter

   I thought I'd go ahead and write about this to get it out of my system. Father's Day is coming up. Finding an old picture I took years ago brought this to mind. I would prefer if they'd have a Dad's Day, cause being a father is the result of a random meeting between a sperm and an egg. That's not what this is about though.
   Being a dad is intentional. It's not the result of having too much to drink in a bar and fumbling around in the back seat of a car.
   You've got to be brave. Especially if your child has to drink one of those extremely expensive formulas that is really, really easy for your child to digest. It stinks going in, it stinks worse coming out.

Yeah, you get the idea. It reeks. I think it contains sulfur or something.

   Changing the diaper on a son is easy, you just have to be really quick and dodge the water pistol. Changing a girl is different. You have to make sure you wipe the right way. I know because the doctor told me this whenever I took her to the doctor. 

   "Okay, but she's got a runny nose, can you look at that? It's what she's here for."

   You manage to survive that part of life. Neither one of you is left permanently scarred.

   Then it happens. A friend told me about this. 

   His daughter called with the scariest words he'd ever heard. 

"Dad, I need pads." 

"You need to call your mom" 

"She's on a trip"

   I just ran with it from there

   You can do this. It's no big deal. You've gone and picked them up for your wife. You get your sunglasses and ball cap. Your jacket with a hood. Because you've got to not be recognized. You walk to the aisle and........

   You realize that you know your daughter's favorite song, you know her best friend, you know her favorite food, but you don't know what brand she uses. You don't know what style. You try calling your wife. She won't answer. You text her. She doesn't answer. You're standing in the middle of the 'girl stuff aisle' like a deer caught in the headlights. So you text your daughter to find out. She replies. 

   You make the selection, then go to the first aid aisle because you're a MAN. You've been married for years and you know if she needs stuff from 'that aisle' she probably needs aspirin or acetaminophen or ibuprofen or one of those pms relief pills. Then you realize you don't know what brand of those she uses either, so you grab one of each and check out.

   You walk to the front to check out and hope that the cashier that you always use ISN'T there because if she sees you buying a different brand than what you usually do she'll tell your wife you may be cheating on her. Luckily she's not there so you get checked out and go home.

   You go to your daughter's room, open the door just enough to throw the bag in, and then go hide in your room. And then you and her about making any contact with each other for the next 2 weeks.

   I get through and he is just staring at me so I asked "What?"

  He said, "I never thought about the cashier."

  Now I'm laughing. And I hope you are too.

   But the scariest part is yet to come. Cause someday they're going to get married (I hope)

   Maybe they'll do me a favor and just elope.

As always:
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What Message are You Sending?

   A few years ago, I'm not really sure how many, it was shortly before Father's Day and I was in the grocery store. I saw this advertisement somewhere else in the store. And it's a pretty neat enticement. Spend $30 and get $10 off your next shopping trip. Or spend $40 and get $15 off.

   Then I wound up on the feminine hygiene aisle. And they have the same thing there. Talk about weird placement. Feminine pads as a reward for Dad?

   Well, in a way they might be. If you've got a single teenage daughter, the fact that she needs these items means you're not going to become a GRANDFATHER immediately. In that case those are an excellent reward.

   So I start laughing in the grocery store. On the feminine hygiene aisle. And the lady who was working on stocking that section of the store comes over to ask me if I need help. I probably did, probably still do, but nothing that she could help me with. But I did point out what I thought was weird signage placement. And then she started laughing.

   But I got myself under control. And she got herself under control. And I pointed out that it could also be emotionally devastating signage placement.

  

 Let's say, if you were a man and you and your wife had been trying to conceive for months. Or years. With no success. And now you have to go to that particular aisle and get those particular products. Again. It'd be a depressing reminder that you're spending another Father's Day not being a father.

In that case, there's no humor to be found. Location and situation change the interpretation. Changes the message you're sending.

As always:
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Thanks for Praying!
Thank You for Your Support!

Join Robinhood. Use my link. If you sign up, you get one share of stock, I get one share of stock. There's no guarantee of what the stock will be.

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You Should Write More

   I've been told that a few times recently, I'm not exactly sure why. I've been writing stuff down and putting it up for quite a while. Putting links on Facebook. Sometimes I'd post the link on Twitter.
   But hardly anyone ever read it. 6 views. 12 views. 13 views. The average number of views on my 26 posts thus far has been less than 50.
   But about a week ago. I got some not so good news. Okay, it was bad news. I took something I'd posted about 4 years ago and added to it. And I tagged my wife and 2 of my children when I posted it on Facebook. And I've got 500 views on that post.
   If I'd known I was gonna get that many people to read what I wrote, I'd have gone out and gotten me some cancer a long time ago. No, no I wouldn't have. Basically the stuff I've written has been written for me. And I would be a lot happier with 50 people reading the junk I write and not having cancer.
   But there is, or there should be a little arrow down there at the bottom of this  where you can go back and read some of the earlier writings. Or maybe it's a radio button that says older posts. I don't know.
   Different ways of viewing things means that what I see if it look at something on a phone may be different from what someone else sees on a computer. But there's some way you can go back and read some of my older posts.
   Posts about Jesus being an inventor.  About wondering what the story was behind what I could see, or if there was a story. Just random thoughts.

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!