For some time now you may have noticed that I've been bitching about my back pain. In point of fact the pain is not simply in my back but down my legs, down my arms and in my neck. The tingling is constantly in my arms and fingers and midback. The burning in the legs has slowed down, maybe because I'm trying so hard to adjust my posture, but the tingling has increased. Just so you know.

I called a massage therapist in town yeaterday. I'd been to see her before and it was very nice to have hours of no pain whatsoever without being dizzy from drugs. I mentioned that I had bought the last MRIs and radiologist's report and she asked me to read it to her. I obliged with her helping me through the technical terms and then she said "So what they're saying is that from the T12 down thru the sacrum your back is trashed." That's what I've been telling people for some time now but it's nice to hear someone else reach that conclusion. Friday I'm going to see her and get some work on the problem. I want to find out if the insurance will cover such treatments. You'd think it would since the drugs I'm taking constantly must cost a lot and without some kind of therapy on the root causes of the pain I'll be taking drugs for the rest of my life, wearing out my liver and kidneys in the process, but then the insurance says it covers accupuncture until you try to get them to pay and then they explain that they only cover accupuncture when performed by an MD. Why they think a western trained MD would be better qualified to needle my back than someone with many more years of training and experience is beyond me, but that's what they want.

I've been wanting to use my little tape recorder to get down some random thoughts for this blog, but I can't find the tapes or the machine anymore. The drugs trash my memory, which is why I wanted a pocket recorder to record my thoughts. By the time I get over to the computer I have forgotten so much of my line of thought I tend to ramble. On the other hand if I try to go without the drugs the pain is so bad I tend to truncate my writings so I can go pace around for awhile doing lamaze breathing. Right now it feels like my left arm is getting ready to go into shingles mode, like some brute is pinching my elbow and my right hand is tingling. One of the neat things, though, is that I can trace some of the larger nerves by where the pain is. So I got that going for me.

A born again Christian writes in the editorial page that God hates homosexuals and destroyed Sodom and Gomorra so gay mariages will result in God destroying America. I wonder why God hasn't destroyed any of the other cities in the modern world where gays are running around? Ptown on the Cape, for instance, is right out there in clear sight. Maybe He ran out of fire and brimstone so He's going to have to use nuclear, biological and chemical weapons this time around. Oddly enough, another writer pointed out that the King James version of the Bible was authorized by a flaming queen: King James. Well, I'm sure once the True Believers convert America into a theocracy we'll sort it all out. Shuffle all the gays, gypsies and pagans into Vegas and then nuke it. St. Hitler would be so proud of us! Nothing like a little rabid hatred after the morning prayers.

I wonder what would happen if we got a bunch of grandmothers to march on Washington to demand that their families come home from the war? I wonder if Kent State would be revisited? Most of my daughter's friends don't know much about the smaller demonstrations where people were clubbed to death or maced in the eyes and blinded, but they know about Kent State. They know it could happen again, to anyone. These folks don't care about who they kill and maim, or they wouldn't be so quick to drop cluster bombs on children.

It's really hard to stop the back from hurting when your heart is hurting.

I saw my boy yesterday, saw that he looked as bad now, four years after the accident, as he did when we first got him back to NY and into a decent facility. But all facilities are manned by people and these people have given up. Last night I saw Michael Moore's movie and saw a vet with brain damage trying to talk about things. If Jon ever talks again that will be about as good as it gets for him. We are making thousands of people just like that, many of them Americans. George doesn't care. His drunken happy daughters will never go to war, never risk their lives for others. That's all he cares about. If I were to take him to Lake Katrine and show him the crippled Americans dying there all he would worry about would be if they voted or not or if there was a camera nearby. Trouble is, it's about the same for Kerry. He's making money off of death. He'll never have to work again either, just talk. He'll be a millionaire by talking and hell, I can talk til you're blue in the face, why aren't I even remotely rich? I have $30 in the bank and a boy in a wheelchair who can't come home in part because his bedroom has two buckets to catch rain water from the holes in the roof. But at least our toilets flush and our lights go on, which is more than can be said for the poor slobs living in the countries we have liberated in the name of rabid American Christian Capitalism.

You might have noticed that tired old men with acheing backs get grumpy. We also get tired of being tired, tired of holding up our kid's heads to show them a poster on the wall. Tired of mopping up mucus from their chests where the trache leaks. Tired of waking up to cat vomit and dog shit. My friends tell me to cheer up and get on with my life. I'm not always sure I want to, but then, who would hold my son's head?