Dear Tumor Factory

Dear Tumor Factory (or wherever it is that tumors come from),

ATTN: Cancer Division:

     OK I’ll begin with your department. While I’m thankful that you’ve left our family alone for a little while, I have a few suggestions.

1. IF you feel the need to spread your ugly little tumors around to various individuals, why not narrow it down to certain groups? I’m thinking rapists, child molesters, people on Death Row… you get the gist.
2. I understand that mistakes can happen and tumors can be sent to the wrong people. But two or three times in a lifetime is just a bit much. If a mistake is made, let that person overcome it and then LEAVE THEM ALONE.
3. We’re in the middle of a recession here… you should be feeling it too. Can you say “layoffs”?
4. And finally: this tumor stuff is so 20^th century, don’t you think? Maybe it’s time to focus all of that energy towards something else. Have you thought about weight loss tumors, stress reduction tumors, or a tumor that limits wrinkles?

     As tumors, you should be using your awesome powers in a more productive and positive way. You’ve been outcasts for so long and now it’s time to make peace with the human body.

 

ATTN: Bone Tumor Division:

     I’m begging you to leave my ankle alone. I’ll admit that your first attack was very clever and yes, you baffled a lot of medical professionals and took a nice piece of my ankle with you. It took a lot of bone cement to fill in the gap you left. I had to be on crutches for weeks and I missed a lot of work.  Believe me; I can appreciate a brilliant and well thought-out plan and I was actually OK with it because you are benign.

     The second time was cute. You snuck back in there while we had our guard down but we got you… yup we scraped you out and replaced you with more bone cement. But you won again because it hurts to walk even more now. And you left behind some tendinitis. I also had to borrow money this time to save the house. But I got through it again and even added a second career to help get back on track.

     So now here we are again, tumor number three. You couldn’t just leave me alone. Things were on the upswing but I guess you didn’t really care much. The good thing is that we caught you early so if you were trying to prevent me from dancing with my daughter at her wedding in nine weeks, you failed. My tumor doctor is on to you this time. We’ll need to go in and do the old “scrape and fill” again and I’ll be on crutches for a little while. And yes you’ve probably set me back even more financially because they’ll be a period where I’ll be out of work but I’m going to beat you again.

     I’ll still be at the football field all day on Sundays looking after my MudHogs even if I’m on crutches or in a boot. I’ll fight like hell to keep the house and I’m still going to work even if it’s from my home office. I’ll still have my family and friends to lean on because that’s what family and friends do for each other.

     And the bottom line is that it’s MY ankle and you can’t have it. So save yourself from being scraped like bark from a twig and just go away. I have a life to live.

Referrals

Referrals are very important to the success of my business.

More than ever, I’m finding that WHO you know really is the best, and sometimes ONLY way to get into a company.

I’m extremely proud of how I’ve been able to assist some of my policyholders in not only choosing the policy that is right for them, but then being about to help them along in the claims process.

One example is an older fellow that bought one of our Personal Cancer policies. Not even a year later, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. His major medical insurance left him with co-pays and expenses of more than $2000.

His Aflac policy paid him more than $3000 directly. And it’s still not done paying him.

 

Back to the referrals.

I’m not a salesman. I’m terrible at cold-calling and corporate dropping. What I am good at is meeting people face-to-face and explaining the benefits of adding Aflac to their existing plan.

I am trying to get into companies that have between 3 and 500 employees. Most everyone has heard of Aflac but many still don’t know exactly what we do.

That’s my job. I meet with the decision-maker for about 30 minutes just to see if we are a fit. The worst-case scenario for them is that they end up with a silly quacking duck (or two). Most often, they’ll see how beneficial it is to their employees to have us as a choice.

Aflac costs the company nothing to offer. I do all of the enrolling and paperwork for claims. And the policies are voluntary… no arm-twisting… just some education and the choice is theirs.

But for me, it’s that FIRST STEP. I need to get past the front door and in front of the decision-maker.

Can you help me out?

Diets, Dad, and PVC

ATKINS

I have been on the Atkins Diet for three weeks. I hate it. I don’t endorse it. And I’m convinced it’s an unhealthy way to diet.

