T4

JD and I really loved our jobs. Well, at least I did. We also loved Marlboro Lights in a box, this Duramax with a kickin AC, and music, we love our radio. Thats what were all about when we,re in transit from job to job. Haulin ass , jamn loud and chain smokin. Really, all we're missin is a Jolly Rodger flag on our antana. Steve my boss, has considerd using JD and i as collectors on large bnalances owed. Seeing as we appear to be our companys "Talaban". Its kinda a joke around the shop.
It was one morning while out on our "ship". I was really smokin em, and thinkin real hard on what I could do next. Aside from goin to the hospital. It was that word hospital, that spawnd my next thought. "Ofcourse, Dr "Bob!". I was introduced to the Doc at the watering hole that I deemd Mine." Funny" I always thought to myself. The dude would come sit at the bar, order a Coke sometimes a pizza, chat it up with everyone, leave who ever was working the bar, usually it was Matt, a FAT tip and he was gone just a casually as he came in. The story behind the Doc was simple. The Doc is a cancer specialist a very good one from what i understood. Seems the Doc had a bit of a problem with the booze. At some point he said to himself "Enough". Got sober and decided upon having a family. And beutiful one at that. Dr Bob became one of MY most loyal clients. He loved his trees. He and Ali his wife, had quite a chunk of property. It was two lots that were combind into one. There was a great many trees, but he was illiterate when it came to speeking the "Languge" to his trees. So after doing a little asking around, my name was brought up. Bob approached me one day. Kinda scared the shit out of me. I was just sittin there. All of the sudden from behind me, in a very firm but friendly voice "Helloo Chriss!" It was super unexpected seeing how i wasnt there with anybody. If i remember correctly, beer came out of my nose. From that point on Dr Bob became my client and friend. And I, proud to be Dr Bobs "Tree whisperer."

I was a little reluctant to bother him with a non paying inquiry. But I was getting desperite. "Hell with  it" as I scrolled down to his number. "Helloo Chris!" In his customary warm greeting. "Hey Doc!, Bob Im sorry to bother you."  After explaining what had been going on with my feet, signs symptoms, the whole overall systems check and my on going assesments. "Oh yeah, I noticed that when I dont drink, things seem to back off a bit. I took a blood sugar test thinking I might be Diabetic. But the test said negative. Doc is there any possible direction you might be able to send me in? Im desperite Doc.""Chris" he began. "This is from one friend to another. I see you at the canyon alot. So you must drink quite a bit?" " Well yeah..I do my share" "Yes Chris, but you do drink alot...dont you?" "Yeah I have probibly a little drinking problem." This is not the way this whiskey drinker wants the conversation to go. "Chris," He paused breifly then began agian "I think your drinking has finely caught up with you. I might guess, your suffering from nerve damage.Alcoholics can suffer this problem." "Are you serious?" "Totaly. So if I were you Id knok that stuff off for a while." "What would you say? A month, maybe two?""Try a year maybe two." "Holy shit!" "Chris, if its nerve damage. It took you years and years of serious drinking to get to this point. It did'nt just happen overnight. Yeah, the Doc had a point. I guess the booze was gonna have to stop. Heeh, ya right..

T3

When I was a young lad, my friends and I would go out in the woods and play "soldier" guy". Amongnst other things, I would always make sure my team was safe, buy being the "medic". As much as I loved the "Covert-opp's" p[art of war, i was always impressed with the extra equipment the Medic carried.  I also learned, that in thew movies, If you were hurt, you got morphine! So ya, we were "high", what ever that's was supposed to feel like. I can also remember my Dad. He was always so precise with his movements when he would preform "surgery" i.e remove slivers) .When I honestly think about it, It was the serious attention that he paid to what he was doing that left such an impression on me. Damn near sniper like. His tools of choice, tweezers and a needle. He also was an excellent extraction specialist. He took good care in the tying knots. Not just on teeth either. When he w0ould set up fishing tackle, in an almost medatative state. It was li9ke he had received his Doctorate in Knots. Ahhh! Therein lies the answer. Dad, was an "Eagle Scout" He was also quie accomplished with the needel and thread. It seemed he knew more than mom on the subject... Yeah, my PA was a true McGyver. Something I had always prided myself on.
I guess thats kinda what I was doing. Except I was only masking my issues with booze. It was my Swiss Army knife. But i was being proactive, in my McGyver fashon. I was driving to work one morning. Kinda rolling through my Medical refferance book in my head. I had been an EMT and acheived my solo-EMT, i was always trying to keep up with the most current stuff, especialy that pertained to my line of work. But numb feet usually ment frozen or wet feet. It crossed my mind that perhaps the booze was finely takin it's toll, like I'd been worned, so many times. Then the thought of Diabetes came across my mind. "Diabetics can get edema if things arn't cool. I wonder what the onset of edema feels like? Shit! what does edema feel like!?  Ok, if i have Diabetis. Then a blood sugar test will tell me that. And Matty B is Diabetic! He's got all that shit!" When i got to work, I made sure i punched in and booked it for the sales office.

