Living Proof

What a waste of $$$.  On and off, it seems to come in waves and then leaves as quickly as it came. I've never experienced this sort of chronic pain in all my life. Thankfully, this morning I woke up with "tolerable" pain, but was able to walk and do my daily routine. When speaking to my doctor, the only answer was Percocet. He even advised that I double up on the stuff, leaving me zoned out like some zombie - a lifeless lump of wasted space on the sofa. Madelene asked if I wanted to go to the hospital and stay there for pain management. What's the point? I can do that here now with all the oxycodone, oxycontin, oxy-whatevers that the hospital threw at me, hoping to get me out of their room for the next patient. I tried the "holistic" path, medicinal marijuana. At first, it seemed to have taken the pain away momentarily, and it helped me sleep, but that paranoid-I'm-gonna-freak-the-hell-out side effect started to kick in. Not only did it start to give...

Everyone’s crunching down, saving money or trying to steer clear of the luxuries they once dabbled in every so often, or more often than not. Some people are feeling the pangs of the economy and other people, well, not so much. I’ve had to cut down on certain things to increase the bulge in my wallet, but gradually, it does look like things are getting better. Dad insists he’s going to quit smoking. Dad’s 72 years old. He’s been smoking since he was born. From four packs of cigarettes to zilch? He and my mom used to have cigarettes shipped to their house by the Indians who didn’t tax them. Now, even their price is too high. “You gotta be kiddin’ me! You crazy or sumptin’? Nine dolliz’ a pack?” my father welps over the phone to his little stogy dealer. “It’s like a goddam car payment, yanno? Ah fuggedaboudit’!” With my father’s promise of quitting and my anticipation of walking into their house without having an asthma attack, my mother is still hunching under the microwave, lea...