Once a Politician

Please accept my apologies for not writing an article last week.  I find that I may be in the stage of MSA that seems to zap all my energy.  I find that no matter how small the activity, I have to stay in bed and conserve what energy I can just to get through it.  And no matter how much I rest trying to recharge, it doesn’t seem to help.

Although I am officially retired from my city council position, I guess I can’t retire from politics.  I find that I am trying to attend almost as many events as I always have and it does take a toll on you.  I am endorsing candidates in three local races and try to attend all of the “meet and greets” as well as the candidate forums.  There has been a flurry of events leading up to our March 6^th primary.  Ohio is a very important state as far as elections go.

Last week I only had the strength to attend one event, but this past week was a little more active.  Of course Tuesday was Valentine’s Day, and since I live with two of my favorite sweethearts, I took the young one out for breakfast and the older one out for dinner.  Both dates were at one of our favorite restaurants, Mimi’s Café.  The food is good, and we are familiar with most of the servers, so it feels like home.  One of the activities on my bucket list was to fly in an F-16.  I had the opportunity to do so when my friend Colonel Spacy was in command of Wright Patterson Air Force Base here, but I was told by my doctor that the g-forces would cause serious problems with my pacemaker, not to mention the effects on my breathing, so I thought I would have to scratch that out.  Susan knew this, so for Valentine’s Day she got me the next best thing.  She arranged for me to have a 30 minute instruction from a flight instructor, then 30 minutes of me flying my own plane.  Now before any of you that live here locally run out and get additional insurance on your house, it will be a flight simulation, but I still think it will be neat.

Wednesday night, one of the candidates I am endorsing, Tom Koogler, who is running for Greene County Commissioner had a meet and greet that we attended.  I was very careful to make sure that I rested all day so I could get through the event, even though it was to last only one hour.  I usually try to stand up through the entire event, but found that I did have to sit few times.  In a conversation with Tom’s wife, Amy, I did confide in her that these events are a challenge for me, so I put on a big smile, shake hands, listen to what others have to say, share my opinion and by the time the event is over, Susan is almost literally carrying me out of the event, pouring me into the car, and the struggle to get me into the house is an even bigger.  She then helps me straight to bed and that is where I am, flat on my back for usually the next 24 hours.

Just to get a little sidetracked, and put in my two cents worth on local politics.  Since I spent a lot of time down, I surf the internet quite a bit.  I have read each of the local candidate’s information, their experience, checked through all the local court records to see what may be out there, and who endorses them.  I am openly endorsing three candidates this election, but I am not tied to any political position.  This is something I didn’t really do while I was sitting in an elected seat in Fairborn, especially if it was a contested seat, and I will tell you the reason why.

Tom Koogler

For example, there are three people running for the State Representative race and at least eight running for two County Commissioner seats. The State Representative will represent Greene County in Columbus and the County Commissioner will be the one fighting to get all they can for the community.  I cannot for the life of me understand why an elected official of a city, which is technically at the bottom of the food chain, would publicly endorse anyone in either of these races!  Let’s say you as a city official go out and endorse someone and they lose the election.  Do you think that the person that you didn’t endorse and won the election won’t remember that?  Hopefully that wouldn’t cloud their judgment, but, could it in reality tarnish your city and maybe if there is a decision to make regarding funding or some other benefit, cause your community to be overlooked?  That is why I do not think they should endorse.  They were elected to represent the citizens of their City.  If they have not went out and talked to the citizens and are positive that they are endorsing the candidate that all their citizens want, they should not put their name on an endorsement.  Well enough of me on that soapbox.

I have had a pain in my ride side.  (Why did a thorn in my side pop into my head?)  No, this is a real pain.  It is very sensitive to the touch, just below my ribs.  It actually feels like one of my floating ribs are out of place.  So Thursday’s activities did include an x-ray to see if I had broken anything.  I don’t remember a fall recently, but then again, sometimes I don’t remember them at all.  The doctor said with my condition I could easily break a bone by simply bumping into something.  Well the x-ray came back negative, nothing broken, but the pain is still real, so we’ll wait another week to see if maybe I have internal bruising, and if it doesn’t get better, we will schedule at CAT scan or ultrasound to see if there is an organ that is irritated.

Friday’s schedule was pretty full and I tried to mentally prepare how I was going to get through it.  I had a breakfast meeting scheduled, a ribbon cutting ceremony at the new Soin Medical Center, an auto auction I wanted to go to and see if there was a van large enough to put my power wheelchair in, and then a friend’s birthday party that night.  Susan didn’t say anything but with that raised eyebrow I knew she was not happy with my plans.

I met Dr. Amol Soin a few years ago when I sustained a back injury after falling backward out of a truck and having 300 pounds of frozen chicken land on top of me.  (That’s a whole other story).  He had a very impressive background in pain management and I was having a lot of pain.  The injury the accident caused is permanent, so pain management was the only way to go.  After visiting his office and receiving three treatments, I can honestly say I have been pain free for more than six years.  His parents, Indu and Raj Soin graciously donated the funding to have a hospital built in the Kettering Network in the northern part of Greene County.  As Vice President of the Regional Planning Board, I have watched the project from the beginning when they broke ground, through the entire building process, and it was an honor to attend the ribbon cutting ceremony. Greene County should be proud to have the Soin family as part of their community.

Friday evening was more relaxing and I was able to sit during most of that event.  We were invited, along with many others to celebrate the birthday of our friend, Rob Scott.  Rob hit the big “30” this year.  Rob has been the leader of the local Tea Party and has recently won his first election as a city councilman.  His girlfriend, Missy Mae planned the surprise event for him, and he was duly recognized as now swimming with the sharks complete with a shark tie and a birthday cake in the shape of a shark.  Happy Birthday Rob!

I was approached by a lady at the party who introduced herself as Julie and asked if I was the person that wrote this MSA blog.  She shared that she suffers with MS and can identify with life events that I have written about.  Having a disease that wreaks havoc on your insides, while you look perfectly healthy is hard to make people understand.  She was so thankful to find that there are others that share her frustration.  I comforted her as her tears of relief were shed.  I am so glad to see that these blogs do make a difference in others’ life.

I have also had messages from Dreama’s family.  If you remember, I met Dreama’s friend at Mimi’s Café and she told me how my blogs had helped her understand what her friend, whose life had been taken by MSA had went through.  The messages from Dreama’s family are very supportive and I think of them often.  My heart goes out to them, as well as all the other families that have dealt with, or are dealing with this horrible disease.

After this week’s events, I am looking forward to a quiet weekend with Susan.  I find we spend a lot of time, just lying on the bed holding each other while napping or watching television.  We sometimes have some conflict with that.  I know Susan, who isn’t back to 100% health needs to rest on the weekends, and she feels that since I am stuck home most of the time, that she needs to take me out.  But we always seem to find a compromise.

Actually, I think I feel a nap coming on now……

Until next time, take care of yourselves and enjoy every day that God has given us!

Tags: Frank Cervone, MSA, Multiple Systems Atrophy

This entry was posted on February 19, 2012 at 9:11 am and is filed under Frank Cervone, MSA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.