Improved Cancer Treatments


Bob and George have been my two biggest supporters since I was paralyzed almost 32 years ago.   I have known Bob since I was 5 years old.

They were both diagnosed with cancer in the last few months.  Bob has melanoma and had a large tumor removed from his abdomen that turned about to be benign Schwann cells.  George has early stage prostate cancer. 

Bob had 3 surgeries to cut most of the cancer out  over the course of 3 months.  Last week, he started his first of 8 chemo treatments over the next 18 months.  He got into a research study using the latest in anti-cancer medication with negligible side effects after the first treatment.  He is doing well.

George has never been seriously ill in his life.  He is way over-thinking the problem, but has certainly learned a lot of cancer in the last few months.  The back-lab pathologist was puzzled when George came to see her after his biopsy.  She had rarely (never?) talked directly with a patient before in her 20 years as a pathologist.  He has always lived an extremely healthy lifestyle and is an atheist—he would be made at god if he believed there was one.

George talks about this changing his life.  I encourage him to study mindfulness-based stress reduction.  The stress is going to be harder on him than the cancer.  He will likely be cured of his early stage cancer in the next few months.

The both have a macabre sense of humor.  Knowing that laughter is great medicine, I question their lifestyles pointing out that when I was a child my father made me: use mercury for mold treat; asbestos for insulation; DDT for flies; and spray thousands of gallons of Agent Orange on the blackberries every summer.  Trust me, it is funnier on the phone than in print.

I am grateful for relatively early diagnosis of my friend’s cancer, relatively low-impact cures and for their love and support.  It feels good to support them in their time of FUD.  They will be fine.

Costco Return Policy


I bought a Neato robotic vacuum cleaner last May at Costco.  It came with an induction charger so it could return to home base to charge the batteries while working on a pre-set schedule.  Due to software problems the induction charger did not work.  I had to plug the charger in manually after every use thus killing the scheduled-cleaner feature.  Still, it worked well enough.  In less than a year, the software decided that the manually plug-in was not removed and so would not vacuum.  Time for a return to Costco.

My electronic vendor of choice is Costco for their return policy.  All I have to do is bring whatever device or goods I want to return back to a Costco store—even if I bought the device online as in the case of the Neato—within their extended warranty period to get cash, store credit or a refund on my credit card.  Extremely customer service oriented policy which I don’t need to use often, but really appreciate when I do need it.

I am grateful to be a Costco member able to enjoy & utilize fantastic customer service support.


PS:  I started to write this Gratitude blog 16 days ago before I fell out with a swollen leg due to secondary problems from old blood clots in my left leg.  I am also grateful for having escaped that situation relatively unscathed beyond lots of bed rest.

A Warm Spring Day


Yay! It will be our first weekend over 70F for the first time in six months (or more).  Today was in the high 60s.  Took Dan and Lea out to lunch at Spud’s Fish & Chips on Greenlake followed by a walk along the NE corner of Greenlake.

Lea has ten days clean from heroin thanks being able to get methadone from a local clinic here in Bellevue.  She has to go 6 days a week to her dose.  They are closed on Sundays and give her a “carry” dose on Saturdays.

Picked up Greg at the Greyhound Station in Seattle last night.  He rode from Houston to Seattle in almost 3 days.  It was good to see him again.

Gave Leslee a ride to the airport this afternoon.  She is flying to LA to see both of her sons and then drive to Utah with Roger from a couple days of skiing and camping.  Bon Voyage!  Leslee flys more on a lower income than anyone else I know—by far and away.  It is impressive how much time she gets to spend with her sons on outdoor getaways.

Drug addiction has had a huge toll in my life and those of my friends in recovery.  It sucks that we have had so many problems.  It is a miracle that today we are alive and in recovery improving our lives.

I am grateful for warm sunny spring days along with the love and support of my friends in recovery. 

A return to my Gratitude blog


After two weeks of again dealing with blood clots in my left thigh, I have ginned-up enough juice to get back to my Gratitude blogging.

