Tag Archives: death

Just In Case

If you saw my recent post about my upcoming heart surgery, you know I have a lot on my plate lately.  You might also know the heart condition was found somewhat by accident.  In all the tests, the imaging, the consultations, and doctors’ appointments looking for the cause of my almost two-year-old headache, we found something else.  Well, we found a number of little, inconsequential things.  But we also found a big thing going on in my heart.  And the blocked arteries have nothing to do with the headache, so I’ve been told by the cardiologist, so we’re still trying to figure it all out.

In my younger years, I was always of the opinion that I didn’t want to know.  I didn’t care to go to the doctor because I could handle whatever was ailing me and tough it out.  And if there was something seriously bad, I wouldn’t want to know anyway.  Let it run its course, and I would be fine- or not, but it wasn’t going to bother me either way.  Plus, if I found out something was seriously wrong, I might have had to rethink my whole philosophy of my fantasy that I was invincible.  And we were all invincible at one time or another in our lives.  Well, my invincibility has been fading for about a decade now. 

I have never been afraid of dying.  And I’m still not, even though I have feared that it could have happened a few times in my life.  Most notably, once in Iraq and once in Afghanistan.  Even then, I wasn’t scared of dying, I just wondered if I had done everything I needed to do or could have done for the ones I would leave behind.  That’s always been my fear, did I do enough?  For me, I am confident in my faith, so I know my death won’t be my end.  I’ve never claimed to be very good at being a Christian throughout most of my life, but I do remember an exact time in my life that I trusted in Jesus Christ and gave my life to him.  I am not afraid to die. 

Because I’ve always been a planner and preparer and organizer, I’ve been looking at where I am now in my question of “did I do enough?”  I’ve talked to my life insurance guy a couple times in the last couple weeks to double-check and make sure everything is up to date.  I’ve pulled out the folders that contain my pre-paid end-of-life arrangements.  I need to update my address with them.  I’m looking closely at my finances and investments.  I’m covering everything I can think of.  There is no over-thinking, no panic, no drastic changes to anything.  I’m simply preparing for just in case.  It’s the right thing to do.  And all of this has my wife in her ‘feels,’ being a little emotional while I make sure things are in order.  I certainly understand.  This is somewhat of an emotional time for both of us.

I, myself, have been a little irritable since having my heart catheterization and then hearing the results.  Some of it stems from the fact that looking ahead to heart surgery is not fun.  And even worse, I’ve looked at what recovery is going to be like, and I already hate it.  I’m bored now just because I’m not supposed to be overdoing things and taking it easy.  Can you imagine how freaking bored I’ll be for the months of recovery I’ll be going through?  Oh yeah, and I have to quit smoking.  Just thinking about that is irritating enough.  Y’all pray for my wife, she’s going to need it.  I’ve quit smoking a few times before, once for five years.  The first couple weeks every time is the hardest.  Seriously, y’all check on my wife.  She’ll have her hands full with me.

The procedure I’ll be having is scary, but it’s not that uncommon these days.  People have been getting open heart surgery for decades now and doctors have become very good at it.  So, I very much plan on living through my heart surgery, fully recovering from it, and eventually finding a new normal at some point in the future.  But, also, I plan on dying.  Hopefully, not for another 20 years or so, but it will happen.  And not to be a killjoy, but you are going to die, too.  We all have that in common.  It’s one of the flaws we all share with these human bodies; we all wear out and eventually die.  I can’t do anything about that, but I can do my best to prepare for when it does happen somewhere down the road.

First, I have to make it to the surgery.  At my post-cath follow-up, my doctor was running way behind.  By the time I got in for my appointment, he was rushing and I didn’t get much at all out of the visit.  While recovering in the hospital after the heart cath, he had told me what my heart looked like and all the problems he found.  But I was still a little high on the sedatives from the procedure, so I really don’t remember most of it.  At the recent appointment, I was hoping he would break it all down, spell it all out to me exactly where the blockages are and what exactly the dissections mean.  I even brought a notebook to take notes.  Basically, he just confirmed that I need surgery and referred me to the surgeon.  How the appointment went is another reason I’m irritable and moody. 

And, of course, I looked it all up on the internet based on the doctor’s notes I was able to get printed out at that appointment.  I think I mentioned it in my last blog post about surfing the internet for medical answers not being the best idea.  For real, though.  I looked up the percentages of each blockage from the notes and what the dissections mean, and now I’m pissed.  Honestly, based on what I found, they should have kept me and done surgery that day.  He even told me that he was surprised I hadn’t had a heart attack already.  I know!!  I found that on the internet.  But I also know that my mind is running a little wild with all of this and it’s almost never as bad as what you find on the internet.  But it is still frustrating because I don’t know what all will happen and when.  And that’s part of why I’m making sure I have everything in order for my wife, just in case.  It’s something we should all do from time to time. 

