When So Much Sucks And You Don't Know What To Do

So Much Sucking Going On

We are living in a world that sucks big balls. Imagine it, the world sucking balls, because I'm not talking about it sucking the balls you're thinking about. I'm talking about giant, King Kong-sized balls.

After 18 months of the world sucking, one would think that the world and those giant guerilla balls would be satisfied. That's enough to satisfy even the most horny guerilla on Earth, and the neediest world willing to suck so much. But that's just being funny.

With this much sucking behind us, the only one that's smiling is the hyperbolically and hormonally charged giant.

The reason I'm struggling to smile is that Cancer Sucks! But now, it sucks in a new way! It's not bringing anything good my way, not any time soon. Eventually, I was told, pain will set in and it would suck. Yep, it's here. It's been here for a couple of months.

After a life time of feeling pangs from everything from the immature stunts of youth, to the bicycle crashes that would have made Johnny Knoxville and the Jackass crew cringe, to fights during a different era, to the unbelievable fights I was involved with professionally, there's plenty of reason to believe I would have wound up with a ton of pain related issues when I got older.

Heck, I remember at about 43 hearing a doctor tell me I couldn't take any more hits to the head.

Cancer pains are not easy. You wake up and you feel bruised in weird places. The pain lands in the sixes and sevens, sometimes worse, on the pain scale they show you in the doctor.

Every cancer experience is going to have similarities and differences. This one carries with it an automatic sentence to sleep deprivation. In the tiniest flash of time, you go from once in a while waking up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, to having to go so much that by morning you're feeling the familiar feeling of dehydration set in, and once you've been there a few times you'll know that doesn't help the way your feel in the mornings.

I think six times in seven hours is my record.

As things progress, I find myself slowing down compared to ten years ago. It was unavoidable, I guess. But it wasn't the time in my life that I imagined it happening. Even life just 18 months ago looks more appealing than today.

The sucking has been nearly constant for 18 months. It's left so much to wonder about. It seems like from the moment I told people about my diagnosis, things began going downhill.

After seeing shocking deaths, my son's mental health breakdown, his divorce, and my own personal struggle to deal with such a severe cancer diagnosis, I was going to enter one more valley of sucktitude. I guess it was bound to happen. One more of life's shit covered, giant hairy guerilla balled tests to get through.

In March, the company I worked for had to lay everyone off. The company did subcontractor work for another tech firm. The primary company lost a major contract in Illinois.

After working my entire life, and spending years in a system that ultimately beat me up, wore me down, and made me loath humans, I'd finally found my way out and into a job that I looked forward to doing. It was an adventure that included seeing the state of Illinois's finest prisons, meeting the finest people, and doing repair and maintenance on the network supporting the inmates' telephone system.

What sucks so dammed much, is that a year of cancer at my level will test your mental and physical well being, and drain your resources.

But you move on and find other opportunities, right? And I thought I had, not once, but three times. Not great odds, particularly after applying at sixty-two places.

The most recent one would have been closest to the one that made me happy to go to work. The offer came and things looked up. All I had to do is get through a background check, and from there it would be a drug screen and a start date. I don't think a background check should have been an issue. I'd gone through several over the years. Sheriff's Deputy, Abingdon Police Officer, and as a contractor with the prisons. All were passed with no issues.

I haven't had a ticket in nearly 30 years. I haven't even been involved in a police issue, other than the night when a guy put a gun in my face. So what would the difference be?

When you examine all the details and facts, the easiest answer is almost always the right one. The only difference is that I have stage IV metastatic cancer. I can already hear what people are thinking. That's a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. That's discrimination!

Yes, it is, but it's also not an easy one to prove. But a thorough background check, in theory, could have led to someone saying something.

Looking back, I guess I should have suffered in silence and not told anybody.

Welcome to Suck Town!