Special thanks

Just when I pretty much lost all faith in humanity I get wonderfully surprised. I won't go into much detail but I have been hitting a really bad spell with bills lately mostly them getting backed up sometime almost getting some utility bills shut off due to not being able to pay on time. Yesterday was a perfect example. I was on the Yucaipa Buy Sell Trade 2.0 Facebook page. I was just asking a simple question about if anyone new of any programs that could help with utility bills. To my surprise the out pouring of help and suggestions was overwhelming needless to say someone actually offered to help pay it, and this person didn't even know me. So I just wanted to share this with all of you who take the time to read this blog. That no matter how dark everything seems to be or becomes there are still wonderful unselfish people out there willing to go that extra mile to help someone in need. So to all of you on the Yucaipa Buy Sell Trade 2.0 Facebook I thank you From the bottom of my heart. To all my friends and family who have also gone above and beyond by helping by either making sure I get to my Dr.'s appointments to just lending helpful words of encouragement to some and you know who you are that have gone even further by helping me in other ways. I truly thank you. You don't realize how much you all have helped back away from a very dangerous ledge.
Please know your hard work isn't in in vain I am fighting and will continue to fight. Once everything works out I will definitely pay it forward.

Thank you all and God Bless.

Thoughts that consume me.

I lay awake at night and the thoughts bombard me constantly. What did I do to deserve what has been happening these past few years? Who did I wrong that keeps me on this path of suffering? Why can't I keep these horrible thoughts from invading every aspect of my life? I look across the room when I am alone with these thoughts and see the pill bottle calling me. Telling me it would be ok, it will help stop the pain. I have lost many friends to this depression. I lay awake countless nights with thoughts of how many people actually know or let alone care what I am going through. How many people say things like he is just wanting sympathy or its not as bad as he is making it out to believe. Why do I feel that I need to keep a distance from people because I may hurt them. Why do I have the urge to just start punching people till I feel better about myself. Some thoughts go into greater detail like doing something drastic and overly violent to people just to shed light on the frustration of the turmoil of what I am going through with this depression and the never ending battle with worker's comp and the situation  I am in at this house. I see people who are living happy lives and things going their way and while I am completely happy and proud for them. The thoughts of just wanting to hate them start to creep in. This is not me this is not who I am. I am John I am the one who has always had friends who has always been the overly funny guy that people like having around. I feel him slipping away being over taken by this hateful, depressed fueled violent dark person that wants to cause pain and hurt to everyone around him and this terrifies me. I want to be happy I want to enjoy time with my loved ones. I don't want to just have little moments of happiness that eventually give way to darker thoughts like they have been lately. I love my wife and my mother. I don't want to put them through this anymore than what they have already had to be put through with me. I want to go out and be me. I want to be the John that didn't care what people thought! I want to be the John that people called jolly and happy and fun to be around. Not this john that has alienated some good friends and have pissed off other friends to where they don't even acknowledge my existence. If this keeps up I am afraid of what will happen there is only so much I can fight before I give up throw in the towel. I want to get better! I need to get better!

I love you all thank you for taking the time to read this.

What's going on and other things everyone should know.

OK Where to begin since it's been awhile since I blogged due to things and feelings which I will explain I haven't been feeling like doing anything. My psychotherapist told me I should honestly blog about everything that has been going on so here we go.

I was injured in August of 2009 at work . Before all of this I was active,  I made okay money, I was able to help support my mother and my soon to be wife, I was losing weight, I would go fishing and the movies and I was able to walk around without difficulty.  In 2010 I was put on a leave of absence from work because work couldn't accommodate my work restrictions. Around Halloween time I had surgery for the injury which didn't really help and from that injury I ended up with other complications to other body parts. Start of 2011 workman's comp started arguing everything that came up to the point where I needed to get a lawyer. In 2011 workman's comp stopped paying me so what money I was getting stopped at this point my employer sent me a letter saying that I was fired due to the medical condition from my injury. Now I tried to get unemployment but that couldn't be done because unemployment said they need income from the previous year which they couldn't get because I wasn't working. I wasn't working because from 2010 till now 2015 I have been listed has TTD, (Temporary Totally Disabled). The lawyer has advised me that working would cause problems with my workman's comp case. Now because of all of this and the injury which wasn't allowing me to walk very well or do any kind of exercise I have gained close to 100 lbs. Because of that the injury and my limp has created severe knee pain and lower back pain. Because of the weight gain and not being able to work, it has triggered severe depression and a social anxiety disorder.

