Dope Encounters Of A Focused Mind

It's been a difficult month and a week since I last did this...

As of this post, I've been actively blogging for ten years. I don't feel any significance behind it, so don't congratulate me. There have been gaps and times where I should have written something, but times sure have changed since I started doing this cathartic act, trust me. I don't apologize for the blank spaces. Think of all the times I've been absent from my own thing as times I was either too tired to act or moments where I should have been doing something else and no lesson was learned.

It's a different process for me these days. I've barely settled into my legal blindness and now I permanently exist in the realm of uncomfortable... I use speech-to-text software to do this here thing, and while one would think it would be easier to just say shit into the mic and then review it before hitting the send button, I've found it difficult in just saying anything and pass it off as a 'Hassan-ism', so fuck that.

I don't know how and where I get the motivation and energy to do whatever it is I do, but I do them. I don't have much to live for, everyone in my life are these scared, fearful people who don't know their value or purpose in their own. They stumble through life with no real direction or clear focus and look to me for leadership and validation in these aspects. This saddens me because one: I can't give that to them (they must define it themselves) and two: I never got the chance before, during and after the sixteen procedures performed on me in 2012 to (rebuild my eyeballs/save and stabilize my sight) to rest and recover. I am physically and spiritually drained because those people continue to relentlessly drink up all of my life's emotional Kool-Aid, never wanting (or even volunteering) to refill the pitcher. I now have mere drops of which I have left to quench my own shit.

Everyone else stays away form my stankin' ass. I'm thankful for that! Few know that I have necrosis of the kidneys and that my days are numbered. Only one person (and now you too, Dear Reader) knows that I gave up medical treatment and am now (successfully I might add) using the Gerson Method to ride out whatever I have left in this adventure called life on my own two feet; on my own terms.

Or at least that's what I hope. One never thinks of falling into a coma or being bedridden until the end, not being able to do a damn thing about how they go to glory  I say to hell with that notion! Try to have control over how you go by being in enough of a condition to control when you go by doing right by yourself in the now.

I truly believe that there is a way to go correctly, and that is to come correct. Ending one's ways of bullshitting self will do wonders for you. I stopped bullshitting myself a couple of years ago in thinking that I was going to live this charmed life of marriage and family, and that I would have my health and would would have my family around my deathbed, holding my wife's hand as I give my final words to my then-grown children in the true meaning of life,,,

Get the fuck out of here with that bullshit!!!

Gone are the days where I have this arrogance in thinking that I have time. I can no longer procrastinate. Never had it in the first damn place! I never thought that I have my youth ahead of me because those option really never existed for me. Ever. They don't exist for you as well, but what can I tell you?

Most of y'all think that you can just wait things out until the storm clears. Some of you even have the mitigated gall to believe that some mystical, magic being will eventually (if you talk to him/her long and hard enough in your head) will do it all for you where you never have to put in any real work or physical effort. So you wait. And do nothing. And have no plans. Well they exist in your head, and that's about it. You never act on them. And you grow old in your waiting. And you never do.

I can't wait for your stankin' ass because I don't have that much time.

I'm already spending it doing things that matter with those that value what they have, the few that are. I am now busy doing bucket list type shit, enjoying every second confident about when I eventually die, my last moments spent will be me going "WHEW!" rather than lamenting on the fact that I did not live during my lifetime.

Fuck your job.

Fuck your car payments.

Fuck the bowling league.

And fuck your couch!!!

The PTA is cool - Go see your kids in that God-awful stage play or soccer match and cheer loudly.

Other than that my friends, you can catch me when you catch me. I'll be around, but I'll have my hands full doing stuff.

You know, shit that matters. I'm experiencing such dope encounters... My thang is focused. I still function pretty damn well for what I am. Might as well use it in doing than losing it in not even trying. 

And it doesn't have to matter to you. I'd hate to make you late for work tomorrow,

Irony

The irony.

Found out with certainty what is wrong with me.

All I can focus on at this point is 'quality of life'.

Simple enough, right? Play out the rest of the string in comfort.

Okay.

Someone asked me earlier today: " So you feel like you can't achieve your goals anymore?"  I laughed and replied: "You're funny."

My answer to that was: "I just want to die with dignity."

Okay then. I have one more goal to accomplish. Doesn't seem that hard, huh?

I guess we'll all get a front row seat then, soon enough.

Not quite the way I wanted to make that kind of announcement, but... Eh.

And for the curious and those rooting it on with vigor... Not yet. It ain't happening THAT damn soon. You'll get your moment to dance, spit or piss soon enough.

The irony in that alone is priceless.

Sunrise And Sunsets: Finale 2012 - Sabbatical

I certainly don't want this to be my last blog post, but I'm certain if nothing changes this week, it will be my last for 2012 at least.

What's special about this week is the same thing that has been of vast importance seven other times this year. It's surgery time! Never routine, never the same... This procedure will have a lens removal and implant in my right eye, election day saw a simpler, quicker albeit the same surgery on the left.

For some strange reason, this one is much different in the amount of drugs as well as the seriousness that has been placed on my other medical conditions. Whereas my first eye surgery to re-attach my retina in the left eye in March, I went in drug free, but heavily sedated, my most recent (number seven in total but number four on the left) I was heavily drugged and had to go thru the wretched thing with no anesthesia.

Don't ever have a surgical procedure without anesthesia.

I am not brave. I an not strong. I do not need to be congratulated for being a trooper. I am not built for this kind of pain and suffering. I have not miraculously recieved all of my vision back even with all of the procedures. I will not be able to articulate to you how dark, life threatening scary, mortality recognizing and life changingly bleak and painful this process really is.

I wouldn't wish this life on my worst enemy. I only do this because 'they' said that it would help. I have not registered a single complaint but for the blood curdling cries I let out at home various times throughout the day in what seems to be slow cooked torture.

I haven't worked since the summer of 2011. Things haven't been pain free and normal since January 8th of last year. That was almost two years ago. I haven't had control of my life since I slipped, and as I fell I saw my feet and legs in front of me and landed my then 240 pound frame on the back of my head in a thud-crunch flash of the whitest light on an auto dealership show room floor.

