Jason Cotton's Blog

This week I was conspired against. One thing I learned as the only boy in the family, when you see two women with their heads together it usually meant trouble for me.

Well this time was a bit different. While I was in the hospital a dear and close friend got with Deb and while I I was being drugged and tested and getting my pain medications all straightened out these two took my phone and added some things.

Everyone who knows me knows that I’m a gadget geek. When I say phone I don’t mean those little flip phones with just the number key pads. My phone is a PDA style phone with a full keyboard. Its basically a computer in your pocket. Continue reading →

By the title you are probably thinking that I’m talking about the way we as patients are treated by our caregivers, but I’m not. I’m talking about how we as patients treat our caregivers and how we treat our loved ones.

There is a line that I’ve heard several times in one form or another. “He has a right to be that way with everything he’s gone through.” BULLSHIT.

Just because I have cancer and have had it for awhile now gives me absolutely no right what so ever to treat anyone especially a loved one or a nurse that is taking care of me like shit. I’ve been guilty of being snappy and I’ve done bad things and people used that excuse for my actions and that’s a load of Crap. When I threw that empty can at a nurse and when I purposefully did not try to get a bin to throw up in, I went over the line. And I got called on it Continue reading →

I performed one of the most grievous of sins know to man. It was utter sacrilege.

I sat on a friends couch and was offered the liquid necter of the gods… New Castle Brown Ale. To call this beverage a beer demeans it, diminishes it, insults it. How can you class this holy of holies, this bottled sunshine, this captured brilliance that is New Castle as “beer” when we call Bud, Miller and (shiver) Heineken “beer”? New Castle is to these other “beers” as a tiger is to a house cat… a mangy house cat… with mange… and fur-balls… the kind of cat you don’t like to pet for fear of catching a “never-get-over”.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes.

I was given the gift of a New Castle. I took a couple sips from it and then left it untended, unenjoyed, undrank for over two hours on the table. I just let it sit there getting warm. This is a grievous error on my part but was that enough for me? Nay!

To add insult to injury to this fine upstanding beverage, I kick it with my foot and spill it all over the floor.

I should be drawn and quartered for such a sin… or worse yet… not offered another for a period of time. This period of time should not excede 24 hours as that would be cruel and unusual punishment and is frowned upon by the Geneva Convention.

For this sin I am truly ashamed.

It’s amazing on what a couple of hours of good sleep can do to your mood and perceptions of things. It’s not that my headache is any better or worse than it was from the last couple of days it’s that since I’ve slept I can deal with it. With sleep my mind is strong again and can push that pain away.

It still feels like my eyes are going to bleed and that someone has smashed a 50lb sledge hammer into my skull but with sleep I’m more able to cope with it.

So today is a good day, you would most likely be in bed moping and not able to move but my perception of tolerable pain has been so warped that today isn’t that bad.

A friend just sent me a poem/song that she liked in reply to my post making a difference. I liked it so I’m sharing it.

Here are some lines I took from a song I love and I took out some words and put in some but this says so much that you do for people who know you.
.
I’ve heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason bringing something we must learn and we are led to those who help us most to grow if we let them,
and we help them in return.
Because I know you I have been changed for the better and for good.
It well may be that we will never meet in this lifetime what I have learned from you
You’ll be with me, like a hand print on my heart now
By being my friend I can say,
I’ve been changed for the better because I knew you…
I’ve been changed for good.

Thanks N