Last Glimpse of Summer

Until next time…

Many years ago a co-worker of mine used to put a little saying in his email footer; “You can only eat an elephant one bite at a time”. I didn’t like him much, but his email footer stuck with me. It was a different way of saying the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step, but the elephant analogy has always had a stronger frame of reference for me maybe because I love food so much. For me elephant analogy was the realization that even though the elephant would still be there tomorrow it would have one less bite remaining on it after today.

Have you ever committed to something that is bigger than your capabilities? How about two times bigger? Or even three times bigger? What about ten times bigger? Let me tell you something about how big that size of a commitment is. It is not like ordering a meal that is bigger than your stomach’s capacity; you know the whole my eyes were bigger than my stomach thing as everyone has expereinced at a Thanksgiving or two. The thing is that with the too-big-of-a meal, you can eat a little at a time and put the remainder in the refrigerator to save for a later meal.

Another thing about a commitment is that a commitment usually comes with deadlines. It’s like adding the Ole 96er scenario to the mix. In the Ole 96er scenario you have one hour to eat a meal that way too big, a 96oz steak (six pounds) and all of fixings; baked potato, vegetable and bread. If you succeed within the hour you get a t-shirt, a hat, rounds of applause and your meal, as well as everyone else’s meal at your table is free. If you fail, you’re so full it hurts, you gained 5 pounds and you now have to pay $60 for the steak dinner top off the fact that everyone else has to pay for their now to. The main issue with the Ole 96er scenario is that your stomach has the normal capacity to hold maybe 32oz of the steak (that is two pounds of yummy steak goodness) before being stretched to maximum capacity and you die; well at least wish you were dead. Talk about a challenge.

I did that exact thing with my commitment in July only it wasn’t a tiny 96oz ounce steak. It was an elephant sized task with an August 29^th deliverable, which would prove to be a challenge for a healthy person. I committed myself to hosting and presenting a series of photography workshops and presentations at the Oregon State Fair this year. In using the term series, I am stating that there are a total of 21 workshops, 12 of which are unique, that needed to be planned, put together and ready for one and two hour long presentations. This is 35 days to prepare 12 unique presentations (30 totals hours). This was a huge task, but adding to the stress of that task is my full time day job, family needs and fibromyalgia symptoms that are not even close to being under control. I sat and looked at what I had in front of me: A true mission impossible; an elephant needing to be eaten.

So what do you do when you have five weeks to plan 30 hours of presentations that can spell success or failure for your professional life and reputation? What does a person do with that size of an elephant? Well you don’t try to eat that elephant all by yourself do you? Especially not if you have a deadline that is rapidly approaching. You can either walk away from the elephant and cut your loses or you can call on some friends to have an old fashioned BBQ. And BBQ is what I did.

I contacted all of the photographers in my photography group and opened the opportunity to them to co-present at the fair with me. I turned that elephant into a group event, an opportunity for everyone and the group jumped on the opportunity with a passion that equaled mine. I ended up with five presenters each planning their own presentations, including myself, and dozens of helpers to make banners, business cards and covering just about every aspect of the presentations that we needed.

It was still a stressful undertaking with now having to coordinate 18 people on top of planning my presentations, but coordinating only added a couple of bites of the elephant each day. While coordinating the people was a couple of additional bites for me each day, each of those 18 people took five bites off that elephant each day. As each one of them took it upon themselves to complete a task and start the next the elephant started disappearing rapidly.

The BBQ, as it turned out, was a great idea. I was now getting 18 times the work done with less than 1/3 the effort and this allowed me to focus on the bites of the elephant I needed to eat; my presentations and coordinating with the Exhibit Director.

Yesterday was the first day of presentations, eight presentations, each an hour long, and each presentation was perfectly planned and executed by myself and two other presenters. Sure I might have said something or explained something differently in other’s presentations, but I was simply happy that it was the success it was and I am not really a control freak.

Had I not had the help from my friends, it would have been a complete disaster. And while we still have 20 hours of presentations to give for the remainder of the week, I have no doubt that each and every one of us will contribute to the success of those remaining bites of the elephant.