Matty was at his desk checkn out the sports page and doin his BS before he began his day. "Sup Chris" "Matt dude, you gotta help me man". I began about my feet. "Sthat shit still buggin ya man?" I forgot that I had mentioned something about it to him when it first began."Ya man, fuckn, Im wondering if I have Diabetes dude. Do you know what edema feels like?" "Nah,dude,if you got Diabetes and you got edema. cYour in pretty bad shape". He got his "rig" out . It contained everything he needed. He got the digital tester a blood strip and the finger pricker. Kida funny, it took a few times and a few different fingers, finely a pinkey finger gave up the goods. "Caleses" I said..."But you wouldnt know anything about that! Would you?" "Fuck off!" He took the little strip and diped it in the speck of blood, he then put the stip infront of the digital reader. The little contraption did its work almost instatly. "Alright dude, this number is saying there is no way you have Diabetes." He went on to give me a re-hash on Diabetes. Blah blah blah blah, is all I herd. I almost wished that little gadget would have told I was n Diabetic. At least the Mystery would be over and I could start making things happen. So these DAMN FEET!, could start feeling normal agian.

Trouble continued

For most  of August I arose and past out with "These feet!" that felt as if i had sand in them. Seemed like i was always tierd."Man! I need some days off bad!" And I did, i was on day 35, no days off! "Man work to rest guidlines are out the door here." And they were. I just did'nt care. I had just gone "Bonafied" and i had a greeat many "Prospects". So many in fact, i was contiplating leaving $#@$%# ahead of my own little logistic timetable. I was stacking up bid after bid after bid and sold after sold after sold. I am a firm believer in "Word of mouth sales its self" it was rioght up there with "The only easy day was yesterday" . When you work like that, the shit SALES IT'S SELF!  I was having a hell of a time running bids for $#@$%# and running my bids. IN fact it had all become one big house of cards. "Sooner or later..." I had helped $#@$%# build up a very loyal clientel and good reputation. That ment job security, which is right where you want to be. Right?   Well i had been flying uder the radar with my owen siders and built my own client list. Let me mention now that I infactHAVE NEVER poached work from$#@$%#. My "contract climbing" was smokin it. Many other companys in the vally and out of state, were willing to pay my daily rate to do nothing but climb and do rigging. About a month earlyer.. " I DID IT! I finely dun did dun did!" My Cummins! 3500, megacab, 4|4, Duley screamn "i'll rip your trucks overies out, Redneck Cadilack! It only cost me my Tacoma and 400 bucks a month. "More money, more stress just another couple of card's in the house". Originaly, the Taco was'nt supposed to go anywhere, except to my son. It was paid for and ran great! Tay knew he was next in line to have the beloved Taco.; Imagine the heartbreak and disgust!, when he saw the new Dodge sitting in the driveway and no Tacoma. It sucks, but it had to be done. Jobs were getting really big, and i was begining to shell out some serious coin to other "venders" to haul all debris from my "side jobs". Finely after giving away over a grand! one month. I just wernt gonna give away that kinda dough anymore.I went Big I pland to buy Tay a better Taco anyway. it was part of the "deal" i brokered with myself in my own head. I had dune that with alot of shit to make all this happen. Mark, one of my mentors taught me that one: "Jim, in this buisness your eather growin, or your goin ".. aint gotta tell me twice!

