All that crap you went through and you still smoke?
Encouragement to other Old Guys & Gals
I'm sure the forum doesn't have stats on other guys and gals who are older than—or nearly as old as (or maybe not so old as)—dirt, who might be suffering with "Hippus Horribulis" - worn out, shredded, or busted up hip that hurts like hell all the time, and makes even simple moves so painful that you consider changing your MOS to "Potato, M1-A1, one each."
If that definition fits you, I want to tell you a little story that I hope will help you:
Long ago, on a small island Vacation Paradise just off the coast of South Carolina, and later at a semi-tropical pleasure resort called Camp Lejeune, in North Carolina, I was given some of the finest combat training known to modern man. One of the very first things I learned was "Never stand still in a fight!" Always move. Shoot and move; shoot and move; always keep moving. Stand still... you're dead. That last bit never appealed to me.
Here, the story jumps forward about a hundred years: Five-years ago, my right hip started to hurt off-and-on. Nothing really bad, at first, but before long it started to interfere with my normally very active lifestyle, and my usual "Pain is only weakness leaving the body." mantra began to sound rather silly. Three-years ago, the day after shoveling two, 20"+ snow storms from my driveway, in as many days, I couldn't walk across our small kitchen without breaking out in cold sweat, and damned near puking from the pain. I was going through jars of Vitamin "I" (Ibuprofen for those slow on the uptake.) like they were M&Ms.
Two-years ago, halfway through His Royal Lowness' first reign, I began becoming really concerned about the real possibility of the SHTF scenario, and started to prepare. One day as I was struggling up the attic ladder to inventory our bug-out gear, I got to wondering how the heck I was going to ever survive a real disaster, walking like a one-legged duck. Maybe I'd be hard to hit because of my erratic gait? Nah, I went to see an orthopedic guy, in November of 2011, hoping he could wave a magic wand and the pain would go away. Uhhhh, right. "Your hip is worn out! You need a new one!" The "fear" I had been working on for four-years already, became <<<<<<<<< F E A R!!! >>>>>>>>>>> "Nah, doc. you must be wrong. I'm an ol' Jarhead (Read - Blockhead), I'm tough, I'll work at it; it'll get better..." Yeah!
This past November while attempting to practice a ground-shoot, roll-away, and shoot again, the scream in the middle of the roll-away would have zeroed-in a blind shooter, in cave, on a dark night. When I got home, it must have taken me ten-minutes to unfold my 6'-2" carcass out of my little Chevy S-10, sweating, groaning, and feeling nauseous, all the while realizing what a lovely target I would make. Shoot and move, hell I couldn't even get out of my bleedin' truck. I sat there and called the orthopod.
On the 14th of this month (Jan.), still scared out of my mind, (My wife, thirty-years a nurse, said that someone in pre-op should've smacked me up alongside the head for the way I treated the hospital staff. (Hey, I express fear as anger. A man-thang, I guess.) Anyway, I'll get to my point:
If any of this sounds familiar to any of you, DON'T PUT IT OFF! They told me that, after I woke up, they'd be asking, frequently, for my pain-level, on the ol' 1-10 scale, and that I was to be honest... that nobody could expect to have a zero pain-level. Well, I humored them for a few hours with oh, maybe a 1 or a 2, but, honestly, I have had no pain... at all. Some muscle soreness has been it. They said I could come home when I could walk 150' with no help except the walker, usually 3 or 4 days. My surgery was at 1000 hrs. Monday; Wednesday, I was walking all over the third floor, and was home by 1530 hrs.; Friday the PT gal came. She asked me to let her see me walk a few steps, I walked across the living room and she started to laugh, and said: "I believe that thing is getting in your way."; On the weekend, I'd catch myself walking away from my walker; Monday she called the surgeon, and he graduated me to a cane. Now, today, 12-days after surgery, I'm finding myself opening the door to the garage, to go out to smoke my pipe, and realizing I've left the bloody cane by my chair in the living room. My staples come out on Tuesday, and I'll likely be wearing my S-10
again, long before the six-weeks they said it would be. Soon, I'll be shooting and moving with the best of the old, worn out 74-year-olds out there. Let the bloody SHTF. I'll be ready.
So, if any of this rings true with you, PLEEZE don't be the fool that I was. Find a good surgeon, and become bionic. It's a piece of cake, and as a bonus, I'll now be able to mess with the heads of TSA pogues when the metal detector sounds off.