In the end, the elephant is nearly gone now, and nothing is going to waste. I have learned that yes, you can eat an elephant one bite at a time, if you are given enough time. If you don’t have enough time to go it alone, you can always have a BBQ and invite your friends over to help. And everyone loves a good BBQ. So the next time you are facing an elephant don’t fret over its overwhelming size; light the charcoal and invite your friends over. That Elephant will be gone in no time. Offering free beer to help wash that elephant down isn’t a bad idea either.

Has it really been a month and half since my last post? Yes it has and it has been good for me in some senses and not so good in others. I stepped away because I was spiraling into a deep depression with severe suicidal thoughts, to point of planning. I had to deal with these thoughts and I couldn’t do it through writing, because my writing was focused on the negative aspects of my life and this only feed my downward spiral. So I had to walk away.

In doing so, walking away, I turned my focus on more important things like; my art, my family and my business. This gave me something to focus on other than the pain (mental and physical). The pain is still there, but it isn’t overwhelming me to the point that death looks like the best option.

My art, truly my only outlet for releasing my emotions, became very productive. I produced some fantastic photographs including a 360 degree multi-set panorama from inside a monastery and some fantastic work from the local area. I became extremely busy scheduling and teaching several workshops to fellow photographers in the Photography Club I run. I am now in the middle of designing, planning and executing a week long workshop series for the Photography Exhibit at the State Fair this year.

My photography business is a deep passion of mine. If I had my dithers, I would quit my job today and pursue the business side of things full time. But because I am not the only person in my house, my wife really keeps me grounded in the reality of the business. And while this can add to my negative emotions and actions because I believe that I can d something with this if I didn’t have my day job consuming so much of my energy and mental faculties. But slow and steady will have to do for winning this race.

My family is still something of another issue. My relationship with my wife is still strained a little. We definitely love each other, but I cannot meet all her needs (mentally or physically) and she is showing signs of wear as a result. But she is a solid grounding point for me and supportive of my obsessions and understanding about my disease.

The rest of my family is a completely different story. An absolute mess doesn’t even begin to describe it. My mom and sister haven’t talked in over a year, and now as a result of sharing my disease with my mom and her negatively skewed opinion of the disease based on her exposure to others with it, we are no longer on speaking terms, well she isn’t speaking to me any longer. It is sad, and I do regret that it had to come to that, but I believe that overall health might be better for it.

My business has been granted a huge opportunity. Whether the opportunity will take off really depends on one part luck, one part finance, one part execution and one part timing. I have been offered a retail space to setup a studio and now I have to figure out how to raise the money to afford the needed costs associated with a start up studio. Once I have that figured out I then have to execute on the complex but workable business model and plan. The other two parts are outside of my control because the other parties, the party making the offer as well as the other two businesses, needs to figure out the timing and get board approval.

What makes this opportunity so special is that the other two businesses involve a cosmetics shop, in which the owner is launching his own cosmetics brand, and a beauty salon. So as a portrait and event photographer I will be able to add their services as part of the package I provide and they can add my services as part of theirs.

So as you can read the last month and half has been very busy and I will very busy in the coming months as well and this is a good thing. I will try to do better about blogging here more and sharing more of my successes in spite of my disease, as well as my failures due to my disease and how I am coping with both.

Until next time; gentle hugs and pain free day wishes to all of you.

Anyways, I just realized that my last post really left me worried about whether I was okay or not. So I thought I would just drop in and say I am doing fine.

I have multiple personae online and different levels of honesty. I am always honest in my writings, in my art and in my life. I may not alway speak my feelings, because my feelings might be overly hurtful to the one I am saying them to or that I don’t see the point, but when I do share them, I share them honestly. Recently I have not felt compelled to share anything about my feelings with my family, friends or even my dog. Why? Because I don’t want to scare anyone.

But let me share them here… not that anyone reads this gibberish anyways… and not that it is important that anyone does.

I want to die. That is what I am feeling right now. I want nothing more than for this life to end. The pain in my body is too much to bear any longer. The lack of anything in my empty heart is not the way we are supposed to be. I don’t emotionally feel anything anymore. And in the lack of emotions I left to feel physical anguish. I don’t feel joy for the blessing I know I have received. I don’t feel grief for the dear friend that I lost. I don’t feel love towards my family, although I care about them, but I can’t feel it enough to express it. I can’t feel frustration because instantly turns to either rage or disappointment. I simply don’t want to live an emotionless life any more. A life with feeling, is a life not lived. I can’t take any more of this.