No matter how long or how much you plan on living, you should go ahead and plan on dying, even if it won’t happen for another 50 years.  Make a plan now for your loved ones for later.  Make their lives a little easier in the future if you can.  I, for one, plan on living until I die, and I plan on that being years down the road.  But, because I love my family, I also have to plan on dying as if it were tomorrow.  Because you never know. 

Thanks for stopping by Story of My Life today.  Some of this might seem a little heavy or dark, but it is simply the facts of life.  And because I love my family, I have to plan this way.  Give some thought to what I talked about.  Good day, God bless.

Dave

Eat Good, Die Happy

I was chatting recently with a buddy of mine that I’ve known for more than 20 years.  During that time, we worked together at three different places over the years in various capacities in different types of jobs. And we have kept in touch for much of that 20 plus years. Mostly we would talk about our kids, our relationships, and what mutual friends and former coworkers were doing. Lately, most of our keeping in touch is about doctor visits at the VA and cooking.  Since we’re both veterans and like to eat, we have a lot to talk about on both subject. 

In our recent conversation, he brought up having to change his diet for his health.  I told him that’s the worst part about getting the lab results at a doctor’s appointment.  I went on to tell him that I don’t mind dying one day, but I’d like to die happy.  Seriously, if I knew I was going to live this long I certainly would have taken better care of myself.  Coincidentally, I had just had an appointment with my primary care doctor at the VA the same day we were chatting and, among other things, the doctor went over my lab results from the previous week.  I, too, need to make a couple small changes.

This conversation with my long-time friend sparked a memory from my very early teenage years.  I was probably 12 or 13 years old, at my grandparent’s house on one of the many trips we used to take to visit them.  One evening, Grandpa pulled something out of the refrigerator for a snack.  Grandma scolded him, saying that the doctor told him not to eat that because it would kill him.  Grandpa put the lid back on the container, put it back in the fridge, and went about his business. No complaining, no arguing. That was the end of that.  Or was it? 

The next morning Grandpa and I were up early, probably getting ready to go out on his boat or some other adventure on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.  At one point while getting ready for our day, Grandpa got in the fridge and had that snack that he had been warned about the previous night.  Did he forget about being chastised by Grandma?  How could he forget something as important as not eating a specific food that would kill him?  I couldn’t believe it so I chimed in and reminded him.  “Grandpa, you can’t eat that!  Grandma said it would kill you!”  Grandpa smiled and what he said still resonates with me today.

Grandpa said, “Well, I’ll die happy then.”  And that was it.  That’s all he said about it.  He didn’t ask me to keep it a secret.  He didn’t try to explain or rationalize it.  He just wanted to eat whatever was in that old butter tub that was used for leftovers.  I can’t for the life of me remember what the food in question was.  And I have no idea what his lab results were that would make him have to change his diet, but he didn’t seem to care.  He was going to keep being himself no matter what the doctors suggested.  He was doing what made him happy. 

I’ve always been that way with food.  I don’t remember ever turning down a cheeseburger or pizza or biscuits and gravy.  And I love to cook.  If you are on my Facebook page, you’ve likely seen hundreds of food pictures.  Some pictures of the food I cook at home, some pictures of food at restaurants we like to go to.  I have a drawer full of printed recipes and a ton of screenshots on my phone of even more recipes.  I love to cook and I love to eat.  My Facebook page and my belly are proof.

For much of my adult life I was able to counter the effects of eating all kinds of good food by staying in shape.  I should probably point out that when I say “good food,” that doesn’t mean healthy “good,” it means tastebuds “good.”  But anyway, I would run a few miles a few times a week, occasionally do a little workout, and, of course, being in the Army Reserves we did a lot of activities that encouraged staying in shape.  Well, at least in “good enough” shape for me.  At any single point in my adult life, I could have benefited from losing 5 or 10 pounds to trim up my gut.  But that never bothered me because I was healthy, in decent shape, and could run for miles.  Not fast, but slow and steady miles.  I felt good,  I looked good, I was going to eat what I wanted. 

Let’s fast-forward to me now being in my mid-50s.  Add the aches, pains, injuries, surgeries, and other issues from working hard all my life. I now find it considerably harder to counter those effects from eating what I want, when I want.  I can’t do some of the things I used to.  And I miss doing those things, like running, working a “real” job, and just being more active in general.  I have a long list of problems that have developed over the last 5-10 years from my previous military service.  I’m planning on doing a blog entry of all those things in the near future.  Especially now that we seem to be figuring out some of the issues.  Well, maybe not figuring it all out as much as managing things.  That’s a mess of a story for another time. 

