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It is come to my attention that my primary blog (art blog dot com) is, big surprise, not working. Along with the fact that, over the holiday season, I was diagnosed with advanced rheumatoid arthritis in my left hand. [Yes, that means that Danny spent more than a few hours in the emergency room since Thanksgiving] That means I have not been posting… publishing as much as I would like.. or care. I know a lot of you… A lot of you, My Dear Readers, care about me. Moreover, I mean more (to some of you) than just… in the passing kind of abandoned stray cat way. I understand that with that caring comes responsibility. Responsibility to you, My Dear Readers, to be honest… To be forthright… In addition, to not cause you undue worry or concern.
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However, I’m not family to any of you. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s (at least for me) are times meant especially for family. The last thing in the world I want to do is to interrupt your beautiful holiday time, with you and your families. Therefore, I did my best to write as much as I could… to keep things going… to make a video (as promised) so that you wouldn’t worry. You all mean so much to me and I don’t want to make you worry. However, the holidays are over now. In addition, I’d like to take this moment to say (from the very depths of my heart) I hope each and every one of you, My Dear Readers, had a wonderful holiday season with your families.
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I genuinely hope that over the past six weeks you had occasion to build memories with your families and loved ones that you will be happy to return to time and time again year after year. I don’t have any family. Correction, I don’t have any blood family that care enough to lay claim to me… as family. There’s a whole plethora of reasons why the people that; I grew up with, I stood as best man as they got married, I learned how to tie my shoes from, they bought me beer when I was under age, they taught me how to play board games, they held me when I was scared. These people, these family members, don’t want me in their lives. Stop. Right there, stop. I have no ill will. I have no desire for sympathy or, God bless your soul, pity. I say this because it’s true and because if you’ve read my work more than once you know I’m a brutally honest man. Whereas I did not spend any holiday with family I still have a very deep respect for you spending time with your family.
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So between the holiday onset of my rheumatoid arthritis and the primary location of my blog being, and again, in operative? I have not written as much as I would like. I have not told his many tales as I want to. I have not taken you to all the places I could (and should) take you to. For that, I apologize. 2014 is a whole new fresh year. It’s a whole new opportunity. As matter fact, it’s 365 opportunities back to back. I’m going to take this year out and ride it hard, put it up wet.
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You may not understand this, My Dear Readers, but there are two different locations for mu blog The Other Shoe. These two different locations each have their own readers… their own readership. Believe it or not you don’t all like, or dislike, the same things. Believe it or not there are not a whole lot of you that visit both blogs. Believe it or not I really don’t like it when I can only put something I’ve written on one of the other blogs.
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It just doesn’t feel fair to me to post something at blog.com… and not post it to word press.com. I feel like I’m cheating. I feel like I’m buying a present for only one of my children and out the other. That is why, later this year, I’m in a do everything I can to register the new domain The Other Shoe.blog. And then I’m going to ask all of my readers at blog.com and all of my readers at word press to join me at the new location. I can’t tell you how much it would mean to me to be able to do that, to have one blog where I am in control. One that never breaks down… where everybody (at the same time) can read everything I write when I write it.
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I don’t know how many of you, My Dear Readers, had the occasion to be in emergency room or hospital like recently. I haven’t been in one (an emergency room) in probably a decade. Further, in a hospital well, since the surgery on my cervical spine in 2007. Even going into the emergency room now they, like, treat you like you’re going to die. I say that… and, you say that is an overstatement… yes. However, it struck me when they asked me;
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“Mr. Hanning do you have a living will or a medical power of attorney?”
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I have a medical power of attorney and if, God forbid, something dire happens to me and I’m not able to write or think for myself? Allen is the guy to decide what’s to be done with me if I can’t think for myself. However, the will… The will is something I haven’t given a whole lot of thought about.
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I have interesting relationships with my doctors. I don’t know of is my personality, I don’t know if it’s because I have an education in medicine i.e. a background and training in pharmacy, or if it’s because I treat doctors the same way I treated the men my father worked for they were used to go deep-sea fishing with on their boat. For what ever reason, I always have conversations with my doctors, deep and open even wandering conversations. While saying that’s where I’m getting too, is this; the last neurosurgeon I had a visit with I asked him to be completely honest with me about my condition. He’d already told me there was really nothing he could do for me in my current state. He was sending need to have an MRI done but he knew most likely he and I would never see each other again. So he said a couple of things to me that you don’t often hear from physicians. Something I doubt most of you have ever heard from your personal physician.
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First, he said to me “Daniel your condition will likely never improve. As a matter of fact odds are your condition will become progressively worse until you die.”
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Next, he said to me “Daniel, you’ll be in pain for the rest of your life. I hope that you can always find physicians to help you get the pain medications you need… Because you will never be out of pain for the rest of your life.”
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Then he explained to me that my condition would most likely take my life. Be it something as simple as slipping and falling while walking into someone’s house. Or, as complicated and frightening as being in a car accident… At some point my vertebrae will impinge on my spinal cord and result in a condition “not conducive with life”.
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Then he said something to me that struck me, and still sticks with me to this day. He said to me;
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“Daniel in my life practicing medicine I’ve told a fair number of people, with neurological diseases, what I’ve just told you.”
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Then he told me that people generally react in only two ways. He said to me that the majority of people become very saddened and very depressed, and they shut down. They shut down emotionally. They shut down socially. They shut down to their family. They shut down with what they enjoy, They shut down in and at their work. Then he says to me that the other way people react, and it’s not as common, as though they are invigorated.
