I am putting up the white flag

he Florida project has consumed my health. The decline now in the heat is just going to have me making it home driving. With endocrine cancer when the hormone levels are high you have constant bowel movements which drain you of any strength. I used to rest awhile and hit it again, but honestly I think I am nearing the time for my chair. I will try to come down one more time after our 40th Sunday June 5th celebration with family and friends, but I cannot come down here alone again. I think my last visit will be for about seven days and then I hope I can live to the fall and enjoy the park model and warmer weather. The project has turned out much more expensive and stressful on my health. It was fun in the winter clearing the land in the cool weather, but this heat has consumed me. I hope I can recharge my batteries, and my shots on Monday can mellow the symptoms.....but I knew the decline was coming and hoped my activity and work could slow the big C....but it now has me. I am not sad, or regretful about doing something different. I know that there is no white knight cure for what I have, and I know from my cousin's husband and Steve Jobs what is coming next, but somehow I have never been happier in my life. I will be glad to be with the grandchildren again as they have seen the six foot alligator photos in our pond, and want to know when I will quit fighting the alligator and come home.....I will be spending even more time with them in the upcoming months. The funny thing is I look better than I have looked in twenty years as I am losing weight......sometimes you need to be careful what you ask for.....and that extra weight.....well I wish I had it back.....the belly is swelling from the liver, and I am slowing down, but today I walked the blackwater trail from the Burger King to Milton City hall.....I figured my car was getting worked on, and I may never get to do this again.....I did too much and I am packing for home.....but there is a bridge and creek on the trail near the Milton High school with ferns and clear water flowing beneath that reminded me of my childhood getting tadpoles and frogs.....what a beautiful walk.....in all a good day despite the decline.

I hope you bounce back in a mild spring. I might get snow again this weekend. But I'm starting to miss the gulf.

Edit: btw... they're predicting a hot summer up here. Hope your a/c is up to par... I don't have any... yet.

The humidity is unbearable. I have wished all along you would have hired a helper to work with you....too much labor is not a good thing.

I have a great kid helping me. He has been my salvation, and just helped me put the generator in the car as I am packing, but the physical work has kept me alive.....when you get tired from cancer your first instinct is to rest, but soon your muscles atrophy and the sequence of decline speeds up.....you simply do not have a magic bullet with the big C, and what is working for me may not work for someone else, but if I sit in my lazy boy and post all day irritating people, it is not good for the poor souls I pick on, and not good for me as I am rapidly declining.....today I burned brush, stained the outside of the screened in porch on the park model, took a great walk, had my brakes fixed, and tonight after it cools I will light up the porch and paint the interior.....I go get lumber at home depot or Lowes early Friday, drop off a two inch backflow valve to my plumber with a big check for work he will be doing, and then the young man and I will finish the screened in porch. I will go to Navarre and take my shower, load the car and head eight hours to Metropolis Illinois across the Ohio river from Paducah, and play some poker......sleep in my car because I sleep better sitting and be at the islands around seven pm Saturday night, where I will order a pizza. Seems like a lot, but when the pages in the book are getting thinner, you try to pack in living........but I cannot handle the heat and humidity.....give me Pensacola in January and February.....I love it and hope the big guy will give another winter down here, but I will take whatever he gives me.

I have promised some people that I will meet them before I am gone. I will probably invite people over to the park model this next visit, or if it is hot and I am not doing well, I will do it this fall if I am still here. I still am sad I did not get to meet T.....after seeing his family and having talked to him and Neko for almost a decade, you realize being a ghost is important......but I am going to be a real ghost at some point in the future, and like I said earlier.....I drive by the tastee freeze in Milton and get sad every time thinking about T, and there were days if he could have found me he would have hit me with a baseball bat, but deep down he knew I cared and always liked him. So I will keep my promise to meet people, but I may need Mrs. Seaoat as the decline is now moving faster than I anticipated.....I could get the shots.....rest a bit.....bounce back and be here a year from now.....or I may never be back down here again, but the best laid plans of mice and men. My cancer is called the looking good cancer and the emblem is the zebra.....which means you still look pretty good and it is usually so hidden with its symptoms that by the time you realize it you are toast.....well I am not yet skelator......and losing a little weight makes people think I am healthy and working out until they see the mid section liver swell....but heck its not like I give a chit about my appearance anymore as my wife hates the beard and I have not been in a suit in two months.

Rub some dirt on it.


Speaking of which....you promised to keep us up to date on your son's baseball, you have no idea how much I enjoy your posts about your son's baseball.....it brings back pleasant memories of watching my son pitch and getting splinter butt. So please....I hate to keep bugging you.....update.....its not bragging if I keep bothering you........

My sil got a full ride from his summer ball in high school. He was a team mate of Curtis Granderson who I would watch in their college games. There were usually twenty scouts with speed guns and clipboards at the games as Curtis was leading the nation at one point during that season. My SIL always had great games when the scouts were looking at Curtis, and a good friend of mine got drafted by the white sox when the scouts came out to look a a pitcher from Joliet and saw my friend pitch....he went on to play for the world famous sealmaster fast pitch softball team and never played in the minors.....my sil gave up on his dream when he was not drafted but played on for three more years on some high powered Chicago summer leagues. I always suspected around this time his boss got him on steroids because he put on about twenty pounds of muscle and was just rocking the ball, but he was slow on the base path, average as an infielder, and just could not get his percentages up high enough to justify his power.....so those summer leagues are important.

Hallmarkgard wrote:You have done well.  Your posts have given encouragement and knowledge to others.  We are all declining, some a bit faster than others.  You are a good man.  But you aint gone yet so you have to keep posting.....I would have like to have gone to the ball game with you...maybe next time.....

Amen Hallmark.....I have been encouraged by Seaoat and hope I can weather life's challenges as he has. The older I get the more I seem to get hit with.

Sea, this is all very hard to read tonight, even though I continue to marvel at your resilience and unfailing happiness (a mystery to me, but more power to you!!) in the face of your debilitating, fatal illness at too young of an age.  I know myself well enough to know I'd never measure up to your strength and positive attitude, but it's certainly an ideal to strive for when my own time comes (if I'm aware of it).  I won't forget you.

Have a safe trip back, and we'll certainly hope to see you here once again. Just wish you didn't have to go right now, since much drier weather will prevail over the weekend, but so be it.   May you experience good results from your injections!

Take good care and listen to Joani for a change and quit overdoing things, will you?