I AM STILL ME! A Rambling and hopefully inspirational Journal Entry

I AM STILL ME!!! Is There Still Life After Cancer & Chronic Pain? Maybe, you decide... Before I turned twenty-three I was an NCO in the USAF, provided electronics and communications support for both NASA and NATO, I witnessed the launches of Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft, provided communications support at the Cape for both Voyager 2 and the last Apollo launch, (Apollo/ Soyuz,) and "worked" many other launches, and installed Comm gear at key facilities, (in the US and abroad,). I was also a gymnast, strong, healthy, and all the world was my oyster. It seemed to be at least.1979 Two months before my twenty-third birthday I was working at a remote site in the Philippines and noticed a swelling under my right jaw.Thirty-three years later...Now I am a cancer survivor. I have had 8 surgeries that required general anesthesia, including Bi-lateral Radical Neck Dissections (One on each side, DO NOT look this up if you are squeamish,) and another half dozen where I wished they had put me under. I endured 6500 Rads of Cobalt treatments, 65,000 years worth of sitting on the beach.I am also a husband of 26 years to, literally, "the beautiful girl next door." The father of two fine sons, and I'm even a Grandpa! I went back to school after my treatments and WITH chronic pain and managed to earn my Associate of Science Degree in electronics with Honors. (17 "A"s & 3"B"s while on narcotic pain medications, don't ask me how...) I have tried many times to determine if I could return to the work force, working for free at the businesses of friends and family to see if my body and overall health would allow it. (Because I was raised to believe that everyone who is able should contribute) As it turns out, it was a good decision to try it for free as to not lose my disability benefits, because each time I lasted several months, even at a reduced workload before I started getting sicker and sicker, and even demonstrated a marked increase in my pain med use. I guess I was just trying too damn hard.   I am a thirty-three year veteran of the Chronic Pain Wars! Like you,I have been tested beyond bounds I would not have believed that a human being could endure, both physically and emotionally. In 1978, before I joined the Chronic Pain Wars, I saw a report on television about a girl who "Suffered from Chronic Pain." I didn't believe that it could be so bad... At that time I believed that a person couldn't survive that much suffering, that if they were hurting so badly they would take their own life. I was sure that's what I would do. It is so ironic that just a year after seeing that report I would get me a big old dose of Chronic Pain of my very own, and have to prove myself wrong about the whole giving up to death thing.The first few years I spent so much time in hospitals, for cancer treatments and months-long chronic-pain clinics, that I got to know my fellow cancer patients very well, and became friends with many of them and their wives and families. Then, as most lost their battles with cancer I held their wives' hands as their beloved lay dieing, the PA shrieking "CODE BLUE!" and I'd just cry with them and try to help by being there so that they wouldn't be alone. (It seems like it happened weekly, but actually only happened three times.) I have dreamed about these people many times over the years. My dreams are not my friends. In so many of them I dream I am on fire and when I awaken the pain of that fire is still there. So very real to my radiation burned and sliced up nervous system. Every night, including last night, in fact.Yet through all that, I still Love with all my heart, I have empathy for those who are hurt and suffer. I haven't surrendered to my soul's desire to hate my body, this body which torments me so. I have continued to strive to improve the lot of those I love, and I still actually care about the fate of mankind, as naive as that sounds. I have invented, and patented, a LASER targeting device which, when is used with Mobile C-Arm Units. It's use helps to reduce the amount of radiation some patients and X-Ray Techs have to be exposed to. These are currently used in Children's Hospitals, Military Hospitals, VA Hospitals, University Medical Centers, Pain Treatment Centers, and several State Medical Centers. These are not making me rich, but has actually cost me. My Son, my Brother, and I have set up a company to build them but my participation there has nearly run it's course. The health issues I mentioned above have beaten the heck out of me and although I am using all I have learned to combat the effects of the Chronic Pain, and even despite the fact that I own part of the company I can not continue because I just slow everything down and make work that otherwise wouldn't need to be done. But I am so happy that I didn't give in, I kept fighting and learning so that I was able to give back to you who can benefit from this technology, that some people will have less exposure to radiation, and maybe some day if I need another catheter in my spine I'll be able to tell the doctor, "I invented that." LOL!!!I'm sorry this is so long and rambling, but I've had so many tell me that my story could be so "inspirational" to others. But I feel that when I am suffering and in the clutches of my pain, I don't need inspiration, I need someone to care enough to just rub my scalp, or just run caress my skin gently and give me something other than pain to feel. Some sensation OTHER THAN PAIN for my brain to focus upon, a human being who cares enough to witness my pain and not run away because it's so terrible to watch someone being in agony.I guess the inspiration is needed in those in-between times. When the pain is "ONLY" a four or five on the agony scale. You know it will be back and there's not one single thing you can do about it. I suppose those are truly the times a story with a relatively happy ending can be useful. But not the usual kind of happy ending, this one the main character still suffers, he's still in the torture chamber with the sadist and his red-hot pokers. But at least he helped one person, stayed true to himself and LOVED. I Loved enough to live when all I really wanted was to die.