The Post I Really Didn’t Want To Write

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Yep, been putting this one off for a while now.

Just like the reason I am writing if for in the first place.

If you are new here or don’t know me very well then you might not know that I am a stubborn sonofabitch.

Hard Headed even.

I’m pretty sure I come by it naturally but I have honed that trait over the many years through the very act of survival.

About three, maybe even four years ago I started noticing that I was not able to push the old lawnmower around the yard without having to stop and take a breather before I got finished with it.

I put it down to getting old, smoking for fifty years and didn’t think too much more about it.

The jobs I have had for the last thirty odd years have had me pounding around on concrete and steel grating all day and it got to the point I would have to stop and take a breather when hoofing it across the plant too.

I blew out a disc in my lower back when I was 20 years old trying to move a piece of Natural Gas pipeline on the deck of a barge.

4 inches around with 1 inch thick walls and about 20 feet long, all I was trying to do was pick up one end enough to stick something under it.

At the time I knew I had strained it but didn’t know I had blown it out. Young, dumb and full of cum ya know.

I lived in misery for five years and went to at least a dozen doctors, almost all of whom came to the conclusion that I was just lazy and didn’t want to work because I could bend over and touch my toes without difficulty. Until the last one, an old guy and a back surgeon who took one look at the same X-rays the rest of them did, said “What’s wrong with these guys?” and immediately scheduled me for a lower back fusion two weeks later. This was in San Francisco in 1985.

The issue was my upper body weight was pushing down on that blown out disc and pinching a nerve.

Flexibility wasn’t the issue but those asshole doctors all used that same data to say I was lazy.

He did the Slice and Dice, took a hunk of bone out of my pelvis, broke it into little pieces and then took the blown out part of the disc out and stacked the bone chips on either side of the bottom vertebrae and sewed me back up.

It was supposed to knit together over a two year period like a broken bone and fuse together.

Two days later, in the hospital, they came and measured me for a custom leather and aluminum rod back brace that had about twenty laces and belts on it that I had to wear for two years also.

They brought it in the next day, made me put it on to check the fit and then left.

I still have that brace, back then it cost $500.

I was on the 3rd floor in the back of the hospital in San Francisco, you know, the city that has those hills that are world famous?

On the 3rd day in the hospital, after a major 5 hour back surgery, I found my clothes, put them on, put the back brace on, unhooked the IV and snuck out of the room when no one was looking. There was an elevator right around the corner so I got in it, went down to the ground level and walked out of a side door of the hospital.

I went down the street, hooked a right and started hoofing it 3 blocks up one of those steep assed hills until I found a grocery store.

I went in, snagged some donuts, Hostess Ho Ho’s, you could buy pre mixed drinks in a can at the time so I bought 3 large Screw Drivers, and then hit a cigarette machine and bought 3 packs of Marlboro’s.

It was comical as hell to watch me try to bend down and get those smokes out of that machine with that back brace on, I basically had to get down on my knees to reach in there.

I snagged up my treasures, hobbled back down the hill, and walked back into the hospital.

I found an elevator, went back to the 3rd floor and started heading back to my room.

My mistake was, I went back in the front door of the hospital and had to walk right by the nurses station to get back to my room.

There were three or four of them standing there and when I walked by with my grocery bag full of goodies, they completely lost their shit.

They had been looking all over for my skinny ass.

I kept walking and got back into bed, they proceeded to light my ass up and called the doctor to come see me.

The old guy comes in a half hour later, partly pissed off, partly amazed and kinda laughing about my adventure.

He tells me that most of his patients laid in bed for weeks moaning about the pain and misery they are experiencing and here I am 3 days later up and traipsing around San Francisco like a bloody tourist.

He is a little pissed off that I might have fucked up all the work he did but what’s done is done and he told me no more road trips until I was discharged.

The last time I saw that guy at my final office visit, I told him that some of the symptoms I was having before the surgery were still there and that I was still dealing with a bunch of pain. He looked me right in the eyes and told me that there was noting else that could be done and that I was going to have to learn to live with the pain.

Trust me, I have been doing exactly that for 38 years now.

So there’s that bit of my past and that part of this story.

I have been working as a mechanic for over forty years with a fucked up back.

Everything from hand tools, small engines, cars, trucks, heavy trucks, heavy equipment, Cranes, Dozers, Dredges, Pile Drivers, Gravel Plants, Industrial machinery and things you have never even heard of.

