It is time for an update on my treatments. I had my weekly visit with the oncologist today. He said, “well, Sam, you get a green check mark for this week.” I never know what to say. Sometimes I say “Yippie!”. But in reality, I feel like an elementary school kid, who wants to rush home and say… “Look mommy! I got a green check mark today!” But there is nobody in my house to say that to.

The past two days, I had major diahrrea, and acid reflux, and my energy was so low, that my helper on the job was uneasy. Fortunately, he kept his head down, and moved the job forward, while I was sitting on the floor, panting, and sweating profusely.

Let me say right here, that women going thru menopause, with the hot flashes and the night sweats, are all my heroines, and will be forever. It is awful. Men have no idea how disabling it can be. The Lupron shot that they gave me 7 weeks ago, good for 6 months, theoretically, is to depress my testosterone, which sounds simple, and it is peaking now. Andropause has caused me to feel like my body is freaking out trying to regulate my core temperature. It feels like I have mounted a bucking bronco, and have to hang on for dear life, and can’t get off. At night, I wake up 20 times, sweating, then freezing, then sweating, then freezing. On with the sheet, off with the sheet. I haven’t had a full nights unbroken sleep in a couple weeks, and it is making me logy and cranky during the day, and it is difficult to concentrate. Sometimes it feels like I am crazy. Well, at least mentally unbalanced. And I am not going to go into detail about what it feels like to have my libido completely absent. It is just weird. I feel like a eunuch, which I guess, I sorta am.

Writing the stories of my life here on Facebook, has been very cathartic. Sometimes it is the only time in the day that I feel good. I hope that I am entertaining those of you who read my meanderings. At least it feels like a way to tell the people in my life that I love them and that they matter. And they do.

For the last 20 years or so, I have been the giver, of my time, knowledge, and money, to those who were in need of it. It has been a work of joy for me. Back when I was 10 or 11 years old, my parents decided that going to church was what their children needed, and so they would take us to church sunday morning, and just to make it less effective and more confusing, would go back home, and come back for us after the services. That was cognitively dissonant for me, even at that tender age. In spite of that, somewhere in there, I learned about Ecclesiastes 11, the ol’… Cast your bread upon the waters, and it shall return to you multiplied by a thousand. Or, at least, that was what the Presbytarian church taught me. Even as a young man, that seemed like one of those universal truths that you stumble on sometimes, and I took it to heart. As I grew older, it became a deeper part of the way I chose to live my life. I have never been a religious guy, but wisdom is wisdom, no matter where you find it. And in my dotage, I have realized that the thing that gives me the most joy, is being of service to others. And so, I have worked that into the way I live. My little bidness is about being of service. My philanthropy with the girls in Mexico has been about that. I mentor several of my friends kids, and am the “not dad” in their lives. As a result, my life has a lot of joy. I have cast a lot of bread, and it has definitely returned to me a thousandfold. Maybe not so much monetarily, but for sure in joy and friendship.

The Bible is so full of obfuscation. It was written by men, whose largest interest was in preserving their own power. They weren’t well educated, nor very good writers. Even so, there is truth hidden in there. So a couple years ago, just to be sure I had heard it correctly, I looked up Ecclesiastes in the Bible. I read the whole of Ecclesiastes, trying to find where it said that your casting would return to you multiplied by a thousand, and like my experience with the Bible, old Ecclesiates skirted all around the idea, but never actually put his thumb on it. Even so, my life is proof that it is true, and even if Ecclesiastes didn’t come right out and say so, it has worked for me. So, it is my truth, and Ima stickin to it.

Havng lived that way, to find myself actually needing the help of others, was hard to accept. I had to battle feeling like a failure. I am an autonomous and self sufficient guy. I take care of my own stuff. I cook, and clean my house, and wash my clothes, and shop, and pay my bills, and have done so for a long time. When Cara asked me if she could set up a gofundme page, I had to think about it. The idea of not being able to meet my own needs shook me up. But maybe that was just the lesson that the universe felt that I needed at this point. Learning to accept help was hard, after being the guy that others turned to for help. But I am working thru it, and in a way, it makes me more determined to use my time on this earth to be of service to others. And that is where my stories come in. There are lessons in my stories, that I have to teach. And this page has given me the opportunity to teach them. I am greatful to have the opportunity. Thank you to all of you who read my stories. The idea that you may be enjoying them, sustains me, and gives me purpose.

Stories matter

Friends matter