He's back!!

I'm back!  Male Menopause.. is there such a thing?  Darn tooten there is or at least I'm experiencing it or maybe it's something else but I go from cold to hot in two seconds.  I'm sure everyone reading this is absolutely fascinated by or  perhaps not.  It matters not.  It seems that I've not blogged in almost 2 years.. just about as long as I have been involved with massive dental work at the University of Maryland Dental School, the first in the world and currently the best in the nation.  And was I lucky.. I happened to get the best periodontist at the dental school.  Th director of the school, a Dr. Driscoll, once said that Dr. Alexander was the best at rhe school and he added perhaps the best they've ever had at the school and I believe it. Dr, Gillian Alexander how lucky can I be.  She's a perfectionist who is in a class by herself.  Her husband is a periodontist majoring in mandibular transplants and she majored in maxillary transplants which in lay terms in lower jaw (mandible) and maxillary (upper jaw).  Her mother is a periodontist, her father is a perioddontist, her brother and husband are also perioddontisrs.  From the time she was literally a teenager, Gillian worked for her mother assisting her in her implant work.  So
Gillian is not only talented, competent perfectionist but also a very lovely happy lady. For two years I spent nearly every Tuesday with her from 1-5.. you heard that right but rather poorly stated.. Every Tuesday for 2 years I had a four hour dental appointment.. a few longer.. one that was acutally 8 hours long while Guillian crafted me a lower temporary plate. About half way through my dental work, I was diagnosed with cancer of the bladder. So for the last year or so I've had 2 operations and no less than 12 appointments!  Usually my weeks during that time were Tuesday, dentist in Baltimore.. 152 miles round trip; Wednesdays at home.. Thursday urologist's office for 8 o'clock or earlier appointments. I first noticed that my urine was beet red in early 2012 but passed it off as perhaps a kidney stone passing which didn't wake me because I was often on a pain killers for my dental work,  But the doctor said.. that would not be so.. a kidney stone will wake the dead.. When I passed my first stone I was 25 or so.. and at that time I thought I was dying.. pain is dimensions one never knew existed. So my wife and a few friends took me to a hospital on 33rd Street in Baltimore.  The doctors were not very sympathetic.. I guess lots of people with drug problems try to sneak a shot under the guise of passing a stone.  Well, I asked one of the smart ass doctors,  if I couldn't get something for the pain. His comment was they didn't want to mask the sympotoms which is what I wanted and needed. Anyone who has had or knows someone who has passed a kidney stone that first you feel you are going to die, then you fear you won't die and the pain returns for another shot of pain like there is no other. I've known pain and am one ,but I thought the kidney stone was the worst pain I'd ever had until September 9, 2001 when my gall bladder nearly burst and I had to have emergency surgery.  I reported to my principal the next day that I'd be out for a short time because I was having my gall bladder removed.  He (brand knew and trying to prove himself) asked if I couldn't postpone the surgery until the Spring or over Christmas.. I looked at him like he was an insect.. and replied.. the surgery had been scheduled and the doctors agreed the gall bladder had to come out. So I spent Septemer 10, 11, 12 on heavy-duty narcotics.  First I had to go to work on Monday, Septmeber 10 and write lesson plans for ar least a week.  I was at school on 9-11 making lesson plans and even teaching claasses, all in a stupor.  I saw the Twin Towers being hit on a desk top computer in counseling.. I shrugged my shoulders not realizing what I was seiing or what was happening.  Top all this off with the fact that our new superintendent decided to make 45 minute classes into 90 minute one.  A move I soundly criticized to fellow teachers and letters to the editor.  From then on I was a marked man.  I was given classes which were seemingly put together with some of the most difficult students.  As I used to say to my first principal at the school, a principal gave break a teacher's spirit, destroy his or her confidence just be putting all the rotten eggs in one basket. My first principal disagreed and anybody who disagreed with him was obviously mistaken.  I'd had some tough classes but the ones I had the 03-04 school year topped it all.  I retired on November 6, 2003... each year after 2001 I was getting more and more difficult students and I really got myself into trouble when I said that I no longer wanted to teach 12th grade Advanced Placement on TV because of the time and more probabaly because placement of classes made my job impossible.  My tv class was schedueled for last period of the day during the Fall semester.  It hit me almost immediately that 4 period day with an A-B alternately daily schedule was a nightmare.  Last period classes for advanced or honors classes should never be offered. Why?  Well, the truth is the best students are in those AP and Honor classes and that the kids in those classes were also kids who were in sports which meant that one day the cross country team was gone, next day volleyball, the next soccer.  So I never had my whole class together for the tv AP class  on either A or B Day You see  one AP class that ran on the B Day ( and was in my classroom) .  It was insanity and when aligned for the lack of administrative backing didn't come through I got so ticked, I retired.  The principal told me I couldn't do that but he being so new, he didn't know that as an elected member of the union I had been reponsible for allowing a teacher to break her contract to go back home and take a job.. she wasn't really good and was also unhappy.  The shool system thought it could.. what could it do.. make a person teach when the situaion and the teacher were totally not working.  So I opened that door and knew I could.