I literally can’t even remember all of the shit I have worked on over the years anymore.

Not to mention over forty motor vehicle wrecks, fights, my nose has been broken 9 times now, I’ve had teeth knocked out a couple times and have had so many concussions that I couldn’t even begin to count them anymore plus just generally tearing my ass up for entertainment purposes.

Hell one time I landed on my head at 45 miles an hour when I High Sided my motorcycle on a twisty road heading into Half Moon Bay when I was drunk. Landed with both arms extended and smacked the side of my head right on the pavement.

Lucky for me I was wearing a helmet because they weren’t mandatory back then.

Some people helped me get the bike back up, I had broken my left wrist and separated my right shoulder too but didn’t know it yet. I got it started and couldn’t squeeze the clutch so I jammed it in gear and speed shifted it into El Grenada where I was living with a buddy.

I pulled into the yard, dumped the bike over, picked myself up and went in the house. My buddy was there and he took me up to the local hospital. I was laying in a bed and could see the nurses desk from where I was laying all messed up.

After a while an older guy and his wife come in and are talking to the nurse and this woman kept looking at me and it started bugging me.

I finally yelled across the room and asked her what the fuck are you looking at?

Pretty soon here they come and they are talking to me and I have no idea who they are at first.

Turns out it was my parents.

You could maybe say I got my bell rung pretty good that time.

So yeah, I may be skinny but I’m a tough little sonofabitch.

Back to the lawnmowing.

Three years ago I would have to stop at least twice to mow the lawn. It isn’t big, takes about twenty minutes with a push mower.

I finally had enough and went on Craigslist and bought a used Self Propelled unit as after fighting with the Wifely Unit several times, she refused to let me get a rider.

Even with that one, I would have to stop and rest.

This condition kept getting worse and worse, then I started having these weird episodes at work where I would be walking across the floor and out of nowhere, I would get this HOT FLASH all the way across my lower back and my freaking legs would try and buckle on me.

That and if I walked too far at one shot, my lower legs would start cramping up. Shin splints and cramps.

The WICKED variety.

This went on and on and on, just getting worse and worse and worse over the last couple of years and all I did was just keep going to work and putting up with the misery.

I’d have to grab ahold of something or bend over and put my hands on my knees until it went away. I have been putting up with the occasional Sciatica for years and the one thing that very few people know about is that one of the nerves in my lower back has been constantly irritated this entire time and that this particular nerve goes directly to my right testicle. If you are a guy and have those, imagine someone has flicked their finger against the back of your right nut all day every day, for forty fucking years.

Yes, eventually you do learn to live with the pain but God Forbid you ever actually take a shot to the nuts.

Face meet ground, knees meet chin and it’s all she wrote for a few minutes.

And people wonder why I can be such a grouchy bastard.

Try living with that shit and be all smiley faced and cheerful every day.

Not Happening.

I did finally put my foot down and buy a riding lawnmower, which has been posted about here in the past.

I love that thing.

So anyway, this lower leg cramping shit has gotten worse and worse and worse in just the last six months, to the point now, that I literally can’t walk more that two hundred feet and my left leg gets the shin splints so bad I HAVE TO STOP and wait until it lets up.

At that point I’m only good for maybe another 50 feet and it does it again.

Since I literally hate doctors after seeing over a hundred of them in my day, I have been quite reluctant to go see one over this but my Brother has this lady doctor that he just loves and he talked her into taking me on as a new patient.

It only took me a year to break down and make the phone call.

She is an Indian lady and I do like her too. Younger and she is on top of her game.

Long story short, after several tests, I have two major issues going on here.

My lower back has degenerated so far over the years that I HAVE SHRUNK TWO AND A HALF INCHES.

I used to be six foot tall and I am now 5′ 9 and a half inches tall.

From L2 to L6 is shot and there are all kinds of nerves getting squeezed on.

The discs have been squeezed to tears, arthritis, bone spurs, the works.

That explains the hot flashes, sciatica and the occasional feeling that someone was pouring ice water down the back of my right leg.

It also probably explains a new symptom that has cropped up lately where the toes and the upper part of my left foot are numb most the time now. Sometimes if I stand too long the whole foot goes numb. That is probably blood flow but even at rest the top of my foot tingles all the time now.

The other issue seems to be what is known as PADS.

Peripheral Artery Disease.

It can happen to your arms, neck or legs and feet,

Basically, the arteries going to BOTH of my legs are blocked.

