Make It Stop!!!

It's funny... I was just speaking with my friend Whitney this morning about finding an assisted-suicide doctor as to eliminate myself from the suffering.

No, I'm not emtionally in dispair, I just know that I am not as strong as Roger Ebert was. He publicly and somewhat cheerfully blogged about his illness and subsequent surgeries and treatment and still had a zest for life.

Publicly.

If his cancer battle is anything like my battle to live a somewhat 'normal' life with blindness and organ failure, then I admire his strength in suffering through it. I know that his wife Chaz was right there every step of the way and maybe that;s the key. This is something I do not have.

Doing this without either a safety net or a support system is suffering in itself.

No one should be made to suffer.

Absolutely no one should be made to suffer alone. At least with a tormentor, one has something to bounce pain, happiness (as twisted as it sounds) and emotion off of. I think about peaceful ways to go every day but just don't have the strength to make it happen by myself without it being very violent and making a mess.

The one friend I do have won't help me and Kervorkian is dead.

Well, I haven't checked Craigslist yet.

People And How They Suck

If you walked ten feet in my shoes, you would know how much of a horrible existence my life actually is. Yet, I still get up, get out and do more things before 9am than most people do all day with pleasure.

And without a seeing eye cane.


I am having trouble adapting. I am having serious, life threatening problems adjusting to this life, but I do. I have no earthly idea as to why, but I do. And I don't complain about it. matter of fact, there is no one to complain about it to. All of the weak-minded, weak-willed cowards that called themselves friend and family disappeared last year.

I take pride in knowing that I need none of them.

It is a bitch eating alone and not having companionship, but my mind and abilities counter with the fact that I never needed a crutch, and I like the fact that I don't have to answer silly questions and explain shit to make someone else feel comfortable and guilt free.

I don't get that shit at all.

I would tell y'all what I now do with my time now that all of the surgeries are over, but no. I'd rather keep some things to myself. I have learned not to reveal my innermost feelings and desires because unless you've been struck blind...

Wait.


People shat on me when I was sighted and had all of my faculties, they are no different now. What people do do is place upon you all of their fears and limitations and tell you what you can't do, then get all holy ghost surprised when you successfully blow your nose or wipe your ass.

Yes, someone actually asked and followed me to the bathroom last year to see if blind people actually knew where to put toilet paper after one defecates.

I shit you not.

I do have a series of surgeries scheduled for June, but know that right now I'm back on my grind, prepping for state board and re-certification exams so I can re-enter the land of the wage slave.


And me being blind ain't got a damn thing to do with nothing.


It seems that most of you folks are my true obstacle.

"I don't believe that there is a situation in life that would not benefit from people being more intelligent. Yet, I see people avoid using their brains like it is some dangerous exercise that will result in injury. Or they only use if for work. Or they let life/love/somedumbasssituationfromthepast punk them into thinking that they'd be safer just going along to get along (i.e. ignorance is bliss). Or they think that prayer/dogma/routine absolves them from thinking. Thinkers make the most money, have the best sex, eat the best food, and are least likely to be screwed over; so why, for fuck's sake, wouldn't EVERYBODY want that for themselves? "

My brother Lorenzo Gayden from Tha Sip' recently said that.


I can't agree with you more Bruh...

I Am

Definitely not that dude anymore...

The Beginning Of The End

I feel destructive today.


So I got out and ran on the lakefront path. That shit didn't help.


I went out and bought a sledgehammer with a 10 pound head a few months ago, I had plans on purchasing a used tire so I can beat that motherfucker to death and get some upper body strength training in as well as cardio.


I never bought the tire. I have nowhere to put it.


I got into a fight with some cat that lives in my building back on New Years Eve, and that was the last time I touched the thing. I wanted to go grab it and bash his skull in, but I knew he wouldn't wait for me... Plus I calmed down after building security pulled me off of his ass.


I gotta destroy something.


 I pulled my firearm out of storage back in January... I have no intent to use that thing. I will set up a range session when the weather warms up and I feel comfortable enough in my vision to want to go shoot. I have to qualify with my weapon in 2013 anyway... Nah, I don't wanna shoot anything. I feel more the need to use my hands. I'm a more physical cat.


I got a guy... My man B. Carter, whom I worked with at a postal plant back in the day who trained at this suburban, secluded bare knuckles MMA place. He invited me to a fighting exhibition one weekend where I was amazed and enthralled in the pure heart and rigidity of human men who chose to fight. 


The flesh-ripping viciousness and pure heart of men who looked as if they could never hold their fists properly to ever engage in fisticuffs is what took me. 


I saw big, muscular dudes get bent over and spill blood by smaller ones, and lean-bodied cats with relentless viciousness that made me fear their mere presence after watching them keep going even when eyelids were torn and bashed cheekbones swelled their eyes shut.