All I can really emotionally feel now is sorrow.  The rest if just physical pain.

• Sorrow for pain I have caused.
• Sorrow for the disappointment I have become.
• Sorrow for the failures I have created.
• Sorrow for the man I am.
• Sorrow for the man I am not.
• Sorrow for the seeds I have sown.
• Sorrow for the seeds I have planted.

To all I have hurt, yesterday, today and tomorrow. I am sorry. I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know how to fix myself, so I can’t even begin to fix what I have done to hurt you. All I can so is apologize and I hope that you can accept it. Here is a list of everyone I am apologizing to:

• Wife
• Our Dog
• Daughters
• Mom
• Step-Dad
• Sister
• Best Friend
• Tyler
• Michael
• Mike
• Molly
• Howard
• Brett
• Bala
• Saul
• Bridget
• Rose
• Marcy
• Steve
• Shawn
• Sean
• Karrie and Kevin
• Skippy
• Bobo
• DeeEtta
• Lynn
• DeeAnna
• Sandra
• Sally
• Richard
• Joe
• Everyone at SDPG

Each of those names represents a pain I have caused, in many cases, many pains. We hurt the ones we love the most the most frequently. Each of those pains has left a scare. Each of those scares is a reminder of me and my failures to do the right thing. I apologize to each of you and I pray that you find forgiveness for my failures,  not for me, but for you to be able to heal and move on.

I do not feel any better, but then again, I did expect or want to. I simply wanted to apologize to these victims of my failures as a prayer almost, just in hopes that it will send some healing energy their way.

I am going to go to bed now. Maybe tomorrow will be different, but I really doubt that.  I will go to sleep, because that is the only time I don’t mind not feeling anything. I will get up tomorrow have the exact same day as today and have the exact same thoughts that I did today, because that is how it has been since as long as I can remember. I am an asshole who doesn’t deserve the live I have been given, yet I am being forced to live it day after hellish day and night after dreamless night. It is 3:11AM and I still don’t want to go to bed… but I will because the alternative would just cause more pain to the ones who say they love me.

My name is Steven. I am 40 years old. I believe that I should have died 39 years ago, but there isn’t anything I can do about it but pray for death each and every day because I don’t care about anyone else and how my death would affect them. I can only focus on selfish, “meet my needs first”, asshole me. Sadly for the world, my prayers go unanswered and we are all going to be cursed with yet another day of my presence. May you be blessed by not having a bastard like me in your life for you life will be a little less like hell.

Goodnight.

My friend Nathan Smith of Smith Fine Art invited me over to his studio to play; and boy did we ever play! Using a is studio lighting (a ring flash, SB-900 and a studio strobe) we had some creative lighting fun. Nathan provided me these copies of the work to process while he processes the same images using this style of porcessing. He did promise to zombify at least one of the images of me. All in all we simply has fun. He stood behind the camera, I made faces through the ring light and we made adjustments to the lighting and experimented to our heart’s content. Like I said… it was fun. Thanks for inviting me over Nathan. I know you were laughing throughout the process, but sometimes it sounded a little like nervous laughter, so I hope I didn’t scare you too much. I was really having fun.

The results were not only stress relieving, but fun to boot. I am an artist that works in the photography medium as well as many other mediums, as many of you may know, so doing something creative was very therapeutic. Give it  a try some time. Even when you are feeling your worst, you may find some relief from the pain, exhaustion, depression and boredom associated with Fibromyalgia.

Here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA
The only way to fix it is to flush it all away.
Any fucking time. Any fucking day.
Learn to swim, I’ll see you down in Arizona bay.

Fret for your figure and
Fret for your latte and
Fret for your lawsuit and
Fret for your hairpiece and
Fret for your prozac and
Fret for your pilot and
Fret for your contract and
Fret for your car.

It’s a Bullshit three ring circus sideshow of Freaks

Here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA
The only way to fix it is to flush it all away.
Any fucking time. Any fucking day.
Learn to swim, I’ll see you down in Arizona bay.

