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Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Last year and Today

Happy New Year. Out with the old and in with the new. My thoughts and some long overdue pent up feelings about 2006 along with hope I have for 2007.

2006
2006 was filled with the good, the bad, and the ugly but; through it all I can’t complain because I am still vertical, upright, breathing, and my family is healthy, happy, and provided for. The sickness that blindsided me and my family was unexpected but we are dealing with it and hope in 2007 I can get a transplant.

The sicker I become, the more I see the two worlds that I am existing colliding (the world of a terminal cancer patient and the world of the not sick who pressure you about stuff that in the grand scheme of things is not that serious). I am torn as from the time I graduated from college up to now I did everything I could to benefit my career; a career I do not fill will ever get back on track again. I however am not sad to see my career take a backseat for you have to find a balance in life and prioritize the major things in your life. The things that are important to me are being able to wake-up and see another day, my GOD, and my friends and family. I still have a lot of my engineering savvy, and training but I can’t waste my time worrying about professional administrative things that I can’t control, I fight for breath daily that is my concern. I struggle to keep my family afloat daily, I struggle satisfy the heartless creditors that demand their payment regardless of what is going on in your life. I can’t control the direction my career takes from this point on since I will be nervous in the future working around others especially working around the office super hero’s we all know that come to work sick rather than burning sick leave.

I still hold a lot of anger toward the office of my former primary care doctor’s office. I have learned that lung cancer is a hard catch for the professionals that engage in the practice of medicine. I am disappointed that I was mis-diagnosed for so many years, and that the symptoms that I was experiencing fell on deaf ears as they never really heard the words that came out of my mouth. The incident that angers me the most is that after I was diagnosed and had switched to another primary care physician I placed a call to the offices of my former primary care physician at All Saints City View and got one of Dr. B’s physicians assistant. I simply asked given all we know since I was diagnosed do you think you did everything you could medically speaking. The answer was yes (expected because they were being legally correct) I was hoping for a human answer that would have expressed the fact that medically they could have done a better job at diagnosing my condition by running more test outside of their patient profile protocol, or just saying they are human they aren't perfect and that they will learn and try to improve their medical practice from my situation.

2007
My New Years Resolutions are as follows
1. Live to see 2008
2. Find a way for my family to be together
3. Promote organ donation and break the stereo types associated with lung cancer
4. TBD
5. TBD

1 comment:

  1. Jerrold --

    My New Year's Resolution for 2007 is to officially sign up as an organ donor. Shelb and I will do it this weekend. And we'll help you have a ripple effect by letting our friends and family know that they, too, should do it.

    One of the best things that happened to us in 2006 was getting to have you as a new friend. We hope you get your lungs within days, recover quickly, and move your buns back to Texas. But we'll miss you desperately when that happens.

    Love,
    Jenny (and Shoob)

    ReplyDelete

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