I’m getting away from the fact that I said I haven’t talked about my health much at all on here lately. For the uninitiated, I suffer from a rare genetic disease commonly referred to as NF2. It’s a nasty little gem of a disease that doesn’t get much attention (besides an odd mention on House M.D. every-so-often). It causes benign tumors to grow mostly on nerves in the body. One of said tumors were the reason I began to lose my hearing as a teen and was rendered deaf 10 years ago last December.

It also gives me the supernatural abilities like super-intelligence, telekenisis and empathy along with…

Wait a minute, that was a John Travolta movie. Never mind.

Seriously… The last time I really brought up (bitched, moaned, vented, etc) my health was the summer and fall of 2003 when I hit a couple of hard patches and was frustrated, scared and just flat out torn up (to put it lightly). Blogging things publicly helped me get my frustrations and worries out in the open… or at least out of my head for the moment until the next panic hit.

It’s 4 years later and I’ve got problems again. Problems in my head this time that get the doctors attention. Now, from the smart-ass perspective, you’d quickly quip “Yeah, anyone who (inserts a thought, political idea, interest, etc) would be classified as having problems in the head!” but it’s a little more serious than that. About 5 centimeters worth of serious. Between-my-ears, behind-my-eyes serious.

I’ve been operated on twice up there before. Both times I had the operations in question out west with one of the top doctors in the world. This time around, I’m sticking in Tampa Bay and trusting a doctor who’s been heralded to me as one of the best in the world. He’s got books and awards and all that jazz. He’ll have some of my old friends along with him to make sure my ABI doesn’t get fudged up and what not.

Still, there are risks and even if they aren’t substantial — what they are is a worst case scenarios. So I worry about that, even though it’s almost like thinking about worst-case stuff when you go out and do day to day things.
“The worst case scenario while driving to the Supermarket to pick up milk is that an out of control mack truck with a drunk at the wheel, plows into my car and explodes…. Oh, and I don’t die instantly on impact!”

Rosy, cheery stuff like that.

So part of my mind (ha — the cause of all my problems) keeps wanting me to be responsible and at least report this upcoming operation, make arrangements for the “just in case”, “worst case scenario” type things. Every other part of me wants the status quo to remain — though that status quo is a deteriorating personal conditions where the changes in my health are more or less subtle until I get to a tipping point and things really get messed up and my life hangs in the balance.

Rosy, cheery stuff like that.

I don’t want to face the idea of things — out of my control — go bad and yet with responsibilities to friends and loved ones, how can I not?

Well, the developer release version of Flock is out and I did go ahead and download it… And wasn’t really able to accomplish jack with the thing. I tried simply integrating one of my blogs onto Flock and followed the directions and was met with errors every time I tried to log in.

Not totally dismissing Flock just yet but I do think I better just forget about it for another couple of months…

Keep ranting about personal stuff? Take it more pop culture with entertainment things that I can’t always speak for when it’s current? (My Adaptation review was an old post, I comment on old songs, previously released movies, published books, etc) Political rants which are done better on other blogs and are the norm on the blogshere, and certain people I’ve met with Boltsmag talk about local issues pretty well….

Then we have the fact I do talk about sports here and there — Boltsmag is a success just because I really timed this shit well :smile. There’s writing stories I could give but those are about failure. Medical stories I could tell but those seem irrelevant…

This is the personal homepage of John Fontana but then again? I want the Stonegauge to be a place to stop by and have something worth looking into, commenting on or discussing. Not the garbage I’ve had lately. My April entry spurt was brought on by a certain someone who does a real good job of showing up when she needs a crutch, but avoids really well when things don’t fit her current schedule, which includes friendship..

I want to give “a better ‘Gauge on things” but damnit – I want it to be relevant in some way shape or form. It isn’t at this rate.

William says, “Russell! I think we should work on those last words!”

“I got it, I got it. Last words… Last words… Ok…. I dig music…? ” (ganders at the audience who nod in disappointed acceptance)
…..
“I’m on drugs!!!! ” — the crowd explodes in a drunken, drugged out euphoria and Russell Hammond, lead singer of Stillwater, plunges to a watery grave (OK, he just sunk to the bottom of the pool)…

Something tells me this entry is a far less dramatic departure from the scene… And I don’t think this is a said “departure,” much like a didn’t think the music was over or the book finished in other instances of my life, and that has proved true in one fashion or another. It’s just putting off for a while and then resuming the music with a different beat, a different subject in the next chapter of the novel…

So, with that in mind and the fact I am being JUST a little too strange in my departing words, I turn the reigns over for the meantime to someone that i have both lauded, melted over and maligned in this journal in one way or another before — Sarah.

I’ve been told I’ll be back in 3 days time, well — three days after surgery. Saturday or Sunday. Sarah’s going to try to hold the fort down but then again, this is her first foray into blogging from what i know… Likely she will show herself to be a damn sight better than I am in my whiny, ranty form… And more ENTERTAINING to boot, perchance?

Take care folks, see you when the next endeavor presents itself…

I’ll be indisposed for an unknown amount of time after that. I was hoping Miguelito would do me the favor but he’s already scheduled a trip around that time.

Man, things suck right now…

I’m talking to Miguel about guest-blogging in here for me while I am out of it. i might offer that option to a few others. It’s not so much so he can report about me as he can just try to keep the journal going while I am out of commission later in the month.

I mean, he’s no Howard Dean who guest-blogged for a professor at Stanford, but he’s one damn good “journal”ist.

In other news – I can’t bring myself to finish a story I started that was going to be very short. A guy getting flowers annonymously while at work. Seemed like a good premise and it is – I actually got a resolution drawn out and know how it’s going to end. I’m just being lazy in actually putting the words down onto the document (“paper” doesn’t apply because I am typing, damnit).