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He says to me that a small number of people, when given the news of their eventual demise by a physician, leave his office with a thirst for a life they didn’t have when they walked in. My Dear Readers I walked out of that office visit wanting the resources to do more with this blog… more with my writing… more with my life… than I ever had before. I walked out of that Dr.’s office wishing I had all the money I could use because I suddenly had a thirst for life I hadn’t felt in decades.
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That doesn’t mean I don’t get depressed. Lord knows… Especially during the holiday season and especially when my pain gets worse or I have developed a new and different kind of pain… like this rheumatoid arthritis, I do get depressed. But I’ll tell you something right here, right now, from the heart My Dear Readers the last thing in the world I want to do is die! I want to drink from the cup of life deeply. I want to do as much as I can with every moment that I have… That my condition and my pain and my body allows me. That brings us back around to the will I was asked about in the emergency room in December.
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I haven’t seen an attorney… Hell I can’t afford three decent meals a day right now I can’t afford an attorney. When I do and I’ve written this down in years and I have a right here on this blog. I’ve made a decision about whatever body of work I have accomplished when I do pass. No matter how popular my work ever becomes. No matter how profitable or popular ‘The Adventures of Princess Nadia’ becomes in whatever form of media it ends up. When I leave this earth I have decided I want every written word I’ve ever put onto paper, on the Internet, into a novel, and all my videos that I own the copyright to I want to give them all to you, My Dear Readers, for FREE!
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That’s right, the attorneys will have to iron out all details, but once every all the publishers all the media outlets whatever lever has rights makes the money they need to read, whatever they put in when I’m gone I want every single word I’ve ever written to be available in electronic form completely and totally for free in perpetuity. Because you see, My Dear Readers, I am only borrowing these words. I am only borrowing these words these thoughts these ideas these characters these plots I’m only borrowing them… For a time. When I am through with them I want to give them back all to you.
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As of last month… As of the last month of last year… As of four weeks ago I am now in more pain than I was two months ago… Six months ago… A year ago… Two years ago… Five years ago. On top of all the pain that I go through due to the neurological damage in my cervical spine to the nerve roots. Due to all the pain I endure from sciatica… From shooting pains… On top of that I now have a crippling pain in my hand it feels like broken bones. When I move my left hand now it makes a popping sound. Never done that before, totally new experience. My left hand swells up like a balloon and the knuckles turn red. All I can think of is how can I get myself OUT of enough pain so that I can concentrate and write even more than I did in 2013.
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Since right before Thanksgiving I searched a lot on the Internet about how to get more out of my blog. I learned a lot in just a matter of few weeks. I’ve learned that my blog, at three years, out survived nearly 75% of all the blogs that started that year. I was told that I should spend less time creating content and more time trying to get other blogs to carry my content. I don’t want to write less. In high school… I was the loaner until I stepped on stage. Then, by the end of three years of performing on stage, most everybody at Pearland high school knew who I was… but I didn’t have a whole lot more people that called me a friend. I’m going to work very hard at trying to contact more of you. More of you people that are reading my blog that have blogs of your own. To let you know, you other blog writers, that I would be honored if you would reblogg my posts. I’m going to concentrate more on trying to make my .articles; more concise, more professional, more enjoyable, and more commercially viable. Long story short, I’m going to redouble my efforts at my blog redouble my efforts at communicating with you and redouble my efforts at trying to expand the number of people that read The Other Shoe.
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Anything that you, My Dear Readers, enjoy? PLEASE share those articles… Share or make other people aware of my blogs… Anything you can do to help me spread the word will be greatly appreciated. I really mean that from the very depths of my heart. I don’t say this because I want to make more money. Well, let’s be honest… we all like to make more money but right now I just want to see if I can’t get a lot more people reading what I write. Because, you see I like what I write. Every article that you read I have not only written, I’ve read. I like what I write. I am sure of what I write. If you do like what I write? Be sure to share with someone.
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As soon as all these new domains come available I’m going to be forced, most likely, to run another Indiegogo campaign. I’m going to be forced to run an Indiegogo campaign to raise the money out need to register the domain name for The Other Shoe.blog. To register the domain name to get web hosting and everything else so that I can consolidate the two blogs from blog.com and WordPress and the one location and take the two families that you are today and make you one big family so whenever I write and whenever I speak? I speak to all of you at once. I wrote this article, today, because I wanted to let you know the one I’m still here. Two, I have a lot more to share with you. Three I’m not giving up any time soon. Call me crazy but every single time my condition gets worse. Every single time I have more pain. Every single time life throws some roadblock in my path? I want to push myself harder and see what more I can do. See what more I can do for you, My Dear Readers.
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Everything I do I do for you. Every word I write I write for you. And when I leave this world, and I hope it’s a very long time from now, everything I’ve ever written will belong to every single one of you for free for the rest of time. I don’t have many gifts to give, except the ones I create my mind, and they all belong to you.
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As always I am deeply honored that you come here and read my work.
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Thank you!
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P.S. I did manage to work in but I would let you know 2014 is going to see a lot more of the weekly articles. Unwilling to bring back all the series that I worked so hard on in 2013 on a mother do my best to have them every week. That means more of ’The Mars Report’. That means more of ‘Sunday Funnies’. That means more of ‘A Week in Review’. That means more political articles. And… I really wish I could tell you that would mean more of my tale… but the more I talked to people the more I understand that I can talk to you about ’The Adventures of Princess Nadia’. However, I cannot share the pages I write… yet. I wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year.
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[caption id="attachment_1812" align="aligncenter" width="630"]
Just a shot of a VERY thankful Danny in His Power Chair[/caption]
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