Where Have I Been?

I'm sorry that I haven't posted in the last few months but for some reason blogging just hasn't been important to me.  During my recovery I had time to reflect and one of the things I decided was that I've been wasting my time and the following quote from Tristero at Hullabaloo sums it up quite nicely.

Why? Because some of you, right now, are starting to waste the little time you have here on earth by marshaling reasoned arguments and accurate facts to refute Conservapedia's lies. And so are others. And that is terribly sad.

And then Jon Stewart crystallized it for me in a segment titled "I Give Up".

My surgery went well, at least from the doctor's point of view.  He didn't grace me with his presence until the evening after the surgery when he breezed into my hospital room to discharge me.  Then he wouldn't answer my questions and acted like I was a nuisance.  Heaven forbid that I should know what he did or what he found while surgeons and students in Los Angeles were privy to every aspect of my surgery.  All follow up appointments were handled by his physicians assistant. The conscious time I've spent in his presence is less than ten minutes.

The cancer was classified as being Stage 1A and if you have to get diagnosed with cancer this would be the stage you would want since it has a 93% survival rate.  What you don't want is to do the robot surgery.

It turns out that they cut everything into little pieces so they can be removed through the less than one inch incisions.  While it may be cutting edge technology it also means that during the slice and dice procedure some cancer cells may be dislodged and left behind.  It also means that they pump you full of air so they have room to move around.  This air cannot be expelled by normal means, it has to be absorbed by the body or you are deflated after the surgery.  This was not done for me.  For three weeks I looked and felt like I had beach ball in the abdominal area.  Simple things like using the toilet, getting out of bed, bending to put on shoes or simply sitting were extremely uncomfortable. 

One of the hallmarks of cancer survivors is that they realize that a positive attitude and a reduction in anger and frustration give them a better chance of surviving and/or preventing a recurrence.  I want to live a long and healthy life and I can't do that if I spend most of my time trying to convince stupid people to look at facts instead of listening to people who spread hatred and intolerance on a daily basis.

I live in Nevada now and the people here believe the darnedest things, most of which don't exist in reality.  From the Park 51 controversy to burning the Koran as a warning, this country has gone off the deep end and trashed the First Amendment while ensuring that the rest of the world can see how hypocritical we are.  We are no longer a shining beacon of light and freedom, we are a fading nightlight trying to shield ourselves from a bogeyman that has already accomplished his job.  People were worried about Y2K destroying our way of living and it turns out we did it to ourselves.

On a distinctly happier note there has been an addition to the family, a Boston/Rat terrier puppy.  His name is Galen and while Shadow wasn't too thrilled in the beginning she had a great time playing with him this morning.  Shai has been more tolerant and I think she's been enjoying Shadow's discomfort.  I will have pictures tomorrow.

BBB