The left side is way, way worse than the right side but both of them are getting choked off for blood.

Of course the VERY FIRST THING is to hand me a hand full of prescriptions so I get to start taking pills now.

High blood pressure, check.

High cholesterol, check,

Pain, check and check again.

Gabapentin, to calm the irritated nerves down so maybe I can get some sleep.

Ya see, this got so bad that I was waking up two or three times a night and my entire left leg would be asleep and numb, from the hip to my toes.

There would be a weird ache behind my knee like someone was choking off the blood, which is exactly what was happening.

I am having to roll out and sit on the side of the bed until the enough blood would flow so the numbness would go away.

Two or three times a night. On top of everything else, I ain’t getting any sleep either.

So there ya have it.

I’m all fucked up and have been for a few years now.

Lots more tests but I am probably looking at having some Stents put in, depending on where and how bad, maybe multiple stents, so I can get some blood flow back into my legs.

That will hopefully take care of that issue.

My lower back however, is beyond fucked and there isn’t going to be much of anything they can do for it short of plates, screws and putting in artificial discs, which I AM NOT going to subject myself to.

Oh and of course, they are going to crawl up my ass with a rake and demand that I quit smoking. These people have no sense of humor for that shit.

So gazing into the crystal ball, I am seeing that my days of busting my homesick ass wrenching on shit are about to come to a screeching halt.

One way or another.

I have always said that I will go until I can’t go no more and that wall is dead ahead now.

I’m figuring The Good Lord has had me stick around this long for reasons only He would know because I should have been dead twenty times over at least over the shit I have pulled, up to and including have a scared to death old man holding a loaded old German Luger two inches away from my forehead with shaking hands because me and my friends were Tequila drunk and pissing him and his wife off. I was so drunk that I just kept swiping the barrel out of my face with the back of my hand while continuing to argue with the poor old guy.

It’s a miracle he didn’t blow the top of my head off before the cops showed up and took it away from him.

Yeah, I was a crazy asshole for a long time too.

Maybe, just maybe, God still has something for me to do before I check out.

One thing is for sure, I am going to be getting rid of a whole bunch of crap here this Summer and trimming my To Do list down as far as I possibly can.

Now there are a few reasons I didn’t want to write this post, some should be fairly obvious.

But this whole Blog thing is kind of part of my legacy, I have been doing it since 2006 and this is part of my story now whether I like it or not.

I’m not looking for sympathy, and I’m ESPECIALLY not looking for any advice or anything else.

I have more of that than I want already.

I’m just telling it like it is and very slowly limping away to deal with the rest of my life.

Let me update this real quick,

Don’t think for one second that I am done Blogging.

What the hell else do you you think I am going to do?

There are TONS of assholes out there that need tormenting.

I’m just giving you all a snapshot of what’s been going on and what I am going to have to be dealing with here in the near future.

92 thoughts on “The Post I Really Didn’t Want To Write”

  2. Pussy. Quit whining….

    No, seriously, I get what you are saying. I never planned to live this long, so I didn’t bother to take care of myself and drove it like I stole it, and now I can FULLY understand what you are saying.

    Try, (for once), following the docs suggestions…sometimes they are right in what they say.

    I hope you can get to feeling less bad, if not pain free.

      • Yeah, that’s what my friends told me when I whined about having to hike out 5 miles downhill with a dislocated hip (long before cell phones). Of course, they carried my pack (and about 2/3 of me too) while giving me shit.

        Some folks get the joke, others don’t. Glad you saw it for what it was.

        • The wife and I are effed up like you (minus 20-30%) so we’re always grunting and groaning while doing stuff. We regularly tell the other “Pussy! kwitcher bitchin!”, then we laugh and laugh and take another pain pill.

  3. I was wondering when you were going to post something like this, glad you did! I have listened while we talked and I could tell you were in pain, you masked it well, but to my cultured ear… I will remain to blog at your side, we make quite the crippled old pair. I will be honored to come up in June to wobble our crippled asses to de-junk you… You may even be able to park your Red Dragon in the garage when we get finished.

  4. You must be the most ornery bastard I’ve ever encountered, and I mean that as a compliment. I appreciate your keeping up the blog, and all the fun and interesting stuff here – even CederQ.

    God help you with the garage.

  5. Nothing I love more than an old asshole, like me, who keeps driving forward. Best of luck my brother! Joecrew

  6. Any advice I could give would probably be bad, so I’ll keep my mouth shut on that front.

    Except to say I think you’re a long way from done, especially if the nice lady doctor can muffle some of the pain and give you some of your mobility back.

