29. March 2009 by Frank.

Someone’s already done it and they done done it better than me.

So why should I do it? That is the question. Quite a few of my ideas for posts never get far off the ground simply because someone else has already thoroughly covered the same topic. I’ve already said I don’t like the Department of Redundancy Department. I certainly don’t want to write for them.

So that means it’s time for some Random Brain Farts! Or RBF’s for short.

1. “It’s all happened before and it will all happen again.” That’s right, Battlestar Galactica is over. I thought it was a brilliant end to the series. The show always had religious themes and overtones but I got a kick out of Baltar saying that god doesn’t like to be called that. I also like the idea that we’re all human and Cylon since the crew colonized the earth 150,000 years ago.

2. Unlike 75% of critics who thoroughly panned KNOWING, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was suspenseful, mysterious, exciting and absolutely awe inspiring several times. The plane crash scene alone was worth the price of admission. Although there were some religious themes, I hardly felt the film pandered to end of the world Christian sensibilities. One little reference to Ezekiel saw the wheel hardly makes a biblical end times scenario. A couple of kids and some bunny rabbits saved by aliens is hardly something anyone in church believes no matter how weird their end of the world beliefs may be,

3. I haven’t seen a decent slogan on a church sign for months now. I’m so disappointed.

4. Speaking of end time scenarios, back in my early Christian days I was obsessed with end time teachings. This was in the early 80’s. I was a huge science fiction fan before I got involved with religion and end time teachings fit in quite naturally with end of the world science fiction stories. It worked especially well for me since I was being pressured to give up all my previous “worldly” interests. I just exchanged aliens and science run amok for angels and demons and prophecy. The funny thing about it is that it’s 30 years later and yet the same teachings are going around with only the names being changed.

5. I remember one particularly prophetic book title, “WHEN YOUR MONEY FAILS”, by whom I have no idea. The reason I remember it was because the author spent nearly the entire book claiming that there was a giant conspiracy in place to tie in the “666” from Revelations with a world wide monetary system. He or she even had photographic evidence. Unfortunately, on the last page, in a tiny little almost illegible footnote, he or she (in an astonishing burst of honesty) admitted to doctoring the photos for “dramatic effect”. Nowadays we call that photoshopping and news.

6. I’ll admit that I have never understood the Roman Catholic Church. Why anyone stays with a religion that combines the bible (well, their version of it) with idolatry (all their saints and statues thereof as well as Mary), with a multi-million dollar coverup of pedophile priests, with a pope that thinks condoms don’t help stop the spread of AIDS is beyond me. That’s not even mentioning the inquisition, witch hunts, the Dark Ages, and the opposition of science. There’s a RCC church downtown that I walked past once when the front door was wide open. Inside it is a gigantic statue of Jesus on the cross which protrudes out over the congregation. He is depicted as quite bloody and in agony. It is without a doubt one of the more disturbing religious statues I have ever seen. With this kind of imagery literally in your face all the time it’s no wonder so many of the faithful see these same images on pancakes and garage doors. Mel Gibson eat your heart out.

7. I was at my dad’s one night when he wanted to watch some gospel music show. I can’t deny that some of the more lively stuff can easily get you fired up and enthused. But something bothered me about it. It’s all too slick, too polished, too rehearsed. I’ve been aware of this for many years. Frequently this sort of musical program features supposedly spontaneously inspired testimonies that fit in with the theme of the songs. If you’ve been around for awhile and actually pay attention, you’ll notice these spontaneous things are nothing of the sort. They’re part of the show. They are rehearsed. They are the same every single time right down to the sincere expressions of love and passion for Christ. Even the tears come right on cue. No one acts like they ever notice this.

8. Quite some time back there was a disgustingly bad movie called THE TOXIC AVENGER, a cheap, gross out film if ever there was one. Somehow or other this hard “R” rated film got turned into a Saturday morning kid’s cartoon. Talk about inappropriate. What was really completely out of line about it wasn’t that it was ever made in the first place, it was the fact that it was presented on Lester Sumrall’s TV station and that he defended it because he had to keep the station on the air 24 hours a day. “God has to have a voice,” he said. God obviously had some warped ideas about what made good TV for children.

9. Did you know that back in the day cassette tapes won out over 8-track tapes because Christians wanted to be able to carry something small to record sermons and conventions? So said Kenneth Copeland. I wonder if that had anything to do with the failure of BetaMax? Or HD DVD? Does God really want you to go BluRay?

