The Shaman -- Being Thankful - 11/24/22
I've told y'all before: I don't feel all that special. It's like the guys who come back as war heroes and don't want to be called heroes. It's hard to think of being exceptional or inspiring when all you did was put one foot in front of another for six months, crawl into a recliner, stagger out, wash, rinse and repeat. There was no emergency cord to pull. There was no train to get off, and I would not have if I'd had the chance. The pain and discomfort were no worse than a bad case of the trots. It just went on for 3 months. I'm also not going to try sounding heroic by telling you I met real heroes in that Infusion suite that had it worse than me. They signed the release forms, same as I did. Some folks get lucky and get to ring the bell and go home. Some don't.
As I wrote to another camper yesterday:
"When I look back on it now, so much of it comes back like a crappy dream. My memory was affected. It still is. The Chemo-brain is slowly starting to lift, but I've got big holes. Mostly, what I remember is (quite literally) putting one foot in front of the other and trying to make the next wall to steady myself. You guys, reading the stuff on the Campfire secondhand, may have a better view of things than I did. I still can't bring myself to go back and read those entries. My family stopped reading them early on and never went back. It was too hard on them."
So what do I have to be thankful for? I should be pissed off at some unseen force for being asleep at the wheel and letting this happen. Honestly, when I finally got my one wish last week, that didn't occur to me. All I'd asked for was to be able to make it up into my treestand for the Rifle Opener. I did. I got settled in and 10 minutes before legal hunting started, it started to rain and fairly quickly became pouring rain and then driving rain, and by the time the truck came and got me 4 hours later I was worn out and my gear was soaked and I could not feel my hands.
. . . but I'd been up that tree, I'd walked out there under my own power in the dark and climbed that ladder and that was all that had really counted. If you're looking to me for answers about how God answers prayers, this is all I have to offer.
The bonus came a few days later when I roused briefly out of a nap and saw this fellow in the tall grass at the far end of the pasture:
Am I thankful? Yes. To what? To Whom? For what? In a lot of ways, I have nothing but my own cussedness to thank. However, I have to recognize even that moldy spark-- I fancy it smells like a burned fart-- must have a source. At the bottom of that well of flatus is the Divine, and for that, I am eternally and most humbly grateful.
As it is, I'm due to get some more tests soon to see if the bug juice really did its job. I'm not expecting any surprises, but there is always a chance. Either way, I'm due to be putting away the deer rifles soon and start looking towards April and Turkey Season. One foot in front of the other-- wash, rinse, repeat.
As I wrote to another camper yesterday:
"When I look back on it now, so much of it comes back like a crappy dream. My memory was affected. It still is. The Chemo-brain is slowly starting to lift, but I've got big holes. Mostly, what I remember is (quite literally) putting one foot in front of the other and trying to make the next wall to steady myself. You guys, reading the stuff on the Campfire secondhand, may have a better view of things than I did. I still can't bring myself to go back and read those entries. My family stopped reading them early on and never went back. It was too hard on them."
So what do I have to be thankful for? I should be pissed off at some unseen force for being asleep at the wheel and letting this happen. Honestly, when I finally got my one wish last week, that didn't occur to me. All I'd asked for was to be able to make it up into my treestand for the Rifle Opener. I did. I got settled in and 10 minutes before legal hunting started, it started to rain and fairly quickly became pouring rain and then driving rain, and by the time the truck came and got me 4 hours later I was worn out and my gear was soaked and I could not feel my hands.
. . . but I'd been up that tree, I'd walked out there under my own power in the dark and climbed that ladder and that was all that had really counted. If you're looking to me for answers about how God answers prayers, this is all I have to offer.
The bonus came a few days later when I roused briefly out of a nap and saw this fellow in the tall grass at the far end of the pasture:
Am I thankful? Yes. To what? To Whom? For what? In a lot of ways, I have nothing but my own cussedness to thank. However, I have to recognize even that moldy spark-- I fancy it smells like a burned fart-- must have a source. At the bottom of that well of flatus is the Divine, and for that, I am eternally and most humbly grateful.
As it is, I'm due to get some more tests soon to see if the bug juice really did its job. I'm not expecting any surprises, but there is always a chance. Either way, I'm due to be putting away the deer rifles soon and start looking towards April and Turkey Season. One foot in front of the other-- wash, rinse, repeat.