Some say a comet will fall from the sky.
Followed by meteor showers and tidal waves.
Followed by faultlines that cannot sit still.
Followed by millions of dumbfounded dipshits.

Some say the end is near.
Some say we’ll see armageddon soon.
I certainly hope we will cuz
I sure could use a vacation from this
STUPID shit, silly shit, stupid shit…

One great big festering neon distraction,
I’ve a suggestion to keep you all occupied.
Learn to swim.

Mum’s gonna fix it all soon.
Mum’s comin’ round to put it back the way it ought to be.
Learn to swim.

Fuck L Ron Hubbard and
Fuck all his clones.
Fuck all these gun-toting-hip gangster wannabes.
Learn to swim.

Fuck retro anything.
Fuck your tattoos.
Fuck all you junkies and
Fuck your short memory.
Learn to swim.

Fuck smiley glad-hands,
With hidden agendas.
Fuck these dysfunctional, Insecure actresses.
Learn to swim.

Cuz I’m praying for rain
And I’m praying for tidal waves
I wanna see the ground give way.
I wanna watch it all go down.

Mum please flush it all away.
I wanna see it go right in and down.
I wanna watch it go right in.
Watch you flush it all away.

Time to bring it down again.
Don’t just call me pessimist.
Try and read between the lines.
I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t
Welcome any change, my friend.

I wanna see it come down.
Come down.
Suck it down.
Flush it down.

I haven’t written in a while. I have been so busy with life that I have not been able stop for a moment. A lot has happened since my last post both with life in general and with this disease.

Three huge events took place in a single weekend three weeks ago and I actually survived, but I did suffer. By huge I mean that two of them are two of the top ten stressors that someone can go through. Over the course of the last three weeks I learned that swimming isn’t necessarily about constantly moving through the water, but rather getting to where you need to be at the moment and then treading for a little bit to rest.

SWIMMING:
On Friday at 3:00 in the afternoon I get an email from the wife of my dear friend and mentor, who had been in the hospital for a serious life-threatening condition, that he had lost his battle with Lung Fibrosis. I was absolutely devastated. Tyler, a fellow and more seasoned photographer, and I had developed a wonderful relationship over the course of the last year. He was mentoring me on several aspects of my hobby/profession/life. His passing left a gaping hole for me.

MORE SWIMMING:
That evening after my wife picked me up from work at 5:30PM and she wasn’t feeling well. She had pain in her back, just under shoulder blade and under her ribs in her chest. I told her it was her gall bladder; I know the symptoms because I had mine removed two years ago, almost to the day. From there things got worse. By 7:00PM she started vomiting and I had her in the emergency room and then things got real bad. Our experience in the emergency room was so bad that I believe we would have gotten better treatment from a Back Alley Guadalajarain Abortionist. She was rocking back and forth and crying in pain and vomiting for over an hour before a nurse came in to triage her. She did not get any pain medication until 10:00PM. When I asked if they could give her something for the pain at 7:05PM they said, “All we can give now is some ibuprofen tablets.” My response was simple, and stated with so much sarcasm that I made Lewis Black seem optmistic , I pointed to my wife, who was vomiting at that moment and said, “Realy?!?!”

When all was said and done, she was told her gall bladder was going to be removed. She arrived in her room at 2:30AM and told her the surgery wouldn’t be until Saturday some time. We had a serious talk, well I did as she was hopped up on Dilaudid, but we talked about my motorcycle training class I was supposed to be attending Saturday and Sunday that weekend. I was ready to not go, but since we had already pre-paid and no refunds would be offered for any reason, my wife said with her eyes closed and her speech slurred, “There is no way you are missing that class. We aren’t paying for it again.” I only hoped she would remember the conversation.

Treading:
I got home at 3:00AM Saturday morning. I ate something, because I hadn’t eaten anything in fifteen hours, set the alarm for 8:00AM and passed out.

SWIMMING:
I got up, got my clothes on and headed to the hospital. I visited with my less doped up wife and confirmed our conversation about the class and headed across town to class.

During class my wife called and let me know her surgery was scheduled for 8:00PM Saturday evening and that she would be in pre-op at 7:00PM. So after class, at 6:00PM, I went home and took care of our dog, had some dinner, placed our dog back in her bed and headed to the hospital by 8:15 PM.