Hope this helps somebody make a decision... If only one person... Whoa, I'm starting to sound like one of them... but, I mean it.
Have a good day y'all.
If that definition fits you, I want to tell you a little story that I hope will help you:
Long ago, on a small island Vacation Paradise just off the coast of South Carolina, and later at a semi-tropical pleasure resort called Camp Lejeune, in North Carolina, I was given some of the finest combat training known to modern man. One of the very first things I learned was "Never stand still in a fight!" Always move. Shoot and move; shoot and move; always keep moving. Stand still... you're dead. That last bit never appealed to me.
Here, the story jumps forward about a hundred years: Five-years ago, my right hip started to hurt off-and-on. Nothing really bad, at first, but before long it started to interfere with my normally very active lifestyle, and my usual "Pain is only weakness leaving the body." mantra began to sound rather silly. Three-years ago, the day after shoveling two, 20"+ snow storms from my driveway, in as many days, I couldn't walk across our small kitchen without breaking out in cold sweat, and damned near puking from the pain. I was going through jars of Vitamin "I" (Ibuprofen for those slow on the uptake.) like they were M&Ms.
Two-years ago, halfway through His Royal Lowness' first reign, I began becoming really concerned about the real possibility of the SHTF scenario, and started to prepare. One day as I was struggling up the attic ladder to inventory our bug-out gear, I got to wondering how the heck I was going to ever survive a real disaster, walking like a one-legged duck. Maybe I'd be hard to hit because of my erratic gait? Nah, I went to see an orthopedic guy, in November of 2011, hoping he could wave a magic wand and the pain would go away. Uhhhh, right. "Your hip is worn out! You need a new one!" The "fear" I had been working on for four-years already, became <<<<<<<<< F E A R!!! >>>>>>>>>>> "Nah, doc. you must be wrong. I'm an ol' Jarhead (Read - Blockhead), I'm tough, I'll work at it; it'll get better..." Yeah!
This past November while attempting to practice a ground-shoot, roll-away, and shoot again, the scream in the middle of the roll-away would have zeroed-in a blind shooter, in cave, on a dark night. When I got home, it must have taken me ten-minutes to unfold my 6'-2" carcass out of my little Chevy S-10, sweating, groaning, and feeling nauseous, all the while realizing what a lovely target I would make. Shoot and move, hell I couldn't even get out of my bleedin' truck. I sat there and called the orthopod.
On the 14th of this month (Jan.), still scared out of my mind, (My wife, thirty-years a nurse, said that someone in pre-op should've smacked me up alongside the head for the way I treated the hospital staff. (Hey, I express fear as anger. A man-thang, I guess.) Anyway, I'll get to my point:
If any of this sounds familiar to any of you, DON'T PUT IT OFF! They told me that, after I woke up, they'd be asking, frequently, for my pain-level, on the ol' 1-10 scale, and that I was to be honest... that nobody could expect to have a zero pain-level. Well, I humored them for a few hours with oh, maybe a 1 or a 2, but, honestly, I have had no pain... at all. Some muscle soreness has been it. They said I could come home when I could walk 150' with no help except the walker, usually 3 or 4 days. My surgery was at 1000 hrs. Monday; Wednesday, I was walking all over the third floor, and was home by 1530 hrs.; Friday the PT gal came. She asked me to let her see me walk a few steps, I walked across the living room and she started to laugh, and said: "I believe that thing is getting in your way."; On the weekend, I'd catch myself walking away from my walker; Monday she called the surgeon, and he graduated me to a cane. Now, today, 12-days after surgery, I'm finding myself opening the door to the garage, to go out to smoke my pipe, and realizing I've left the bloody cane by my chair in the living room. My staples come out on Tuesday, and I'll likely be wearing my S-10
again, long before the six-weeks they said it would be. Soon, I'll be shooting and moving with the best of the old, worn out 74-year-olds out there. Let the bloody SHTF. I'll be ready.So, if any of this rings true with you, PLEEZE don't be the fool that I was. Find a good surgeon, and become bionic. It's a piece of cake, and as a bonus, I'll now be able to mess with the heads of TSA pogues when the metal detector sounds off.
Hope this helps somebody make a decision... If only one person... Whoa, I'm starting to sound like one of them... but, I mean it.
