Normal

Take an 8/12X11 sheet of clean white paper. Draw a line through the middle, demarcating an upper and lower half.  On the top half write pretty much what you feel like when you'e normal. Reserve the lower half for below normal.  Low normal would be close the the middle line. High normal would be somewhere in the upper half.  If I were to do this frivolous exercise I wouldn't even hit the paper on the lower half.  I'd be dribbling a line somewhere on my desk top near the the handerchief I frequently use to blot my runny nose.

No idea how long I can keep up the energy to write this.  If I had to, I couldn't even write a decent good-bye note. I'd be a sad and sorry stateent for someone who spend his life with a pen in hand living the unfolding scene in front of him with pen and ball point ink.

Coffee was and is my muse.  I savored a good cup of coffee and the high that went with it.  Yesterday I had a cup of fine ground dark roast brewed as espresso.  I was hoping it'd unlock some inner world of low residue, lack of fiber, food that has to minimally pas through a stent implanted in my throat.  The inner world stood blocked.  Door tight. Jammed shut  No means of unsticking the door without a regimen of  MirLax in 6 ounces of water every 15 minutes waiting for the the flood.

The last time I wrote I'd been treated with chemical and left the hospital feeling renewed.  It lasted two days.  By the end of the week, I'd shut off the power to the portable battery pack pump that administers about a half teaspoon of poison into my system 24/7.  I called the duty nurse to report an assortment of shooting pains, aches, lackawanna.  They reacted with the usual.  "How soon can you come up here?"  I replied, " I can't."  No ride, wife's at work, no energy to drive.  They react with predictability and ass-covering.Pandering to the stuff they can answer, offering useless empty platitudes.   I'm so cold I wear long thermal underwear, covered with sweats, wood socks and a hooded black fleece over shirt.  A wool scarf keeps my neck warm.Having previously contracted pneumonia, I was well aware of the dangers of extreme chills and fever.  I had no fever.  They didn't ask and I was so gone into suffering from shooting, sharp pains in my abdomen, seeking relief, I never caught their gaffe. 

The wonderful people at the local hospital come to my aid.  Mother's, daughters and good people like you and me with compassion and feeling disconnect the f!@# pump and flush to port surgically implanted into my upper left shoulder. We talk nonsense and good sense.  Like the fact that you can leave your keys in the car, engine idling while you run into the quick-stop for a banana. Your car will still be there as well as slow Eddie who hangs around the gas station and waves to everyone. I get a chest ex-ray. All is checked so that Mayo Clinic in Lacrosse can rest easy that they haven't screwed up.  Unfortunately, I miss lunch.  By the end of the day I've lost my appetitite, and usually eat something fast, quick and minimally nutritious.

The Mayo clinic is overworked and understaffed.  They lost a doctor to cancer. I never get answers to the chipped beef pond scum feeling of being left on the counter to develop a yellow crust and thrown summarily away.  I resort to narcotics and nausea meds.  Legal ones.  Following the prescription dosage to the letter, I take one tab every four hours waiting for the pain to move on to my neighbor-the Ron Paul supporter.  By 11 pm I bail any idea of sleep and take to my trusty recliner downstairs.  We have so many LED lights scattered on various electronics that I walk into my office in an adjacent room and turn on a closet light . That way I can maneuver in the dark around the LED lights that mark the contours of hard edged furniture. Mandy takes up her post on the chair opposite me.  She buries her nose in the soft, knit cover and sighs.  When will it be over.  I am so worried about him.Her eyes open frequently to slits, checking that I haven't died or disappeared.  She's starting to back off from her food. Not a good sign.  I take time to sit on the stairs to hold her, console her that Dad's all right, we'll chase squirrels in the back yard soon. You'll be able to nip at my heels telling me how much you love this guy who took you with him everywhere. Loved you like a person.

The last straw.  Another heavier duty pain pill. I know I will be sorry.  By 3:45 pm, over four hours later, I shuffle off to bed, climb into flannel sheets where I can lay on my side without pain and doze off.

My primary care physician, working until 8pm in the evening calls to reassure me that the reults of the CBC and x-rays are all positive signs.  She forwards the information to Lacrosse.  A day later and there's no contact from Lacrosse/Mayo.  I'm due back on Friday.