My lab results at my recent appointment weren’t horrible.  There are just a couple areas I need to address, nothing dire.  But I want to address those areas without adding to what seems like a myriad of medications that I’m already on.  I guess I should point out that some of those medications are why my labs aren’t worse.  But I don’t want more pills, I want fewer.  And when I asked my doctor about downsizing my pill collection, he said there was only one medicine that he might consider discontinuing.  So, I have to decide to either eat better (as in healthy), instead of just eating “good” the way I like to, or get back to where I can do some kind of exercise regularly.  The exercise part has become difficult since getting a joint replaced in my foot a few years ago.  After two surgeries, my foot still will never be good enough to run like I used to. Or walk long distances or even stand in one place for more than a little while.

So here’s the plan.  I’m going to keep eating what I like to eat because being happy is important to me.  But I’m also going to mix in a few salads and some healthy choices.  I will get back on my step-elliptical.  I was doing that regularly before my last foot surgery. I think I can still do it because of the minimal bend it requires with toes.  I won’t do anything crazy or drastic to change my lifestyle all at once. That rarely works for anyone. But there a handful of little things I plan to do for starters.  And then eventually build on that.  We’ll see how it goes.

I think Grandpa had the right idea, to some extent, about dying happy.  He went on to live for about 10 more years after that early morning conversation we had sometime around 1983.  Apparently, whatever it was he ate that morning wasn’t going to make him drop dead on the spot.  And whatever it was, I’m certain he ate it whenever he could get away with it.  But he was probably smart enough to only eat it once in a while, and only while Grandma wasn’t looking. Especially while Grandma wasn’t looking.

I think this is the lesson I want to take from my memory of that morning with Grandpa: Being happy is important, but sometimes we have to weigh what that happiness brings against what the side effects or dangers will be.  Going to the beach for 5 hours can make you happy, but that sunburn is going to be horrible unless you take precautions.  Rock climbing can make you happy, but that fall will kill you, so you better make sure your equipment is right.  And of course, eating “good” like I always have makes me happy, but I have to fix a few things with my eating habits. 

Thanks for stopping by Story of My Life today.  I hope you enjoyed it and maybe got a little motivation from it.  Good day, God Bless.

Dave

A small sample of pictures from the last few weeks of my eating and cooking adventures.

The Hanging of Saddam Hussein

My deployment to Iraq (2008-09) was pretty boring for the most part. I was at a little base called Camp Bucca and my job was not very exciting, it kept me at a desk in the chapel most days. A few times a week, I would escort the chaplain to the TIF (theater internment facility) to visit our troops, medics, and command staff. Sometimes when the chaplain was counseling with a soldier, I would get to pull tower duty over one of the compounds while the chaplain and soldier walked around and chatted. A couple of times when visiting the SHU (special housing unit, where the worst of the worst were kept in solitary confinement), I was overwatch during a detainee being moved from his cell to the small fenced patio for his outside time. That was almost exciting. I held the taser for that job, just in case the detainee had the guts to do something stupid while being moved. They never did, they knew better. That was one cool thing about deploying with a Military Police battalion. I was trained on their non-lethal weapons, trained in combatives, self-defense, and other exciting things. I could have done without the required OC spray (pepper spray) followed by an obstacle course, but that was part of it.

Overall, it was a boring deployment. Nothing like my time in Afghanistan (2013-14) where I traveled all over the country escorting my chaplain. Camp Bucca, Iraq, at least while I was there, was not exciting. And in some ways, that’s a good thing. Very few times was our base threatened, and even if it was, it wasn’t anything like I saw in Afghanistan. I probably saw and heard more attacks in any particular week of travel in Afghanistan as I did my entire deployment in Iraq. Boring can be good in that case. But boring can also be tough on morale. My fellow chaplain assistants and I did what we could to make Bucca a little better for those of us stuck there.

Sometime in 2008, a bootleg video of Saddam Hussein’s hanging was circulated via email. It was a very different view from the official video footage released by the Iraqi government after Hussein’s hanging on December 30, 2006. That video stopped just short of his actual hanging. The unofficial video being circulated that I saw was of poor quality, obviously taken on a cell phone. Lights seemed to be flashing, but that was probably the cell phone camera not having enough light to take good video. And the picture was unstable, lots of movement. Obviously, whoever was filming the execution was moving with the action as it happened, while Saddam was being escorted to the gallows. I watched that cell phone footage of him being led to the noose. I couldn’t understand the Arabic being spoken. I watched that video as the rope was put snuggly around Saddam’s neck. He spoke defiantly, or perhaps he was praying, I don’t know, but it was no help to him. The floor dropped out from under him, and after a few seconds, he hung lifeless and still.