I am in a good mood today with many good things in my life.  Michelle is on week 2 of treatment at Thunderbird.  Lea has been going to the THS methadone clinic for 16 days and has been heroin-free for over a week.  Greg is coming back to Seattle from Houston via Greyhound today, I will pick him up in Seattle tonight.

I am grateful for my happiness, the enormous progress being made by my friends  and the good things in my life today.

Becoming More Spiritual


From today’s Daily Reflections,   “The word “entered” . . . and the phrase “entered into the world of the Spirit” are very significant. They imply action, a beginning, getting into, a prerequisite to maintaining my spiritual growth, the “Spirit” being the immaterial part of me. Barriers to my spiritual growth are self-centeredness and a materialistic focus on worldly things.
            Spirituality means devotion to spiritual instead of worldly things, it means obedience to God’s will for me. I understand spiritual things to be: unconditional love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control and humility. Any time I allow selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear to be a part of me, I block out spiritual things. As I maintain my sobriety, growing spiritually becomes a lifelong process. My goal is spiritual growth, accepting that I’ll never have spiritual perfection.”

Becoming more spiritual or having greater faith in a higher power makes me less fearful.  I have made great progress in living a more spiritual life.  The good news is that as I get more spiritual, I have more faith and trust in a spiritual program of action thus wanting even more spirituality.  The bad news is that I still have a long long ways to go.  Progress, not perfection.

I am grateful for my many spiritual blessings such as more faith and less fear.

Methadone Clinic: Day 1


I have been helping a heroin addict transition to using methadone and giving up heroin.  After getting an evaluation yesterday, Lea was approved for methadone treatment.  Today was her  first day at the Theraputic Health Services (THS) clinic in Bellevue for methadone.

Watching the traffic through the clinic door while sitting in my car in the parking lot, I am guessing THS served methadone to 100+ people while I waited.  It might well be a total of  200-300 addicts each day since they serve from 8:30 to 11:30 and I was only there for 1.5 hours. 

Most people were in and out in 5-10 minutes.  Lea took much longer her on first day since THS required a urine sample and she had peed right before the short drive to the clinic.  Addicts in active addiction have a terribly difficult time hearing, remembering and following directions.  I am sure they told her not 24 hours ago that she would need to give a urine sample.  Hopefully she will do better in the future.

The effects of using heroin must provide a powerful high.  The addiction is pure slavery for having to do whatever it takes to get more heroin every day or be dope-sick from the withdrawals.  There is no time off for holidays, birthdays or sick days.  It is not the drug for me.  I am too lazy to have to hustle money for drugs every damned day.

I am grateful I am not a heroin addict and also that addicts such as Lea have free access to social services to help treat and mitigate their heroin addiction.

Working With Others


 When I relapsed for a crack night in 2005, I found a passage in a step-study guide called The Little Red Book that described my experience as being a lack of connection with my higher power.  It seemed both plausible and accurate that m spirituality lacked power prior to my relapse.

I don’t have verse from the literature that succinctly describes the source and/or cause of my last relapse.  The first paragraph from chapter 5 How it Works from the Big Book list three possibilities. “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.”

It would be ultimate in self-victimization to say that is my problem and quit trying to work the program.  That would be a quick trip to the Hobbesian existence of my life being nasty, brutish and short.

After much discussion with other AA members with much sobriety and great wisdom, my conclusion was that I needed to stop doing my 12-step service work home alone while isolating behind my keyboard and work directly with other alcoholics.  My very life depends on my being of service to others. 

I met two ladies in my relapse that are now willing and working hard to get sober.  There is a risk that I go back out instead of staying sober since we share crack as a drug of choice.  That could happen.  I would rather die bolding trying to live a better life rather than cower in fear at home and alone with my disease.  It is better to try and fail than to simply quit because there is risk to working an active solution.

I am grateful for having the grit to keep trying to live a better life helping others instead of quitting by no longer getting up when knock-down by life.





Only Have To Change Clocks for DST Twice A Year


This morning at 2 AM, time sprung forward an hour.  My computer clocks automatically updated themselves.  I changed a few clocks last night and will update the rest of them after I write this.  DST feels like a sap to the masses for me much like Homeland Security doing security theater at airports to “make us all safer”.