  7. Love your honesty, your BFYTW attitude, and your inability to suffer fools. He’s kept us all around for a reason; hope we get to find out what it is and kinda worried that we WILL at the same time. Anyway, your added to my prayer list in permanent black sharpie, ya curmudgeon.
    Scarecrow

  8. I had a major seizure in 2016 and since then I’ve been in surgery 7 times fixing all the injuries from the fall and various other things they found while checking me out including a large benign tumor under my eye and and endless list of other stuff. Funny thing is that with physical therapy, diet and exercise I’m down 60 pounds and in better shape now than I have been in many years. You can overcome!

    One really weird thing that happened was they took out my gall bladder and a whole bunch of skin rashes I couldn’t get rid of cleared up almost overnight. Some of my hair even grew back in which, at age 63, is really amazing.

    Also – I’m not anybody to give out medical advice but my legs were swelling up like crazy and my Dermatologist (of all people) put me on a med called Vasculera which isn’t even a drug, it’s a food supplement. That swelling along with a bunch of other inflammation issues stopped.

  9. I am reminded of the time Brigid took her dad to the doctor, and the doc said that he wasn’t as steady on his feet as he used to be and should start using a cane. That pissed the guy off “Those are for old folks!” he said (he was ninety something at the time). Well, Brigid found him a walking staff with a gnarly lion’s head on it. That was cool, and he could do that.
    So whatever becomes of your situation, here’s a book by Octavio Ramos called: Raising Cane. With practice, a cane can be a formidable weapon, and you no doubt have the forearm strength to wield one well. The best advantage of it is that no one will think about it as a weapon; you can even sail through TSA with it.
    I am hoping you find the means to carry on. You and Cederq make a blog team that is beyond unique.

    • Greg, be unique, we need more niques… You made me blush. I have an aluminum cane because with my MS, I have my unsteady moments and I unscrewed the cap, and cut a 3/4″ rebar steel to length and epoxy resin the rebar inside and it is heavy and sturdy, a formidable weapon that people and cops ignore at their peril. It can break bones and place elegant contusions and lacerations…

      • Sounds pretty substantial. As Ramos points out though, sometimes lighter is better; speed is more important than impact. In the end though, it’s like broadsword vs. rapier. They both get the job done, but in different ways.

      • Cold Steel’s walking sticks moulded from solid polypropylene are strong and effective.

  10. Good luck you ornery old bastard. We are all rooting for you. If you need anything let me know. I can make a road trip to help. I am still working on the 62 ford truck and the manuals you sent are very helpful. My luck is such that I pulled the head off of my six cylinder to replace the head gasket and found a six inch vertical crack in one cylinder wall. so found a donor truck for 400$ with good engine. Ran when we parked it in 1977!! Please keep us posted on your progress and never give up.

  11. I really feel for you. I’ve dealt with that level of pain for years too. It’s very debilitating, particularly if you let you rule you and not fight it tooth and nail as you have done. Mine came from my misspent youth in a country that moved it’s name from an R to a Z. Some folk there weren’t very friendly and used to shoot at us, naturally we shot back. One day one of them actually managed to hit something, unfortunately it was me. Fragments of those cheap shitty bullets are still working their way out of me. Even now I light up xrays! Ain’t no fun getting but it sure was fun getting here

  12. way past time to slow down there. blew out my back years ago. had the surgery done at the VA. oh well. anyway I was standing up to piss a half hour after waking up. they couldn’t believe it. went home later that day/night. no way was I going to stay there the whole weekend. that was fucked up. didn’t get any pain meds until Tuesday. that sucked. next 2 years I really don’t remember much about as they loaded me up with drugs. morphine time release 2x a day. hydrocodaine (?) 4x
    and valium 2x a day. down to just 3 x with the hydro these days.
    just shopping for food is a pain in the ass these days. walking over 30 minutes is just fucked. still there are things you can do. just get a shop chair or stool.
    I have a couple for them. they are handy as hell.
    you might want to check out with SSD. best bet is to get a lawyer with that.
    I fucked around with them for 3 years before getting it.
    they wanted me to teach high school in north philly (?) or west philly.
    ended up going to court. the judge was pissed as hell. I thought I was going to get fucked again. but it turns out she was pissed at THEM for fucking me over for so long. that was kind of nice. seeing how I already blew thru most of my IRA and 401k between hospital bills and keeping a roof over my head. then it was the turn of the IRS. lets just say if it all starts to come apart there are a few people I like to see before I check out. like the clowns at blue cross and a few other folks
    most people have no idea how bad I loathe the system.
    take care of your ass. very few others will even try to help ya.