10. Well, I survived my medical ordeal. My body is functioning properly again. My mind has calmed down. All those damn tests proved there’s nothing wrong with me. So I’m right back at the beginning, all the weird things that I have to deal with physically on a daily basis are a result of the stroke. Eleven years of weirdness and pain. All because of a lack of oxygen to the brain for a few seconds. I’m beginning to think it really is all in my head.

Posted in listen, wild guesses, interpretation, communication, signs, hearing, religion, emotion, education, stroke | Print | 4 Comments »

23. March 2009 by Frank.

I have healed physically.

Mentally, I’m still a mess. What they did to me hurt me down to the core of my being. Sure I’ve been cracking bad jokes and puns trying to deal with it but they aren’t working. I feel like my pride and my dignity have been ripped from me. My self worth seems to be gone. I’ve been reduced to a slab of meat that any abuse imaginable could be heaped upon it. And then tossed aside like a bag of garbage.

I’ve been trying to shake this feeling all week but it just keeps getting worse. I can tell I have been fixed. There are marked physical improvements that can’t be denied. All the tests coming back negative is wonderful news. That should be cheering me up immeasurably. But I feel as though I have been violated in the worst possible way.

I’m not mad at the urologist. He was so cold and impersonal about the whole sordid affair that he hardly seems involved. Maybe that’s what bothers me. I meant absolutely nothing to him as a living human being. I was just a thing that needed some repair work. He came in, did it, and left. He may have uttered a total of nine or ten words. All the information I got about the entire procedure came from the nurse, an older woman who actually seemed to have some semblance of compassion.

There were ten people in the waiting room with me. All of us were scheduled for the same time. Everyone was called in back and then returned to wait some more. Then each was taken to a room. It felt like an assembly line far more so than any doctor’s office I have ever been in before. Your modesty gets thrown out the window. You’re just an animal, a piece of meat.

Maybe I’m just feeling sorry for myself but I really don’t think so. I have never in my life been treated with such utter disregard as to what I was feeling. My sensibilities meant absolutely nothing. My fear and apprehension was not even considered as worth addressing. I’ve encountered some cold hearted people in my time but this was far more intense.

The guy might as well have said, “You’re absolutely nothing to me, all I want is your money.”

I’m sure you’ve stepped on a bug and squished it and all you cared about was getting the gunk off your shoe. Well, I feel like the bug.

I don’t know if I’m making any sense but this is how I am feeling. If you have some way to help me snap out of it, I would be glad to hear it.

Posted in wild guesses, emotion | Print | 4 Comments »

18. March 2009 by Frank.

They tortured me mercilessly but I didn’t tell them where the gold was hidden.

The ordeal is over.

The good news: no cancer in any way, shape, or form. Not in the bladder, the kidneys, or the prostate. So what caused the blood in the urine? Scar tissue. An urethra full of scar tissue. What caused that? I don’t know, my brain shut down during the procedure, and I forgot to ask.

They insert some local anesthetic directly into the penis. This is your first sign this is going to be very unpleasant right after they put your feet in the stirrups. Then they put the scope instrument on you and insert the scope itself. Again extremely unpleasant. Somehow or other this thing is pumping water in as well. But he announces nothing in the bladder just a lot of scar tissue on the way there.

So the only thing to do is open that up. Stretch that tissue out.

Yeah, right. Get that set of wires. Wires? These things are about two feet long. He starts with the smallest one and sticks it in (how far I have no idea) and pulls it out. The next wire is a little bigger in diameter, in it goes and out. Then the next and the next and the next. Each one causing more and more discomfort. Finally, he’s done. I’m all fixed.

Except now I’m bleeding all over the place and going to the bathroom hurt like hell. I get a prescription for some antibiotics and am sent limping on my way. If I had known they were going to do something this painful to me, I would have had someone take me instead of driving there myself. That anesthetic wears off fast.

I called off work right after I got home. Going to the bathroom continued to get more and more painful and bloody for the rest of the evening.

But it’s getting better. The bleeding stopped and the pain has been dissipating.

I thought I’d let any of you guys out there know what a Cystoscopy was like. Extremely unpleasant but survivable. I wouldn’t recommend one unless you’ve really got a problem. A bad, bad problem.

So how does it feel having the specter of cancer hanging over your head for a couple of weeks? Aggravating. Annoying. Mainly frustration with the doctors for trying to create the fear and apprehension to begin with, followed by their apparent apathy after they got the negative results back. Couldn’t they have bothered to let me know?

I didn’t react with fear. Fear isn’t part of my character since the stroke. Anger is. The only thing this made me was angry. The thought of cancer didn’t frighten me, it just made me mad. It was just something else I would have to fight tooth and nail.

