Hi everyone. It's been a long time since I've posted anything. This past year was the year from hell. Actually '06 wasn't all that good either. Just spent some time lurking and reading since about April '07. My mother-in-law died around then and things really went to hell in a hand basket after that. It started in March of '06. I fell and crunched my left knee. Doc said it was a sprain. After several months I had to be forcefull to get it checked out. They did an MRI, (finally)! Torn ACL, meniscus ripped off on both sides, both upper and lower cartiledge and bone chewed up! Doc apologized. He thought because my knees are bad it was just a bad sprain. MRI done in July, surgery finally in Sept. (it happened at work, I work for the county, county attorney's office involved, had to get permission to sneeze, stupid long process). I couldn't walk 50 yards without stopping to give the knee a break. Had a fluid pocket built up along with being super swollen. Missed two months work. Arthritis set in after surgery. I was very immobile. Heres the kicker....after walking so long favoring my right knee I wore a bone on bone spot on that one too. All winter '06/'07 I couldn't do much. Spring '07 arthritis was awful. Then I got sick after the mother-in-law died. The stress at work was phenomenal too. The worst in the fourteen years I had been there. Headaches, tension from everything, office morale in the tank. Piss poor management didn't care. It probably had a lot to do with being ill. Thought it was arthritis at first. Felt like the flu. Every joint ached. Dragged out, no energy, physically ill. Got home after work, fell asleep for three or four hours, got up showered and went to bed. Did the same the next day. Napped for four hours or so on Saturday's and Sunday's. Finally went in to see the doc and they started doing tests but couldn't come up with anything conclusive. In the midst of all this my oldest son got married in Hawaii! Took a ten day trip there. It was nice. Wedding on the beach, the whole deal. Still sick though, and spent a lot of time in the hotel room because of it. I did get out to see some sights etc. though. First time I relaxed in a long time. I actually came back feeling better than I had all summer. Oh, I forgot to mention, with all the inactivity from the knee and arthritis, I gained over 65 pounds! I decided to start losing the weight after I got back. I figured I was feeling better so I could start exercising and watching what I ate. I started losing weight. What a relief that was. Then the kick in the ass came! The doc did some more tests in October and checked my PSA and it came back high. They sent me for a biopsy of the prostate and it came back positive for prostate cancer. 10 needle biopsies, 3 came back positive on one side. Then came the bone and CT scan. Those came back negative, thank God!!! This was late November. They told me I could wait through the holidays to decide what route I wanted to take. The only viable one for a guy my age seemed to be surgery. Because of prior surgeries (thanks to an army doc who shouldn't have been cutting meat, much less soldiers) the surgeon my doc referred me to didn't want to risk cutting on me. He said if there were adhesions between the prostate and the colon it would be beyond his skill to do the repair. Soooo, he sent me to the Mayo Clinic. Two trips and a third coming up for further testing. They have me on a med to shrink the tumor and slow it down so we have some time. He is giving me a chance to take off more weight before the surgery. Since Sept. I have lost a little over 47 pounds. I'd like to take off a lot more, we'll see what happens. Anyway, that's where I have been for a long time. Feeling better now so I hope to be a little more active around here. I posted this here because I spent a lot of time here and on the Busse forum (still got to post there too). Well thanks for listening/reading. Take care. Just so this is a survival post, I just got my forums knife from Nick today! What a beaut. Great work and it fits my hand very nicely.
Dave
Dave
stay strong...