  13. Dang, man, you’re a mess! Suddenly my physical problems don’t seem so bad after all. . .
    God is definitely not done with you yet! Prayers going up for you, whether you want them or not. 😀
    Keep on keeping on, okay? You have a lot of folks who would miss your ornery self if you stopped blogging.

  14. First about your back: Watch this and more of of his other videos, then google search DEUK SPINE INSTITUTE and give them a call. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1gW1ZEvVfI

    Then throw away the blood pressure & cholesterol meds, both high blood pressure and high cholesterol are caused by SUGAR, NOT good natural saturated animal & vegetable fats.
    From my recent twitter post: https://twitter.com/cancerclasses/status/1651372663028453377?s=20

    From Cornell trained biochemist Dr, James Carlson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FArPvJwx59Y&t=321s

    Then google search, read up on and switch to a Low Carb High Fat Diet, cut back in eating sugar, wheat & grain carbs which will fix BOTH the cholesterol and high blood pressure naturally WITHOUT TOXIC DRUGS that are hard on and poison the kidneys and liver.

    Then go through your pantry & cupboards and throw out & stop eating & using all corn, canola, grapeseed, Crisco, PAM cooking spray, MARGARINES and all other Partially & FULLY Hydrogenated liquid vegetable seed cooking oils and all manufactured “foods” that are made with and list those in the ingredients.

    Then save or buy & start cooking ONLY with Extra Virgin Olive oil, Avocado & Coconut oil, butter and bacon grease and PURE, UNPROCESSED pork lard and beef tallow from butcher shop trimmings.

    Good natural saturated animal & vegetable fats DO NOT cause arterial plaque & heart attacks, OXIDIZED artificial Hydrogenated Transfat vegetable seed oils do and that’s been known for a long time but they still don’t tell people. 1994 LANCET electron microscope study of coronary plaque found over 10 different substances nut NO SATURATED animal fats. IT’S NOT the eggs & bacon, Arterial Plaque is predominantly OXIDIZED Omega 6 vegetable seed cooking oils. Eating them corrupts and OXIDIZES ALL of the body’s cholesterols which then accumulate and form arterial plaque.
    http://brianpeskin.com/pdf/e-newsletter-archive/2005-05newscholmay.pdf
    Dr. Brewer, How I Reversed 20 years of Arterial Plaque https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOWF0KTNu2g

    There’s NO cholesterol sensor in the body. “Cholesterol numbers” are an artificial contrived MARKETING gimmick that were INVENTED and created to sell Statin cholesterol drugs. Before Statins, doctors would only check to make sure your cholesterol was HIGH ENOUGH, at least 200 to 300 because low cholesterol INCREASES all cause mortality & death rates, people with higher NON Oxidized cholesterol live longer, have stronger immunity & resistance to sickness & disease and so are healthier and live longer.
    https://brianpeskinonline.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/defective-ldl-cholesterol-becomes-a-poison-delivery-system/

    • Thanks for the info. The prescription for the statins has been sitting at the pharmacy for a week. Eventually I will go pick it up so I can throw it away. I didn’t want to take them in the first place.
      And for some reason, I now have a craving for a Bacon Cheeseburger..
      Lol!
      I’ll go check out your links.
      BTW, Love your handle.

      • Bacon and Cheese and Burger are all good. Skip the bun. I come from a long line of ornery bastards. My father’s claim to fame is he removed his own catheter because it was bugging him. Ouch.

        • I did the same thing after my back surgery. I kept telling them it was plugged up but they wouldn’t listen to me so I deflated the damn thing with a piece of a pencil I found in a drawer next to the bed and sloooowly pulled it out.
          Bigger than shit there was a big old blood clot plugging up the end of it.
          I near pissed all over myself trying to get to the bathroom.

          • Why didn’t you remove the clot and reinserted the indwelling cath and everything would have been hunky-dory…

            I really hope you had given that nurse, her charge nurse and the nurse-manager of that floor a royal ass chewing out and then demanded to see the hospital administrator, and do the same and mention lawyers and courtrooms several times.

    • Thank you for the valuable info. I was given statins without being asked a few years ago and got the widely known joint pains. I binned the statins but a couple of years later developed rheumatoid arthritis – coincidence?

