Wayman Tisdale

I just learned that Wayman Tisdale passed away this morning in Tulsa, Oklahoma. You can read a great article about him here by Carey Murdock, a sports writer in Oklahoma City.

He was awesome basketball player and musician. For Oklahoma, he was one of our best ambassadors. Wayman was recently placed on the Tourism Board of Oklahoma by Governor Brad Henry, who attended Oklahoma University at the same time as Tisdale. Tisdale's infectious smile is what I remember most about him.

Besides Wayman being an Oklahoman like myself, I am writing this because he was truly a good person. He was also diagnosed with cancer in the same spot and at the same time as my Dad. They went to the same doctor in Oklahoma City. The doctor originally diagnosed both of them with the same type of cancer, it is now known that my dad's is actually a different type of cancer. Because of this my Dad and I have felt a lot of kinship with Wayman Tisdale. He will be sorely missed. Wayman was only 44 years old, my thoughts are with his wife and 4 kids that are left behind.

Weekend fun

My dad had his surgery on Friday. Everything went great, he was actually able to go home a day early. He can already walk and get around. He has trouble getting up from a sitting or laying down position is all. He also said he has a dull ache in his hip but nothing severe.

Saturday night I went to a friend's 40th birthday party. I made an awesome pineapple habanero salsa. Tasted wonderful but had people reaching for drinks, followed by going after more salsa. The salsa itself had 12 habanero peppers in it, seeds and all.

I had to cut up the peppers by hand and didn't wear gloves while doing it. My cat came up to my hand smelled it shook her head and didn't want to have anything to do with my hand for the rest of the day a most of Sunday. Sunday, the capsaicin still on my fingers was burning as I tried to play games. Also never wear contacts on a day you cut up peppers. My eyes burned for awhile after I took the contacts out by hand. Not one of my most brilliant moves.

At the party, I got to sit down and talk with a friend mine. We have both been through divorces and just have a lot in common. We started talking about our exes and why things went wrong. He brought up the sex issue and mentioned how they were both virgins until shortly before they got married. They had sex two times before getting married and then about once a month after marriage. My ex and I well we were not virgins. We had sex several times before getting married, but after I gave her the engagement ring she suddenly did not want to have sex. Once we did get married we also only had sex about once a month. Both my friend and I had to initiate to get any action. Personally I got fed up with initiating and became celibate. My friend just found other women and cheated on his wife.

He also told me that his wife would say things like "are you done yet". How romantic and sensual. This got me to the whole Christianity makes sex evil. He is a christian and he knows I am an atheist. I pointed out that within Christianity, the idea is that sex is evil and even when one is married it is hard to break that and it suddenly be good. He actually agreed with me there. He also said he didn't think sex was supposed to be evil according to the Bible. I didn't really push the point with him.

I just thought it was an interesting conversation. There was of course more to it than this but this is the highlights. I am glad I have a good friend that I can discuss things like this with without judgment. This is how friendship should be.

Good News

My dad saw his doctor yesterday and the cancer is localized to the one spot on his bone. It is a bone cancer and not soft tissue cancer. So in one week from today they are going to have surgery and remove the cancer. He will have little to no chemo because of the type of cancer.

Thank modern medicine and science. A few years ago and I would have lost both my parents to cancer. My mom had breast cancer a year or two after my dad had been diagnosed with his first bout of cancer.

Bad News

I got some bad news yesterday, my father was diagnosed with cancer. He had cancer 4 years ago in his knee, it was growing on the bone. Part of the process of getting rid of it, they did a total knee replacement and he had no problems until recently. His hip, on his good leg started hurting, they had been doing x-rays but not seeing anything and his pain got worse. Finally they gave him a CT scan yesterday and saw the cancerous growth on his pelvis. It is the same cancer he had before. For right now the plan is to go in and cut the piece of his pelvis out with the growth. Then he will go through chemo again. The problem is why did it come back, what allowed it to come back, and is it anywhere else in his body. He is starting to have tests to find all that out now.

Last night, I received a phone call from a member of my parent's church. They told me they were praying for me and my family. I said thanks because it is nice to know that someone is thinking of you but it just reminded me of how useless the act of praying really is. What would be better is if these same people would volunteer their time, that they are now spending praying, to help my mom and dad out around the house and in his office, but that always seems like too much to ask.