So another work week has dawned large in front of me. The work week for me actually started late Sunday night when I had a call with one of my company's delivery team leaders in Dalian, China. I cannot deny I truly hate working with company personnel based in China. I have nothing personally against them or the country, except for the fact that it's work day falls almost exclusively within the zone of sleep for my time zone. That really sucks because I always try to be the person who sucks up the time zone differential. I figure as an executive within my company I need to demonstrate the leadership skills that are needed to motivate others within the company. So if the difference comes down to me being awake at some god awful hour of the day as opposed to those who really do and deliver the work, I would rather take the hit to my sleep. In some ways it doesn't really matter as my sleeping hours seem to be totally out of whack these days anyway.
The title of today's post is meant to refer to my ongoing issues with the L4/L5 joint in my back. I am now 10+ days post surgery and as I sit here attempting to type, my entire body is wracked with pain. I have never experienced this kind of ongoing permanent pain that I currently feel. I did feel OK for the first 2 - 3 days after the last surgery, but since then the pain has come roaring back into my body. Now there is nothing that seems to make it go away short of falling into a deep state of sleep. I am really wondering what my next step is to correct this problem.
I guess the answer to that question isn't going to come until I have another appointment with my surgeon. That appointment is scheduled for this Thursday. Though at times there is a deep depression in my heart about all of this pain, I have never been more determined to overcome something. I am not going to let this pain put me in a place where I can't do the things I want. It's going to take a while I am sure, but I am coming back from this injury stronger, faster and with more endurance than I had before this injury. I will not be kept down and I will not live in pain. This problem IS going to go away! (The next step turns out to be taking massive doses of steroids. This morning - Tuesday - I started on a prescription pack of 88mg of Prednisone. We'll see how it goes maybe this quantity of steroids will calm down all the nerves that are causing the pain - who knows.)
OK - Enough about the back issue! I don't want that stupid thing to consume my life and I have to be the one to stop it. So enough is enough.
(Once again this blog entry has been written across 2 days as I started it on Monday and I am finishing it on Tuesday.)
I got one of the best e-mails from school about Zack that I have ever received. Zack is definitely a little bit on the difficult side to work with. Though he is my son and I love him more than anything he definitely adds stress to my life. So when I receive and e-mail like this from one of the para-educators who works with him, I am happy as can be. Here's the content of the e-mail I received.
"In all honesty, Zack's behavior has gotten to be much like that of any other seventh grade boy. Most of the fear mongering is gone (still a little here and there) and now it is just dealing with the laziness that you referred to and a great deal of negotiating that he is attempting to participate in.
I did want to share with you something great that Zack started doing Friday. He has started taking his binders into social studies early so that he will not be late to class anymore. I honestly can't remember if this is something he and I discussed earlier in the year or if this is just something of his own initiative, but I did want to share with you the fact that he is stepping up with regards to being in social studies prepared and on time.
Sometimes I forget how much growth he's shown over the course of the year until I sit down and think about it."
It made me very happy to read that e-mail. Of all the legacies that we create while we are here on earth our children are the most important. To see that Zack is 'finally' starting to get it makes me so happy. Perhaps, maybe just - I am not 100% failing at this parenting thing.
On another note - it has now been four months since Nancy has moved to Cranbrook. There are a number of different observations about the changes in my since then.
1 - Nancy in some ways actually seems to enjoy the place. She will never admit to it. (She never reads my blog so I can say all this.) Each day she will say how much she hates the place and then she will go on for 20 - 30 minutes giving me the run down of everything that is happening there. She knows every one and everyone knows her.
2 - For us here at home it seems strangely quiet with only the 2 of us here. So I either need to sell this place and get a small place or I have to find someone else to live here with us. The silence I experience day-in and day-out as I sit here and work is deafening and I hate it. Something I never realized about myself is that I hate being alone all the time. When I was a kid I liked it - now I hate it.
3 - Despite her concerns Nancy is doing financial OK even though she is spending money to live in the Cranbrook.
