October 22, 2012

Greetings...

By now, based on the thousands of inquiries in my mailbox, as well as the mailboxes of the staff at Gophercentral, most of you are wondering many things...

Where am I, where have I been, am I OK, and am I coming back...

Here are the answers in the above order...

Here, Here, not really, and I'm working on it...

What you all DO deserve is an explanation and I'll do my best to "splain it"...

I haven't been well and have been in the hospital a few times since we last met. The same demon that I have battled and continue to battle has taken a toll that has left me in a bit of a "pickle". For those who remember, the demon is cigarettes, the pickle is COPD, and the current result is being tethered to an oxygen machine 24 hours a day in my home...

Yeah, sucks doesn't it? I have quit a dozen times and gone back the same amount of times. I can't make anyone understand the insanity of it or the inability to do the logical thing when my life is now officially dependent on quitting...

I'm not looking for sympathy, nor do I want it. This is a bad choice I made a long time ago and a worse choice I make any time I give in to my Demon. I could tell you I have been under an extraordinary amount of stress which would be true, but it would also be an excuse to allow the Demon to win over and over again...

This may or may not make any sense, but it's where I am right now...

I'm depressed because I can't quit once and for all and I smoke because I'm depressed. Where's Freud when ya need him huh?

Right now, I'm unable to do many things and Flyboy has been my rock. He has taken over for me and has been doing things that I used to do and wish I could do again. Hopefully, that will happen again soon. I also miss my mom and sister. I haven't seen them since January and that is a source of great guilt for me...

I have always been someone who did it all, and then some, and I feel sooooo guilty that I have to have the help that I HAVE to have right now. Guilt is another reason to light one up. Hey, I didn't say it was a good one, but that freaking Demon doesn't need much does it?

OK, enough of the gloom and doom, I'm giving it another shot for more reasons than there are to not give it another shot!

So, about this "tether cord" that I'm attached to. It's a 50 foot oxygen hose of course, which is connected to a huge, loud as Hell machine which we keep in the bathroom to cut down on noise. I can move around the lower level without running out of hose...

Flyboy told me it reminds him of fishing line because when he's in the bathroom and I'm on the move, the hose takes off like the Shark in Jaws. Funny guy huh? I'm just lucky he hasn't tried to shoot a yellow barrel at me...

The poochies have been interesting. Ginger spent the first two weeks afraid of the hose and wouldn't come near me. Guess she thought I was some kind of space alien. She's OK with it now and loves her mama again...

Moosie, as usual, isn't afraid of anything and pays no attention to the hose sticking out of my nose. OK, she may have had a little problem when I took the hose out and shot her in the face with the air. Don't feel bad for her, she gets me back almost every day. She will stand on the hose and when I walk somewhere and don't see her mega paws on the hose, I almost end up with whiplash from the head jerk of a non-moving hose...

So, that about does it and hopefully, will explain a little where I have been and what has been going on. I'm going to try to get on some kind of regular schedule because I HAVE missed all of you and of course, I have missed commenting on things going on in the world!

:-)

Jamie

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