What a difference a year makes.

In the words of Joey Shithead of Doa and William Ernest Henley I've come out Bloodied but unbowed. A year ago today I was yellow, bloated, stiff jointed and hazy. Everything hurt from shuffling across the room to taking a dump, taking a piss felt like thick noxious liquid. Unfiltered from my failing liver. My body was slowly shutting down, I could feel the roots of my teeth screaming. My prognosis didn't look good from where other folks where standing. I think everyone around me knew my time was limited. I didn't. My decline was very gradual and slow, a trickle. I lived with it so it wasn't as shocking as it was to those that hadn't seen me in a year or two. I could sense the hidden shock and horror of my appearance on the faces of those who hadn't seen me in months and months.

As I was saying many folks had written me off including my wife. Last rights where given to me while I spend five days in hospital with amonia on the brain. My liver doc's in India said I had 8 to 12 weeks to live if I didn't get a new liver. I think everyone knew but me, thankfully. I was blindly optomistic.

A year ago today my Mom and I made the drive from Cincinnati to Indianapolis to sit in my doctor's office and hear him say "It'll be soon, it'll be soon. You're in bad shape, we know that. You've been called up twice and sent home twice. That tell's us you're very high on the list. Your turn will come." Is there anything you can give me for the pain I asked? I feel like shit, will I ever feel any better? "...everyone is different, I can't give you anything for the pain. Your time will come." The day was grey, all days where grey. Talking didn't come easy on that long ride back to Cincinnati.It was quite, my mother occasionally reading the signs we've passed a dozen or so times out loud. It was annoyingly reassuring. I could close my eyes and know exactly where we were and how long it'd be before we pulled into her drive way by the frequencey of her sign readings.

We got home around six o'clock. I spent the evening shuffling around the room. Wearing baggy fitting flannel pajama bottoms, drinking ensures and channel surfing from the food network to c-span. I was tired, but couldn't sleep. I lied down, it was 12:36 am, my phone rang, I picked it up and saw that it was a blocked caller. I almost didn't answer.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
 Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
 For my unconquerable soul.

  In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

  Beyond this place of wrath and tears
 Looms but the Horror of the shade,
 And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

  It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
 I am the master of my fate:
 I am the captain of my soul