4 - The outcome of all these changes have been weird to me. The changes have been made all the worse by the fact that I have been laid up with this back issue. The whole back thing has been such a downer on my whole life. I feel a bit lost and out of my element as nothing seems normal to me. I guess I just have to give it more time. I also feel that broadening my social life and getting more people into the house as visitors will help.
5 - Zack has seemed pretty unaffected by the change. He really has complained about it. Additionally, when I go out on some evenings he is getting used to being home alone. I don't do that too much, but it is good that he knows he can do OK being home alone.
I think that will be it for tonight. I have several other subjects to write upon but I will save them for another day. Thanks for being my readers and I hope you enjoy my blog!
Thanks and peace to all! ~J.
Life is what you make of it. Be happy, love a lot and have ADVENTURES!
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Walking Down Memory Lane
(I started writing this blog entry on Friday evening - but then I went out and didn't get back to it until Saturday afternoon. So... You might notice some differences in terms of how I talk about what day it is.)
For the last 2 days I have been spending a lot of time doing "heads down" work. This is as opposed to my normal schedule which involves lots and lots of conference calls. For each of the last 2 days I have only had one conference call. On both days the call was very early in the morning, so that by 7:30AM the human interaction part of my work day was already complete. So that has meant the rest of these days have been spent working on a variety of presentations and spreadsheets that are involved in the two projects on which I am currently working.
When I work "heads down" like this I need to take breaks every so often or my productivity takes a big dip. If I were working in an office environment I would use this time to get up, walk around, chat/gossip with my co-workers - basically just do stuff that allows me to interact with people. Unfortunately, since I work from home, I don't have those opportunities. Instead I will do things that just take my mind off of work for a short time before returning to the grind of spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations. Today when I took a short break I decided to get my fix of interaction with others by logging into Facebook. But instead of just looking at what people were doing right now, I scrolled the whole way back through my Facebook page to the day I joined. For anyone's curiosity I joined Facebook on September 7, 2008.
It was quite interesting to look back at my photos and posts from back then. My life was in a totally different place then as it hadn't even been 2 months since Patty had died. Looking at the people who I connected with it is funny to see who some of the first ones were. My first connections were with a lot of the people who are in my life day-to-day. The second group of people I connected with were good friends who don't live around me. Connecting with my friend Ruben from Costa Rica was a big thing as Ruben and I are very good friends but before Facebook our conversations were very infrequent because we didn't have a medium like FB to connect us. The third group of people I connected with were people from my past. I remember the day I found out that a girl who I had a crush on back in high school was on Facebook. I was all excited by that - which is actually very funny if you think about it. And no - I still don't have a crush on her. Not that she isn't nice, cause she is, but she has one major flaw in life - she lives in California. That's a joke if any one cares realize it. (LOL)
One of the things that was most different about myself back then was my sense of self. Though Patty had only died 2 months earlier my thoughts processes back then were much different and I seemed much more at peace then I do now. Part of it is because it had only been 2 months since Patty died I very closely remembered all that we had been through. I knew how hard I had worked to do everything I could for Patty in her final months. No one could have done any better than I did for her. So there was a sense of peace about myself as I looked at my next challenge - raising Zack.
Back in 2008 I didn't feel as weighed down yet by the challenges of getting Zack through his anxiety and OCD issues. I can't explain it all but things just seemed more free and less challenging back then.
On the positive side of things, my walk down memory lane has served to remind me that life is good, it can be fun and I need to stop taking things so seriously. I can clearly remember the feelings I had in the fall of 2008. There were some feelings that were difficult to face, but for whatever reason I felt more up to the challenge then. There was an excitement to the fact that Zack and I were starting out on an expedition that was going to see him grow up and see me challenge myself in ways that I had never been challenged before. I need to go back to that sense of dedication and determination that I had in the fall of 2008. My life will be much happier if I do so.
