Thursday, June 09, 2005

Please to see the king

Sorry for not putting up songs and stuff in a few weeks. I'll get something not-you-send-it-related worked out soon. I'm asking friends for original content and the song that E*Rock sent is typically rad. That guy is so sweet and talented, it's amazing.

Be warned that this is a very boring entry that has nothing to do with music and there are no free mp3s here, I repeat, no free mp3s here. I do have friends that read this so obviously this is for them and stuff.

Last night I was out and about and I felt really just healthy and fucking happy as hell for the first time in ages. It was awesome. You see, I'm really good at laying around at home being sick with no energy and being incredibly depressed, then going out for an hour or two until the pain is so great I have to bail and pretend I'm fine the whole time, never telling anyone that my stomach hurts like hell and I'm really scared right now. I'm a very dramatic person so you'd not think this would be my approach. I did not see it as lying but now I kind of do.

I 'm realizing it's a very self-involved approach even though I thought of myself as being like the gracious and sort of silently suffering martyr retard (martard?) or something. When I just need to tell everyone, especially my family, what's up, and get care immediately too instead of being a passive aggressively at-least-vaguely-but-really-potentially-actually suicidal little mope-ass punk. The last year and a half I've had a third of the energy I normally have, and it's not like I've ever been Mr. Energy USA nor is it like I'm losing weight at the same time. I feel and look totally like the little girl who eats the blueberry stuff, Veruca Salt, like the surgical glove atop Howie Mandell's beautiful face.

I've been really depressed, like I said, but not even aware enough to know that I was, if that makes any sense. And just so slow moving on all my projects as anyone will tell you, and just... putting what energy I do have in the wrong places. At least I'm finding some really rad meetings here, and am starting to make some awesome clean/ sober friends and stuff.

I've been trying to get insurance but when you're already ill, not only will they not cover your pre-existing conditions, they apparently have every right to just not take you on at all. And because I am not on SSI I can't get medicare, and the local health plan for low income people, OHP, is so backed up (I discovered yesterday) they cannot even consider me for months. I am 98% sure I'll be denied as I'm not a pregnant mom, much as I resemble one.

I should never have let my COBRA lapse no matter how expensive it is/ was to keep it going ($300/ month for me). I do need at least two surgical procedures toot sweet, within the next month, I hope, to check stuff out in my esophagus where I have this condition (an advanced stage of of Barrett's Esophagus, caused by the lining of the esophagus to change irreversibly due to continued and prolonged exposure to stomach acid). So this endoscopy procedure will see about removing some growths (which were found recently and had better be benign! -- it's so hard to know partly 'cause you have no nerve endings in your esophagus which is why most cases of esophageal cancer are so bad when they find them -- you can't like feel it getting worse, you know?) and then I just need a hernia operation though I have the feeling that one can wait if it has to as the hernia is not strangulated (this opinion is self diagnised, fyi).

I felt like I was young for my age until a year or two ago and now I kind of feel the opposite -- there are these weird dark red spots in sort of clumps on my feet and lower legs, plus my eczema is getting really bad -- it's disgusting and weird, all at once. My body has truly become alien to me. I feel like I'm wearing a broken fat suit. And I don't have a clue if any of these symptoms are related, either (I don't think they are, but I do worry and then I get all dorky and depressed for being worried...)

I tell people this health/ stomach stuff is related to when I got stabbed almost in the heart in a mugging, and we're coming up on the lucky thirteenth anniversary of that event. All my friends know the story, many many people were there in the hospital as soon as I could open my eyes, too, which was amazing. It's definitely true that the Barrett's is related as my esophagus was fucked up when I got stabbed. And it is true that I was misdiagnosed in Tennessee about the cause of the anemia I had at the time (it was internal bleeding but the ex-Army doc missed about a dozen signs including extreme heartburn and just said said I should eat more meat -- the end result being I have this early stage of cancer in my esophagus).

But it's also true that if I'd taken better care of myself I'd not be as bad off as I am now -- I'd at least not have this friggin hernia to deal with, which is a whole 'nother story in and of itself. So I have to take responsibility. Not coming up with the cash for insurance is also on my shoulders, though for instance this month I'm making like $1525 before taxes so squeezing $300 out of that is not easy.

It seems that my guts are either in some sort of revolt against me or they want to escape as quickly as possible.

I will one day have to erase this entry, that day being when I apply for a full time job somewhere, sometime, should that happen. Even if/ when I totally get in better health -- no one wants to hire some sick fat dude, or some dude who was recently a sick fat dude! Even if the job itself is to be a sick fat dude they'll hire a young actor to gain lots of weight and pretend. Anyway. I have to call Dr. Gilbert, my gastro-enter-whateverologist (stomach doctor) in Seattle, and just get the procedure done and then talk payment, if I can finagle that one.

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

This blog is great. I just checked it out with my new broswer. I changed over from IE, and i’ll never go back. It has a built in RSS feed reader and tabbed broswring. It’s called Ideal Broswer and can be found here: Idealbroswer.com

4:47 PM  
Blogger Oysterfish said...

Mike,
You don't know me, but I have been reading your work and fascinations for years, back to Chem Imbal> I happily discovered your blog recently, and was meaning to get in touch to volunteer to contribute to an upcoming Yeti, maybe on the elusive Fred Lane, of my native Alabama. When I read your update on yr health, I just wanted to let you know I wish you the best. I hope you don't find this invasive, just a well-meaning declaration of empathy. Look up my name if you'd like to get in touch. Take care.
Chris Toenes

2:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Mike - It's Mark Mauer from Fat Possum / Epitaph / ANTI-. (Or formerly of there I should say) I came across your blog linked from Sipke's Bedazzled blog. Once I saw the title I knew it was you ("Hey! I've got a mix CD with that title!")

I'd been wondering what was up with you - especially as I recently spent a couple hours talking to Howard Greynolds several weeks ago. And while I was glad to see this, I'm really sorry to hear about your health problems. And, as frustrating, the lack of a health plan to help you deal with it all. I'll try to find an email address for you on here and drop a line with mine. I'm still in LA - no longer in the music biz, which is good, but trying my hand at newer different things. I hope to talk to you soon.
-Mark

2:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I would do whatever was needed to get a YETI 3 out to the masses. Say the words.

I hope you are well.

: k

1:47 PM  
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