It's been kind of dark ever since.

I realize now as I write this that I have never cried about it. Never thought long and hard about the after effects. Never stopped during rehab and litigation to think about where I would be now. I had no idea I would be blind... A disabled vet living alone, handling all of this alone. Not on December 10th, less than 3 weeks away from being two years removed.

I'm still very numb about things.

I hate the fact that surgery number eight, the one that will put me over one million dollars in total medical costs spent will be the most dangerous one.

I hate that I'm responsible for ten percent of that.

I hate that although I can talk as the software types, I will never be fully able to explain to you exactly how this feels.

I hate that I've lost a bit of equilibrium, direction and may have lost the ability to drive. As a former over the road trucker, I've seen some wonderful things.

I hate this feeling of trepidation and woeful anticipation before surgery.

I still cannot explain to you how I make it to the hospital. My SisterFriend Ann took me there on my last procedure. The other six times I had no one and had to get myself to the OR and back home post op. I cannot explain to you how I did that.

Reggie took me for my first set of eye injections.
Donna picked me up from an intense laser session had on both eyes.

I cannot tell you how I made it to and from the other injection sessions and the subsequent laser sessions.

I don't have the courage nor the stregnth to do this again... Or to keep doing this.

But I want the ability to see...

Remember sunrises and sunsets?

I'm Still Alive... I Think. Is That A Good Thing?

Wait... I haven't blogged since the end of September? Damn... My bad. I'm sure a lot has happened in your lives like mine.

I seem to still be upright and tolerating life well despite what the doctors have informed me, but that doesn't mean that this particular state will last.

Whatever.

I seemed to have mastered the whole expensive-ass, type with your voice program thingee... And still don't have the urge to blog.

Yeah... Uninterested. I am currently engaged in nothing but improving my health, and that seems to take up a lot of my time, even though I have tried to include a scant few of others. That was unsuccessful as well.

I don't have much more to say.

Pain has the ability to alter behavior and literally change the way a person looks at and deals with every day life.

Not In A Good Place

Greetings good people.

I come to you by way of my speak and spell. I must continue to use my voice recognition speech to text software in order to properly communicate via this medium. It is getting fairly easier to learn the commands and also have the software learn me. The only sticking point is, I still can't properly review what I spoke to type. I am not getting grammatical or spelling errors, I end up getting syntax errors where either my tablet for desktop computer interprets one thing I say but it actually spells out a series of words that sounds like the original words I spoke.

But anyway...

I'm cruising along in my recovery, or so I thought. The one thing that I've noticed since my surgeries in April and June is that my vision came back slowly, and then it was like I was going to regain full vision but I ended up in decline.

While my retina specialist is very impressed and surprised by my progress, I began to develop cataracts in both eyes. On top of that, the right eye is healing and a much slower pace than the left. It seems that when the doctor performed the surgery on the right eye, he didn't get a chance to properly flat iron out the retina to the back wall of the eyes the way he wanted. There are creases in my retina, so there're creases in my vision. Any vsion I see it from my right eye is distorted, dark and warped.

The doctor believes that he can fix that.

So this upcoming Wednesday, I go back in for another surgical procedure on the right. We'll also schedule a similar procedure on the left for 19 September. The doctor chose to inject both eyes this past Wednesday with an anticancer drug called Avastin. It is used in chemotherapy for cancer patients. I've had these injections in both of my eyes in the months prior to my surgeries on each eye.

Please do not think that because the chemotherapy drugs were injected into my eyes that my body had not absorbed them. The sickness, pain, fatigue, sweats and weight loss associated with chemotherapy I am currently experiencing. This is not fun at all. I was told by my medical staff that this is typical for anyone that goes through chemotherapy treatments. Why would I be any different?

I totally hate this space in my life right now. It's full of losses of consciousness, lots of unwarranted and unwanted sleep then sleepless nights, pain, and just overall discomfort. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.

Right now, I'm in very bad shape physically. I finally reached my under 200 pound mark, but it's not the way I wanted to reach it. I have no appetite and I probably eat every 18 to 36 hrs. When I do eat, it's normally a non-GMO vegetable-based powder you mix with water. On good days where there is solid food, that means a salad. Being vegan is kind of cool because if I were to place a piece of animal flesh or dairy products or any animal-based product in my system, I would probably wind up violently ill and feel as if I were to die shortly thereafter.

After the procedures on each eye this month, I have two more surgical procedures scheduled for October 16 and then November 3. Wow, four surgeries in two months time. I wasn't certain if my body could take this, but I really have no choice if I want to see beyond this point.

The hardest part for me is this upcoming October when I have the lenses removed from the front of my eyes and replaced with artificial ones.

What a lot of people don't understand about their lenses is that there are no wires to control these things. You are able to focus and bring things closer with the lenses in the front of your eyes just by using your brain power. They are wired to nothing else. When you remove the lenses from the front of your eyes, they can never work again. They can't be placed back into your ocular cavities for they will never work and you lose your ability to focus forever and ever amen.

And you cannot bring things into autofocus with artificial lenses.

Imagine not being able to squint and bring things into focus anymore. Imagine losing that ability. Well, because of the lifestyle I previously led and the lack of control of my diabetes as well as a head injury that I suffered in January of last year, this is my fate. With the vision that I still have remaining, I will no longer be able to bring things into focus anymore.

I have requested nearsighted lenses to be placed in the front of my ocular cavity. This will at least help me to see the things immediately around me with what vision I have left after all of these procedures. In order for me to see beyond 20 or 30 feet, I will use prescription glasses for distance.

The lenses which will be placed behind my cornea once they remove the cataract laden ones and take them out of my body will not have a prescription inside of them. So whatever vision that I have left, what ever visual acuity I have based on the work on my retina would still need to be corrected by glases.