I now return you to your normal atheistic rants.

Posted in communication, wild guesses, education, emotion | Print | 4 Comments »

16. March 2009 by Frank.

This morning I mentioned that I went to see WATCHMEN yesterday (excellent, BTW) to the tech guy I work with. He says his son went to see it and left after the first hour because there was stuff in the movie that was far worse than any “R” rating would imply. “Oh, come on,” says I, a bit too sarcastically.

“Well, not all of us share your lack of moral values.”

The truth comes out. Yet another self righteous Christian friend reveals what he really thinks about me.

I will remain civil but any pretense of a friendship just flew out the window. I refuse to submit myself to any more of this holier than thou, I’m more moral than you crap.

I wonder what the X-rated (or NC-17) stuff was? Was it the flaccid blue penis? Was it the sex scene complete with bare breasts and simulated thrusting? Or was it all the blood and gore? The power sawing the guy’s arms off? A hard core R back in the day was far worse than any of this.

But I don’t have any moral values. No wonder I enjoy such depraved crap.

You may think throwing a friendship away over a stupid opinion of a movie is a bit extreme and you’d be right. I could care less about that. But telling me I lack moral values is an entirely different matter. Judgment has been passed on my standards and I was found wanting.

Well, sorry, about that. I would have let the whole thing drop and never mention the movie or anything like it again. It wouldn’t be the first time this guy vehemently disagreed with me and I just shut up about it. I wasn’t out to argue. You don’t like something? Fine, I won’t ever bother you with my opinion of it again. But tell me my moral standards aren’t high enough or good enough for you, you’ve crossed the line.

This isn’t about a stupid movie, it’s about what someone really thinks about me as a human being. I’m not a good little Christian so I have no moral values. Do I really want a “friend” who thinks of me in those terms?

No.

Oh well, what’s the point? I am what I am and I am not the least inferior to any of these paragons of virtue.

The original CAT scan of the abdomen and pelvis has been canceled but the chest scan is still on for this afternoon. Somebody (meaning the urologist) had better be explaining what is going on at my appointment tomorrow night. It seems to me the first CAT scan from last week must have told them what they need to know.

Posted in communication, interpretation, wild guesses, religion | Print | 4 Comments »

14. March 2009 by Frank.

Why can’t anything be simple?

I postponed the 2^nd CAT scan because, well, the thought of drinking that contrast fluid the day after they injected me full of a different kind of contrast fluid just seemed like too much. Not to mention I was sick as a dog and it brought on a renewed fever, complete with another bout of shakes, chills, and heavy sweating. Oh yeah, they also injected me with some stuff that makes you need to urinate uncontrollably.

The CAT scan itself is nothing, just lay on a platform that slides in and out of a big mechanical ring that makes some low level rumbling sounds as the scanner rotates around the ring. Actually kind of cool.

So I rescheduled the 2^nd one for Monday figuring I should feel better so the drinking of the two bottles of contrast might not be as much of an ordeal.

Yesterday morning I woke up to the realization that the sickness had broken. I actually felt almost human for the first time in a week. That should have clued me into the fact that my day was already on the road to hell again. Shortly after 8AM I get a call at work from my doctor’s office. It’s the scheduling nurse who has absolutely no sense of tact, she never has and never will, you get used to it. Anyway, she blurts out that I’m scheduled for a chest CAT scan on Tuesday at 10:45. Wait a minute. What? I’ve already had one CAT scan and I’ve got the second one on Monday. What are you talking about a third CAT scan on Tuesday? WTF?

We got the results back from the first CAT scan and there’s something on your lung so the doctor wants to see what it is. Just to be sure.

You have to know this woman to understand how she delivered this line so you know how absolutely annoying it actually was. I was already totally exasperated about having to have two of these things, now they tell me I need three of them! I’m going to be paying for all these tests for years to come.

I’m not worried about anything on my lung, I’m not a smoker and never have been. There isn’t any heavy airborne pollution in this area so I doubt it’s anything other than the effects of this nasty cold which seemed to be real deep in my chest. Unless it’s some mutant space alien bug.

That would be cool.

Come to think of it, I live less than ten miles from a nuclear reactor to the South and less than twenty miles from a nuclear reactor to the North. It’s a wonder I don’t glow in the dark already.

And I still haven’t gotten the camera in the bladder yet. That might or might not happen on Tuesday also.

If this was a movie it would be time to yell, “Cut! Stuntman.”

