words words words
So I am still alive... and sometimes I feel only barely so.
Falling into the doldrums during summer is a bad feeling but I shock myself awake in true resurrective style after ending a bad week on a high note.
Getting my 37.5 hours in at Big Grocery Chain Corporate Office, I left work at around 11:30AM on a Friday and drove straight home. Got the mail and received my bill for my testicular ultrasound. Cringing, I opened it up and winced at the amount of zeros. 1-2-3-4 zeros. How am I going to pay this off? I looked again and realized that the four zeros had a period in the middle of them. 100.00 bucks for an ultrasound without real insurance? I'll take that. Thank YHWH in the most literal of senses that it is only that amount and not much much more. Also, I am pretty glad to not have testicular cancer.
For those of you who missed out on the fun, I spent March through the end of April holding on to my testicles. I woke up one morning with pain and pressure downstairs eventually went to see my general MD about the whole ordeal. He gave me a testicular examination (without laughing at my weiner!) and found no cancerous lumps by touch. Then he proceeded to inform me that what I had was epididmytis. Infection of the tubes downstairs. Now, every time I have to go to the doctor I freak. I panic. I literally cry. Why? I have no idea. Prior to this experience, I haven't had much history with the medical community to obtain a negative view of them. Sure, people go into surgery for appendicitis and come out with one less testicle. But happen in every profession, right? So, back to the doctor's visit. I freak out. I ask him what it is and he says some people are prone to get it from heavy lifting. I tell him the heavy lifting I do at work consists of holding my burrito close enough to my face so I can bite down on it. He asks me if I am sexually active or ever have been. I tell him no, because, well, I've never had sex. He says he can safely and awkwardly rule out sexually transmitted diseases. He gives me a weeks supply of Anthrax-inhibiting Cipro and sends me on my way with a handshake and a talk. He relates to me as a person and not as a revolving door cash cow.
I leave. I take my pills. I feel better. Then I feel worse. Then I feel sick. So I go back to the doctor. He checks me out again because I am in panic mode. I haven't held my testicles so much in my life. The left side aches with a dull pain and I swear they are getting hard. He says he still thinks its epididmytis. I go a third time when my 14 day Cipro pack runs out. He schedules me for an ultrasound and prepares me for the worst by giving me a conversation from the heart. He says he still does not think it is cancer, but we better be sure. I go to the urologist and he walks in the door, tells me to drop them and refers to my testicles as "nuts." He makes me laugh and checks them out. He thinks its the same thing but schedules for me to get an ultrasound. Christina goes with me (my beloved) but not into the room (awkward) and a kind technician lube me up and scan me. She leaves so I can change and I look at the monitor. On my left testicle are two dark spots. I resign my fate to cancer, put on my pants, and leave. I wait a few days and get a phone call telling me that I have spermatocele (sp?) cysts, they aren't cancerous and not much else is conveyed. I get on Mayoclinic.com and WebMD.com and read up on it. The consensus? I am producing too much sperm (or not releasing it often enough...!) and the dead soldiers in my pants have formed cysts.
And that is the short of the story! Add in lots of late nite sleeplessness, stress headaches, bargaining with God, and panic attacks and that was me for about a month and a half.
However! Back to Friday. I come home from work completely jaded. I applied for another position that will make me another 200 dollars a week but will still never make me happy unless I am dealing in the hookah/shisha culture, Firearms, or non-profit Gospel work. However, we do get glimpses of joy given to us in our lives. I set up my brass cored hookah, sat on the back porch of the house I am currently living in and smoking cinnamon flavored shisha for two hours. I felt at peace and content. Amongst the doldrums, I experienced the resurrection of life. My problems, irrational concerns, rational concerns, and general malaise of existential living was temporarily lifted. It was nice. I enjoyed the (rare) beauty of a summer valley view into the Ohio River. I had cinnamon on my breath, a good buck in hand and thanked YHWH for my ability to experience the limited divine through sensory.
Whether or not the world was created or by accident, I can never be 100% certain. In times like these, to experience the divine among the doldrums, is worth the price of being unhappy for the majority of my existence. Whatever spark of the moment, whatever serotonin chemicals were coursing through my brains, or a combination of both, I felt good. I'd like to feel that way all the time. C.S. Lewis wrote about his encounter with a realization of the divine. He called it being Surprised by Joy.