In order to zoom in and out and see any distance of anything beyond 20 feet, I would have to switch glasses. I don't know how I feel about that. To be honest, I haven't given that part very much thought. I'm just thinking about being put under anesthesia four more times in the next two months. It scares the hell out of me.

Being weakend to the point where you can't get out of bed scares the hell out of me. I never actually gave thought about getting old or being in a comatose or vegetative state, but this reality that I exist in right now really puts my mind there.

The specter of death looms over me at all times and that's all I can think about all the time, every day.

It is indeed in evitable that we must die. No one gets an exception from that. I just wish the thoughts of my death wouldn't consume me as much as they have been very recently. I can't shake this feeling, I can't get it out of my mind. I don't want to die like this.

I just hope that The Creator gives me the ability and the opportunity to heal from this crisis in some way shape or form, and give me the opportunity to die on my feet as opposed to succumbing while I'm currently on my knees.

Anika Tene Harris

Today is a solemn day for me. It's been three years since I lost one of my closest friends. I still don't know how I'm able to get along every day without her.

Anika Tene Harris was a kind, gentle and robustfully knowledgeable woman of the world. Talented, opinionated, strong and very much so a leader she personified everything that I wanted to be when I grew up. Nikki was a mentor of young girls and also an avid lover of sports, primarily football.

She had talent unparalleled. To have read her, whether it was talking about daily tasks or her vision of what the heart painted in her mind, was an amazing merit to all of what God has to for us to enjoy. I had opportunities in the years that we've known each other to witness that process first hand, and just the way her mind worked was incredible. To have been able to understand what was left off of paper or edited out of some typed composition was to really understand how the human mind is such a beautiful and creative thing.

Her words were colors that you can hear and feel once you laid eyes upon them.

Nikki and I met in 2003. What started as flirtatious curiosity from my part ended in a kinship of creativity and struggle and trying to understand who we were and what we wanted to contribute to the world.

I wanted to do bigger and better things and I chose writing as a means to get there. Nikki showed me that it would take much more than just stringing together complex words and phrases, it would take an understanding and overstanding of what hope and desire was in order to manifest that properly so the public could feel where you were coming from and maybe that would make my transition into society as a writer that much easier.

We didn't want the same things. When we traded barbs verbally and would send each other partial posts and short stories and little writings I recognize rather instantaneously that this woman had a talent beyond anything I have ever seen or read.

Her words were rhythmic and did not need a drum beat because the pattern of how strong and how she place them together was rhythm enough. You got lost in it. You swayed in her genius. Those words could propel you too sheer excitement or lull you to sleep. She was also a cunning composer of the erotic thought sprinkled with emotion and spirituality that only Marvin Gaye could comprehend.

She was also a dreamer. She was my sister and kinship. We spoke daily about our hopes dreams and desires, and we always wondered aloud how we could assist each other along with other people and making it to the points in life where we wanted to go. She was educated and she continued her education. She was worldly, but travel mostly in the continental United States. Her desire was to both get back to Brooklyn, and continue to be a mentor in Atlanta. She knew she had a talent from very early on in her life and she wanted to make sure that little black girls with pigtails have more than just simple opportunities dictated to them by society and other men. She knew that opportunities existed beyond the realm of scope of normal things, and whatever she had to do to motivate and inspire these little darkskinned women's imaginations.

She was an avid lover a sports. She wrote for a blog on the West Coast that channeled her feelings about football among other things. She wanted to sharpen her chops and also expressed to the world how it wasn't just about creative writing for art's sake, that commentary political, sports or otherwise can be expounded on from a young black woman's perspective.

Although she didn't pursue a career in creative writing, her and her brother were willed a brownstone in Brooklyn. If she would've had the timing, gotten a chance to relocate to New York to remodel that brownstone, being in such a sports capital, such a media market, such a capitalistic mecca, maybe she could've gotten a chance to be as poetic as she wanted to be on that grand stage of the Big Apple as well as express how she felt about politics and sports. It could have been her global launchpad.

Those dreams would never be realized.

I remember it like it was yesterday. It was November 2008 and she told me over the telephone that you had a tickle in her throat. I bothered her about it for weeks and weeks prior to this that she needed to go and get that checked out. There was just something about a cold or virus that just wouldn't leave her system that bothered me. She got it checked out and I remember her telling me a doctor told her that it's possible that she had mono. Misdiagnosis number one.

I always knew something was up, but I never pressed her on it. Nikki had freed herself from a relationship sometime around mid 2008 and began to date a close friend of mine. Once she began to go to the doctors and get these different diagnoses, she asked me something that I probably did not want to honor, but I did.

Nikki asked me not to tell or share any information to her then boyfriend whom I was very close to. That was very hard to do.
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There was a lot of peculiar behavior from her during those next 5 to 6 months. Nikki had gone to DC after the election of Barack Obama because she needed to see for herself this inauguration. She needed to witness for her life's perspective to witness the installation of the first black president. She needed to be in the moment. She needed to be a part of that so her experience could be celebrated as being a member of historical rememberence. She quickly made some new friends, traveled to DC on a serious whim and stood out in the 20 below zero weather to witness this. I thought this chick was crazy because I knew there was something else going on that she wasn't telling me. It was.

So I'm getting phone calls, text messages and e-mails about Nikkis peculiar behavior. I calmly told folks that I didn't know what was going on. Meanwhile, Nikki was telling me everything. She chronicled her trip to Washington, then New York, she spent time with her friends and then she came home. She had a few job interviews lined up and she also had opportunities in New York. It looked like Nikki was going to make it to Brooklyn and revitalize that brownstone and begin something that was probably going to end up international with all kinds of awards and acclaim. That didn't happen.

The next thing I know it was March of 2009, I was having problems in my marriage and Nikki was counseling me because she have problems and hers in previous years. I was hanging on her every word because I didn't know what to do.

I did not know that from most of the month of March and a part of April she had to lay on her belly because the disease that she had began to ravage her body.No one has friends like this, people that are going through medical treatment not meant for them and receiving misdiagnosis after misdiagnosis. Nikki was going through a lot of pain and she didn't express a whole lot of that but I could tell. We still spoke over the phone every day, would still text message, send voicemails and e-mail each other as well as chat on Google or Facebook. I thought it was incredible and amazing that she still opened herself and offered her opinion and advice to me even though she was struggling to live.