Posted in communication, wild guesses, Uncategorized | Print | 2 Comments »

10. March 2009 by Frank.

Update #1

I contracted an extremely nasty cold on Friday which wiped me out all weekend and has left me feeling horrible all day today.

Update #2

I just got home from the urologist. Not only does he and his staff have the personalities of cold fish, they manage to make you feel as if you have no value as a human being. Wonderful bedside manner. They did a thing like an ultrasound. And gave me a very cursory once going over. The doctor asked me about 5 questions, said, “Hmmmmm,” and left. The nurse came back in, took some blood, and gave me an order sheet. They did not do the microprobe camera like I was led to believe. That might be next week or not, nobody would say for certain. A lot of wasted anxiety right there.

I then spent the next half hour waiting for the receptionist to figure out if the CAT scan I have scheduled for tomorrow covers the same thing as the one the urologist ordered for me today. Yes, that is correct. They want me to have two damn CAT scans! Since they wanted me to pay $400 up front for the first one, I can only assume the second one is similar. But that’s not the main issue. It seems to me that I’ve encountered the department of redundancy department.

I already took tomorrow off for the first CAT scan because I didn’t want to have to deal with drinking two bottles of that contrast fluid at work. But they rescheduled for Wednesday because they want the new CAT scan first. This one involves drinking two glasses of water. Which means I took tomorrow off for nothing and will still wind up drinking those two bottles at work on Wednesday because the appointment is after I get off.

Update #3

Referring to Update #1: I have a massively bad headache during all of this nonsense. Just before leaving I was informed that the damn fucking doctor was going on vacation for the rest of the week! So I would have to wait to find out what’s next even longer than normal. Several major blood veins in my head exploded.

The last time I was this angry at a doctor was an idiot cardiologist several years ago. He, too, left for a vacation immediately after seeing me without bothering to tell me what had happened. I thought I had had a heart attack.

It turned out to be severe acid reflux but neither he nor anyone on his staff thought it important to tell me.

I’m having the exact same feelings about this guy. Two CAT scans for the same thing? Something ain’t right.

Right at the minute I don’t know if I’m going to go through with it.

I’m sure this pain is interfering with my reason.

But godamnit, I’m angry!

At least no one offered to pray for me.

Posted in wild guesses, Uncategorized | Print | 3 Comments »

6. March 2009 by Frank.

So things aren’t going so well. My wife fell down and broke her hip. $30,000 down the drain. The woman she worked for died four days later so she has no job to go back to when she finishes recovering. Then I get some blood where there shouldn’t ever be any blood. Now I have to get a CAT scan and some unpronounceable procedure that involves shoving a fiber-optic camera up an opening that’s way too small for such a thing to be shoved into. Because it could be kidney cancer or bladder cancer or who the hell knows maybe even prostate or testicular cancer. The key word being “cancer.”

Until the tests next week, it’s all just speculation. Nevertheless, I am pissed off. (No pun intended.)

The hospital just called me. They already checked with my insurance company and determined that all I had to do was pay $400 up front next Tuesday when I get scanned. Where am I supposed to get $400 on 5 days notice? I haven’t heard from the urologist yet so no telling how much they want. Not to mention I just got two bills totaling $1200 pertaining to my wife’s operation.

I mention all this not to get your sympathy (although I wouldn’t refuse it) but to draw a distinction about how I’m reacting to the whole situation. After the nearly two decades I spent in church, I know exactly how I would be reacting if I were still a believer. I would be praying without ceasing. I would be begging. I would be claiming authority over the disease and casting it out in the name of Jesus. I would be commanding my body to be healed. And I would be rebuking the devil informing him he had no authority over me and that I would not accept his sickness in my life.

I would also be in full whirling dervish mode trying to keep my faith from failing. Basically I would be panicking.

But fortunately I am free of all that.

I’m not happy but I’m not fearful. I’m angry but I’m not asking, “Why me?” I’m not panicking, I’m actually quite calm. I know there isn’t a devil to rebuke nor is there a god to plead with. This isn’t some test of my faith that I have to suffer through because god chooses not to heal me and it will make me stronger. The god I believed in was actually a sadistic bastard but I never could see or understand that until I lost my faith. Now I realize just how foolish my faith was.

Life has just taken a steaming dump on my head.

So what is my response? Blogging. I’ll write about this ordeal and how I intend to conquer it, once I actually know what it is I have to conquer. I beat the damn stroke, I can beat cancer or anything else it turns out to be.

Nobody or nothing fucks with me and wins.

Posted in communication, interpretation, wild guesses, emotion, religion | Print | 5 Comments »