My lawyer got me in to see a new orthopedic doctor, who is just wonderful. He said that my knee injury that was caused by my ankle surgery and it has changed the way I walk. I have two minor tears in my ligaments. The problem is that he doesn't want to do surgery because at my weight it wouldn't really fix anything. He then suggested bariatric weight loss surgery. Well of course workman's comp said no. Then the lawyer said okay lets go to court. We go to court, which honestly happens every few months because this company doesn't get in touch with people, or returns calls, just constantly says no. Well, we get the okay for the surgery and I get to go to a consultation for my bariatric surgery. I go through what takes a years time of testing because at every door they say no or they don't return authorization. Finally though I finish up with the tests, get medications to control blood pressure and other things that were brought on by the huge weight gain and change in my lifestyle from my injury. I go for a follow up with my bariatric surgeon and he says they will call me to schedule the date of my surgery when the get the final clearance from workman's comp. The kicker is now workman's comp is saying no again to the surgery and it's been almost 6 months since my last tests. This time it's supposedly because they aren't accredited with workman's comp. Come to find out, no bariatric surgeon is. So here I am, having to wait again for another court date and if it doesn't happen soon, I will have to go through another series of tests, which could take another year.

During this time for the past 3 years I haven't had any source of income what so ever. My mother, who is in her late sixties is working and the social security that she gets from my father passing takes care of the mortgage payment. My wife who suffers from Crohns disease is also working on and off. The house we live in still has over 90k in mortgage left. Bills are stacking up and I even at one point sold my car to make sure bills were covered. The flooring in our house is destroyed, and half the electrical in the house doesn't work. I can't do anything to fix it because workman's comp is dragging this out and making things difficult.

I have signed up for disability, they turned me down twice and I had to get a lawyer for that as well. At the moment, I am temporarily totally disabled and should qualify for it, at least for the time being. They told me it could take up to a year to see a judge and that year is coming up next month.

I feel like I am going crazy at times. There is no extra money to even go and do things anymore. It was suggested by my therapist to try video game streaming and maybe starting a you tube channel, which I was excited about. Then my insecurities and self esteem kicked in and I can't even bring myself to do that because the voice inside my head tells me "what person would tune in to whatever you are doing because you are a fat ugly loser."

The wife and mom are at a loss because the mostly cheery happy John that they know and love has pretty much all but disappeared and what is left is a depressed sad shell of a man who beats himself up on a daily basis for not being able to provide for his family and keep the promise to father that he would take care of his mom when he passed. I am trying to stay on the positive side and look for bright spots here and there but damn, it is so hard. Well I guess this is enough whining now but I wanted to be honest with you all and let you all know exactly what is going on with me right now.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog I appreciate it.
Hopefully soon the funny funny lively john will be back.

Love you all.

Whats going on with me at the moment.

Well this will be a short little blog to give you a heads up about whats going on with me. I am now in the waiting period of finding out about my Gastric bypass surgery with sleeve to get scheduled. Once I get a date I will let everyone know about it and will be blogging about the weight loss journey that it entitles. I might post videos for it also not quite sure yet though. If you all will be interested please let me know, your input will be very valuable to me.

I should be going fishing a little bit more here soon. It's something I love doing and its easy on my ankle and knee. My good friend and longtime fishing buddy Dennis sent me some fishing flies that he made that I am dying to try out.

March 7th I am going to the 3rd annual Spookshow that the Halloween club is putting on. I will be taking pictures and blogging about it when I get back. I am looking forward to it. Those of you who know me know I love Halloween and all sorts of dark and weird things. I will have a link posted if you are interested in going or at least checking it out.

Well that's about it for me for right now please stay tuned for more blogs and such. Love you all.

The Rantings of an Old Man: New Year hopefully new me!

The Rantings of an Old Man: New Year hopefully new me!: Well boys and girls the new year is upon us let's hope this brings new and exciting things for all of us. I hope this year brings some b...

New Year hopefully new me!

Well boys and girls the new year is upon us let's hope this brings new and exciting things for all of us. I hope this year brings some big changes for me as well as my family. I have an actual doctor that I can see on a regular basis. Hopefully workman's comp insurance (Avizent or York, whatever their name is because they like being a pain and changing their name whenever I get denials to see my therapist or psychiatrist) will follow through and help with the scheduling of my Gastric Bypass surgery. Hey the sun does shine on a dogs butt every now and again right?

I am looking forward to hopefully hanging out with my friends karl and liz and their wonderful kids more this year. I am also planning on not being such a hermit and hopefully hanging out with a few more of you friends in the future upcoming months. I am going to attempt some more regular blogging and IF and when the surgery happens doing a youtube video of progress and also I am going to reattempt streaming. I am hugely involved in playing World of Warcraft again after a 2 year hiatus.  I have decided that I should enjoy streaming that since I am so familiar with it so wish me luck. I just let depression take hold really badly these last few months and didn't stream or anything and that was just dumb. I made some pretty cool friends on Twitch.tv  and I feel like I let them down. Well I am back and this new year I will not let them down. I truly hope they still have my back when it comes to streaming. I truly need to figure out how to youtube and stuff so the you tube idea might take awhile because I have never done anything like it.