  15. I feel your pain. I’ve had a bunch of medical crap rear it’s ugly head in the last couple years. I’m on my 66th trip around the sun, and have NEVER taken much care of myself. Now I don’t have much choice, but the damage is mostly done. Where many treat their body like a temple, I treated mine like an amusement park.

    Growing old; Zero stars, would not recommend..

  16. LOOK FOR MEDBEDS FOR YOUR PROBLEMS.
    ADVANCED TECH THAT WILL FIX EVERYTHING.
    GOVERNMENTS HAVE BEEN HIDING THEM FOR BIG PHARMA.
    US GOV. HAS OVER 6,000 PATENTS HIDDEN AS ‘ CLASSIFIED.’
    THIS IS ONE OF THEM. DIG ON THE NET.
    YOU WILL FIND THEM.

    blueray

  17. Well, this admission happened sooner than I anticipated. I hope they figure something out that mitigates your issues.
    Good luck, Brother.

    Leigh
    Whitehall, NY

  18. I do not know how to start this so I will just dive in the deep end. My father died when I was ten. He had the trifecta : smoking 2 packs of Camels a day, overweight and a HIGH stress job (60+ hrs. week).That altered my life path to working after school and summers all through public school. Figured between motorcycles and drugs I would be dead by 21. When I didn’t die, I continued an alternate life style of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Now 70 in not great shape due to back injuries from military service, I take it a day at time. You are not alone. We are legion. We are (sword) cane using, scotch drinking, Mary Jane smoking, old farts just waiting for the next big thing to come around the corner. Stay strong. We are still apex predators and life ain’t done with us yet.

  19. Yeah, claudication in yer legs is a bastard, Phil. I use a chair now if I need to go more than 50 or so metres. If you’re sitting down, it stops you falling over and busting even more stuff.
    No advice offered from me, but for pain reduction while still retaining your faculties, tapentadol hydrochloride is hard to beat, no nausea, no constipation, no addiction (I sometimes forget to take it, until I start hurting bad). A retail name here is Palexia SR, dunno what they call it there in the US.
    Neuropathy (nerve pain) is a bastard, fucks your life up badly.

  20. I’m with you with the chronic back and leg pain.
    Fortunately, my arteries are good.
    Hope stents work and the gabapentin helps with the nerve pain.
    Godspeed.

  21. Had my fusion surgeries in 1990, spinal cord stimulator about 10 yrs ago. Building & racing boats did it to me. Ain’t going to anymore drs.

  22. Phil, how in the world you have survived all of the things you’ve done to yourself is no small miracle.

    I also have shrunk 2 1/2″ from degenerative disks in my lumbar spine. It’s much of the reason I went ahead and retired almost two years ago. Between not being able to be on my feet for long and how I sometimes couldn’t stay awake due to the pain screwing up my sleep, I couldn’t do my job even though it was physically easy otherwise.

    The chronic pain really sucks so I can hardly believe that you are still able to do much of anything Add the blocked leg arteries and I just don’t know how you make it each day. Those are way worse than my varicose veins. I won’t even go into the smoking other than to say I’m glad I never picked up that habit after watching it kill my mother.

    Just remember that you have a lot of friends here on your blog praying for you, myself included. Hang in there! Don’t make me stir up Cederq to give you even more crap.

      • Crapmaster: have you considered applying to be a shitstirrer at a sewage treatment farm? You could get well paid for doing what comes naturally.

  23. You have lived a life that would shock the hell out of most people and you probably enjoyed almost all of it.
    One week ago today I was laying in icu. Loads of fun & pain.. Every day has been better. Not giving up for many years.
    FYI if you have surgery & they use staples DO NOT watch a video on them! Grabbed an 8 cent safeway bag & barfed. I have about 35 of the lovey things running up my stomach. Oh so pretty!
    I will send good wishes your way. Keep blogging!

    • We would rather you send pictures! It seems we just got our third! Ding, ding, ding, you win what’s beyond Door 4… We extend Prayers and good wishes to Cathypop. Did they put in a zipper too?

    • G’day Cathypop, strewth, those staples sound nasty, you’re tougher than me! I’m glad that you’re commenting here, Phil needs more ladies around to keep him civilised.
      Get well soon.