Speaking of walks down memory lane.... I am going far into my past for this next topic. For the last month there has been an overwhelming number of ads on TV for the Disney Film "John Carter". As a kid who totally grew up reading science fiction tome after science fiction tome, I am very concerned that Disney has done irreparable harm to the wonderful Edgar Rice Burroughs series "John Carter of Mars". The fact that they have left "of Mars" out of the title is in and of itself a disturbing fact. The whole story is premised on the fact that John Carter is a normal human being of Earth but becomes a warlord, hero and overall ass-kicker when he is transported to Mars. Without Mars being part of the title the story from the get-go seems to lose it's foundation. I could be pleasantly surprised and find that this movie is incredible, but I doubt it. Burroughs was not an author who built nuanced stories with lots of twists and turns. Nope - his writing was direct and to the point. The gore, action and sex (not that there was much of that) was right in front of you. I think the style lends itself very well to pulp science fiction books but I am not sure that it necessarily works in movies. There are certain movies like Star Ship Troopers that it has worked well. But sometimes when you have a movie and you don't have a real plot it can turn into a mess. Perhaps we will get to see this movie sometime over the weekend and I can put my thoughts to rest.
It's been a long time since I have donated platelets or blood. I have held off donating because of all the surgeries and medical procedures I have had since the fall. Given our plans for spring break - going to Costa Rica, I will be forbidden from given blood and platelets for the next year because of concerns about malaria. I am planning to go and give a unit of whole blood sometime in the next week or two before we leave. And then..... Since the time requirements are the same - I am giving strong consideration to getting a tattoo. Yeah - you read that right. That is not something that has ever come out of my mouth before. So why am I considering this. First - when I was in the hospital for my last surgery there was some kind of LA Ink Marathon that day and I must have seen 5 or more episodes of the show while I was sitting around in my hospital bed. That got me seriously thinking about getting a tattoo. The second reason that I am thinking this is it would be a permanent way to memorialize Patty that would always be with me. I don't wear my wedding ring any more and so I don't have any physical connection like that with Patty. Maybe it's time to get a tat so that she will always be with me. The other alternative is that I take some of her ashes and have them made into some kind of gem that I can have mounted on an ear ring and then I get my ear pierced. Decisions, decisions.... what to do??
The weekend here in Denver is absolutely fabulous! Though my Saturday started out nightmarish as the amount of pain I was experiencing from my back was hellish. But you know what - sometimes when it is nice outside you just have to say "screw it" and live with the pain. It feels so great to be outside today! Tomorrow - Sunday - I don't care what the physical price I pay we are going to go for a hike. I don't understand how I could do any further damage to my back, so I am going to get on with living.
Hope everyone is having a great weekend so far!
Thanks and peace to all! ~J.
For the last 2 days I have been spending a lot of time doing "heads down" work. This is as opposed to my normal schedule which involves lots and lots of conference calls. For each of the last 2 days I have only had one conference call. On both days the call was very early in the morning, so that by 7:30AM the human interaction part of my work day was already complete. So that has meant the rest of these days have been spent working on a variety of presentations and spreadsheets that are involved in the two projects on which I am currently working.
When I work "heads down" like this I need to take breaks every so often or my productivity takes a big dip. If I were working in an office environment I would use this time to get up, walk around, chat/gossip with my co-workers - basically just do stuff that allows me to interact with people. Unfortunately, since I work from home, I don't have those opportunities. Instead I will do things that just take my mind off of work for a short time before returning to the grind of spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations. Today when I took a short break I decided to get my fix of interaction with others by logging into Facebook. But instead of just looking at what people were doing right now, I scrolled the whole way back through my Facebook page to the day I joined. For anyone's curiosity I joined Facebook on September 7, 2008.