I sat in her room waiting for her to be wheeled back in. I watched a movie, read my motorcycle driving manual (homework from the class) and relaxed. She got out of surgery and back in her room at 10:15PM. I went home at 10:45PM because she was sleeping. I went to took our dog out and we went bed.

SWIMMING:
I got up Sunday at 6:30AM, got to the hospital at 7:15AM. I visited with my wife, who was considerably more coherent. We visited until 8:30AM and I left for the last day of my class.

I called her several times on Sunday, at each class break. She sat in the hospital all day waiting, patiently I might add, for my class to be over with so I could take her home. I got there at 7:00 PM. I picked her and the nurse debriefed me. She had a prescription for Percocet that I needed to get filled. So I took her home and dropped her off and learned that the only pharmacy that was open after 6:00 PM on a Sunday was all of the way across town, a 30 minute drive. I got home at 10:00PM with her prescription in hand and completely wiped out.

TREADING:
I ate some dinner which my wife had made while I was out getting her prescription, bless her heart. We both went to bed at 10:30PM.

In the end I never had a proper grieving period for Tyler. I was able to attend his Celebration of Life (in lieu of a funeral) and I left there feeling remarkably better about his life and death than I did when I arrived. Tyler was an amazing man who, with his wife, lived life the fullest. His sense of adventure and love of gourmet cooking (both preparing and eating it) was only surpassed by his love sharing it and his genuine love of people. Tyler will be missed, but not forgotten. He touched so many people in his life and I feel blessed to have been one of the lucky people who got to know him.

SWIMMING:
As many of you know, I am a fine art photographer. For those that don’t know that already, you can see some of the photography, painting, sketching and writing work at http://the-monkeyspaw.blogspot.com and can buy my work at http://www.snapixel.com/people/monkeypaw2u. My camera died and at that point in time I was done trying. I lost it mentally. Anything and everything that could go wrong did go wrong, or at least that is where my mind was. I posted a blog post, twitter post and something in my flicker account that I was done.

TREADING:
Much to my surprise, a day later, another dear friend, after reading my posts, a member of the photo club here in town that I lead, offered to sell me his camera (same make and model as my dead one) for a more than fair price, which is good because my wife is about fed up with my spending money on photography stuff. This was fantastic. No need to worry about lenses being compatible or a new learning curve of a new camera.

SWIMMING:
I have several intense projects happening at my day job, which keeps my stress levels at max peak during the day.

TREADING:
About all I can do is come home and collapse after each work day, but at least I am employed and not homeless. And now I have my own mode of transportation, my motorcycle, which reduces a great deal of stress now that my wife and I no longer have to share a car all of the time.

SWIMMING:
All of that has happened in the last three weeks. As a result, in a combined effort with the springtime storm systems that have been moving through my region, my Fibromyalgia has been flaring badly. I have been hyper-sensitive to any stressor and as a result have a very fuse, which I try very hard to keep in check, but fail from time to time.

TREADING:
My wife has been very understanding and supportive even though she has been through so much as well. She is a Godsend.

I am taking a couple of days off next week due to my wife’s uncle and aunt coming into town. He is her only living relative as dad left her and her mom when she was four and her mom died of cancer when my wife was twelve. He is very important to my wife and is in poor health. He lives in Texas and we haven’t seen them in two years during a trip to Las Vegas. It will be nice.

Over the last three weeks, I have learned that I spend way too much time focusing on the little things and need to focus on what is important; that life is like an elephant, you eat an elephant one bite at a time regardless of how big it is. I need to let the small stuff lay on the back burner and focus on what is important. Swimming really does have two parts to it; swimming and treading water (motion and rest). Nobody can swim forever. I must know my limits and know what needs to be done so I know when I need to be swimming and when I need to be treading. That is what swimming is a series of actions to achieve and breaks to recover.

Have you learned to swim?

But it is absolutely cumbersome to have to take my wife to work and pick her up if I need to the car for whatever legitimate reason. Plus we are burning twice the gas for the same trips… so the money we are saving in gas is nearly negated. Well this tax return season we decided to see about getting me a scooter. It is gas economical up to 70mpg, cheap on insurance (about $100 a year) and convenient for our needs.