Well this is a short little blog I know. Hopefully soon I will see something that will  cause me a rant or memory of something funny or exciting that happened in the past that I can blog about.

If you guys want a topic or something blogged about from my point of view leave a comment below.

You all have a great New Year.

The Old Man.

Fathers

Well with Halloween right around the corner, it has stirred up memories of Halloweens past. When these memories pop into my head I will share them with you all. The one that popped into my head last night and earlier this morning is about my deceased father/dad. Yes he was both to me. He was strict and instilled personality traits like a father should, but also was a also an understanding and fun friend as a dad should be. I will always miss him and he is always in my heart and mind. Now lets get onto the memories.

My love for Halloween has always been huge and I honestly believe some of it is because of my dad. Now he never instilled the scary violent and terror inducing part that most of you know I love about Halloween. He did however instill the creative and some of the over the top Halloween things that I have done in the past. He always went out of his way to make Halloweens special for us kids in the ways of costumes and taking us trick or treating, even when he had to get up early for work the next morning. I have tons of awesome memories of my father but I will save those for other blogs I will just talk about this one cause it goes with the Halloween theme and also give you some insight on the loving and awesome talent my father had.

I believe I was around 9 years old and the movie Star Wars was the end all be all of sci-fi movies. Kids wanted to be Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C3PO, R2D2, Princess Leia, well you get the picture. No, I didn't want to be Princess Leia before you even ask! I was infatuated with R2D2 at the time and wanted to be him for Halloween. Now most, not all, but most dads would of just gone to the costume store and bought the costume that they had back then, you know the kind it consisted of a plastic vinyl like pants and top with just a face mask that kind of looked like R2D2. Nope not my father. He built an almost exact replica costume I could wear trick or treating and even to enter the neighborhoods Halloween contest. This was a severe badass R2D2 costume. He spent weeks making this from a barrel the thick cardboard kind of barrel with a complete paper mache dome. It would fit over me with shoulder straps and my legs would come out through the bottom and my mother sewed some silver looking pants that looked kind of robotic that I could wear. So you know how intricate this was and how awesome it looked, my dad before he died was a really good graphic designer/typesetter. He drew the plaque that is on the moon for the moon landing and my grandfather (who I will blog about at a later date) who was a master printer printed the plaque that is actually on the moon. My father also worked on the panels that were used on the space shuttle at the time. So needless to say he was a very talented individual. He would work all day then come home and work on this costume at night and on weekends to make sure it was just right and perfect. Hopefully soon I will find the pictures of me in the costume and I will update this blog and my facebook page with these pics so you all could see. Let me tell you and trust me when I say this that this was one incredible costume ever made by hand back in those days you couldn't buy pre-mades of this quality. By the way every costume contest I entered I always took first place. IT WAS AWESOME!! Words can't describe what an awesome and great man my father was and I miss him every day.

In closing I would just like to say to all of you who still have their dads/fathers around, please don't wait till fathers day to let them know what they mean to you. Once you are done reading this blog pick up the phone and give your dad a call and let him know how much he means to you. Talk to him about a memory or just say you called to say I love you Dad. Dads do a lot for us and they sacrifice a lot for our well being. They deserve more recognition than just one day. In all seriousness, all parents deserve to be honored everyday both Moms and Dads. If you are a Mom or Dad, please for the love of all that is holy, be a bigger part of your child's life. You are molding them to who they are supposed to be. Don't let TV or video games become the driving force in your child's life. Step up and be a parent, a friend, a confidant, and watch how much your family dynamic will change and how much your child will grow both spiritually and mentally. We all aren't going to live forever and don't you want a legacy left that makes people say "That child was raised right and proper". You dont want to be the parents that look back and say where did I go wrong? I will stop the lecture part of this blog, I am just really passionate about this especially with the direction this world is going now. If parents would just take the time to be parents and instill a little more values, if children would just take the time to just pull themselves away from tv and video games or at least find a balance between those things and your family you will feel so much better. Ok, I have rambled on enough. I hope you enjoy this little stroll down memory lane that ends in a little bit of a rant cause I easily get sidetracked.

Thank you again for reading these blogs I am really trying to blog more and I feel I am getting into the swing of it. Take care of yourselves and don't forget to call you father lol. If your father has passed away, do what I do, and take a moment to remember him. Talk to friends or loved ones about your fondest memory. Heck if you want post a comment about your fondest memory of your father here on my blog in the comment section I will definitely read it.