The month of May had finally rolled around, and I was looking forward to leaving Chicago. I decided at that time to go on the road and try out a few new cities to give my then wife a chance to feel comfortable and find something in her niche and also be happy and satisfied. It was something that I was advised not just by Nikki but with other friends. Happy wife, happy life I was told, and I took that to heart. Our first stop was Atlanta. Nikki had told me she was getting out of the hospital and we promised to hang out real hard during the month of June so we can watch the NBA finals together. The day I get to Atlanta I'm speaking to Nikki, we already arranged to meet at a sports bar to watch game one of the NBA finals. I didn't hear from Nikki until two days later.

I called a friend of mine that lived in Atlanta and I found out to my chagrin that Nikki was back in the hospital. Now here's the thing, I could call Nikki on the telephone and we would speak. I can find Nikki on either Facebook or Google chat and we will chat. I would send e-mails and text messages and she will respond back. But for some strange reason she did not want me to come to the hospital. So I asked my friend to find out what hospital she was in... This created a kinship between my friend and Nikki that would never die. My friend found out what hospital Nikki was in because Nikki would not tell me, and her former boyfriend at this time was really hitting me hard and pressing me for info. I began to talk to him and I revealed to him all the things that I knew. He was heartbroken. I was devastated because I knew I was losing my friend. To what level, that is the only thing I did not know.

Nikki had lost a lot of weight, the disease that she was experiencing had made her to look less than what she used to. She did not want me to come to the hospital and see her. I understood that, so I kept my distance. Sort of. Here I was living in Atlanta, literally down the street and around the corner from one of my closest friends in the world and she did not want me to see her in that condition. So I sent my friend and and believe it or not, that kinship that was created was such that she became my ambassador. I was informed of EVERYTHING  now. That devastated me even more.

Now understand the reason why I ended up leaving Atlanta is because I was still in the process of trying to save my marriage at that time. Nikki and I still  talked regularly, and she assured me that she was getting out the hospital and that things would be better.

Once I left Atlanta city limits, she dropped the H-bomb on me. Things weren't going to get better. I believed she kind of knew how much time she had before any of the rest of us knew. It took that much distance between us for her to tell me exactly what was going on. In the weeks to a couple of months that I left Atlanta, Nikki prepared me for her not being here beyond a certain date.

By this time it was late summer 2009, and I made it to Las Vegas. Living there was pleasant even though the economy was already destroyed. The real estate market was the first hit, so there was a lot of apartment vacancies and a lot of empty homes. We had found a source of comfort from some friends who moved their family to Vegas temporarily and we took solace in being among and around them.

I began to text pictures of our road journey  and then everyday living in Las Vegas to Nikki. She really appreciated it because she told me that I had become her eyes to the world. I never liked that statement, and I didn't like the title because I knew things would get better despite of what I was told.

We begin to speak sparingly to each other while I was in Las Vegas because Nikki had gone on to an oxygen tank. I knew that, she explained it but she also kept texting e-mailing and going or chat with me to make up for the lack of telephone usage. I appreciated that..

A week or so at passed and something had happened at the hospital that I didn't like. Nikki's lungs were collapsing and sticking together. The disease was just taking too much of a toll on her.

So it was a Wednesday, August 26th and I remember it like it was yesterday. The phone rang, I looked on my caller ID and I saw it was Nikki. I picked up the phone and I heard her voice, but it was too much of a murmur. I thought the connection was bad and I told her that I could not understand. She snatched off the oxygen mask and began to talk to me clearly and coherently. She was calm, relaxed and told me to shut the hell up and just let her speak. That phone conversation was one of the most surreal happenings in my entire life. Nikki was preparing me for her eventual death which would come just a handful of days later.

She did ask me to explain some things to her former boyfriend. She created distance because she wanted to go home and be at peace. She wanted to spend time with her family and she loved Atlanta. That was something that I knew but I didn't know how important it was to her. When I traveled to New Orleans, I just expressed how deeply I loved that place and how I wanted to move there because I figured that New Orleans living, living amongst those people could possibly save my marriage and make me happy at the same time.

As much as Nikki wanted to escape Georgia, she had a love for Atlanta, a love for her mother, I love for her stepdad and a love for her brother that was unparalleled. She HAD to be in Atlanta.

I heard about what happened that Friday. I heard about what happened to her mom. I knew that Saturday was a more accommodating than Thursday and Friday was. I decided to go off line on Sunday and for some odd reason I had the most calmest and relaxing sleep that I've ever had in my entire life. I slept through most of the day. I was at peace. Nikki passed away on that Sunday and I didn't know. About 4 AM Monday morning I got a phone call from her ex and I was informed about what happened the previous day.

I was devastated, but I was prepared.

I took the next couple of days and drove to California to spend time with the brother who was my brother because he was with my sister. We talked, we drank and I explained some things that he did not know that I didn't reveal over the telephone those past months. I believed that I put him at ease, but I know that I didn't. I thought he was coming to Atlanta to go to the funeral because I needed him with me to make it through that. He didn't come. He couldn't come. I went and I paid my respects. I paid my respects to Mr. and Mrs. Wigfall and to her brother Aswad. I also got a chance to pay my respects and share good memories with a handful of her friends that I never got a chance to meet in person before then.

The one thing we are all had in common is that we knew and loved Nikki like she was our own sister. There is a deep void and a hole that will never be filled in our hearts for this woman. She was a loyal, and trusted friend. We shared secrets, hopes, dreams and desires with each other. We supported each other. We critiqued each other's work. We spoke to the world. We laughed. We spent time and broke bread together.

Somethings can never be taken away from you. The friendship and kinship that I have with Anika Tene Harris will never leave me, nor will it fade away into my distant memory. She is with me every day.