"They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse."
Emily Dickinson
Falling into the doldrums during summer is a bad feeling but I shock myself awake in true resurrective style after ending a bad week on a high note.
Getting my 37.5 hours in at Big Grocery Chain Corporate Office, I left work at around 11:30AM on a Friday and drove straight home. Got the mail and received my bill for my testicular ultrasound. Cringing, I opened it up and winced at the amount of zeros. 1-2-3-4 zeros. How am I going to pay this off? I looked again and realized that the four zeros had a period in the middle of them. 100.00 bucks for an ultrasound without real insurance? I'll take that. Thank YHWH in the most literal of senses that it is only that amount and not much much more. Also, I am pretty glad to not have testicular cancer.
For those of you who missed out on the fun, I spent March through the end of April holding on to my testicles. I woke up one morning with pain and pressure downstairs eventually went to see my general MD about the whole ordeal. He gave me a testicular examination (without laughing at my weiner!) and found no cancerous lumps by touch. Then he proceeded to inform me that what I had was epididmytis. Infection of the tubes downstairs. Now, every time I have to go to the doctor I freak. I panic. I literally cry. Why? I have no idea. Prior to this experience, I haven't had much history with the medical community to obtain a negative view of them. Sure, people go into surgery for appendicitis and come out with one less testicle. But happen in every profession, right? So, back to the doctor's visit. I freak out. I ask him what it is and he says some people are prone to get it from heavy lifting. I tell him the heavy lifting I do at work consists of holding my burrito close enough to my face so I can bite down on it. He asks me if I am sexually active or ever have been. I tell him no, because, well, I've never had sex. He says he can safely and awkwardly rule out sexually transmitted diseases. He gives me a weeks supply of Anthrax-inhibiting Cipro and sends me on my way with a handshake and a talk. He relates to me as a person and not as a revolving door cash cow.
I leave. I take my pills. I feel better. Then I feel worse. Then I feel sick. So I go back to the doctor. He checks me out again because I am in panic mode. I haven't held my testicles so much in my life. The left side aches with a dull pain and I swear they are getting hard. He says he still thinks its epididmytis. I go a third time when my 14 day Cipro pack runs out. He schedules me for an ultrasound and prepares me for the worst by giving me a conversation from the heart. He says he still does not think it is cancer, but we better be sure. I go to the urologist and he walks in the door, tells me to drop them and refers to my testicles as "nuts." He makes me laugh and checks them out. He thinks its the same thing but schedules for me to get an ultrasound. Christina goes with me (my beloved) but not into the room (awkward) and a kind technician lube me up and scan me. She leaves so I can change and I look at the monitor. On my left testicle are two dark spots. I resign my fate to cancer, put on my pants, and leave. I wait a few days and get a phone call telling me that I have spermatocele (sp?) cysts, they aren't cancerous and not much else is conveyed. I get on Mayoclinic.com and WebMD.com and read up on it. The consensus? I am producing too much sperm (or not releasing it often enough...!) and the dead soldiers in my pants have formed cysts.
And that is the short of the story! Add in lots of late nite sleeplessness, stress headaches, bargaining with God, and panic attacks and that was me for about a month and a half.
However! Back to Friday. I come home from work completely jaded. I applied for another position that will make me another 200 dollars a week but will still never make me happy unless I am dealing in the hookah/shisha culture, Firearms, or non-profit Gospel work. However, we do get glimpses of joy given to us in our lives. I set up my brass cored hookah, sat on the back porch of the house I am currently living in and smoking cinnamon flavored shisha for two hours. I felt at peace and content. Amongst the doldrums, I experienced the resurrection of life. My problems, irrational concerns, rational concerns, and general malaise of existential living was temporarily lifted. It was nice. I enjoyed the (rare) beauty of a summer valley view into the Ohio River. I had cinnamon on my breath, a good buck in hand and thanked YHWH for my ability to experience the limited divine through sensory.
Whether or not the world was created or by accident, I can never be 100% certain. In times like these, to experience the divine among the doldrums, is worth the price of being unhappy for the majority of my existence. Whatever spark of the moment, whatever serotonin chemicals were coursing through my brains, or a combination of both, I felt good. I'd like to feel that way all the time. C.S. Lewis wrote about his encounter with a realization of the divine. He called it being Surprised by Joy.
"They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse."
Emily Dickinson