Someday

One morning in November of 2001, I awoke with my left arm numb and inflexible- not paralyzed, just very hard to move. I was drinking heavily at that time and I was quite accustomed to waking up and finding out that things had gone wrong the previous night- but I hadn't had this particular problem before.

I must have slept on it wrong , I thought, as I struggled to get ready for yet another day at what was easily my worst long-term job ever- manager of a discount shoe store.
Driving with a hangover is a lot like driving drunk- except this time I couldn't use my left hand to cover one eye. I couldn't even use it to steer. The only thing I could do was watch the fingers on my left hand change color from pink to purple, a phenomena I found a bit unsettling.

For an hour I struggled to flex it, get some feeling, make a fist...can't make a fist...ouch, that hurts...it was getting worse, not better. My arm wasn't asleep, it was sick. It was scaring me.

I took Barb, an older lady who was my head cashier, aside to tell her about my problem:

"Barb, I can't move my arm and it really hurts. I'm going to need you to run the store while I go to the doctor."

" Your arm? Is it numb and painful? That's what happened to my husband. He had a stroke and now he's crippled. How is your chest?"

My chest, which until then had been unnoticed, suddenly got very tight.Sharp pains radiated out from my solar plexus in every direction. I couldn't breathe and I knew- I KNEW-that I was going to die.
Of a stroke.
On the sales floor of a crap-ass shoe store.
I called my doctor- "get in here now", he said. "Get a ride- don't wait for an ambulance!" I did.

It wasn't a stroke. It was the first of many panic and anxiety attacks I was to suffer over the next several years- I still have them today, but they don't lay me out like they used to.

After it was determined that I wasn't having a stroke, they went to work on my arm. The heart fears were calmed and I was given a shot of something (morphine?) that made my arm feel very far away from the rest of me. I could see it and it looked funky blue, but it didn't bother me...more needles and electrodes...all so shiny. I was sleepy. Could I have a pillow?

After a week of consultations and tests, it was determined that the ulnar nerve in my arm had died from the elbow down and the flesh around it would eventually wither and become useless , if not dead.
I'd need an amputation from the elbow down.

I'm a musician and all the instruments I play require two hands, the guitar being my favorite. I'm not the best guitarist- (no one is, the common argument over who is the best git-picker is a spurious and wasteful one)- but there isn't anybody anywhere who plays like I do and that is pretty rare. It's a talent that I took a lot- too much- of pride in.
When I was told I'd never play again, I broke. Shattered.

I didn't think about how I would drive, tie my shoes, cook, hold a job, hold a lover in my arms...my first thought was : WILL I PLAY AGAIN?

I was told no, I would not. Not with a stump, I wouldn't.

So, at my doctors advice, I got a second opinion from a surgeon who was not on my insurance carrier's plan. He met with me, had his own x-rays taken and re-administered some tests. He ran an electrical current through my Ulnar nerve.

OOOOOWWWWWGODDDDDDTHHHAAAATHURRRTTTTSSSS

"That hurts, eh? Good."

"Good?" *whimper*

"Yes. Those [the hospital] docs are idiots . This nerve is alive. I can save your arm."

He didn't say say he might be able to. He said he could save it . He said this as matter-of-fact. The sun rises.
Water is wet.
He could save my arm.
Simple.

He had no doubt in his ability and that confidence helped settle me down. That and a giant bottle of Valium. I wasn't supposed to drink - the valium was intended to help with that, but I wound up mixing the two on a daily basis -along with Oxycontin and Demerol. A few Demerol and a fifth of vodka was only a mild buzz for me at one point...but I had to quit before the surgery. Alcohol, despite it's calming effect, is actually quite hard on your nerves and it increases your risk of bleeding out on the OR table.

For my arm, for my guitar, I quit drinking a few weeks before the operations. I had nothing else to live for but that was enough. For that, I would fight.

The operations went well, but it took six months of physical therapy before I could play a few simple chords...but after a few more months I was whizzing over the frets faster than I'd ever been able to play before.
The first docs were wrong. I would play again.
And I was wrong. I would drink again.

I won one fight, but I lost a long war in the process. Alcohol had taken over my life...if I am going to be a one-armed shoe-salesman, I thought, then the best thing I can do is drink myself to death...that was my intent, although I hadn't admitted it to myself yet.

By the time I got my arm back, my soul was lost. My ill- considered drinks of celebration immediately became the same old daily suicide routine. I drifted through an endless series of dead-end temp jobs. I didn't see my friends, the only brief happiness was a brief on-the -job affair that ended badly and left me even more desolate and forlorn than before. And drunk.

My guitar, which was the initial focus of my recovery, sat in the corner gathering dust.

I stopped writing in my journal and notebooks.
No poems.
No letters.
Nothing but me , my pills , my pain and the bottle.
I watched a lot of TV. I used a lot of drugs.

Then Hurricane Isabel hit Virginia. Sept 2003.
The temp agency offered me a job with State Farm handling storm claims, 7 days a week, 12 hours a day.
Amazingly, I accepted it and it was a good thing I did. I still drank, but not as much because the days were so long I had to cut back.
After the initial hurricane paperwork chaos, I started liking my work. I saved a lot of money- all that overtime was great...but I was drifting farther and farther apart from my friends.
It was loneliness and isolation that first drove me to blog- isolation and a deep hatred of Bush's neo-con cabal of war profiteers.