A  week or so  went buy, that feeling on the bottoms of my feet had gone ahead and incorporated ALL of my feet, it was crawing up my tib-fib to my knees. And not in any uniform fashon. "Funny" i thought aloud one morning while changing into my boots. Jd had overherd my verbal thought as he walked by me on the loading dock, i was sitting on the steps, he nelt down beside me. "Dit go away?" "Na it's doin some weird shit,  it's kinda creepn up my leg now". Sometimes it felt as though it was weaving around up my calf on the left leg, some how it's doin the same thing on my right, only on the shin area. "What do you mean weaving around? It changes?" "Its fuckn weird man, its like i got ivy growing up my leg man." 'Like ivy?"  It's the only thing i could think of to explain what i was feeling. As a tree I imagind would feel when those dumb ass's let ivy vines craw up the trunks of there trees for that "Realy green look". Ivy, if alowed to grow, will eventualy kill its host. It suffocates and finley chokes it's host to death. Like i could feel where the "vines" were on my leg becase it felt all tight, my muscle my circulation even the hairs on my legs. There was also a feeling of  "openess" where the "vines" were not. In patchy zones all around my calf, i could feel tightness let up,could feel where my leg hair rooted.
One of a great plethera of memorys that come to mind, vividly, as always Durring a congigal visit one morning. I was in  "stride" alot! longer than my useual  "2 minutes". Teri had managed to entice "our" intrest this AM. Responsibilitys were pressing today, so this needed to be a "quicky" morning. However junior!" had other plans. "SO weird" I would think and say to myself, for a myrid of reasons. If only I knew. The weird issue at hand was, I COULD NOT FEEL MY " UNIT" . Lucky you darlin! Thats right! Take it all! Is what I should be doing? Right? Wrong. Im no porn star, but dude! i had absoluty no energy. "Guess what baby?" She had the energy for the finish, and somehow....itjust...sorta ...came outa me. After word durring a little "pillow talk", I was telling her how icould'nt really feel "IT". Her reply: "Babe, when your inside me. I feel absolutly nothing!" and erupted with laughter. "No Ter im serious! "Your feet arnt gettn any better, babe?" Shaking my head "No and now this." We kept thinking, that if i could get some good night sleep with outy the"Knob" i could begin to recover some feeling. That did'nt seem to be working. When i got up to rinse off, " o0k this is fuckin weird" I could feel my nuts doing there thing, bobn around slap aganst my legs and whatnot. My legs were not registering the feeling of any nuts. Nore was my unit sending that diagnotic systems "check" back to my brain. My brain was saying "Dude, we got a "chip light" on our jettisen load. Instinktivly i would grab my unit . This happend alot. And not all football coach like eather!







energy!

Trouble....ahhh Trouble cant you see?....

Was a clear August morning, it began as any other day did. I work for a lawn and tree company, i am there Arborist. $@#$%@ consists of  14 or 15 fertlizer trucks. You cant miss them they are all over the valley. They look like someone took a giant beer can and laid it down on its side in the back of a truck, hence the name "Beer Truck." We have an irigation truck. Acouple of mow trucks acouple of pest control trucks , a couple of areation trucks, our old "Tree" truck. And my new chip truck and my chipper from 1960 something, biggest pice of shit. $#@$%# finely broke down and bought me a new chip truck. 4500,GMC Duramax with an 8 YARD CHIP BOX! With a ELECTRIC DUMP! Oh! and get this, the brand new chip trucks, trailer hitch Broke 4 times in the firts year i had it. This should tell you how serious they are about "Tree" work. Shit , when you put the old chip truck alongside the new one. One would wonder how anything got done. 69, The old truck, had a history that screamed : drive "This pice of shit off a fuckn cliff!" No AC, no heat, no defrost, no wipers, it hardly ever ran, thewindows barely rolled up. It held, maybe 5 yards with another ELECTRIC DUMP! The history of 69 began in Tri-citys,Washington where theymanaged to catch it on fire and burn it down, should have been totaled. But DIL-WEED being the fucking genious he is, paid to rebuild. When it made its way here, it managed to cost 3 transmisions, 2 engines, my blood presureand god knows how many helpers or Groundmen.These guys really knew shit about real Tree work. Although they had ONE WHO THE FORCE IS STRONG WITH. He runs the Bucket truck in another branch. Basicly, $#@$%#  had the money and image and the intention of providing great customer service  and deliver a great product. And they did for awhile! But greed greed greed, seems like in my experence, the bigger and stronger an entity becomes, they are Always! figuring out ways to keep the people (workers) , from advancing, yada yada yada!! Every one seems to be basing there buisness pratices after the Federal Government's. I've worked for them too! Anyway...there is no such thing as shity teams...just shity leaders! Nuff said.