I’ve lost ten pounds in three weeks.

Today I was not on the Atkins Diet. Today I ate about fifteen pieces of pizza from my new favorite pizza place, The Chunky Tomato in Bristol.

I stuck my face into the center of the pie and kept chewing until my mouth was too stuffed to continue. When I was full, I ate some more.

Monday I’ll start Atkins again and stay with it for another ten pounds… then I’ll stuff my face again for a day.

Yeah… I can do that.

FATHER’S DAY

We spent a few hours visiting (and eating large amounts of pizza) with my dad today.

He’s at the New Britain Hospital for Special Care and although he has a long road to go, he should be leaving by early August.

His spirits were very high today and it was a very enjoyable afternoon as he was able to spend a couple hours in his wheelchair. We stayed outside for most of the visit despite a few sprinkles and wind.

PVC PIPING

It’s great for… umm… whatever they use it for. It is not so great as a wiffle ball bat.

The eleven year-old boy found that out the hard way on Tuesday.

He was at a friends house when another of his friends picked up a length of the thick plastic piping and began swinging it like a baseball bat.

It slid out of the kid’s hands and speared the eleven year-old in the mouth.

Just a few days earlier he had hit his first Little League home run. He was wearing his same uniform jersey. Blood was everywhere. His shorts were covered. While we were in the ER waiting room I noticed his shirt did not have a spec of blood on it.

He said he thought it was his good luck shirt until he got smacked in the mouth. I told him it still was. He could have been struck in the eye or the throat. I’m wondering when we’ll see the shirt on him again.

 

In the ER he was given three layers of stitches. He was very brave… not a single tear.

I wanted to puke. When I first looked at the lip, I could see his teeth right through the hole.

His braces saved him from having extensive damage to his teeth. A few short weeks ago his orthodontist was thrilled about how nicely and ahead of schedule he was.

He’s now behind schedule. His front tooth may need a root canal to save it.

He’ll most likely need some type of cosmetic surgery in another year. There’s no way he won’t end up with some pretty good scarring.

 

Yeah it’s heartbreaking. We always talked about his beautiful lips. And they are still going to be beautiful no matter what.

 

I told him if this is the worse thing that ever happens to him, he will have lived a charmed life.

His friend who was on the other side of the PVC pipe and his mom came over to visit him today. The friend has been through a lot in the past year or so. He had a tumor removed from his face. Half of his little face is paralyzed. He’s been back and forth to Boston for treatments. He’s had to have a nerve transplanted from his face to his brain.

We told him that we liked him before this accident and we like him just as much now. It was just a freaky little accident and we don’t blame him.

A brave little boy like that has enough to worry about.

I don’t think any of them will be swinging for the backyard fences with anything less than a plasic baseball bat.

Here is a picture of the big guy the day after getting his stitches. Once they are taken out, I’ll post another pic.

GOLF

I just saw a fantastic piece on ESPN about the late Payne Stewart’s son, Aaron. Go to ESPN.com and type in the keyword: AARON STEWART.

 

 

It was a horrible week

We buried my mom exactly nineteen years ago.

It was cancer and I’ll spare you all the details of her illness as I’ve already written about much of them in previous posts of this Blog.

The funeral was actually a minor milestone for me. My brother and I had co-written her eulogy and I read it.

I had told my mom several times before her death about my plans. She’d always have the same response, “Oh you’re going to be too sad and crying too much to do that.”

Mom was sly. She knew about my fear of public speaking. She’d lived through my stuttering problems that had haunted me throughout my childhood and still into my late twenties.

We’d even laugh until we cried as I’d imitate what it would probably sound like, “A-a-and I-I-I’ll m-m-m-m-miss h-h-h-her.”

Yes Mom was very sly.

It turns out that I did read the eulogy on a sunny morning in the North End of Hartford in front of family and friends with my brother and sister at my side.

I stuttered once.

I’ve given at least ten or more eulogies since then. Look at me now. I speak in front of over 600 people every year at a youth sports banquet.

Did I mention how sly my Mom was?

 

It was a horrible week.