  24. Welcome to old age. And it can be tough to get here when you have led a life as full as you could make it. Things hurt and you have had more than your share but that shows your enthusiasm for living. You’re a good man. Take it easy from now on and enjoy what’s left. —ken

  25. I can’t even imagine how you’re feeling, Phil. We’re all praying for a quick recovery! I’m very glad to hear you will keep blogging. I’m pretty much a daily visitor.

  26. Shoot, Phil, I only have HALF of what you deal with on a daily basis! I didn’t smoke, drink, or drug myself, yet here I am with a new heart valve. And I’m also 2-1/2 inches hsorter tan I was as aa kid. Something about jumping out of perfectly good airplanes messes up your spine and lower extremities. Add chronically bad congenital asthma, warped hips, knees, and feet, and you can walk better’n *I* can!

    Enough griping on my part. All of us that live “close” need to save up our gas money so we can drive our trucks and trailers over to your Storage Unit (excuse me, your garage!), back up to it, and properly relieve you of the vast treasures you have in there. Say the word!!

    Looting the corpse, as it were. Or, in the Cubicle world where I mostly worked for the last 25 years, looting the Nearly Departed’s Domicile. Your call.

    Nevertheless, we’re still glad you’re here.

  27. It really sucks not being able to do what you’ve done your whole life without breaking a sweat.
    I’ve been going through some life changes recently as well that have prevented me from plying my trade effectively, so I’m off to my next occupation, whatever that is. We’ll find something, all of us. Because we are doers, not slackers and we need to do things.
    But I’m not turning tricks down at the local park in the evenings. Not enough money.

      • Speaking from experience?
        I can see you running around the park in your tighty whightys.

        • Dmm, I somehow have the impression that Cederq’s tighty-whities are no longer white, and are more sag than tight. Still, he could get lucky and find a Salvo girl just looking for somebody to save.

  28. That fucking sucks. However, you’re a tough old bastard for a reason, right? 😉

    Here’s to Phil…

  29. Been an X ray/CT/MRI tech for almost 50 years.. Hate to say it but you’re hosed. The docs can treat your symptoms but even with all manner of surgeries they can at best stabilize your spine…but not fix it. Good thing you are used to pain. As for the PAD. That is almost certainly from smoking. And it makes any treatment plan they come up with likely to fail. If you haven’t been told to by now I’m saying it. Quit smoking. If you have that level of disease in the arteries of your legs you also have coronary artery disease. Next stop….a heart attack. You can’t undo what’s done. But you can slow it’s progression. You have some tough choices ahead.

    • Ain’t you just a ray of sunshine.
      LMAO!
      Something is going to kill me eventually, right?
      Yeah I fugure the coronary arteries are probably fucked too but the doc was amazed at my heart beat when she listened to it with a stethescope.

      • Sometimes the truth is not pleasant. Doesn’t make it less true. And not being honest helps nobody. Willful self denial is probably the most common “symptom” seen in healthcare. Stop smoking. It’s the single best move you can make for your health. Or not….but at least accept reality. Listening to a heart through a stethoscope does almost nothing to evaluate coronary disease risk. Wanna know? You need a coronary angiogram. Everything else is an indirect means of evaluation.

  31. ” … over forty motor vehicle wrecks …”
    Wow, were you a demolition derby driver?
    I mean professionally. 😉

  32. Do let us know when is the garage sale and them of us what are within range will show up with money. Where better for all your treasures than in our hands?

  34. A prayer, that they find some solutions to easy the pain and discomfort.
    Damn, this getting old isn’t for the weak. A little over a year ago they sent me home to basically die cause the heart surgeon didn’t want to touch my heart. The cardiologist didn’t want to put stents for the same reasons. Since I’m still here (beat the odds) the cardiologist is making noises to the effect that, maybe, they can now put stents in.
    Oh, and to give your lungs a break, put snuff in your socks.

  35. phil, keep a eye on how many and what type of otc meds you may take for pain.
    something I learned the hard way. those little pills have a habit of fucking your kidneys up. sure, you feel better for a while, but then after a while you kidneys start
    hurting like mad. best thing I found for local sharp pain is those lidocaine patches
    the 5% ones work the best. you can “wear” up to 3 at one time.
    my upper back is acting up and hurts like I have been stabbed. but I not going to let them cut up there. and yes, I have been stabbed before so I know what it feels like. best to avoid it if you can. anyway, the trick is to push yourself a little and not so much to kill yourself off.
    about the smoking bit, I have told the doc’s who always say I can live 10 or more years longer if I just quit. who wants another 10 years of pain ?
    have you thought of rolling your own smokes yet ? it will save you a bundle of cash for one, and it takes you mind off smoking while you do them.
    and the best part is, you are not funding them with you tax money by buying them by the pack. in one year here in pa. they raised the tax on them by 3 bucks a pack. greedy fuckers aren’t they ?