Because I am a big man a little 50cc scooter wouldn’t provide enough power to make it take me over 25mph, therefore not safe enough for in town travel. So I needed to look at more along the lines of 150cc or more scooter. My wife decides that it would be fun for us to take trips to the coast (requiring 55mph speed from the scooter) which in turn requires at least a 200cc or as recommended from the dealer, a 250cc scooter.

Now the price for a 250cc scooter jumps from an affordable $1800 for the 150cc model to $5000 for the 250cc models. I am sitting at the dealership asking myself, “What the hell?” How does 100cc of engine raise the cost of  scooter 277%? The dealer wasn’t able to answer me that question either. So we walked out, letting him know that we would have to figure out how to do this, and then began researching online. Our research revealed that his prices were better than most of the competition in the area.

So I began researching other options, like used (inheriting other’s problems), and moving to motorcycles. Well the motorcycle option, which can get similar mileage to a scooter, but can tend to cost considerably more. But… I found a brand new 250cc motorcycle with 8 miles on it, on Craigslist of all places, for less than the cost of a 150cc scooter. Since the motorcycle was a 2008 model with 8 miles I suspected the dealer was cheating by rolling the odometer back or some other shenanigan.

I know many of the tricks of the trade as my wife’s uncle, and only living relative, owns several car dealerships across the mid-west and he has seen many of these practices actually practiced, not that he would ever do that himself though.

My wife and I went to guy’s house, which is where the motorcycle was being stored because he is a licensed car dealer, and not a motorcycle dealer, and I was shocked at what I found. The thing looked, smelled, started and ran like it was brand new. So we talked about it a little bit. He bought a large lot of vehicles from another dealer that was closing and part of the lot included the motorcycle. The motorcycle has a factory certificate that is required for registering factory vehicles, so it has never even been registered. He doesn’t ride, doesn’t sell and doesn’t deal with motorcycles, so much to my luck, he wanted to get rid of this answer to our needs.

My wife and I paid him a small deposit of $100 and he wrote me a receipt.  Today I go to his dealership, for legal reasons he couldn’t sell the motorcycle to me from his home, I will pay the remaining $1150 and he will deliver the motorcycle to my apartment.

I will get my motorcycle endorsement in the next month and register the motorcycle at the same time and I will be on the road. Wind in my face, bike rumbling between my legs and living a biker’s life; sort of. Again this is a fuel economic commuter vehicle; nothing more, nothing less. Oh how my mom is going to love this.

In the end this extra vehicle is going to remove a lot of stress in our lives, especially with our ever conflicting schedules. Now we can each go our own separate ways without all of the conflict and when our schedules do align, which happens to be about as often as planets, we can go for a ride together.

How does the chicken/egg and cart/horse analogies have to do with morbid obesity, unhealthy eating habits and “suicide” of any type? It will make sense if you read on.

All of my doctors agree on only one thing, I need to lose weight. The best way to this is to exercise and have a healthy diet. Duh, right? Well let’s look at me and who I am to understand something about me. First and foremost, if you tell me I have to do something or that I can’t do something and I will go to all efforts to prove you wrong. One of the reasons I am morbidly obese is because I wanted to prove to everyone that I could eat as much as I wanted, what I wanted and when I wanted. I took this to the point that I have been my current weight for the last ten years, give or take 10 lbs.

 I am the way I am because I spent much of my childhood being bullied, not just in school, but also in the realm of family as well. I was bullied by my step-alcoholic (father-figure) and all seven of his brothers and sisters, save one. His nieces and nephews also bullied me. I had a very strong willed woman as a mother. I was also bullied in school. After I graduated high school I really took on my own identity, which included a fuck-em all attitude. I wasn’t going to take it any longer. Admittedly, this really wasn’t the best attitude to have, especially since I joined the Navy a month after graduation. I got into some legal trouble as a result of my rebellious attitude, but seemed to never get in enough trouble to be serious.

While I was in the Navy, I gained a few pounds, 30 to be exact. I was 6’4” tall and 230 lbs and the Navy labeled me morbidly obese then. I shed enough weight to get through my four years, with an honorable discharge (don’t ask me how, because I don’t know) and I made the biggest mistake of my life, I moved back to my hometown. I could have moved anywhere in the world, but I moved back to the blue collar shithole I was raised in. I do not have any type of issue with blue collar workers, non-what-so-ever. I am blue collar at heart, but I do have an issue with the blue collar shithole I grew up in.