It's funny, as much as she loved Nina Simone and Frank Sinatra, whenever I hear those songs I giggle about the jokes that we shared and the time that we spent together. Whenever I see a sunrise and definitely whenever a moon of any type appears in the sky, she is thought of. Most times whether I'm riding in a car or traveling, when I look up and see the moon I give it ahead nod and I say "what's up Nik". Her presence is acknowledged in a lot of things that I do and say.

My sister, I miss you. You will never be forgotten. There is always a space in my heart and there will forever be that empty space on the manuscript where it says: co-written by... That will always be yours.

You are loved. You are missed. Your friendship and kinship will always be treasured.

Keep Punching...

That was me... July 23, 2006.

If you are still breathing, then you have a fighting chance.

You Have Been Served Notice...

I tried to warn you...


I tried to prep you for it...

You don't want to see... So selfish, so willfully ignorant. So lost.


LIFE IS FLEETING




You can't say I never prepped you.

Go do something about that. You'd be stupid not to.

Finally... A Video Update!

Still...

With What I Have Left...

I choose to uplift.

No dogma, don't put that on me.

I love myself. I'm happy with me. As incomplete as things are...

Using what I have left to love someone else seems to be the hardest part. This is what I'll probably die in vain attempting to do.

Oh well...

Fin.

Nothing Left To Say

It has been a painfully uncomfortable weekend. On Friday, I received an injection of the anti-cancer drug Avastin into my left eye. The eye swelled, bled and teared like a leaky water faucet. Just got the eye open Sunday evening, and can now just keep my right eye open.

This was done to work antibodies against proteins running rampant in my eye cavity, causing hemorrhages and weed-like excessive nerve growth which has already happened and is currently blocking my field of vision.

The doctors also assessed the lasering done in past weeks sessions done to stop open bloodflow to the eye and determined that most of the major bleeding has stopped. This led to the decision to quickly get me into surgery today, April 10th to move as swiftly as we can to remove non-functioning matter from the left eyeball and to clear way for the macula and optic nerve to receive light.

There is both a 70% chance the eye can be saved and that my heart can make it through the operation without 'complications'.

Yes, I've come to terms that I can die on the OR table or come out of surgery without a left eye. I am peace with the decision to move forward in this process.

I have hope. That's it. If things get dire, then i'm really not satisfied with how things turned out, but I know the Creator has a master plan.

I have a request: Pray for YOUR OWN understanding. Not the one to complain, but it has been HELL dealing with folks the don't know how to deal with you, or can't do a simple Google search or figure shit out or find the right words to say in their befuddlement. I hate that, so I've mostly dealt with this agonisingly alone.

I'd have things no other way. So, I travel to the hospital and will go thru this the same way I suffered, all by myself.

Be easy, y'all. I really don't have much else to say.

Speak Not, Want Not, But Chronicle It For Prosperity

I stop talking to people. I mean, really I stopped calling and having people call me on the telephone. It just got to a point where I just didn't want to have conversations with people anymore. I don't know what got into me and I kind of feel the same way right now, but let me tell you when you're going through something people can only empathize, sometimes talk isn't enough. It's not that I'm looking for sympathy or even an understanding for that matter, what I'm really looking for someone I could just shoot the shit with. When I started going through the deeper portions of the sight loss before the hemorrhages happened, I just made a decision to stop talking.

I haven't talked to many people since mid to late December. I just don't have the urge to get on the phone and chat anymore. When I drove down to North Carolina from Chicago, everything changed. I'm still here in North Carolina because my vision got so bad I just couldn't see well enough to drive back. And I still haven't talked to many people. Other than logistics, there's really nothing to discuss with folks. Now I'm not some cantankerous old man who is upset and angry about losing his eyesight, I'm just an average dude who really doesn't need to hear about or discuss anything right now. People seem to have forgotten how to have regular conversation with me, like I'm a pariah or something. Fuck your sympathy! If you're not a surgeon or a specialist, then we really have nothing to discuss.

So I stopped talking on the phone. Stop messaging people. I don't send nor do I receive many text messages. I speak to my god sister in Nashville, my sponsor from Chicago who is driving me up next week, my mother maybe once a week or so, my dad maybe once or twice a month and that's about it.

Now I have shared a text with a couple of my blogger friends and someone special out of Atlanta recently, but to be honest with you it's not a whole lot of chatter going on. I don't plan on poking my head out of my ostrich hole and don't plan to go out to do stuff when I get back to Chicago. I think I'll just keep to myself. Like I said, I'm not angry or anything, I'm just maintaining. I'm just trying to stay with myself by myself and for myself. I think this'll help me recover and from what I hear, it may take up to eight months to a year for me to recover from all of the surgeries that I need to have on my eyes. So I look at things a little bit differently, and I just plan on going at this recovery thing alone, stay in the house and maintain until things get better. I really don't feel the need to be social.

Now I do plan to shoot some video, blog and take pictures to put as much information about the retinal surgery proceedure here on the blog. I think I have to let folks know what people have to go through that have retinal problems. I will do the best I can to try to chronicle as much as I can to my tolerance. It's a little difficult for me right now because I have to make a visual review of what I speak into either my tablet on my desktop computer and sometimes I just don't have the wherewithal to see the small letters and text, so I'll do the best I can.

I'll be at a retinal specialist's office here in North Carolina Monday morning very early. I don't plan on making any videos or anything for that particular visit, but I will take some pictures and I will let you guys know what happened. Until that time, you just try to have a good weekend and I will toughen up and get my ass to the office and see what happens from there.

Lisa Lopes

Just as quickly as I set out to make a blog post the other day, I feel like at this particular point, I've already run out of things to say. I mean, I'm doing well… Well, well enough to be doing this, I feel like I could be doing more. As a matter of fact I want to do more but I just can't to be honest. It feels like its been a long process even though I had a hemorrhage in my left eye on December 28. It feels like it's been a year for that matter, but I maintain.

