Freedom is just another word...

I don’t make very good company these days; my mind wanders and loud crowds frustrate me because I can’t understand what anyone is saying.

I have come to accept the fact that Achmed is with me for life and I have come to accept that radio-surgery is the way to get him under control so that I can start leading a normal life again. That being said, I have a lot of trouble accepting the fact that the Canadian Sick-care Program hauls its sorry ass into gear slower than a delinquent teenager suffering from their first hangover!

This is October 5th. My first medical appointment relating to all of this was in March. So far, it has taken the bureaucratic scientific community in this country seven months just to diagnose me and decide on a course of treatment. It’s a damn good thing that Achmed is not Cancer, because if he was you would probably all be reading my obituary right now, instead of my rant of frustration!

There is a good side effect that has come out of this situation. I have proof that this spiritual journey that I have been on for the past couple of years is actually working on me. The old Kevin would have been arrested by now on assault charges, because he would have been sick of waiting around to hear something and would have completely snapped.

The thing that bothers me above all else right now is that no one in the “healthcare” system seems to give a flying F*@% that I want an answer to what is going on with my head. The fact that Achmed is not classified as a terminal tumor seems to make everyone in the healthcare system think I am being hard to get along with because I want something done.

People seem to think, just because they will get to me before this thing could ever kill me that I should just shut-up and wait until they are good and ready to give me a nuclear blast. Well, I have news for them...dying has never scared me. Don’t get me wrong I don’t want to die, and I don’t generally do things, anymore, that could speed up the process, but as a rule I am not afraid of death and seeing how it is the one thing that no one can change about their lives, we might as well all come to terms with the fact that at some point in time we are all going to become acquainted with it. I gave up losing sleep about things that I can’t change years ago.

But, there is one thing that I am afraid of: being paralysed or incapacitated. I don’t ever want to have to rely on someone else to look after me, or feed me, or change me. The little buddy in my head, if he is left alone, has the potential to mess up my quality of life pretty good. That is why I am getting fed up with waiting. Every day that passes without me getting zapped, makes it a little bit more likely that the Gamma-Knife won’t work. If you have been following along at all, you have a pretty good idea already of what that means.

Freedom is the thing that I value above all else and this waiting around has me feeling jailed and on someone else’s schedule, and there is nothing I can do about it. My tolerance for waiting and my patience for the right outcome is actually quite high, but I am pretty sure that lately I am down to the last strand of a pretty frayed rope.

Don’t even get me started on how much two plane tickets to Winnipeg are going to cost me at the last minute! There really has to be a better way to deal with all of this... I should go on a speaking tour when this is over because I am sure I could shed some light on simple ways to improve the medical system... being friendly is one that could help.

From Achmed and Me... Live Life!