My life went downhill from there, two marriages, two divorces and two bankruptcies. All the time my family is telling me what I have to do, when I have to do it and why. So what did I do? The complete opposite is what I have done. At this point in my life, it isn’t a choice any more. I can’t choose to do the opposite of the opposite. Sometimes I feel like the driver a Toyota, accelerating out of control, it is no longer my choice and I am just along for the ride regardless of how hard I try.

So I have my doctors telling me I have to lose weight. Can you guess what is happening? Yup… I am packing pounds on. I have my family telling me I have to get outside more. Can you guess what is happening? Yup… I am becoming more and more of a shut in. I have programmed myself well haven’t I. To the point that I no longer have control over my own motivations.

So I tell my doctors that I would love to get out and exercise, but the pain is too much, and that is the truth and not an exaggeration. My doctors won’t give me anything for the pain other than a mild muscle relaxant.  So I don’t get out and exercise and to top that off my diet consists of a lot of sugars, carbohydrates and starch, therefore I am not losing weight. Whenever I try to cut any one of those things out of my diet it is like quitting chewing tobacco. I know because I also chew. I know, disgusting… but at least I am not exposing others to cigarette smoke. I keep my carcinogens to myself. After taking some time to think about this, I believe that I have subconsciously programmed myself to commit suicide, a different kind of suicide. So with the constant pain and inability to exercise why should have decent diet? Why should quit chewing? What’s the point? That is what my brain asks me when I try to eat right. If I can’t fix it all, why fix any of it?

I have withdrawn from society, family, career and life in general. I do run a local photography club, but outside of that I don’t have friends that I go do things with, and even if I did I would probably withdraw from them over time. My family is for the most part estranged from me, to the point that my mom is probably going to move away, since I was the only reason she was hanging around.

I have lost all of my friends, outside of a one or two, and I have all but lost my relationships with all of my family. This, along with the Fibromyalgia, abuses in the past and constant failures in business, marriage and career has greatly added to my deep depression. I have suicidal thoughts all the time, I have since I was in high school. While most people and doctors do not believe that this is normal thought behavior, my only response when that say this is, “This is and has been my normal for as long as I can remember.”

I may chew, over eat and maintain a lethargic lifestyle because deep down inside I am ready to die and I am doing everything possible to make it happen as soon as possible outside of grabbing a gun, rope or a bottle of pills. But how long before that happens? I don’t know. Right now the only thing preventing me from going that route is my fear of hell. See I truly believe that the 10 commandments spell out what can and will send a person to hell. If I were to kill myself, I would not be able to ask for forgiveness of the killing, because you can’t ask for and receive forgiveness for a sin before it is committed and therefore would go to hell. I know the logic might seem a little, or a lot, off, but it the way my logic works.

I do want to get healthier. I want to be a better husband, father, employee, photographer, etc. I want to be able to do more with my photography. I want to be able do more outside of my home. I have asked for help from my doctors in helping with pain management so I could exercise more, but alas they won’t help with pain management. They want me to lose the weight and that will help with the pain. And I argue that I need to get pain controlled to be able to exercise because the pain to too much. So there we have it, they want to put the cart before the horse and I want the chicken before the egg and I want it now; instant gratification. Either way I am in a downward spiral that probably isn’t going to end well for me, my wife or my children.

So where does one go from here? For me it is doing everything wrong, because everyone is telling what I have to do. It is a different kind of suicide.

My wife, who is very involved in helping me understand and manage this disease, goes with me to most of my doctor appointments. She and I went to two doctor’s appointments in a single day, one of which we waited three months for. The first was with my pain specialist, whom my wife doesn’t think likes her, and this was first time in several months that my wife went with me.  My wife believes that my doctor doesn’t like her as a result of our age difference. We get more than our fair share of judgmental looks and reactions from others, not just doctors as a result of the age difference.