Yeah, on the last week of last year I had what's considered an 'eye stroke'. I  had a massive hemorrhage - A blood vessel burst in my left eye. Now I have tiny hemorrhages in my right eye and I can halfway see out of my right but most of the vision is gone out of my left. It actually happened when I was sleep. I was preparing to make a drive to North Carolina to spend the new year with special people and special friends. When I woke up, I felt like I had some sort of epiphany or some real deep, meaningful dream that I just couldn't remember. I brushed it off, and got myself to get ready to go.

I drove all the way to North Carolina with a white film type substance over my left eye. I just couldn't shake that filminess. I was able to safely navigate the road, but it bothered me that I couldn't shake this film. Now I do have a pair of Blue Blocker type glasses that I bought a truck stop some years ago that wrap around my current prescription lenses and when I put that on during the daytime,  everything turned out fine. It really didn't hit me that something was wrong to a point where particular points of damage was done until I just couldn't see anything right around the second week of January.

So of course I ended up at an ophthalmologist's office. They did digital imaging, scanned my eyes and went deep inside and took a lot of pictures. What we saw was very very discouraging to me. There is about 75% of my left eye basically soaking in blood. The hemorrhage broke and over the period of a couple weeks the eye pretty much filled up with blood. As far as the right is concerned, basically there are tiny hemorrhages and a little blood there, so they do have to go in to remove blood from the right eye as well. It looks like I'm going to need laser surgery to close up the hemorrhaging bleeding points. I'm not happy about this, but it needs to be done.

It looks like it's going to take a series of surgeries to correct all of my problems in both eyes. The part that really messes me up isn't the fact that it'll take eight months to a year to recover fully from all of these surgeries. It looks like I have to get over the fact that they're going to take instruments and put them into the eyeball itself to vacuum out the bad blood and then insert another smaller instrument with the laser beam thingee to close up the hemorrhage points. That's a lot for man to take to know that they're going to stick instruments his eyeballs. And did I mention that people don't know what to do with themselves around me? I am NOT an invalid. I don't need 'help', but I digress...

I got to do what I got to do.

Oh and I'm headed back to Chicago this weekend to set up shop, get a new place and to be centrally located close to my surgeons, support system and the VA hospital so that should be fun. Another road trip but this time I'm not driving.

ROAD TRIP!!!

I will be filming this... Hell, I can't see much, but I can aim and shoot. Gotta chronicle all of this stuff for future review. Plus, my life is a mess right now, might as well share it with the world.

I Still Am...

Breathing.

Alive with focus.

Motivated to, for and by change.

Open to love.

Here in the flesh.

Affected by degenerative disease.

Fighting said disease.

Winning.

In trouble.

I wish I could state something different, but my fight took a hard left turn and now I fight blindness. There was a physical incident late December that could affect how I live the rest of my life. Yes, I'm in physical trouble, but I'm not worried. I let go way before these problems got worse.

Or maybe this is my 'blessing'?

Eh, who knows. Just know that I'm fine and now that I finally gave in, purchased and learned to use voice recognition software (Flex T9 for Android, Mac Speech Dictate and Dragon Naturally Speaking for PC), I should be here more often. I want to blog about this process, diabetes and retinopathy. I believe it's important.

I refuse to suffer in silence, and if I can provide insight for some and information for others with my condition, or scare the hell out of some folk that just can't seem to do right, then... Let the chronicle begin.

More later. It's damn near 5am and I could be getting some sleep and not disturbing the downstairs neighbor. Speech recognition, remember?

Siblings Are For Suckers

I almost killed my brother yesterday.

I was assisting my brother with making a supply run for his delivery company. He called me over a month ago and asked if I could help him with streamlining and modernizing his business for added profitability. I initially balked at helping him because he uses people and never reciprocates. That and plus we never got along.

We are polar opposites, I went to the military and school to educate myself on dealing with the world, my brother dropped out of high school and started hustling on the street. He became well known for his successes and has a large crew, I was known for my successes and power moves in the blue collar, then the corporate setting and by both main street and mean street standards, we both did exceptionally well.

He owns a delivery company that started out as a hustle about 6 years ago and he needs help to stay relevant and is overwhelmed and needs to expand. My younger siblings won't look in his direction because my older brother is straight gully with his shit. he is the epitome of 'ghetto'. He has ambition and good business sense, but he's absolutely the wrong cat to bring to a corporate setting for meetings and such. So he calls about six weeks ago and tells me that since half the company is mine, he could use me as the corporate face. He knows his limitations and understands that with my acumen used on the suit side, he can stay on the boot side and do his thing as I do mine, both of us enhancing the company profile.

I reluctantly decide to help his ass, and for three days, our travels to client sites, meetings and heavy work on deliveries and supply runs became nothing but shouting matches, disagreements and ended with me putting his ass out of my car on the way to a huge client supply pick up.

We argued over two dollars.

You see, he has a new employee (3 months in) that makes food deliveries for a string of Chinese joints in which he delivers the food timely, collects payment from the customer, gets in his vehicle and just rides off. he never speaks of change or gives change to the end customer. So the owner of the restaurants, Mrs. Kim calls and my brother puts her on speaker. She's irate as hell, shouting and cussing that this individual never gives her customers their proper change and this is a make or break habit he has to break or she's switching services. I immediately explain to my brother after the call that we must enforce a zero tolerance policy and release this man from his contract. He balks. He also made excuses for the driver to Mrs. Kim and then he insulted and irritated the FUCK out of me by calling the driver, apologizing to him for the inconvenience and stated "Aye, you cool, get that money man, I didn't think that lady would trip over two dollars man."

What.the.Fuck?

My brother has balked at every single suggestion made to either improve or enhance his business. He fussed, cussed, questioned my sanity, manhood and education whenever I made any critique or suggestion. He got gully with me, so I got gully with his ass. I let him know what time it was and how i absolutely cannot deal with unscrupulous business practices as the law. I questioned his integrity after he basically said 'fuck the customer, I need to get paid' He also confided in me that he doesn't know what integrity is. This negro done lost his muthafuckin mind!

