Unfinished Business
26/04/10 07:47
Our life is strung out in moments, like beads in a chain of consciousness, until the chain breaks and unravels, dropping the moments of ones life into that great sea of eternity. From which we all come; to which we all must return. One day I will return to him, my beloved son. The moments of my life will blend with his moments, both lived and unlived; all will become one again. The eastern religions say that the soul only inhabits itÆs vessel long enough to accomplish itÆs purpose. And so it is that the rest of my life I do the only thing that I can do, and still get to him, without taking the shortcut that might cause us to come here together again and to suffer, again, so much. I work.
My family hates this about me. They never see me. I Criss cross the country, not seeing what was my home except for a few minutes once or twice a year. Now, the road is my home. The money I make I spend on othersÆ needs. My family, first, of course. And then the occasional stranger that I meet along the way, who a small chunk of two or five hundred might help to dig out of a hole. I spread it around like the manure that it is, trying to make things grow; to make the world a little better place for my having been here.
It is not so much that I am altruistic. I'm just a pragmatist. Why do bad when you can do good? And why keep something that means so little, when it means so much to others, and really does them more good than it could ever do me now.
I've actually been called an angel a few times. Usually by people who don’t know me very well. My family and my friends, who have known me through the years, would very much disagree with that assessment. My enemies would, too. I consider anyone an enemy who has done something crappy to me. The crappier the deed, the longer I hunt them down. Ha!
If they screw me in business, I'll haunt them for life, sticking the proverbial knife in them at various moments of vulnerability, until I run them out of business. If they mess with my family, may God, Himself, be watching out for them.
There was a big brouhaha a few years ago, when the doctors at St. LukeÆs Episcopal Hospital tried to use the Texas Futile Care Law to disconnect my sister, Andrea Clark, from a respirator that she chose to be on. Having been around hospitals quite a bit, with Keith, I knew that the meeting that they were calling us in on, to Consult about AndreaÆs care, would be a tag team of hospital administrators, social workers, and doctors trying to talk my family into pulling the plug on my sister.
So, at the beginning of the meeting, I sweetly asked for all of their business cards, ostensibly so that I could remember who I was talking to. After I’d pocketed all of their business cards, I turned into the [insert expletive here] that I truly am, and told them that if they had an Ethics Committee meeting and decided to unplug my sister, my family would picket their hospital.
And we did just that. And I posted every single persons name in that meeting on the internet. Along with their phone numbers. And what they were trying to do to my sister.
Needless to say, Andreas doctor left town, the hospital did a one-eighty, and my sister lived for a few more weeks, without the Sword of Damocles hanging over her head. And with her family being able to say goodbye to her properly. I was her arrow. I shot straight and true, and I hit my mark.
I am your arrow, too. Shooting straight and clear, for my prize kill, for my bounty, CF. You can say that itÆs romantic, and all that crap, woman on a mission bunk. That's all bull. Whether you succeed or you fail comes down to one thing: how much and how hard you work at something. Focus and persistence wins the day, every time. Do the work? The answers will be there, if you do the work to find them.
Sharktank, and all who are members of it, have done that for you. They worked, right alongside me, for over a decade. With much hope, of course, but with the humility, too, to admit when we were wrong, and to seek the truth, only, and not some ego edification, or money at the end of a rainbow. We did it for our kids. We did it in love. The only question that remains now that we are on the brink of success, is what are YOU going to do?
Will you be an arrow, too? No matter how straight and true one's aim is, there's only so many arrows in the quiver, you know. We need your help. And, no, we are not asking for your money. We are asking you to talk to your doctor. Educate him or her about BITC. Ask for their help; their supervision, if you want to use transdermal BITC. And, first and foremost, educate yourselves.
I am about to post another entry on thiocyanate, itself, and it's role in this disease. It's going to put together quite a few things that we've already talked about. I've been working on it for a few weeks now, and it's a bit long, and an arduous read for the scientifically uninitiated. But, if you have to, read the former blog entries, because if you can "get" them, you can get the next one.
Be an arrow.
My family hates this about me. They never see me. I Criss cross the country, not seeing what was my home except for a few minutes once or twice a year. Now, the road is my home. The money I make I spend on othersÆ needs. My family, first, of course. And then the occasional stranger that I meet along the way, who a small chunk of two or five hundred might help to dig out of a hole. I spread it around like the manure that it is, trying to make things grow; to make the world a little better place for my having been here.
It is not so much that I am altruistic. I'm just a pragmatist. Why do bad when you can do good? And why keep something that means so little, when it means so much to others, and really does them more good than it could ever do me now.
I've actually been called an angel a few times. Usually by people who don’t know me very well. My family and my friends, who have known me through the years, would very much disagree with that assessment. My enemies would, too. I consider anyone an enemy who has done something crappy to me. The crappier the deed, the longer I hunt them down. Ha!
If they screw me in business, I'll haunt them for life, sticking the proverbial knife in them at various moments of vulnerability, until I run them out of business. If they mess with my family, may God, Himself, be watching out for them.
There was a big brouhaha a few years ago, when the doctors at St. LukeÆs Episcopal Hospital tried to use the Texas Futile Care Law to disconnect my sister, Andrea Clark, from a respirator that she chose to be on. Having been around hospitals quite a bit, with Keith, I knew that the meeting that they were calling us in on, to Consult about AndreaÆs care, would be a tag team of hospital administrators, social workers, and doctors trying to talk my family into pulling the plug on my sister.
So, at the beginning of the meeting, I sweetly asked for all of their business cards, ostensibly so that I could remember who I was talking to. After I’d pocketed all of their business cards, I turned into the [insert expletive here] that I truly am, and told them that if they had an Ethics Committee meeting and decided to unplug my sister, my family would picket their hospital.
And we did just that. And I posted every single persons name in that meeting on the internet. Along with their phone numbers. And what they were trying to do to my sister.
Needless to say, Andreas doctor left town, the hospital did a one-eighty, and my sister lived for a few more weeks, without the Sword of Damocles hanging over her head. And with her family being able to say goodbye to her properly. I was her arrow. I shot straight and true, and I hit my mark.
I am your arrow, too. Shooting straight and clear, for my prize kill, for my bounty, CF. You can say that itÆs romantic, and all that crap, woman on a mission bunk. That's all bull. Whether you succeed or you fail comes down to one thing: how much and how hard you work at something. Focus and persistence wins the day, every time. Do the work? The answers will be there, if you do the work to find them.
Sharktank, and all who are members of it, have done that for you. They worked, right alongside me, for over a decade. With much hope, of course, but with the humility, too, to admit when we were wrong, and to seek the truth, only, and not some ego edification, or money at the end of a rainbow. We did it for our kids. We did it in love. The only question that remains now that we are on the brink of success, is what are YOU going to do?
Will you be an arrow, too? No matter how straight and true one's aim is, there's only so many arrows in the quiver, you know. We need your help. And, no, we are not asking for your money. We are asking you to talk to your doctor. Educate him or her about BITC. Ask for their help; their supervision, if you want to use transdermal BITC. And, first and foremost, educate yourselves.
I am about to post another entry on thiocyanate, itself, and it's role in this disease. It's going to put together quite a few things that we've already talked about. I've been working on it for a few weeks now, and it's a bit long, and an arduous read for the scientifically uninitiated. But, if you have to, read the former blog entries, because if you can "get" them, you can get the next one.
Be an arrow.