I've been wanting to do that ever since I witnessed it.


That's what I wanna do. 


I believe if I channel my hatred and angst into pounding my fists into the raw, warm flesh of another living, breathing human being will quiet the voices that call me to want to destroy things in other ways. I feel as if I'm running out of options. Lord, let this be it!


I'm getting older, and I've opened myself so many times over the years that the pain of being lied to, lied upon and emotional betrayal has manifested itself into me wanting to exercising those demons into a physical act. It's a thirst now and not just an urge.


After all of the physicality I've been through in my lifetime, I know if I train too hard or take another good, strategic blow to the head... 


I feel like that may be a rather glorious way of going out.


I've been pushed to my mental, spiritual and emotional limit. I gotta find a way to exercise these demons before I end up crispy-burnt up in a cabin somewhere in Big Bear by the hands of some random law enforcement agency.


Does my admittance of this make me a psychopath?

The Audacity Of The Villain When Hope Is Lost

I lost hope in people a long time ago.


It's time for me to tell everyone that I can never trust them. Maybe I'm the sucker though, because I keep opening myself up to people who are tit for tat, willfully negligent and petty. so bent on self encapsulation because someone else hurt them, that they hurt themselves and you in the process.


I am done with people.


I noticed that I put my shit on the line for other people just to get burned in the process a long time ago, but there is always something that makes me keep opening and extending myself. Not any more. Muthafuckers have used me for the last time.


Everyone feels now as if they're the enemy.


I feel as if I wish death and destruction on people and then act upon those that have used me emotionally and sucked up all of my generosity and spirit that I'd get further in life.


I totally feel what Chris Dorner wrote in his manifesto. Whereas I can't agree with killing folk... People should definitely pay for the toll they impose of others.


I think that's what I should do from now on, be the villain.


Every villain has this beautiful story of a wonderful life lived from the start and then there is an incident of such a devastating, spirit-breaking personal nature that turns them to the point where death is the only remedy to keep them from affecting others in a most horrible nature.


I feel my villainous turn coming.

Not Bad Meaning Bad, But Bad Meaning Good... I Think

I know that I'll never return to normal

But I'd like to try and do all things within my power and limitations to obtain as much normal as I can stand before my days are done.

I had a very good weekend.

Let me say that again that I had a damn good weekend. First time in a long time I felt that good and that comfortable with and around others.

It wasn't good because I hung out all hours of the night smiling, cheesing hard and laughing, lost in conversations about issues that mattered and stuff that didn't on one day...

It wasn't because the next night I was again hanging ten, breaking bread with people of like mind and similar passion, chatting the night away to the point where I never noticed any of Ray Lewis' seven tackles and one sack...

Nothing mattered about anything this weekend, and that made it fascinatingly good. I spent a weekend doing normal stuff, well normal in my mind. All of this was based off of a chance encounter, scant conversation and a keen eye for pegging my ass, one person made absolutely sure that the weekend for me would be one of comfort and enjoyment specifically without me being treating me like I belonged on the little yellow bus or in a medical isolation unit.

And she didn't want anything or demand high praise, recognition or a validated, notarized receipt of her doings from me in return.

That in itself put an extra special touch to my weekend because I learned from recent experiences not to open up to or trust anyone. I can never open myself to trust any one ever again. My life is too precious and short for me to let folk think that the things that they do doesn't affect me.

People are so self encapsulated, mired in their own steaming pile of emotional shit and fuckery that when someone like me cones around all socially open and naturally trusting, they end up continuously rejecting the love and trust that they hear songs about, read and write poetry about... The things that makes then veklempt viewing a romantic movie... They begin to callous and harden the very people or persons trying to get them to open by bringing them love.

And that causes hate and disdain.

I'm not going to lie. From what I've had to go through the last couple of years, the hate, contempt and disdain has built to the point where I can no longer be the socially open person with measures of trust in my heart and tons of patience. Just when I think it has run out and me being used up and discarded by folk that have no clue their cosmic footprint and I want to destroy the world...


Someone comes along and shows me different.

But I can no longer trust any fucking body. What do I do?

I almost feel sorry for this young woman. She has so much promise. She has no idea that I've broken myself in efforts to try to mend things with already broken people.


The future  has not been promised. I want to obtain normality again. If I can't obtain it, I want to get close... As close as I can. I really enjoyed my weekend. I want more, but I know eventually, a demand will be placed upon me not very different from the others. The others have selfishly raided me of all of my compassion and trust by serving themselves and demanding that I hold their baggage with no reciprocation of what I gave.

What makes the weekend with this person whom I felt comfort with (like the others initially) any exception?


And yes... I know this is a fucked up spin. Hanging out with and emotionally fronting for fucked up motherfuckers will fuck you up in return.

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.
]
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.