SIDEBAR: We never got along as kids. We tried to kill each other on various occasions. We had a serious Spy vs Spy, I'm gon' kill your ass thing that went on for years. We never lost touch, but purposely kept out of each other's way since 1992 or 1993.

So I said my piece and we ended out night rescuing the thief of a driver because he couldn't finish his route because he ran out of gas. My brother grabbed money out of his own pocket and used my gas can to get dude about a quarter tank of gas. Never asked for reimbursement. Even fronted on me jokingly to this cat on how I've been gone from Chicago for 14 years and how I don't know the street system. This cat is only 16 months older than me, and other than my travels in the military, vacations, corporate training, me 'dragging' my ex across the country inconveniencing  her by trying to establish a home base and make new opportunities for us to become a family as well as me me trucking across the highways of America, Chicago has always been my home.

This muthafucker...

So this morning on the supply run, he brings the shit back up. So I asked him: "in this moment, can I be replaced?" He said no, but in the same breath, he said  that since thieving driver dude makes him over a thousand bucks a week, he would rather keep him on than to have me around at all because all I've done in the past few days is take from him.

I pulled the car over, unbuckled my seat belt and calmly told him to get the fuck out of my car. He started talking again, so I reiterated my position and asked him to un-ass my vehicle or there was going to be a problem. He stated that he didn't want a problem, got out, and I went on my merry way. I hope to GOD that i never see his ass ever again in my natural life. I could probably tolerate his ass at a funeral or something, but other than that...

I truly hate that dude.

Am I wrong?

///

Eleven!!!

O.T.I.S. (Occupy The Intergalactic Spaceways) Movement: Journal Entry 1409.63 [AKA some science fiction shit I just made up sitting here because I'm bored as hell]

Press PLAY, then read along...

So I'm cruising thru the Delta Quadrant in my C class spaceship the other day... Or was it night? I get stardates mixed up these days.

I see this black hole forming on my long range sensors. my droid assistant is going all 'DANGER WILL ROBINSON' batshit crazy about keeping my course set in that direction. I'm calm and in newly minted deep thought because I'm thinking to myself: what can possibly happen if I get caught up in that implosion? There has to be something on the other side of time and space intertwining into nothingness, right?

I have a right to check these sort of things out... Don't I?

Well after asking my on board computers to calculate the possibility of the ship and I becoming anti-matter if we get sucked into and become inanimate intergalactic trash, I decided to have the sensors zoom in, record the phenomenon onto the hard drive so I could watch it later. I need to see how close I could get to one of those things. I marvel at and wonder about what happens if I could survive the force and anti forces and get to the other side of a black hole. I personally think they are wormholes to inner space.

My gut tells me that there is more to all of this than just... THIS. Maybe I'll meet God.

I wish I could overstand things further.

I am bored. This much travel from Mother Earth has made me long to be back on the lakefront on the south side of Chicago, watching the sisters in the lycra outfits get fit to rhythms only they can hear and the joggers and bikers navigate the trails and paved and painted paths while enjoying the gentle lake breezes and sunshine. But I chose this. Hyperspace travel puts me too far to turn around. It's just me, a one man travel cruiser and a pretty decent food replicator heading to a planet we think has humanoid life and resources similar to ours.

I'm all by myself. Well, I have a droid and his humor is dry. He's a fucking droid, so...





All I need is the simple food generated and water formed from the moisture space provides. I have terabytes of data, entertainment and recorded memories loaded onto a cache of  indestructible hard drives that I occasionally view to keep me grounded, to keep me... Human. I'm not supposed to be here, but after realizing that Earth had nothing to offer me in a mate, children or family that actually give a damn, the selection process unsnagged itself when I just plainly volunteered and signed all of the waivers.


So now I float thru deep space, chasing a signal that probably isn't one. The day we received coherent transmission from someone not of our own kind, we felt the need to respond. initially, we couldn't track the direction of the signal and remained skeptical of a frequency that seemed copied and sent from somewhere out of nowhere, but the world's collective space programs quickly put together a exploration program and needed someone to man the craft in following through to have first contact with extra-terrestrial life not of our galaxy. I wanted to go. I wanted to see how much my body and mind could take being alone in the vacuum of space.

Human contact had boycotted and then left me years before I went thru the training program. My commander referred to me as one 'of the droids' in drafting the mission plan he submitted to the powers that be. i was approved unanimously to go. I was thought of as the perfect subject for the Earth to lose.

I'm not insulted.

So now my 'days' begin with some bland tasting nutritional goo and kinetic movement. I create a morning brief via webcam from various angles to display my physical readiness for the mission and give the ship's condition and fuel levels to send backward to command. I receive transmissions of the goings on of the world about six weeks late from current time, and it gets later the more I travel towards the designated spot offered by the unknown alien committee. They now prepare my briefs on news, sports and pop culture in the old Movietime News format for a change of pace. Also added are female correspondents wearing low cut tops to keep me on my mental toes. Tit shots in space... Not bad. I manage though. Like I didn't bring a stash of my own porn. They say out here in space, no one can hear you scream. Very true.

Managing the ship's operations on the mission is the least of my concerns. Command made the vehicle easy to operate by incorporating a lot of 'driving' features which helps navigation by familiarization. The unit is solar powered and also has some nasty nuclear stuff at its core to make it travel faster than jet propulsion could ever push me. The five years I've been confined to the ship without space station porting actually feels like three. At some points, I've encountered turbulence that I thought would engulf me and rattle the ship to its core, but I survive and this little thing just pushes on.

The ship has four levels with a lounge and 'entertainment area' that I can retire to to observe incoming transmissions, any of the many movies, concerts and sporting events I have stashed away or family memories recorded for me. It helps to have space. It hurts to watch my nephews and nieces get grown and accomplish teen and adulthood without my hand.

The reason I get my dates and times mixed up is because I try to memorize the history script as I try to put the ways of the world out of my head. Cheeseburgers, politics and shit. Relationships. People irking the shit out of you. What to wear to a wedding. Hailing a taxi. The clog in the kitchen sink. Stepping in dog shit. I know we all must die, but to know that the world still turns, the stock market churns either with or against our economy and the White Sox still play ball games without me physically being on the planner but am still alive kills my spirit.