I showed up for work wearing my Flame-in Go T a pair of shorts and my Keens. A kinda sandel shoe. Im always looking for a sandel for light duty work and climbing.  $@#$%&, has been trying to sharpen up there image by putting all there employee's in the same applicater "clown suit". Not this Indian! And for the most part i do what I WANT. Today is supposed to be an easy day. i sold a small job in Rose Park and a few "small removals up in the Ave's" said Bret the SALESMAN.  He,s ...........a salesman.........need i say more! After alittle coffee some BS and JD loads the tools, were outa here! Wel after i give a quick over, make sure J got EVERYTHING!! Kid's a 20 someting year old "Tree guy" who looks someyhing like sideshow Bob and Bob Marley. Thought for sure he would "Be Jamn!". Until he told me "Thats a negative ghoast rider!" i was informend that GWAR is where its at man" All that! and the fact he's a Pices! (Pices die of VD) Should have told me he's about as serious as my erectile dysfunction about getn shit done right. Its always "My bad Duuuuude" 

So were rollin to our first job in Rosepark. I sold it  to an older lady who along with 2 other home owers on this particular street, seem to give one shit about wherte they live. This woman is actualy going to invest in her trees, when everyone else is killn for meth buyn Ho's or procuring Lawers. She works down at the corner 7-11 (shes white) she has her older son and his wife and two sons residing there as well. Im told he was diagnosd with MS. Dude is in a wheelchair. Sucks i remember saying to myself. Today we are supposed to "clean up" a plum tree in the front yard and do the same to alarger Maple tree in the backyard. To bad she had to scratch the maple she told me "after a closer look at the dollars, i just cant afford to do both", "no biggie" we agreed upon $400 for both, so now we agree on $200 for the plum. Im a little iritated but dont show it. I bid the job with most of the work being in the plum the maple did'nt need as much work. Oh,well i think. She is a very good customer and she's trying to shine on a shit hole street. "Fuck it" i mutter as i walkback to the truck for my tools. This plum tree has never been cut on, hacked on, lion tailed or hat racked! Nothing! I love it when i get to my "motvation" hasnt been tampered with by some RAPEST! So rare these days. J and i give this tree some TLC, and make it glow,. all the fixins, suckers,crossers, weight reduction, "sailreduction by at least 1/3 and lifted the skirt a couple feet. when completed that plum was happy as hell and you could see it. "Tree glows" i say outloud. The home owner sure was happy. I gave her her invoice, made sure we got ALL of the tools and we were outa there.  "Next stop dollar tree real quick, and i got a big sider to start this afternoon". Ha

"Really, you've got to be out ur DAM MIND!"im  yelling as im walking back to the truck "fucken steve" He explained this job like "itl take two hours at the most". "Shit its gonna take an hour just to pull in the parking lot" Just a few TOH trees on the south side of the building, he says. Failed to mention anything about the only e-gress, d-gress was on the north side of building and the parking lot was approximatly 8 parking spaces wide! " And thats where we're fuckn goin!" Not much of an alternative, there is no street parkig in the area, well there is, but the drag would be insane! "Out of the question" is what i told the store manager when he told me where to park. Bugs man! just like salesmen! Sometimes, i wonderd if any of them have ever done a lick of work in there little piss-ant lives!?  "We're gonna be here for awhile" i tell J  "What? Why?" he inquires. I explain things to him, and he wishes we would have stoped for lunch, myself included.!
After about an hour of wrangling through parking spots, a little sign language (bird) and a "fuck you " or two back, finaly were able to get to work. "Yeah! There's a few TOH trees!" It was a jungle! TOH  or "Tree of Heaven" trees are a sumac "weed", left un-checked will really "fuck things up". AND as usual its under bid "fuckn salesmen!" And i ment it. Since the chain saws were coming out I had to swap my Keens for boots. The trees were nestled between the building and a fence that stood atop a 10' retaing wall which had cars parked uder it from the appartments next door. We had roughly 10, in width by 60' in length, so it was pretty confined. I should mention its August, its 2 in the afternoon, its hot! And in that cramped spot filled with all that green brush, its dank and muggy. Kinda finding it a little hard to breathe in there. Jd and i agreed we were just gonna "motor" through this and get outa here. No lunch, we got more money to make when we get off. I had just started my own tree buisness and J waslearning to be a tree "whore", although he was still a young "padawan". We just kept this job for the insurance and winter time work. We were cranking through it, we were roughly half way into the supersmall scale logging opperation when we decided "smoke break". It was at this time that i began to feel noticably weak. "Feast or famen" i told myself chuged some water had another smoke and observed one of the trees was going toned to be climed, "JD get your tools on and get that tree to the earth". "What the hell? How did i get sand in my boots?" I spend alot of money on my feet.....sand in my boots is unherd of. I sat down to empty the sand. When i got them off, i'll be damnd if they were free of any sand, of anything. My socks were empty too. "What the fuck?" I felt the bottoms of my feet and they felt......weird.......like the arch of my foot didnt even exist. "ODD!" I need a day off. Get my boots back on and the "sand" is still there. I help J with the tree he is in. And we finish up the job at around 5:00 or so, my feet on my mind. "Yeah, Fuckn salesman."  I'm feeling so tierd and weak on the drive back to the shop. Have another Marlboro "Im thinking some Knob Creek and a coors light around the fire pit at the Canyon....you down?" "Nah, man im broke and im goin with Dana>"...................."Suit yourself>"

