The First, Faint Glimmer of Dawn

For the longest time, I never had to worry about coming up with something to blog about on Shell Shock Serenade. It is like I had a mission to get my life's story honestly and accurately represented on the site for all to see. The posts came frequently...often two to three or more a day. Writing  them was easy....

This past year has been different....drastically different and for the most part I am not really sure why. I can go a week or more without writing anything at all and by my own standards most of what I have written of late just doesn't measure up to my earlier efforts in creativity, passion and content.

I suppose there are several reasons why this is the case.
First and foremost is the condition of my health this past year. On February 9, 2013 I had an accident at home where I badly broke my right ankle. I had emergency surgery the very next day and subsequently developed a very dangerous and nasty infection that even today, a whole year later....STILL seems to be present deep, down inside. This required several hospitalizations (over 2 weeks total in Hospital), intensive IV Anti-Biotic Therapy and an additional surgery. 

That led to the discovery of an additional broken bone in and around the ankle joint, the true origin of which remains somewhat of a mystery though logic suggests that my Neuropathy is somehow the ultimate culprit. I had a major reconstructive Ankle Fusion surgery on the 23rd of October, 2013 in Kalamazoo, MI and currently am still recovering. I am just now in the second week of February starting to walk a little bit at a time with the use of a Cam-Walker and cane/walker

This quite frankly has been the single most challenging and difficult single event and year of my life. Yes that includes the addiction, the rape and the aftermath. It sounds impossible but the pain, the uncertainty and the constant questions of will I ever be normal again have led me down a very dark and dangerous path. Combined with catastrophic, crippling medical bills that quite simply have impoverished me at the age of 52 and there have been several nights that I have spent alone cradling a loaded 12 gauge shotgun thinking that enough is enough.

For those of you who are familiar with my story, you are aware that I barely survived a suicide attempt with Pharmaceuticals in the late Spring of 2006. Oddly there was and is a great difference in these two similar emotional catastrophes.

In 2006, at the end of my rope due to my addiction...feeling utterly hopeless and ashamed...all I could think of was how I would relieve the burden on family and friends of ME by killing myself. I was THAT ill and traumatized by addiction and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) that I truly believed that I would be doing the entire world a gigantic favor by removing myself permanently from the earth.

The thought process this time around was quite different and even more selfish....I had lost hope and the will to fight. I had (and have) become beaten down by the physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual pain of these circumstances.

In both cases God has intervened to save this wretched excuse of a human being, I suppose for some higher calling. Frankly it isn't too difficult to reach higher when your life has descended permanently into a cellar of pain , hopelessness and sorrow.

Today, as I sit and write this....my significant other Kim has been fighting a severe case of Anemia and as I write the test results are still not back on several biopsies that were done this Monday past. She has several cysts that by her Docs own admission are of "grave concern".

And yet once again I experience that silent, invisible hand around my throat that seems to be choking the life (and LIGHT) out of me every time this hopelessness sets in. 

But on we go to battle for another day and another time to fight the good fight. I know in my heart God provides and he is with me....my only hope is that I can hang on and hold Him close as this latest storm descends up on us and we urgently search the dark black sky for that first glimmer of dawn...and a brand new day.

PHOTO: K. Tomson