Six Months Later & You’re Still Here

Relatively few people read Another Jew With A Blog/Substack which is too bad because they missed out on the bit about the talking penis.

But then again it’s ok because there were serious questions asked in it and I still haven’t concluded what direction I wish to go in. Still haven’t decided how much serious content this place needs or doesn’t need.

Sometimes I think about the stories I could write and whether I could make money from them, engage in works of fiction instead of the serious stuff.

Sometimes I think about how to capture the reader from start.

Maybe I’d start with a tale of someone who once had a lust for bananas.

Dateline Texas- October 2013

It happened the last time we had sex. It was October of 2013 and as usual you had wrapped your legs and arms around me.

There were no worries about the future, no thoughts about skinny old men with paunches pretending to be multilingual experts and math whizzes.

There was only a torrid love affair and dreams of a future that was going to be the envy of all. We would be the couple people pointed at and said. “I wish we were them.”

And then it happened, there was a loud bang and three people burst into the apartment.

I jumped off of you and started fighting a redneck from Arkansas, a portly hillbilly attorney and a pasty faced author.

Can’t tell you how they connected or why they chose that time to force Coitus interruptus but I know they regret it. I protected your honor as I had done so many other times and had promised to do for eternity.

And may I say that fighting naked isn’t an easy feat. Not because I was unclothed but because they left the door open and that cold Texas wind caused shrinkage.

And as everyone knows, shrinkage is the equivalent of shaving Samson’s head or depriving Popeye of Spinach.

Or maybe not.

Six Months Later & You’re Still Here

I looked at my arm this morning and muttered six months later and you’re still here. If you are new to this joint you don’t know that I tore the distal tendon in my left arm and had it surgically repaired.

That was six months ago today and yes, that is my arm and the massive brace I wore for several months in the picture above.

The stitches healed and there is a little scar that remains that offers no clue to how it got there.

It is a reminder to me about how a guy who had spent very little time in hospitals had multiple experiences in a short time.

Go back to February of ’25 and the docs sent me in for a Liver biopsy. I watched them dope me up with a shot of Fentanyl and watched a guy stick a needle in me to grab some top choice Wilner meat.

Almost made a crack about chopped liver but didn’t think anyone in there would know what that was so I just stared at the ceiling and waited for it to end.

Had the surgery in late September that led to my four day hospital adventure when I blew a stitch and decided I had had enough.

I suppose you could say it’s part of how I tore my tendon because when I got clearance to start lifting again I hit it hard.

Today was important, significant and meaningful to me. I did my best not to overextend myself or push too hard while I worked to get to this six month mark.

But I didn’t take it real easy either.

I am not one for coloring inside the lines or not testing limits. I am not one who will only live within a comfort zone, you don’t grow that way.

Yet the truth is I have been a little nervous at times about mysterious aches and pains in my arm. But I told myself they were normal and that it had healed and that was enough.

So I kept pushing and working hard to put myself in place to get to where it is I wish to go.

****

But what your liver? What happened with the biopsy?

I am so glad you asked and care enough to find out about it. I had two fibroscans and two ultrasounds. In fact I just had the second ultrasound last week and the doc says nothing has gotten worse.

The prescription is lose some weight and don’t drink.

I Am Not Going To Die Today

If you ask me how I am feeling sometimes I respond with I am not going to die today. Some family members say that’s not funny because they were traumatized by the paramedics taking me away.

If you didn’t see me arguing with the paramedics or know I had already decided I planned on living I understand how it could be disturbing.

That night when I was bleeding out I did think about letting go. It’s not a secret but it wasn’t something I wanted. I didn’t choose to blow a stitch, I hadn’t tried to hurt myself. It was a freak accident.

Sometimes I have to remind them that sometimes I have a dark sense of humor and that I am very stubborn. I have plans and am not ready to go.

It’s part of why I am raging against the dying of the light. Aging isn’t easy and I don’t appreciate these bumps in the road.

So I push myself with the weights, the mobility and the balance exercises. I haven’t any problem getting on the floor or getting up, I can balance on one leg and do all sorts of things.

But I can’t do them at the level I want to and so I am pushing because I can do so today and tomorrow it might be harder.

My docs say there is no reason why I can’t or won’t be around for quite some time so the goal is to build the body that will keep me independent until I take my last breath.

And if I am surprised and life ends sooner, well that will be as big a shock to me as to anyone else.

Still I acknowledge that tomorrow isn’t a given so it is important to make peace with yourself and those who matter because you may not get that opportunity.

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