We could realize incredible energy savings and be safer by not fighting a war on the far side of the world in a country that has never been conquered thus avoiding further infuriation of the billion+ Muslims around the world.  To me, DST has little to do with energy savings and is a crappy magic trick by the government to distract the people from real issues such as jobs, spending and public healthcare.

I am grateful our benevolent big brother only makes us change clocks twice a year.

Letting Go of Resentments, Forgiveness and Whopping Lies


I am working closely with a friend in active heroin addiction that is trying to quit by getting on a methadone treatment program.  She claims to have used since she was 7 years old except for the occasional clean time stint in jail.  Lea nice enough person and she is both willing and working very hard at changing her life.

For practical purposes, it is physically impossible for her to own up to her mistakes.  The toilet in the guest bathroom was deemed non-functioning last night after plunged and flushed it a dozen times last night.   This afternoon, I went work on it some more.  The formerly clear water was brown and the immediately toilet overflowed.  Obviously it had been pooped in.  There were only two of us here and I never use that bathroom.  She denied having used it and flew into a rage as if that would make her more clearly innocent.  It didn’t.  I did not even say a word to her besides let me out of the bathroom when she stood there blocking the door.

The blatant lies are more annoying than the questionable actions and behaviors.  I can chalk up most of the behaviors to either not knowing better, poor impulse control or a lack of respect for property and people.  Most likely it is some combination of all three in any given not-responsible situation.   Lying about not having done something when clearly busted for said action baffles and/or confuses me.  She is not so delusional that she remembers an alternate reality.   My guess is that denying socially unacceptable behaviors is a way of avoiding responsibility for our lives and remaining a victim laden with self-pity.

The maintance guy is here now.  I just talked with my sponsee who ‘fessed up to having a tryst with a married woman.  This morning’s Alanon meeting was on forgiveness. I did my Gratitude blog writing.  Lea went for a walk.  I can focus on the bigger picture of excellent progress t improving our lives instead of being stuck on this short-lived element of negativity.

I am grateful for more mature and better tools that get me through short term aggravations while remaining focused on the long term goals.

Got Some Exercise Yesterday--My Newest Habit


My life is excessively sedentary—even for a paraplegic using a wheelchair for mobility.  Yesterday I used my desktop hand-bike for a couple of minutes for the first time in at least a year.  A couple of minutes is not much by way of absolute time.  It is a huge improvement in the relative time spent exercising from how it was.  Progress, not perfection.

The daily habits of writing, reading, meditating, meetings and now exercise make my life simple and better.  I often want to skip a meeting.  Practicing going every day by going every day is a great habit.  Had a half-dozen “good” rationalizations for not going to a meeting last night.  Felt a lot better after I left the meeting for having experienced the fellowship at the meeting and for consistently good self-care on a daily basis.

I am grateful for the skills I have developed this year in learning new habits, for the new habits and how they make my life better.

Internet Shopping


I have been meaning to write a gratitude post for over an hour.  Have to go meet Michelle as of a phone call just now and so don’t have time for a longer post.  Don’t want to postpone writing at least a short gratitude blog post.

I got sucked into Amazon shopping and web surfing.   No surprise there.  I love my web surfing.  Web shopping is great but there is are financial and storage-space limitations on how much crap I can buy off the web.

I am grateful for the power and speed of both my PC and the Internet.

Time for Daily Exercise


My sister sent me this article yesterday http://www.outsideonline.com/fitness/Your-Fat-Has-a-Brain.html.  I know I need to get more exercise.   As it is, I am so overweight and out of shape, it is difficult to safely get in and out of my wheelchair when using my bed, car or shower, much less anything out of my daily routing.

Today I will make my life better by adding few minutes exercise to my daily routing of gratitude writing,  affirmation reading, and meditating.

I am grateful for hope, faith and the progress I am making in my life.

Today - March 5th is my Birthday!


Happy birthday to me.  Getting older is better than I thought it would be!

I am grateful to be getting older. 