Eight days before my mom died, my Uncle Ray and Aunt Josephine came over to visit and in their own way, say goodbye to Mom. We were all there: my father; my brother and sister; and Nana.

Uncle Ray was my father’s brother and my Godfather. He was about 40 years-old as he sat next to my dying 43 year-old mother on the couch.

Aunt Josephine sat with them. She was in her seventies but very active and healthy.

It was a sad visit with forced smiles and goodbyes that were as heartfelt as they were final.

My uncle and I made plans to see each other the following week. My father walked his brother and aunt out to the car.

They never made it back to the Elmwood section of West Hartford.

A bridge on RT 6 had been under repair all spring causing traffic to use RT 10 through Farmington. They turned left at the light in front of the Silo Restaurant.

They didn’t get any further. A drunk woman went through that same light and killed them both on impact. She also died.

In the blink of an eye.

I would hope that my mom never blamed herself. I was just upset at the entire freaking world that morning. We wanted to get to Nana’s house before she heard about it on the news. We didn’t get there in time.

Before leaving the house I said to my mom, “See it doesn’t matter if you are sick or not, you can die at any time.”

Those words haunt me even today. I don’t know what I was trying to tell her. Maybe that death is so random. Maybe I was mad because I was able to tell her everything that I had wanted her to know before she was going to die but would not be able to do the same with my uncle, my Godfather.

It was a double funeral. Aunt Josephine was like a mother to my Uncle Ray.

Mom died later during that horrible week.

We have a picture of Mom, Aunt Josephine, and Uncle Ray sitting together on the same couch that night.

That was before we blinked.

Networking…

So here we are again…

Just the two of us… friends or related or just peeking into each others Facebook once in a while.

Most likely, you don’t need me. Maybe you read this Blog once in a while for a laugh or a cry or to see what it is I’m complaining about now.

Although you probably don’t need me, I sure do need you.

Plain and simple: The best way to get an appointment with a business owner is through a referral from someone that they know and trust.

I need meetings with business owners. I need them ASAP. I not allowed to write the company that I work for in my personal Blog (sounds like “Quack-qauck”), but in today’s crazy economic climate it is becoming a very popular fixture in more and more companies nationwide.

I have a gift for you for your help. If I am able to close the deal as a result of being referred by you, I’ll be more than happy to give you a gift certificate at the place of your choice.

For companies with:
3-15 employees….. $50
16-25 employees..  $100
26-50 employees… $150
51+ employees…….$200

We don’t change or replace any of the benefits that the company already has in place. It costs the company nothing to offer. They are voluntary benefits and owned by the employees. I do all of the leg-work.

I just need 20 minutes or so with the owner or decision-maker.

Not only will you feel good all over, but you’ll be helping a brother to keep his head above water. A brother that has had to endure bone-eating tumors in his ankle. A brother that has pain so severe in his ankle that it hurts to walk. A brother that knows what it’s like not to have his paycheck protected in the event that he becomes sick or hurt and can’t work. And a brother that will truly appreciate your time and help.

If that doesn’t sound enough like a pitiful plea for help, I doubt that anything else will.

If you’d like more info or hear a few stories about some of the claims that I’ve been able to pay, please email me at ron.goralski@snet.net.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

Heading out

Desperation: The act of doing things that you hate to do, like walking into businesses and asking for appointments. Add to that an ankle that hurts so badly, you can’t take a step without wincing.

Fear: The realization that if you don’t produce immediately, you will be forced into losing all that you’ve worked for.

Long time, no type

Well hello my little chickadees.

It’s been quite a long time since I last added a new posting. I’m not sure why the hiatus except I have felt very stressed lately.

Putting my thoughts into words usually helps to untangle the tightly spun wad of wiring that controls my emotions.

This can cause my fingertips to overload and spill words onto the keypad in a manner that very often comes across as whiny.

I’m not going to apologize for that. You have my permission to stop reading right now and I promise not to hold it against you.

(Now that they have all left, I can continue with this exercise of self-pity.)

It seems that I will be living in some sort of pain for quite a while and perhaps for always.

It hurts to walk. It hurts slightly less pedaling a bike.