    • NSAIDs will do a job on your kidneys. Found that out the hard way.

      • yup. got to stage 3 here before I found out what I was doing to myself. I cut all of the OTC meds out and my blood work is coming back to normal they say. I feel better. just can not eat
        a lot of the things I used too.
        they always say to read the small print, but I never saw anything in the small print about fucking your kidneys up.
        ………………..

  36. At this time of life and state of health I bet you notice that whatever you need, in any shop, is in the farthest corner, on a bottom shelf and you manage to pick the only item without a price sticker so you have to stand for even longer while Brenda gets Marvin to shamble off to that farthest corner then shamble back with a price code.
    As my arthritic memsahib says, “being old is a bitch but the alternative is worse. . .”

  37. I was losing function in my right leg back in ’12. An MRI showed the disk at L5/S1 was ruptured and I was also showing stenosis in 3 of the lumbar vertebrae as well. Took almost 8 hours to set me right.

    I can sympathize with your antipathy towards surgery.

  40. There’s a brace in the foto of the brace? I didn’t see no stinking brace in the foto of a brace. I did see the clock though.
    Backs are great until they ain’t anymore. Sorry to hear of your pain.

  42. Late to the party and I know what you are dealing with from experience. Hope you get back on your feet and start feeling better.

    As far as getting any sympathy it is in the dictionary between shit and syphilis.

  43. Well that sucks… but you do have a riding lawn mower!

    I hope you can find a comfortable place between what the doc want you to do and how you like living your life…

  44. Don’t get rid of too much stuff at once. You gotta have something to work on, or you’ll start working on the people around you…. 😉

  45. Prayers sent. The good kind. And I mean that, from the bottom of my cold black heart.
    HTR

  46. Phil, just now saw this.

    I need everyone here to keep an eye on me. If I ever go retard and try to start shit with anyone here pummel me with the clue bat. Especially if it is Phil. I want to live a little longer so I can get my share of “some” on all the assholes of the world.

  47. You have a lot of folks pulling for you. Good luck and God Bless.

  48. most of us over 50 consider ourselves kinda rough around the edges, but gotdam man, you have been through it all…..40 fuckin car wrecks? were they mostly on purpose? just said bfytw when a mf’r cut you off?

    Hope you find some relief, enjoy some of the down time and find a happy spot somewhere in between the rat race and the bed

  49. Wow there sure are a lot of old busted up pricks reading and commenting on this blog, me included, although I comment infrequently and I’m not nearly busted up like some of you in my old age. I do have my share of aches and pains and can commiserate only a bit especially with Phil. Take it easy from now on Phil, really easy. Sounds like none of us here are spring chickens anymore especially you 🙂

  50. Man, oh man… I can identify with your situation. I’m all messed up, too. Chronic wanker syndrome. Ever time I spit, poor old goober jumps out of the way. Looks like a handlebar on a bicycle.

  51. I feel your pain. I too blew out a disc back in the late 80’s. It was horrible. But it got better in the 90’s and early 20’s . With proper care. I’m 6’0 and haven’t lost height as you have. But my sciatica has come back and it limits me. So much so that it cost me my last job. Not sure what I’ll do at age 60. I’ll figure it out. God bless you. I wish you the best.

  52. Read the book “crooked: outwitting the back pain industry and getting on the road to recovery”.

    I’ll send you a copy if you want. Just send me your address via email.

    Try the Feldenkrais method. It’s discussed in the book. Just try it. It’s free. Lie on the floor, get comfortable, use pillows or folded towels as needed, and listen to the instructions. Move very slowly, and make small movements. Here’s one good starter lesson.
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SLC033qinDE

  53. Forty auto wrecks? Seriously? Where did you get your license? Sears? No wonder the wifely unit fought like hell to keep you off a riding mower! Seriously, just take it one day at a time and DON’T give up the tools just yet.

  54. If you can try rubbing some DMSO on your back for the pain. I’ve had L4 to S1 fused and been on gabapentin for years. Gone from 6 300mg a day to 2 100mg a day. Pain relief is almost immediate and it’s good for many ailments. Like your blog,
    Keep it coming

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