Well, we had a student teacher finishing up his time at the school and he took my job as his first job. He didn't do himself any good because he told the principal as I did that the classes were very troublesome and difficult and almost impossible to teach.  He was not hired on full time. At the same time I gave up my coaching of fast pitch girls softball.  My replacement had problems I never had.. one of his pitchers was caught with cocaine on the school bus on the way to a game. The girl was dropped from the team.. the replacment coach also left the system.  All of this because of a heavy-handed administrator and an incompetent principal.  Three good teachers lost because incompetent peopel often rise to the top ineducation! The next year the principal was moved to the most difficut school in the county where he spent what muct have been a terrible 7 yeara.  Then he was promoted to secondary school supervison at $120 K a year. We have gangs at that high school and I had friend who worked there who told me they had frequent lockdown and police presence for problems.  So, we had and have big city problems in a small town.
Who'd a thought.  To conclude for the night.. While my wife in I were in London in April, 2012 I began to first see actual spots of blood in the toilet, I had no energy and I was losing weight like crazy. At one point I dropped to 172 pounds on a 6-1 frame.. very thin , too thin. Well when we got hom I had my first real scare because there was so much blood in the toilet I called the urological center and was told I couldn't get an appointment until two months later. I whined that I was peeing blood and go in to see the nurse practitioner the next day.
She was wonderfull and immediately set in motion all the necessary details for a bladder surgery.. from the EKG to whatever else I had to have done prior to surgery.  Several days after the operation I was out coaching softball and hitting infield.  I tried to pitch some but just didn't have thre strength.  After that I was able to return for winter training, 6 a.m. every morning until Feb 1 when we began practicing outside.
Absolutelu nuts.. our first tournament was March 2-3... 4 games in two days.. about 16-20 hours outside in 38 degree cold with a icy wind blowing snow into the dugout. After that tournament I conceded that I needed to take care of myself and never really ever came back.
What I am going to do about next year - resign.  There I said.. I've been avoiding the reality that though my spirit is willing, the body is unable.  I really should have resigned when I found out I had cancer but after the surgery I felt so good, my appetite picked up and I gained over 20 pounds.
Now what do I do? Well dear reader, thanks for coming along on my personal narrative of how life has been hammering me lately. But 2012 is gone and 2013 is already much better with so many wonderful things beginning to show themselves.  One more surgery to go.. Seems I have 3 spots on the left side of my bladder the urologist wants to cut out or cauterize so that all the cancer cells in the bladder will be killed.  Still I have to have a cystoscopy every six months for 5 years and then once a year for 5 more. I was explaining how a cystoscopy is performed to a childhood buddy of my sons's. He (the kid) thought the doctor might go in throught he belly butteon or open the bladder by cutting open an aread below the belly button. When I explained the direct route, the guy winced, clapped he's knees together and shook his head saying that he didn't know if he could go through all that.. you'll do it to live and really I've learned to deal with tubes being placed in my penis and down the urethra. The tubes or whateve have a camera on them and a light.  But once the tube is in the bladder it doesn't hurt. I've just gotten used to it.. all except the mess after a cystocopy..
So friends, readers, fans I am schdeduled for the third surgical procedure on June 25th with the hope that this time we'll get all the cancer cells. Again prayers are asked for an answered, thanks to those who have prayed.. just keep it up.  Hey about those phone calls I didn't get, the get well cards I never received or visits that never happened.. well I forgive all and am not angry or upset. Be careful my friends!
Good night and thanks for reading..

Steve aka Lem