During this appointment I explained my frustration with the lack of improvement as a result of the recommended treatments from my doctor and other doctors and treatments I have been referred to and prescribed. I have been seeing a sleep specialist at the recommendation from the Fibromyalgia clinic I attended last November to ensure that I do not have apnea. I had a sleep study done in 2003 which found that I only stopped breathing 13 times an hour, which is, according to the sleep doctor’s own words, “low for apnea to be considered an issue” and my oxygen levels never dipped below 85%, which is “not bad”. Since my 2003 sleep study my diet and weight has not changed, and weight gain is a key indicator to apnea risk.  I can’t afford another sleep study and therefore don’t want to pay what I can’t afford to only get similar results.

My real sleep disorder is that I am unable to go to sleep at night. I can lay awake in bed, with my eyes closed, for hours at a time. Since this only frustrates me beyond belief, decreasing the likelihood of falling asleep even more, I get up, if I even went to bed at all, and do things that are productive like work on photography, web development and/or just watch some television. My employer expects that I be at work at 8:00 AM sharp every day and be ready to roll, but since I don’t get to bed until 1:00 AM or even 4:00 AM sometimes, I sleep through the alarm and now my employer is taking issue with it. I explained this to the sleep doctor.

She indicated that my circadian rhythm is off and when my brain is supposed to be ready for sleep, it is actually at its most active. I and have had no luck getting any type of sleep aid or cocktail to knock me out at night. Instead I have been assigned “Light” therapy and told not to work on the computer or watch the television in the evenings or at night and I am taking 500mcg of melatonin in the evenings. But alas, it is not working and has not been for over a month.

I warned my pain doctor that she needed to really be careful about prescribing these new miracle cure medicines that are being marketed on television as the best treatment for FMS. My experience with them has been nothing but negative. Cymbalta, Lyrica and Savella are the spawn of Satan. Go ahead and let the manufacturers sue me. I have documented proof of the side effects each had on me which included; weight gain, headaches, suicidal thoughts, debilitating depression and others. So please, feel free to sue me, I would love to have my day in court and I have thousands of collaborating witnesses to testify they experiences with these drugs all with similar or worse side effects.

I told my doctor that I was unhappy with the various cognitive therapies I have been getting sent to. I can’t afford the insurance co-pays and the fact that I am billed for additional charges my insurance refuses to cover. Paying over $400 a month in co-pays is killing us financially

Then came my second appointment with a urologist for ED. This doctor was first and foremost, crass, abrupt and downright rude to both my wife and I. It was a difficult topic to discuss to begin with, but to be belittled, talked down to and treated like a second class citizen not only upset me, but enraged my wife.

Without any real probing questions about my condition or my symptoms, she proceeded to tell me that even if my testosterone levels were low she would be hesitant to prescribe them because of the side effect. She went on to tell me that most of my issues were with my weight and that I needed to take drastic measures to lose my excess weight. Let me put it this way, she made Julianne from biggest loser look compassionate.

She then proceeded to have me drop my pants, gave me a quick fondle, announce that everything looked normal and proceeded to write an order for a blood test to check my hormone levels. She walked out of the room, came back in with a bag of samples of the Mr. Happy performance enhancers and said to call her once I had the blood drawn.

Wham-bam-thank-you-mam. The appointment was over and done before it began.

The truly sad part is that if I don’t continue actively getting treatment, I run the risk of losing many benefits, like FLMA, which protects my job from excessive absences as the result of having FMS. If I were to lose my job, I wouldn’t have insurance at all and while my insurance barely covers anything as it is, I can only imagine what my medical expenses would be without it.

I want to get copies of my medical records before taking any action, such as firing my doctors. I don’t really want to start over with a new doctor. I don’t want to run the risk of looking like a drug seeker. But I want to get the help I need. But in a world of doctor’s suffering from what I call Michael Jackson Syndrome (they don’t want to be part of any drug seeker’s death), now people who need the help can’t get it. Yeah, Michael Jackson was not only a child molester, but now, because he was a junkie, in death he is causing pain for millions that can’t get the help they need. Asshole!

Now I’m left wondering what the hell? I am frustrated and pissed off. I am in the same position I have been in for the last decade. I now have medical files that likely make it look like I am a drug seeker if I go to another doctor, even though I have never prescribed anything other than a mild muscle relaxer.

But most of all I want to know why God only gave us two middle fingers, because ten middle fingers would have been more useful. The two I have are really tired and starting to wear out.