Have a good day y'all.
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Ohmigawd, hide, it's the smoking cops. They're everywhere; they're everywhere
Well, let's see... I guess the answer to that would be.... ummmm, yes.
Smoked my first cigar in 1946, age 8, on a dare from one of the older boys in the band. Didn't get sick... often wish I had. Smoked everything from corn-silk to dried fox-grape vine; 3-packs Camels (the real ones) a day through college and all the way to 1984 when my daughter was born. Haven't smoked a cigarette since. Since then, I smoke—if you can call it that—a pipe. One 12-oz can of tobacco lasts me a month, and I dump out 1/2 of every bowl, so I guess that means I smoke 6-oz a month. I probably inhale one puff each time I light up, often none. It makes my mouth taste like crap, but I like the fragrance, and the ritual—mostly the ritual. It keeps me calm when I feel like throttling somebody, which is often, considering that better than 50% of people are dumber than a sack of bricks, and the Country is about to collapse around our ears because one of them is our president. I don't smoke in my house—or anyone else's—and I don't smoke where people are assembled in groups, so I'm not forcing anyone to share my smoke. Over the years, I've attempted quitting many times, and trust me, you don't wanna be anywhere in the area. So, it's either my paltry tobacco consumption, or dependence on drugs. I'll take the bowl or two of bakky every day.
So, 67-years a smoker: my lungs are clear; I've had 3 or four colds in all my adult life; before my hip got bad, I could run circles around most men half my age, and within the last ten-years, I've been known to work 18-year-olds into the ground, digging post-holes and rocks, and sent them home by lunchtime, because they couldn't keep up with me; I have no cough; and I've never had the flue although I've never had a flu shot.
67-years a smoker, with a record like that. Yep, I guess it might eventually kill me, but then, so might driving a car. I drive a heluva lot more than I smoke, and I'm not going to quit driving. I might have a heart attack whilst in the throes of amore, but I ain't gonna quit that either. What the hey dude, if I quit everything that might kill me, I'd wanna be dead. In some way, everything we do involves some sort of risk (You might choke to death eating your next Buffalo Wing. Are you going to stop eating wings?)—but it's my bleedin' risk—ain't it?
You wanna live forever?
Well, let's see... I guess the answer to that would be.... ummmm, yes.
Smoked my first cigar in 1946, age 8, on a dare from one of the older boys in the band. Didn't get sick... often wish I had. Smoked everything from corn-silk to dried fox-grape vine; 3-packs Camels (the real ones) a day through college and all the way to 1984 when my daughter was born. Haven't smoked a cigarette since. Since then, I smoke—if you can call it that—a pipe. One 12-oz can of tobacco lasts me a month, and I dump out 1/2 of every bowl, so I guess that means I smoke 6-oz a month. I probably inhale one puff each time I light up, often none. It makes my mouth taste like crap, but I like the fragrance, and the ritual—mostly the ritual. It keeps me calm when I feel like throttling somebody, which is often, considering that better than 50% of people are dumber than a sack of bricks, and the Country is about to collapse around our ears because one of them is our president. I don't smoke in my house—or anyone else's—and I don't smoke where people are assembled in groups, so I'm not forcing anyone to share my smoke. Over the years, I've attempted quitting many times, and trust me, you don't wanna be anywhere in the area. So, it's either my paltry tobacco consumption, or dependence on drugs. I'll take the bowl or two of bakky every day.
So, 67-years a smoker: my lungs are clear; I've had 3 or four colds in all my adult life; before my hip got bad, I could run circles around most men half my age, and within the last ten-years, I've been known to work 18-year-olds into the ground, digging post-holes and rocks, and sent them home by lunchtime, because they couldn't keep up with me; I have no cough; and I've never had the flue although I've never had a flu shot.
67-years a smoker, with a record like that. Yep, I guess it might eventually kill me, but then, so might driving a car. I drive a heluva lot more than I smoke, and I'm not going to quit driving. I might have a heart attack whilst in the throes of amore, but I ain't gonna quit that either.
What the hey dude, if I quit everything that might kill me, I'd wanna be dead. In some way, everything we do involves some sort of risk (You might choke to death eating your next Buffalo Wing. Are you going to stop eating wings?)—but it's my bleedin' risk—ain't it?You wanna live forever?
1 - 3 of 3 Posts