Tendinitis likes to attack areas that have been manipulated or overused. My ankle falls into both of these categories.

I have a brace that barely fits under my shoes. It seems to help sometimes.

My doctor has told me to go on and live my life normally for now. He’ll be monitoring the situation very closely as there is possibly another area of concern that showed up on my CT Scan.

It may very well be nothing to worry about at all. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Money has been another worry of mine. There’s just not enough coming in to pay the bills.

I blame myself for the hole that we are now in. Every job I’ve ever had has paid for disability insurance. I sell disability insurance. I DO NOT HAVE A DISABILITY POLICY OF MY OWN.

I was always told that if I collected disability pay, I would not be able to receive residuals or write more policies during that time. I never thought that I would hit such a rut in my business.

I’m working as hard as I can though to open new accounts. I’m also studying now for my Real Estate license and will be affiliated with a friend that owns a company in Waterbury.

Time is my enemy right now. I’m hoping that this one-two punch will come quickly enough to smack some of our bills into submission.

In the meantime I can always come here and continue to whine to myself.

Life’s like a jump rope… up, down… up, down

Good news. Bad news.

Which would you like first? My good news… or my bad news?

Bad news. Good news.

Take your pick… it’s all the same to me. Not so good news turns to good news when followed by bad news. Really bad news turns to regular bad news when followed by good news. So it really shouldn’t matter what order they are given to you. Of course if you really don’t know me then you probably don’t care either way.

Although in that case you’d have to be an extremely cold and uncaring person. Most of us get very upset when we hear of tragedies that happen to complete strangers.

Good News: We don’t think my ankle is broken. The pain is more likely a result of tendinitis. There is a special boot that I can wear under my shoe that will help to take the stress off of my ankle. It should be arriving any day. I also have meds to help with the pain and inflammation and need to elevate and ice the area. NO BICYCLING FOR ONE MONTH.

Bad News: There is an area of concern that has shown up on another bone in my ankle. It’s possibly another tumor beginning to form. I’ll go back in four weeks for a follow-up and we’ll see what it looks like then. If it’s a tumor he’ll go back in and… well you know the routine by now. NO BICYCLING FOR AT LEAST TWO MONTHS.

If you sit back and really think about it, it’s actually all good news.

A double loss

I fell asleep early last night.

When I awoke at 1am, I watched 24 and then switched to SportsCenter.

Mark “the Bird” Fidrych had died. He was found under his dump truck on his farm outside of Boston earlier on Monday.

My father coached my younger brother’s Little League team in 1976. It was the same year that Fidrych became a pop icon as a kid who won 19 games for the Detroit Tigers and the first player to win The Rookie of the Year Award and named the starting pitcher of the All-Star Game.

I had a front row seat in the dugout that season at my brother’s games. I was 4 years his senior and getting my first shot as a teacher.

I proceeded to encourage my brother to act like the Bird whenever he took the pitcher’s mound.

He was a little reluctant but I was able to convince him into putting on his own little “Bird” show one warm early evening in Forestville. I made him talk to the baseball between pitches. I yelled out for him to kneel on the mound and use his hands to fill in the holes with the pebbly dirt.

I don’t think my brother was completely comfortable raking the mound with his fingertips at the beginning of the inning and talking to the baseball before sending it toward the batter. But, holy mackerel, for a few short innings that spring, my little brother was my little bird.

 

To many baseball fans, Harry Kalas was the voice of the Philadelphia Phillies. I remember him as the soundtrack to my football memories.

Mr. Kalas was also a narrator for NFL Films. As a young man in my early twenties, I’d stay up all hours of the night recording anything and everything that NFL Films had to offer.

I have hundreds of hours on VHS tape of NFL history lessons with Mr. Kalas as my instructor and host.

 

As adults, we tend to lose more and more of our childhood memories as each day turns into the next. Losing two contibutors on the same day is way too much to replay at once.

Stupid (I mean Super) Dad

This weekend the role of the “good father” is being played by Ron Goralski (me). Actually I’ve played that role quite well for the past twenty-six years but this weekend it’s been a little more painful than usual.

