I am still trying to edit pics of the festival.

I’m Confused and sluggish.

The mirrors all busted and somebody’s crying….

Must have been the “Pills I Took”.

Hank Williams III

I thought I knew what Pain was. I have experienced some severe pain at different times of my life. I live in a world of constant pain and have fooled myself into believing I knew the worst. I was wrong.

Being the anti narcotic freak I am I chose not to have pain medicine during the post surgery part of the treatment procedure I went through Tuesday and Wednesday. The surgeon inserted a catheter into my back so I could have injections directly to the damaged area in and around my lower spine. The injections had enzymes that break up scar tissue but don’t affect the nerves. The doctor had told me that they would cause “extreme discomfort” so I translated that to mean they would hurt really bad. I didn’t know the agony they would bring. I was brought to tears yesterday morning. I have never experienced pain so extreme.

Doctor Alexander is kind, helpful and very understanding. Even though she knows my adamant stand against my narcotic intake she still recommended the pain meds. Since they wouldn’t let me smoke my weed up there I told her I wasn’t going to have anything. She tried, so the pain I went through was all my fault. When the first post surgery injection hit I felt like my legs had been dipped into boiling water. The severe screaming pain lasted about 5 minutes.
I considered the meds seriously after that injection. When the pain subsided my stubbornness kicked back in and I opted to go through it with the next injections without drugs. I am not sure if I did the right thing but I paid for it.

I felt great between injections and walked around the hospital freely. Feeling kinda grungy I asked the nurse about a razor and a comb. She disappeared into a closet for a moment and returned with both a comb and an old fashioned safety razor. I combed my long hair and prepped my face for shaving. Having scraped my face with disposable shavers with angled blades for so many years I forgot the old style razors were different. Whacked my cheeks and chin up quite severly. I have many cuts to show for it.

Even though the food was bad….not good doesn’t describe it….it was bad, I had a quite pleasant stay in the hospital. I met an old guy that was in extreme pain. He was waiting for a procedure when I met him and he was just down the hall from me the next morning. When I dropped by his room yesterday he smiled and said, “There’s that nice young man from yesterday”. I haven’t been called “young man” for years but when an 84 year old brother calls me that I know 50 seems quite young to him. I visited with a sweet dietician and some kind student nurses. I had a nice physical therapist stop by with instructions on the exercises I need to do to keep better. The nurses aides were all very nice and the lady who cleaned my room was so wonderful. I was so happy to have so many wonderful folks around to help I feel blessed. They were all great and then there was Valerie.

Early Wednesday morning I went out front to have a smoke. The parking lot was empty so I didn’t have to go far to be isolated and not worry about getting caught. They did tell me to bring any regular pain meds with me so the joints I had were following directions…or so I tell myself. I got a nice little buzz on and wandered back into the hospital to await my next scheduled injection. (turned out that was a couple hours away so I shoulda waited to have the weed) I walked back into the wing my room was in and saw a stunning woman walking down the hall towards me.

“Rocky, I presume.” she said. “I’m Valerie and I’ll be your nurse today. Doctor Alexander will be up shortly but for now is there anything I can do for you?”

Her sincere smile made her even more beautiful. Her friendly attitude and the obvious care for her patients made me feel comfortable and I knew that I would be cared for well. I wasn’t disappointed. Her kindness lasted all day. I’m sure I bugged her but she treated me as if she had nothing else to do except care for me. We all know that nurses do all of the work and the doctors couldn’t even find their own prescription pad without them so we know she was busy but she never let on that I wasn’t the most important patient in her day.

Her smile was unwavering. Her sweetness never faded, even for a frustrated moment. She jumped to help and even took time to chat for a minute here and there. Cheery and happy she made my ordeal much easier. The pain faded quickly because of her presence. I thought when I left…”Damn. If I were only 20 years younger”.
Yeah….she was that special.

All in all it wasn’t a bad experience. The pain was intense but brief. The care was good and even though I had to go to the cafeteria to get Rice Krispies (no way the hospital cooks can screw up cereal) I feel rewarded by the people that came into my life. Even if it was during a short stay in the hospital.

But I am back and I feel ok.

The Political Cat asked for an update as well as some info about my friend at The Daly Buzz.

I know more about whats up with Buzz than with me and I don’t know much about whats up with him. He seems to be doing well as he has repeatedly posted his opinion in his unique witty style on the forum I met him on. I keep buggin him to post on his site even if he just copies and pastes the goodies he posts there. We’ll see.

With me? Not sure now. They have me scheduled for a hospital stay on the 24th and 25th to do that proceedure in my spine. Maybe it will help. I hope so.

My posting here will be spotty at best for the next coupla weeks as I prepare for and recover from it

Whatever happens things will be ok here in alien land. Just need a bit of time to adjust to the life changing future I face in the next little while.

The Doctor wants me to start seeing a shrink so the prognosis must not be good. They think I need counselling so must not be good news they have from all the tests.

For now I plan on staying “pig drug” free and wont take their conformity forming mood elevators.

I’ll be ok .

There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes…

John Prine

“Sam Stone”

Nuff said.