A Nordstrom’s Birthday Party


The Bellevue Square Nordstrom’s has two restaurants.  The Grill on the second floor has the best Cobb Salad in Bellevue.   The Marketplace CafĂ© on the third floor is a nice quiet place to meet on Sunday evening since they stop serving food at 6.  We got there about 5:45.

Leslee organized a birthday party for me there last night.  Caroline, Charlie, Margie and Toni joined us for an hour of conversation & camaraderie along with birthday gifts for yours truly.   They quietly serenaded me with happy birthday.  It was the most loving rendition of happy birthday ever sung to me.

The Tuscan salmon with grilled vegetables was amazingly delicious for a relatively low price.

Sandy’s birthday is on the 9th.  We will celebrate our birthday’s together tonight with dinner, conversation and an exchange of birthday cards.

So far, my plan for tomorrow is to play bingo on my birthday at the Tulalip Casino with Angey, Lea and Michelle.  Caroline might join us.  Casino bingo will stretch my comfort zone a bit and will definitely be something different.  Angey is the only person I know that shares a March 5th birthday with me.

I am grateful for good friends sharing our lives and for nice birthday events together.

Having Wisdom vs Knowledge


I had a wonderful education learning lots of science, engineering, math, history and economics.  There was a lot of knowledge in my head, but very little wisdom.  I clearly lacked enough wisdom to live a practical sustainable life.

Thanks to the miracle of recovery and 12-step programs, I have considerably more wisdom today than ever before (which does not necessarily mean a lot of wisdom—just more than before).

For example, yesterday a man shared at a meeting how he had relapsed a month ago and had not told his sponsor.  I explained to him he had a choice between calling his sponsor or relapsing again (guess where I got this wisdom???) and that I would go outside with him while he called his sponsor.  He did call his sponsor to tell him about his relapse.  Now he has a chance at staying sober without a premeditated relapse lying in wait for him.

Another guy wanted to go to detox.  Took him to Harborview ER and told him to let them know he was suicidal (which he was based on the references to a gun and stepping in front of a bus).  He told the intake people he was not suicidal.  No detox. 

I was 38 when I checked into the psych ward at Harborview.  This guy is 38.  That was a flashback for me on the drive home.  I have made a lot of progress since then.

I am grateful for the wisdom and knowledge I have learned in my life in recovery.

Expressing Gratitude Via the Written Word

Stuck for a topic this morning, I googled gratitude quotes. 8.2 million results later, I was optimistic about finding a topic there somewhere while reading about others thoughts on gratitude.


    Here is a list of the seven greatest gratitude quotes ever from Psychology Today
    1. "Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." - Marcel Proust
    2. "We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures." - Thornton Wilder
    3. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. John F. Kennedy
    4. At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. Albert Schweitzer
    5. The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated.
-- WIlliam James
    6. "Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough."
-- Oprah Winfrey
    7. He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has." - Epictetus

Reading a half-dozen other pages on gratitude, another PT article suggested five ways to boost your gratitude quotient (GQ). The 5th suggestion was to keep thank you notes short and sweet. That reminded me of the frustration I felt as a child not having the wherewithal (gumption? experience?) to write thank you notes for gifts and acts of kindness. We used “please” and “thank you” a lot in our family vocabulary, but I don’t remember us expressing gratitude as a way of life or communication.

I still am not much for paper thank you notes, but thanks to electronic messaging such as email and texting, there are ways to write gratitude notes that work for me.

I am grateful to be able to express my gratitude via the written word to others to express my appreciation for them.

Flexible Scheduling

My morning routine was wiped out helping a friend that has planning & communication issues. No major problems beyond writing my gratitude post late in the day.

Listening to my friend explain her plan last night, she expressed frustration at my not comprehending her timeline after she told me three times. In hindsight, it was easy to determine the source of my confusion. Nonetheless, she is making a valiant effort to find and keep sobriety. It is easy to have tolerance for a fellow addict when they are willing to do the work it takes to get and stay sober.

I am grateful for my ability to plan and put into action daily living activities on a functional independent basis.