It was quite interesting to look back at my photos and posts from back then. My life was in a totally different place then as it hadn't even been 2 months since Patty had died. Looking at the people who I connected with it is funny to see who some of the first ones were. My first connections were with a lot of the people who are in my life day-to-day. The second group of people I connected with were good friends who don't live around me. Connecting with my friend Ruben from Costa Rica was a big thing as Ruben and I are very good friends but before Facebook our conversations were very infrequent because we didn't have a medium like FB to connect us. The third group of people I connected with were people from my past. I remember the day I found out that a girl who I had a crush on back in high school was on Facebook. I was all excited by that - which is actually very funny if you think about it. And no - I still don't have a crush on her. Not that she isn't nice, cause she is, but she has one major flaw in life - she lives in California. That's a joke if any one cares realize it. (LOL)
One of the things that was most different about myself back then was my sense of self. Though Patty had only died 2 months earlier my thoughts processes back then were much different and I seemed much more at peace then I do now. Part of it is because it had only been 2 months since Patty died I very closely remembered all that we had been through. I knew how hard I had worked to do everything I could for Patty in her final months. No one could have done any better than I did for her. So there was a sense of peace about myself as I looked at my next challenge - raising Zack.
Back in 2008 I didn't feel as weighed down yet by the challenges of getting Zack through his anxiety and OCD issues. I can't explain it all but things just seemed more free and less challenging back then.
On the positive side of things, my walk down memory lane has served to remind me that life is good, it can be fun and I need to stop taking things so seriously. I can clearly remember the feelings I had in the fall of 2008. There were some feelings that were difficult to face, but for whatever reason I felt more up to the challenge then. There was an excitement to the fact that Zack and I were starting out on an expedition that was going to see him grow up and see me challenge myself in ways that I had never been challenged before. I need to go back to that sense of dedication and determination that I had in the fall of 2008. My life will be much happier if I do so.
Speaking of walks down memory lane.... I am going far into my past for this next topic. For the last month there has been an overwhelming number of ads on TV for the Disney Film "John Carter". As a kid who totally grew up reading science fiction tome after science fiction tome, I am very concerned that Disney has done irreparable harm to the wonderful Edgar Rice Burroughs series "John Carter of Mars". The fact that they have left "of Mars" out of the title is in and of itself a disturbing fact. The whole story is premised on the fact that John Carter is a normal human being of Earth but becomes a warlord, hero and overall ass-kicker when he is transported to Mars. Without Mars being part of the title the story from the get-go seems to lose it's foundation. I could be pleasantly surprised and find that this movie is incredible, but I doubt it. Burroughs was not an author who built nuanced stories with lots of twists and turns. Nope - his writing was direct and to the point. The gore, action and sex (not that there was much of that) was right in front of you. I think the style lends itself very well to pulp science fiction books but I am not sure that it necessarily works in movies. There are certain movies like Star Ship Troopers that it has worked well. But sometimes when you have a movie and you don't have a real plot it can turn into a mess. Perhaps we will get to see this movie sometime over the weekend and I can put my thoughts to rest.
It's been a long time since I have donated platelets or blood. I have held off donating because of all the surgeries and medical procedures I have had since the fall. Given our plans for spring break - going to Costa Rica, I will be forbidden from given blood and platelets for the next year because of concerns about malaria. I am planning to go and give a unit of whole blood sometime in the next week or two before we leave. And then..... Since the time requirements are the same - I am giving strong consideration to getting a tattoo. Yeah - you read that right. That is not something that has ever come out of my mouth before. So why am I considering this. First - when I was in the hospital for my last surgery there was some kind of LA Ink Marathon that day and I must have seen 5 or more episodes of the show while I was sitting around in my hospital bed. That got me seriously thinking about getting a tattoo. The second reason that I am thinking this is it would be a permanent way to memorialize Patty that would always be with me. I don't wear my wedding ring any more and so I don't have any physical connection like that with Patty. Maybe it's time to get a tat so that she will always be with me. The other alternative is that I take some of her ashes and have them made into some kind of gem that I can have mounted on an ear ring and then I get my ear pierced. Decisions, decisions.... what to do??
The weekend here in Denver is absolutely fabulous! Though my Saturday started out nightmarish as the amount of pain I was experiencing from my back was hellish. But you know what - sometimes when it is nice outside you just have to say "screw it" and live with the pain. It feels so great to be outside today! Tomorrow - Sunday - I don't care what the physical price I pay we are going to go for a hike. I don't understand how I could do any further damage to my back, so I am going to get on with living.
Hope everyone is having a great weekend so far!
Thanks and peace to all! ~J.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
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