Ted got on his Soapbox 2.0 to talk about drugs and our soldiers. No…not that fine Afghani hash or the deadly opium and heroin available in the middle east, but about the prescription anti-depressants they are giving the troops. Maybe if they were smoking the hash they would be in a better mental state…naw…your mental health is gonna be horrible when death and suffering surrounds you. Especially when you are part of the cause of the suffering and your best buddy from The World just died in your arms.

As a former user of anti depressants I know that they “help” you cope with horrible life events by giving you an “I just don’t give a fuck” attitude about life…or death. What a handy tool for the government to keep problems down when the soldiers are told they are being flopped into another tour as part of the stop-loss backdoor draft. What a great stride to keeping the troops who invade homes filled with children and old folks in an I don’t care place of mind.

The article he links also talks about the numbers of antidepressant patients deployed in the middle east who are committing suicide. I like the pill’s depiction in the graphic in this Time article.

A few days ago I posted an article about H.B.5843. The bill Rep. Barney Frank presented along with Ron Paul to the U.S.House Of Representatives.

Here is a link to another bloggers article about this very important bill. The bill would free the states to ok medical marijuana without federal interference.

Read this one too, then get off your butts and contact your congresspersons and representatives and demand this bill pass.

A Left Independant

Representatives Barny Frank of Massachusetts and Ron Paul of Texas introduced House Bill 5843 back in April. The bill would allow users of marijuana to possess and smoke the herb without federal penalties. This would surely cover medical marijuana patients in the states where it is legal now. While the bill allows for states to make their own laws concerning possession many states already have decriminalized small amounts and some have laws legalizing it for medicinal purposes.

While this bill is still in front of 2 committees I urge you to write your representatives in support of this bill. I will provide you with two links that have an article as well as easy links to write to your congress persons. WashingtonWatch.com

and the NORML site.

Senator Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant glioma tumor in his brain. This is a fairly rare, always fatal tumor that has been studied all over. Many studies have shown how marijuana used as a treatment can slow or stop the growth of these very tumors. Too bad the government wont allow these studies to influence medicine here in the senators own country.

This video is almost 10 minutes long but is full of good info about treating glioma paitents with the natural herb.

Thanks Senator Kennedy for all the good work you have done for our country. I wish you and your family the best for the future.

Tip of the space helmet to Michael at cannablog.

Things have been a bit goofy for me in the last few weeks. The days leading up to my 50th birthday were kinda a stressful time. Yes, I have heard all of the jokes. Yes I know that this is a milestone time in everyones life and all of us start facing our own mortality. But despite all of this I refuse to take the over the hill attitude. I don’t fit into the “Not getting older, just better” catergory either. Because I seem to be getting worse….physically at least. My psychological forecast is good. I am trying to deal with a bunch and seem to be dealing ok.

My posts will probably seem erratic and sometimes strange in the coming weeks and I will explain that to y’all before you start wondering what happened to me. A little recent history will explain how I got to the place I am now. After the injury and resulting surgery in November 2000 things started being different in this drivers life. Now all of the uncertainity is back…with a vengance.

Last October I started falling down a lot. My legs seemed not to want to support me. The pain which had radiated into my left leg had begun to work its way into the left side. My feet began to feel like they were frostbitten. The slight breezes we get here in Roswell (sometimes 50 mph or more) challenged me going outside. The pain and imbalance caused me to seek the answers. Test after test, MRI after X-Ray, office visit after hospital visithave led the doctors to believe the scar tissue from that old operation was forming around the nerves in my lower spine. Not much they can do about that just yet.

They prescribed a nerve medicine and are working with the insurance company to do a treatment that is fairly new in the spine tech area. A treatment that is supposed to be very painful but will give me 3 to 5 months of relief between the horrors of the treatments. But my legs will support me again. My feet will quit hurting and the pain will return to just my right leg again. I hope.

The treatment sounds strange but has been widely recognized by spine proffesionals. It consists of 2 days in the hospital with a catheter in my spine where they can inject enzymes that eat scar tissue without affecting the nerves thamselves every 3 hours. The doc was straight with me when she told me the pain of the treatment was high. I hope she was right about the wonders of the results that come from a couple of days of more pain.

I have started taking pain meds again for a short while. Along with the weed I smoke they provide a bit of extra relief than my increasing marijuana intake was giving.  If the treatment works half as good as they say it will I will wean myself from the drugs once again and be back to just the pot.

So…I said all of that to say this. I hope I don’t seem too silly or disjointed over the next few weeks. If I do get a little strange you will know why. I really don’t like the pain meds and they are a drug I can just say no to most of the time. Just give me my weed and a little time and I am usually ok.

Aww hell. Now I’m just rambling.

Never mind.

In 1938 one of the most important influences in my life was discovered by Sandoz Pharmaceutical’s chemist Alfred Hoffman. On April 16, 1943 Mr Hoffman accidentally absorbed some through handling it and took that famous bicycle ride. LSD was off to a good start.

I have enjoyed this wonderful concoction many times over the years. By encouraging free thought it shaped the future of an entire generation. It was a blast at parties and concerts too. Wow!

Albert Hoffman died today at 102 years old. Thanks Al.

Wonder if Albert imagined things like this when he was going home that wonderful night.

Queen “Bicycle Race”