That was a morale boost for me. Does that make me a bad person? Nope. That’s why we were there. Do you have any idea how hard it was to be present during the times a soldier was notified of a death of a loved-one from far away, or to organize a memorial service for a fallen soldier, or to inform a spouse that her husband’s plane went down in Afghanistan and there were no survivors? Do you know how hard it was to read casualty reports on the secret-side email and see how those events unfolded? Do you know how hard it was to see those burned children? Honestly, I think it would have been easier to see corpses instead of those children in pain and suffering, crying, scared, with no chance of ever being bodily normal again. Sometimes I still see those three children when I lay down to sleep at night.

I’ve seen some horrible things and I’ve seen some wonderful things. And I can say that the only time I’ve ever witnessed a death (on video or in person) and smiled about it, was watching the hanging of Saddam Hussein. The unofficial video was a couple of years old when I saw it, but at the time, that bootleg video was new to us. To me, it put to rest any doubts. There had been talk for a while that Saddam wasn’t really dead, because the official video didn’t show his neck snapping like the bootleg video did. The official video stopped just before the floor fell out from under him. But the scratchy, unprofessional, dimly lit video from a cell phone that I, and others saw, was enough to make it a good day for me. Saddam’s neck snapped and all life left his body. I smiled. And I didn’t feel bad at all when watching Saddam die in that video. It made me happy, really happy. Once in a while, though, I do think about it and wonder if my feelings about watching that video were normal. That doesn’t usually last long. Maybe I’m demented, but I don’t feel bad about it. He got what he deserved.

I write about a lot of things here, some uplifting, some dark. When you visit Story of My Life, you agree to take the good with the bad. Thank you for stopping by this week. Good day, God bless.

Dave

PTSD Moments

For those of us that live with PTSD, depression, anxiety, or any other ‘invisible’ ailment that’s hard to describe or see, we have ‘moments.’ For me, I call them “PTSD moments.” All of us that are effected deal with them, sometimes it’s overwhelming, sometimes it’s not too bad. Most of my PTSD moments have to do with trouble falling asleep, weird or bad dreams, traffic, unexpected noises. Very minor stuff in the grand scheme of life. Since starting medication a couple years ago, and going through counseling, I have learned to deal with most of these things better than I used to. I have calmed down considerably compared to the time leading up to my failed suicide attempt and the few months that followed. But I do still have an overwhelming PTSD moment occasionally. This week, I had two of those moments, almost back to back.

The first of my two PTSD moments was at the restaurant I work at in the airport. I was changing out an empty keg in a walk-in cooler that has more stuff crammed into it than it should. It’s a confined space in the corner where the kegs are kept, and very difficult to change some of them. I got the empty keg pulled out with little problem, but when I was putting the new keg in its place, it slipped and slammed to the floor. The other kegs that were stacked on each other wobbled. The combination of the loud noise with the fear of being crushed by the kegs turned into a PTSD moment for me. I instantly got a headache. My vision blurred, I lost all focus, and just wanted to go home. I couldn’t even clearly vocalize my thoughts for a few minutes after that incident. It was a similar feeling to when I got rear-ended by a vehicle doing 40 mph while I was sitting still, but without as much of the physical pain.

My second PTSD moment was only ten hours after the first one, at 1:30 in the morning. My headache had finally subsided. I had gone to bed early and I was very much asleep. And sleeping well, I might add. I was awakened by a thud, loud voices, and the sound of a waterfall. I jumped out of bed, heart racing, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I was ready to throw punches, but I had no idea at whom. To make a long story short, the upstairs neighbors had a plumbing problem that caused gallons of water to make its way from the bathroom in their unit to the bathroom in my unit until they could turn off the water behind their commode. Until then, it was flowing through the vent in the bathroom ceiling all over the place.

I went upstairs and knocked on the neighbor’s door. Partly to make sure everything was OK, and partly to make sure they knew that their water was showering down into my bathroom. One of them explained, “The porcelain broke while we were going to the bathroom.” What entered my mind was “While WE”? But I didn’t say anything, just wondered why were “WE” going to the bathroom? I don’t know about you, but the porcelain in my bathroom is single serve. Perhaps they exceeded the weight limit on their porcelain by trying “WE”. Yes, even though what happened next is not funny, I still try to find the humor in most everything, even with the upstairs neighbors raining toilet water into my bathroom. On a side note, that was the first time I met my upstairs neighbors.