continued

The nerves in my lower body are screamen this morning , as they do every morning. Last night however it snowed and the temps droped an additional 20 degrees or so, so this morning is much more of a bitch! I was able to get ahold of Clair at the MS Society yesterday. She's comeing by next week so i can lay my idea/plan/goal out on the table. With any luck i will gain support and a very important sponcer. I am also sending off an e-mail to Sherrill, The Tree People. Sherrill are "Tree people", im sure they will at a minimum, give lots of encouragement. What we need is Logistics, as im positive Toby Sherill knows the coveted location of the National Champion i wish to involve in this "endever" .And there is no dbout i will eed some backing in the finance department, and gear, lotts and lotts of gear. And njust for shits and giggles i plan to some how call out MONTEL WILLIAMS, get him off Dr Oz and those damn infomercials. Get that "Devil Dog" up in the air raisen money. If he's got the BALLS!

The genisis of the idea began as all ideas do, "Simply enough". I sit on this chair all day, and really do not much else but TV, try to stay out of the way, smoke weed, oh ya, and FaceBook. One day i sorta started bloging on my Facebook page. I began with my love affair with rope and rigging as a child. My Evil Kanevl ways that gave my parents Hemroids. Then I began to write about my hospitalization due to my blood infustion with Tysabri. Felt more like The Rats of Nymph! I did this for a few days. I got some possitive feed back. From 2 people inparticular. My friends Lisa, she has MS, and Bev, shes a teacher in the New England area. They suggested i write a book about my experence. Thats all i needed,was a little push. One thing about myself: If you push me, I WILL PUSH IT! So not only am i writing about that. I upd the anti. Next spring," IM CLIMBING!!!" "Ah ,Hell! lets climb a National champion! While im at it lets raise money for MS! Now I think I'll pick on Montell! "Roll The Bones"

continued

Iis the Bold post i made. I also threw in "Next spring IM CLIMBING!" That generated some comments. Lots of friends like this", the screen was saying to me. I had begun phisical therapy a full yearn or so ago. IN the begining, iotwas a joke. My initial introduction to phisical therapy was quite a suprise. My pulp of a corpse was located at the that time, on the second fool of the "Rehab centre. It was around 8 or 9 i think. Life in the hosptals "extented stay", i imagined was a bit like prison. It consisted of  "Ruteen". At 7:00 am its wake up, should you need a hose down, it could begin even earlyer. So then arond 7:15 its time to eat. "Gotta get the digestion process rolling, so we get some results when we do Bowel care".  Im informed. Bowel care...is the process in which a nurtse "Helps You" take a dump. I actually liken the process to being "Sodomized by the sisters" More on that later. After the superbowl ring treatment. Theyn get you dressed for the day. After that dep[ending on your scedual youi could have some TV time. On this day however im met with a pleasent voice: "Chris?" " Im Jenny" Before me stands at about 5'4" and coulnt weigh more than a buck 20,is another "beauty but ALL ANIMAL.