theJDman State of Mind

May 28th 2004

This post is a very personal and very serious post, it's not for most people and I suggest you avoid this post and just go on to the next post. There has been 2 requests for this post and I have picked this moment for a reason. You might have caught this when I originally put it up in response to some jerk who went out of the way to attack me on this Blog, of course now I have erased all traces that he was ever here. Once I got rid of him I erased the post.

**********Warning: there may be something in this post you don't want to know so once again I ask you to skip it. This is your last warning, I just want to make sure that you know what's ahead.

On May 28 2004 I died, in any way you can determine one's death; I also was reborn on that exact same day. Now how did I get to this point, for that answer we need to take a trip to the past(there's a full story but this is the short version). We're going back to 2000 and start from that point.
anybody who knew/knows me knows I'm not involved in life, I'm on the outside looking in and I can't remember a time when that wasn't the case. So my last job at that point was as a Hotel Breakfast Attendant(translation: gopher) and after the suits fired the boss, I gave my 2 weeks in protest and then left. I was feeling a little off, no reason to get worried(or so I thought, hell by that point it was too late anyways). After a long while I went back out for another job, I hit 54 places and only got 1 call for an interview... McDonald(Don't ever say Rib Jr.s to me) and I heated that job so much I could have easily attacked several customers/staff for the complete lack of respect I received. I will never work there or anyplace like that again; then the final straw came when my idiot brother-in-law got hired and was going to be my boss(OH HELL NO!!!) so I left and never looked back. Then I caught bronchitis and it lasted for 3 weeks(usually it's there and gone within a week).
In early 2001 my niece Alyssa was born. Whenever Alyssa would get a coughed/cold or such I would always seem to catch it. Then that winter I got really sick, flu or something the idiots at Gunderson(clinic) could find anything wrong so they did nothing. After about 2 months I went back and after a bunch of tests they still found and did nothing. After about 3 months I got better and things were normal for awhile. Durning the Summer of 2002 my Dad thought I might be sick because he's sick from fighting in the war(that's all I'm gonna say, I'm sure you can read between the lines), so I took a psychical and that where they caught it. It took a simple blood test(which those Gunderson idiots took enough of) to detect an abnormality in the liver functions, so more tests were done and after all that they found it, Liver Cirrhosis. At this point the cause is not known, but what is known is it's not good news. While there I met a doctor from the Mayo Clinic who came down to consult on my case, "Here's where you are, you need a new liver, now. You should have come in a long time ago." and there it was. After the consult I asked him if this was an endgame. He said"We'll get you a Liver, you just need to be here when we get it." and that was it for the moment.
Ok let's get this out of the way. I have had 3 drinks in my entire life, a beer at a family reunion(couple sips), once at a party with my cousin Mitch, and 1 slushy peach breezer when I hit 21. I have had to answer that question about a million times and then explain it to others who find out because that's the first thing that comes to mind, "Another drunk who sank their liver". The one think that really pisses my off is that I never binged drinks and I'm left with the conciseness of it.
From there it was off to the Mayo Clinic and for the longest time It was nothing but tests for months. Alpha1-Antitrypsin Deficiency was the diagnosis, It's a birth defect where both parents have an extra gene(zeppo) and that causes your liver to die. I'm going to skip way ahead here to 2004 because there's some things I'm not going to mention. About the 15th of May I was admitted to the Transplant wing(again!) and at that point I just really didn't care about anything anymore and I don't remember much from that point except I was woke up early in the morning and told I was going to surgery and the first thing they did was put me to sleep(explain the sense of that). While I was under I(Nope, I'm not gonna talk about that either)... The first thing I noticed when I woke up was that I felt that I had the best I ever felt to that point.
Afterwards I found out that my Liver shut down in the afternoon on May 26th(my operation was on May 28th) and that after that you only have 2 days to live(nothing like waiting until the last minute huh).

There are other things to mention, but maybe at another time I'll get into them. The 1 thing I know from all this is that there's a reason I'm alive. The truth is if you were in charge of deciding who lived and died in that situation I would not have made it(to be honest I wouldn't have chosen me if given the same choice). I have things that I still have to do, I just have to find them and do it. After going through this situation I see a lot of things differently, and I see all the mistakes I've made through my life and I'm trying to be a better person for it.
I've posted this now because this whole next week is my 2 year post-op checkup and I will be busy focusing my energy and thoughts on that, so until then let me leave you with this...
No One But You -by- Queen


theJDman will return.

posted by theJDman @ 1:54 PM