After the commotion, I went back to bed. But I could not fall asleep. It was after 3am, probably closer to 4am when I finally dozed off again. And when I did, I had horrible, dark dreams. Very demented stuff going on in my subconscious while I tried to slumber. I won’t go into detail about what I dreamt about after waking up in full adrenaline and defense modes, but it was very disturbing to me. It was the kind of stuff my previous therapist would spend a whole session on. My dreams that morning had lots of death in them after I finally fell asleep after the waterfall incident and I’m still bothered by what my mind had going on inside it. I know I can’t really control what I dream about, but it is still unsettling.

Life went back to ‘normal’ after the two PTSD moments, whatever ‘normal’ is. But while dealing with those moments, it was tough. And not just the specific moments, but the aftermath of each moment was somewhat overwhelming. Debilitating headache, horrible dreams, brief loss of mental functions. It’s what I live with. All the progress I’ve made in the last year and a half doesn’t matter sometimes. I know I’m still, and forever will be, on a recovery road with PTSD and my PTSD moments. It’s uncommon for me lately to have a PTSD moment as severe as the two I’ve written about here. But they will still happen to me none the less. And I have little, if any, control of how I or my body and mind react to them when the moments seem severe. I think that bothers me just as much as the moments themselves, not being able to control it.

But I’m always making progress, even if I take one step back to my two steps forward. Thanks for reading this week. Good day, God bless.

Dave

Other posts related to this:

Memories and Afghanistan

Recovery, It’s Not That Easy.

PTSD is Contagious!

 

Making Progress

I have finished Chapter 5 of the book I’m writing. Finally! I took an extended break from writing and when I came back to it, I had to re-read some of what I previously wrote to get back on track. In doing so, I ended up re-writing and correcting and re-writing and correcting and…. I do a similar thing when cleaning out a closet, a dresser, or box of stuff that has collected over the years. I make a huge mess, reminisce about what’s there, then usually put it all back. It’s time-consuming and sometimes feels like wasting time. But even if slowly, I am moving forward with the book.

The word count for my book through Chapter 5 is over 45,000 words. That’s half way to my target of 90,000 words. It’s shaping up pretty nicely I think. There’s still a ton of work to do on what is already written, but I’m going to try to just let that sit so I can focus on getting the rest of the book written, and then go back and edit. But as I mentioned, when I have to go back to re-read some of it from time to time to make sure I have good flow with the story, I’ll get stuck refining what’s already written and finding mistakes. But it’s a process. And I’m feeling good about it.

Here’s a short excerpt from Chapter 5. In this piece, the main character, James, is still stuck on the second day of being in the psych ward after a failed suicide attempt. He has already been to his morning session with the psychiatrist, a session which was very trying on him, and is now about to get lunch. I hope you enjoy this short excerpt. Thanks for reading this week. Good day, God bless.

Dave

(From Chapter 5)

James kept thinking to himself and occasionally mumbling, “This is only the second day.” He hated that he was lied to about day two being better. James was convinced there was a conspiracy against him and he had to figure out how to keep from falling into their plan. He was certain that he could not be helped in the hospital. James started having a conversation in his mind about how much worse he felt in the last two days than in the time leading up to his failed suicide attempt. The voices in his mind were reminding him that he was a failure and offering suggestions for next time. They scoffed at him for not being man enough to handle his problems and being a miserable disappointment to everyone. The voices assured him that he would be able to succeed in his quest to die once he was released from the hospital, that he only needed to be patient long enough to persuade the doctor and staff into thinking he was well enough to leave. Then he could finish the job and be free from the numbing anguish of life that he dragged behind him like a ship’s anchor.

This was not the first time James had a conversation with the voices in his head. This was, however, the first time he felt like he and the voices were on the same sheet of music, that he would stop fighting them and give in to their whims. James was accepting that the voices could help him and he believed the things they were telling him. He knew the voices were right, that he would be better off dead, that he was a burden to Kevin, that Donna could do better without him, and that his brother had enough on his plate that he would probably be relieved to not have to worry about James anymore.

In the past, the voices brought fear and turmoil to James, but now he found comfort in their existence and trusted their ideas. The voices were the only thing he trusted anymore. Since he had become unable to make decisions for himself, he now considered the voices an asset. James would now follow their lead and no longer fight or question their motives. The voices were going to lead him down the path of their choosing and he was going to follow, no questions, no resistance. He became oddly calm in accepting the fate that the voices were laying out for him. If he could only find a way to be released from the hospital, he could get a second chance at death.