Allow me to digress just a bit. When last we left our caped daddy (me), he was just getting back on his feet after his second tumor-removal surgery in a year. He was excited and ready to ride his bicycle again. But the pain (oh the pain) was just too much to bear and during a recent Little League practice he crumbled to the crabgrass in pain and needed to summon his trusty crutches yet once again.

(Back to writing in the first-person) Yeah so where was I? Oh… the pain. I knew something was wrong again so I made another appointment to see Tumor Doc and after an xray he thought maybe I had a cracked bone in my ankle. This would not be too unusual considering the amount and extend of work that had been done on those previous surgeries. If it was indeed broken, I’d be in a hard cast for another 6-8 weeks. OK understand this: I have been on crutches for probably 10 out of the past 15 months.

So T.D. (Tumor Doc) sent me for a CT Scan so that he could get a closer look. He was quite sure that it was still too soon for another tumor to have formed but wanted to be sure. He also told me to wear the stupid boot again and use my crutches. “Sure thing Tumor Genius,” I thought to myself as I limped toward the exit sign.

On Thursday I had the CT Scan done and asked for a CD to take back to T.D. The second I reached home I popped the CD into my computer and right there in front of me where 3D movable pictures of my ankle. I could see the two areas of bone cement, I could see the eggshell-thin bone that was left of my ankle joint, and of course I saw NO signs of a fracture. Now I must admit that I’d only become an expert CT Scan interpreter a few months earlier, but until I was going to see him the following Tuesday at my follow-up appointment, it was good enough for me.

So back to the weekend of being a Super Dad: I ditched the ACE wrap, the crutches, and all of my common sense (which isn’t much these days… ha-ha I beat most of you to that conclusion).

On Good Friday I took the boy to the Little League field and let him pitch to me for half of an hour. Then I hit him ground balls for another half of an hour. And finally I pitched batting practice for yet another half of an hour. I have to say that I felt pretty damn good. On a scale of 1-10, the pain was a 7 which beats the 9.8 from the practice earlier in the week. We went home and I did some yard work. I pulled out the Pitch Back and set the yard up for out mini-practice sessions. My pain still hovered around the 7 mark. I spent the rest of the day on the couch only getting up to clean a little because I thought an old friend was dropping by (he never made it over but the house looked good).

Now it’s Saturday morning. He has me up early to go fishing. My ankle is at an 8. I grab my crutches, laptop, Perks, and an umbrella and we walk the 5 miles… ok maybe 1 mile… or quarter mile to the lake. This is where I am right now as I tell my story. So I’m on a picnic table… a cold wet one with my umbrella protecting me and the laptop. It’s drizzling and the boy is fishing. He says he’s going over to get his buddy just a few houses down to fish with him. It’s 20 minutes later and I’m in the freaking rain on the wet picnic table and he is nowhere to be found. I’d bet the bone-cement in my ankle that he’s in their warm, dry house drinking hot chocolate and playing Wii.

It’s raining harder now. I can’t hold an umbrella and crutches at the same time. I must look like a complete idiot because I am yelling his name and it’s echoing across the empty lake. I’m pissed-off like you can’t even imagine. The kid whined for half of yesterday and all morning about how badly he needed to toss his line into the lake.

Now it’s a steady rain… closer to pouring. I am going to strangle his chubby little neck. Did he forget about me? Ahhh… here he comes. He has some stupid story about having to go to another person’s house too. I tell him to fish! I tell him the fish come to the top when it’s raining. He wants to know where I heard that from. I told him everyone knows it. I want him to fish until he is drenched. I’m chilly but actually quite dry although my laptop will be running out of juice soon. No need to worry, I have my iPod. I can outlast him. DO NOT EVER take me fishing and then leave me in the rain.

Hey! He thinks he was a bite. Oh damn, another Lake Garda twig. I don’t think he’s having fun anymore so I’ll let him suffer another ten minutes and then head the 10 miles back home on my crutches… uphill…. raining.

OMG the wife just pulled up in the Subaru. She’s on her way to shop for Easter. But I will NOT take the easy way home. I AM SUPER DAD… HEY WAIT FOR ME!