Life Status Update

So I thought I'd give everybody who still reads this blog (all three of you) a head's up on things and why I haven't been posting here or on any of my blogs lately. To put it simply, life took a nosedive. First, my mother had a stroke near the end of February. Thankfully she was close to a hospital (literally right across the parking lot) when it happened, so they were able to give her some kind of anti-stroke medicine. Because of that, excellent medical care, and just plain luck she didn't suffer anything permanent damage and after a stay at a rehab center, she's recovered.

And then things just got worse. In March, my father was diagnosed with cancer in one lung and a lymph node near that lung. He has COPD, so he has to have a CT scan done of his chest every year and this time around, they found something. A PET scan eventually identified the something. As you can examine, the diagnosis was devastating for everybody, but again, we had some luck. A scan of his brain and bones showed that cancer hadn't spread and it was in just that lung and lymph node. The doctors also caught it early enough that it can probably be beaten. He's facing about five weeks of daily radiation treatments and chemotherapy once a week. Obviously, that's fantastic and likely the best we could have hoped for in this situation.

As a result of this, I've been going back and forth to the doctors and the hospital's cancer center since then, so I haven't had much time for blogging.

Near the end of March, I had my own health problem, though not anywhere near as bad as the above cases. I woke up one Thursday with incredible lower back pain, soreness in my legs, and just generally feeling like I had swapped places with a 70-year-old. How bad was it? Well, that Friday it took me about ten minutes just to stand up out of bed and twenty more to get dressed. It wasn't until the following day that I finally gave in and went to the hospital.

It's worth noting that this was the first time I had gone to one in about seventeen or eighteen years. I'm not joking or exaggerating, I really was that healthy and mule-stubborn. There, I was diagnosed with back sprain (or strain), given prescriptions for a muscle relaxer and anti-inflammatory. I turned down the prescription for painkillers because I've never taken any opioid-based, don't know how I'll react to them and would really rather not contribute to the opioid crisis in this country.

My back's mostly fine now. I haven't really been working it or my legs that much since then and so I'm not 100% yet.

I do plan on getting back in the blogging saddle. It's going to be a not slow but not fast process since my attention is focused on helping my dad through his cancer situation, but I'll get there eventually.