This is the last post of my blog. I may put something else up here or maybe leave it as an archive… a legacy or something. But it has become too difficult to keep a schedule or sit at my desk to conjure something to say that’s worth writing. I note that in the last few months my work has deteriorated with lots of typos and grammar errors that wwould give my elementary teacher apoplexy. Everything must end eventually and it’s that time for Deludia.
I’ve been getting transfusions to keep me alive. Multiple Myeloma attacks the bone marrow and my marrow has finally shut down. They gave me three pints this last time and a total of six over the last few weeks. There’s a point of diminishing returns involved, not to mention a large draw on A Negative blood, a rare type.
All of this is happening as the VA makes sweeping changes. They have closed their ER and turned it into a day clinic with business hours, leaving we vets to seek help at civillian hospitals. I worry about billing issues with the vet responsible until the VA system gets around to paying. The last time the VA sent me to a civilian hospital I got stuck with few hundred bucks worth of bills for lab service they didn’t pay. Being 100% disabled and 100% service connected, they’re supposed to pay 100% of my medical costs. So I’m nervous about a sudden change in my emergency service provider.
Tired and with lots of time on my hands has given me a lot of opportunity to reflect. I find things I’m proud of and things that I find despicable, between which I find a fully lived life. My wife called me her Forest Gump the other day because of the number of historical events I wasn’t just alive for, but witnessed or participated in.
In my life I have drivenjust about every type of vehicle there is and built as good number of them with my own hands and tools. I’ve been a radio announcer, a mechanic, a pilot, a software engineer, and built my own company selling wireless networking before the internet existed. I worked with a company that gave me access to ARPAnet and rolled with it as it became the internet, becoming one of the first internet service providers, the second one in Washington state. I’ve built scads of robots and remote control devices and vehicles, and an early player in the field of drones;, UAVs.
I’ve tried to be a good and decent man with empathy for those around me, two legged or more. Except I have never been able to appreciate spiders, even knowing their place in ecology. This probably disqualifies me as a candidate for alien first contact if the visitors don’t look enough like us… Like Vulcans or something. Sure, it’s racial profiling but that’s the way it is. I’m probably the victim of too many Saturday matinees as a kid in the fifties.
I have had some truly great friends in my life. A true blessing that made so much of my life unregretable, even when I was doing something less than angelic. I would name them all here but it’s not necessary. They know who they are and losing them will be the saddest part of my demise. Of course, it will break my heart to leave my wife. I know the pain and disorientation she will experience and it’s crushing to know I caused it. But losing her will be the greatest pain I feel as I return my energy to the universe.
So that’s about it.Thanks to those of you who’ve read my missives and were perhaps entertained or informed or was able to take away something positive.
