I'M BAAAAAAACK (This time, it's for real)

My biggest handicap in having a blog last year was that I had no computer. My laptop had descended to computer hell, and any computer time I was able to get was devoted to that great sucker of time – Facebook.

Upon receiving my tax return this year, I made it a priority to get a new laptop. In fact, we made this momentous occasion an excuse for a mini family vacation. We braved a harrowing drive through blizzard conditions in a fifteen-passenger van down to Phoenix, where my kids played in the pool for a couple of days (even though it was February). I was able to walk out of Best Buy with a shiny new laptop (and my bank was calling me minutes later in the parking lot, making sure that it was indeed the frugal me making the purchase.)

So anyway, I got the computer. My blog should have been immediately forthcoming, but it wasn’t. Apathy set in. It’s not that I don’t have anything to talk about. I have TONS to talk about, as anyone who knows me can testify. There has been a lot that has happened in my family. I will take each day to get everyone up to speed.

I will start first with my health…

HEALTH UPDATE:

The main reason I have had a hard time keeping up with my blog is my health. It is hard time writing when you never feel good.

I came back from the fair circuit last October with swollen legs and a diabetic ulcer on my foot. I thought that once I got off my feet, it would heal. I waited and waited. It didn’t heal. I changed the bandages on my foot a couple of times a day. It bled frequently and started to smell in a way that bothered me.

During this time, I did go to the doctor often. He prescribed me a silver/ sulfur compound that burn patients put on their wounds. It seemed to help a little, but not much. He also put me on several rounds of antibiotics. In fact, I have been on antibiotics consistently for the last ten months, none of it helping.

Finally, I consulted a different doctor. Upon inspecting my sore, he immediately set to cutting away the dead tissue with a scalpel. (I didn’t feel a thing.) He also gave me a special shoe that takes weight off of the foot. My foot started healing within days, until it is now nothing more than a callous on the bottom of my foot.

Two weeks ago, I had laser surgery on the varicose veins of my right foot.

They didn’t put me under, they just gave me a valium, and made me watch as they inserted a tube into my vein. What an unusual experience that was – to feel a tube sliding up your leg, from your ankle all the way to your groin. Then they inserted a wire into my veins with a laser at the end. As they pulled the wire out of my leg, it collapsed the veins. It only took an hour, and I walked out of the clinic. I just felt a little sore. But three days later, I became incredibly sore, with ugly purple bruises on my leg. I am really sore and still recovering from this, but I am also hoping that this procedure improves the quality of my life.

Next month, I see a specialist, an endocrinologist. It turns out that I am insulin resistant, and hopefully these visits will be for the better.

I am doing all this for my family. My health has took a few serious turns in the last couple of the years. I am not stupid. I know how my body feels, and I can see the writing on the wall. If I don’t do something about it now, I will be dead in ten years. Probably less. I look at my children and my wives. It would be a sore burden to not have me around.

I have two wives and eleven children. I can think of nothing worse than to leave them alone to fend for themselves.

I don’t do much around the house. I kind of sit around, nursing my pain like an invalid. Lately, I feel kind of useless. But at least I am alive and present for my children. I hope to keep it that way.

Anyway, more news tomorrow…