I have no idea what I'm getting into. Some think that the signal sent is no signal at all. Others think it's a trap. There are a chosen few that say that God Herself spoke to us in that transmission. Either way, we ended up building a long term travel vessel that I'm utilizing to go to where they've requested us to go. We have no knowledge of the way of life, features or intent of these beings deity or not, but because I deemed my life on Earth useless, I decided that my eyes should be the first to view either the friend or foe from the other side of the universe. We have time capsules for them chronicling all of our planet's history, research and triumphs.

There is also a presentation from the world league and our president, who was deemed to speak for the world with China's leader selected as second voice. We're assuming by the sophisticated nature of the transmission received that they are able to understand us. I also have monologue to recite in our extension of open arms, peace and good will.

I'm not afraid. I've studied the map and at least in the eye of danger or death will know where I end. I have no idea where this either begins or ends. I'll be on this ship traveling east towards the actual edges of the fringe of the universe to meet something I know not of what the outcome becomes. But I was the only one without reservation... A recycled piece of trash being used as a possible conduit to the other side of the immeasurable vast thing that we call space. If these beings don't want me, then my theory is confirmed.

Unwanted is unwanted, even in service to the damn universe. C'mon ship, hurl me to the unknown. I'm ready to get this over with. I'd shit a brick if they reveal themselves as little green men with big melon heads. I need a good joke right now anyway. The droid is dry, corny and has no timing.

Pondering My Parental's Petulance

So I talked to my dad yesterday evening. He's not doing as well I expected. He keeps showing up at the emergency room with various ails and I know that this is his way of asking for someone on his medical staff to do something.

His heart rate is very low and they've suggested a pacemaker. Thing is, he's on so much stuff chemically that they probably can't do anything at this moment if they wanted to. He's pushing for the pacemaker as well because he knows (and feels) that the drugs are dragging him down, making him lethargic. Pops is an active guy. Hell, he's only 61. He also mentioned a few things that have the holistic healer in me angry as hell because he's still repping cheeseburgers as a way of life.

So we're knee deep in conversation and I'm quizzing him on his green leaf and water intake to which he answers 'Well I need to lose some of this weight and do like you said and get on my greens because I'm having a hard time moving around, you know?' Yeah, I know. The motivation to get off of dairy and red meat is there, and it looks good in theory, but let me at least finish this cheeseburger my wife made me and we'll discuss further after dinner. Honey, pass the milk.

I love my Pops, but...

Every time I think about or talk to both sets of my parents, I keep seeing the Tony Todd Coroner character from the Final Destination  series:

Dammit! He's talking to me and I know he's right too.


So what about this whole 'calling' thing I mentioned the other day?

Well, I feel that I need to use myself as the example in gaining success and in getting healthy enough to want to sit down with folk face to face and possibly influence them with my story. Nothing more or less than that, no dogma involved, no hard pitch sales job on either a product or a service. I just want to show people that one can heal from various ills whether they be physical, mental or spiritual, and where there is no real formula developed that's what I want to show... That there is no formula!

Now I am back in student mode with an accredited healing institute paring what I've already learned and experienced academically and living  thirteen years with diabetes/chronic kidney disease with what I'm learning now about holistic healing and its applied practices, and currently I can't tell you nothing but... I'm experiencing better results clinically by letting go of tradition that I ever have with the various teams of doctors and clinicians I've assembled over the years. And it goes beyond prescription medicine and a pill bottle discipline.

I just feel that if as long as I use myself as the example that my family and friends will probably take a bit of what I'm doing and will follow suit. I have a long way to go before I complete the educational and practical part of becoming a Holistic Health Practitioner, but just the practice on myself is enough to possibly motivate my parentals to want to emulate what I do and want to live.

Talking to my Pops the other night brought me down a bit. I was watching a webcast of Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue rip a venue I frequent a lot in NOLA called Tipitina's to shreds in anticipation of the new album he just dropped yesterday.

click the link, go get that

I could hear the defeat in his voice.

There was a sense of give in my mother's voice when I spoke to her last week as well. I think that they feel as if they aren't working or taking care of kids or grand kids that they have no worth and there is nothing further to do. like they have served their primary function and purpose.



In America we are culturally conditioned to believe that all things white are superior and all things black are inferior. And the manifestation of that cultural conditioning is that African Americans are undervalued, underestimated, and marginalized


My parents and their spouses have lived their lives in service to their children, their extended families and the community in service via employment, and have lived their lives thinking that there was nothing more to life other than being these things to these people. And even though my father has 26 plus years on the job and my mother has over 20 on hers, they feel as if there is no reward or additional meanings for life beyond their kids getting grown and moving out of the house and them reaching the age of retirement.

And because they are so bound to tradition, religion and the forced adaptation and integration to society at society's level and not their own...

There is no motivation to move off of fast food, traditional soul food dishes that rob them of their vitality and to keep the tune in the pocket when it comes to travel, exercise and meaningful purpose in being an elder in society. I want to help them unlearn this bad practice and let them know that there is so much more to life and living in America for them than to just just give up, wilt away and die.

It seems that society hasn't much need for African American elders. Hell, the Tea Party debates the other proved that certain folk would just let a 30 year old working man with no insurance just die if he didn't have coverage.

I may be too late. For them.

But I'll die trying. For them.

For you, dear reader... I'll continue to try to live the example and show you as well.
Now my shit ain't perfect. I will fall and fall off the wagon. I will get angry and probably head out for a three piece dark with mild sauce and fries on the side until I realize halfway to the Popeye's that it makes my legs go numb and tingle and that my lower back and kidneys will ache for damn near twelve hours and I'll be blind for four. As a matter of fact, my shit smells remarkably like...


Shit.

But I am willing to live and show you my shit. Not literally. I'm talking about my actions (and inaction for that matter). Thank God there is no such thing as smellivision.