But the booze had me. I knew it had to stop, but I didn't care. I was hoping for death. I didn't have much -in my mind- to live for and I had convinced myself that my life was over and I would never be happy. I was a rotten person- a drunk of the worst kind- and not one person would miss me were I to die.

Of course, this wasn't true, but that is how an addict at the very end of their addiction feels. If they feel anything, that is. I suspect the last thing that you feel is nothing at all, but I don't want to know.

After another year it all caught up to me. I started vomiting blood one night after having to leave work early with stomach pain. I barely made it to the ER, where I was told I only had a few hours to live.
Who should they call?
No one. Don't call anyone.
I don't want anyone to know how bad it had become. I was dying, but I was also ashamed. How did I let this happen?

But the surgeries worked. When I woke up- alive- I had changed. I was still alone, unhappy and bereft of any love or joy, but I had something more powerful that that. Something that (I hope) had killed the urge to drink forever.

I had fear.
I was afraid of dying. I still am. I haven't had a drink since the first week of September, 2005. Not because I am brave or strong- I don't drink because I am weak and I am afraid of suffering and dying.

As time passed, I started finding new reasons to live. The radio station was my anchor. I needed it, and most importantly it needed me. I hadn't been needed for a long time. Anyone can do office work but not many people can produce and engineer live music in a deadline -is-now- broadcast environment.
I can. I even enjoy it and I'm a lot better at it when I'm sober.

And then there was blog. Somehow, I had accumulated a tiny but loyal group of friends, most of whom I've never met and probably never will. Like any group of friends, there were differences and problems and maybe even a broken heart, but by and large I feel that my life is much the richer for being part of this world. Having this outlet and the support that followed was a real source of strength for me during those horrible post-hospital months.


There are some of you that I would love to thank in person, but I will wait until I need a place to crash. Then I will show up in the middle of a hailstorm , huddled on your doorstep, clutching a battered guitar and a grimy paper sack containing my laundry and a pair of well-fed cats.

"Thank you", I will say, then I will ask: "Do you mind if I crash here?" and "You aren't allergic to cats are you?"

I'm kidding, of course. I would never put my cats in a bag with my dirty socks.


For all of our sake's , I'm hoping it won't come to that. For now, just know that I really do appreciate each and every one of you.

I wasn't ready to be sick again so soon, but I am. I don't know how bad quite yet, but it isn't good. No cure, but there are treatments.

But really, it might not be too bad. I can walk, climb stairs, carry heavy weights etc- with only slightly more discomfort than a 'normal' person. I have to quit smoking pot, but I should have done that anyway. I've had my fun with that for what? twenty-five years? Long enough.

I have friends who didn't make it through the last twenty-five years, but not because of pot- they drank. And snorted. And stabbed. Needles and knives. The rope.

Some of the survivors are alive, but they aren't living. The booze- and especially the cocaine- have left them hollow, hopeless and seemingly incapable of dreams.

I haven't suffered that fate. I have spent three days studying my disease and I am convinced I can beat it. Not cure it- that is impossible- but beat it down and live with it. Live well.

Because I can still dream. My latest dream is an old one and it is so pathetic and mundane that I am afraid to mention it because I fear derision and ridicule, which is silly because what I want is only what most of us want.

It's one of the oldest, simplest dreams in the world but it's a bit too complex to discuss here.

I am not even sure who I need to have this conversation with. It's possible that I haven't even met that person yet. I have to stay alive in order to find out.
But when we do meet, I hope that there's a plentiful supply of coffee at hand- because we will have a lot to talk about.

Diagnosis

We can't escape our pasts, we can only survive them.

I survived twenty-odd years heavy drinking. Just barely, but I did.

Now I have to survive the smoking. Mine and that of others.

I have never smoked cigarettes, but I used to work in some of the smokiest bars on the planet. As a child, I used to get sick when the adults would fill the car with smoke. This was attributed to "road -sickness", but I knew better.
And of course there's the weed. Apparently, it's not quite as harmless as I'd fooled myself into believing.

My X-rays show that I have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, or COPD. Until further tests are done, I won't know the severity of my disease, but I do know it's incurable and irreversible.
With luck, I'm in the early stages (0 0r 1 ) and with the help of medicines, I can lead a fairly normal life. No oxygen tanks or surgery needed, just a bit of lifestyle change. There are yoga-based breathing techniques that can help as well. Or so I am told.

I was told that even twenty years of pot smoking alone was unlikely to have been enough to cause this, nor would have the years of second-hand smoke- but together it was almost inevitable.
Then again, some people never smoke at all, second -hand or not- and get COPD anyway. This is 10-20% of the cases. It may be hereditary.
That is not reassuring.

I had to leave work when I found out. I called my Grandmother. We talked for a long time. I told her how scared I was, how I just cannot get the images of my mother's slow death from lung cancer out of my mind.
Even at the age of 40, I still need my Granny to tell me everything is going to be OK.

But she needed something from me too.

She was tip-toeing around it, so I answered her unasked question for her:

No, I am not going to start drinking. There is a good chance that I will live for another twenty years or even longer, but if I drink, I won't last a month.

And, by Godzilla, if I only have a short time, I don't want to waste it drinking.

I don't know what to do , but I need to be sober, I know that much. No more pot, of course.

So I'm trying to get a plan together. I need to clean my mental house and decide what is most important - what needs doing and what doesn't. What I can and can't do.

I have been told to just relax and take it easy until a full battery of tests can be done this weekend.
This is good advice, but I'm finding it impossible to follow.