Welcome 2026 Part ll: The Medical Stuff

In part 2 we will deal with the medical. It'll be disability issues, weight issues, and hopefully the weight loss journey as I am a very large man, over 400 pounds. I am a 58-year-old disabled male and widower who was married to the best gal in the world for 12 years before she passed away.  Overall, in a nutshell, I'm a physical wreck. Arthritis has racked my body in both knees, which I'm 99.9% sure need to be replaced, both shoulders, which an orthopedist already told me both need to be replaced, and arthritis in the lower back so bad that I can barely stand for more than 30 to 60 seconds and requires 4 days to recover, from playing a poker tournament, which I touched on in part one. To get around out in the world I need to use a mobility scooter, or quite frankly, I don't get around out in the world. 

Other things going on that I've been diagnosed with include thrombophilia, which means I get blood clots if i'm not on medication and even if I am, which I am, it can still happen, diabetes, a heart condition called sinus tachycardia which means a fast heart rate which can cause heart failure or a stroke, oh joy, and if I'm weren't on medication, my resting heart rate will be about a 120 beats per minute. We'll talk later about the heart rate with exertion, which will tie into the weight loss issue. I also have high cholesterol, low iron levels, and low vitamin D levels. Pretty much it would be quicker to tell you what I don't have. I'm taking 24 pills per day to combat these and other things not worth really mentioning, because they can't kill you, and the medications pretty much keep things normal. If you saw one of my blood draw reports, you might look at it and say this guy is pretty healthy because almost all the numbers are green, and green is good, but it's the medications that make it so. At one point, before I got on all these medications and started seeing my doctor regularly, back in January of 2021, I was a walking dead man and never even knew it. I was walking around with a blood sugar over 400 which is supposed to be under 120 and an A1C of 12.9 which is supposed to be less than 5. but it is much improved since then. My A1C runs between 5 and 6 and my fasting, blood sugar usually comes in at around 135 which thrills my doctor no end. 

The most difficult thing in my life is pain, which I'm in 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It's never-ending because arthritis is vicious, something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. It's not just using the apendages that are arthritic, it's not using them also. For instance, when I'm on my phone and not moving my shoulders hardly at all, when I finally do, they will have stiffened up so bad that the slightest movement will send pain searing through me that on a scale of 1 to 10 is about a 12. If you think it's bad not moving them for several minutes, imagine what it's like waking up in the morning after you've been sleeping and likely not moving for several hours. Sitting for long periods of time in my scooter, or at the tournament tables will put me in misery when I actually straighten the legs or finally stand up. I've already touched on the back and mentioned what happens when I go out to play a poker tournament for the day, but I still go and do it because no matter what's going on with me, I will not simply exist as opposed to living, because as far as I am concerned, if I'm only existing, I'm not living. It sucks there is no cure for arthritis, but just because there is no cure does not mean there is no hope. That's where the pain management doctor comes in. Although, I have to tell you, the things he has in mind, you may cringe, because trust me, I already have. 

It's s called Radiofrequency Ablation or RFA, where heat is used to temporarily disable the small sensory nerves sending pain signals from your arthritic spinal joints to your brain. They use X-rays to identify the small sensory nerves that supply what they call arthritic facet joints whatever the hell that truly is. Once they've got that identified, they use a needle with a microelectrode and place it near the nerve, and a radiofrequency current creates heat for around it for 60-90 seconds per nerve to stop the nerve from sending pain. Hmmm, per nerve?? Just how many of these things, do they plan on deep frying?? Anyway, the doctor uses X-ray to guide needles and the procedure takes about 20-60 minutes. They use the term needles, which is the plural of the word needle and possibly taking 60 minutes. Why is it I picture the procedure causing enough pain to send me through the roof of the surgical suite, but they say the back pain relief lasts 6 months to a year and If this RFA works, it could be a whole new world for me. I could play poker tournaments on consecutive days which is something I can't do right now. I wouldn't have to specifically play Day 1A in multi-day tournaments, just so I can have the couple or few days off to recover. Even if I played a day one where day 2 followed the following day it wouldn't be a problem. I can only dream and imagine something like this and apparently they can potentially use it in other areas, but that's something that I will be talking to my doctor about. I will be calling him to make an appointment sometime next week and the appointment will be, hopefully, sometime in February. 

That brings us to the weight issue. I am 6 foot 1, and weighed in on the first day of 2026 at 413.2 pounds which is obviously way too much. However, it is down from the high point that I saw on the scale of 430 when I was rooming with my buddy, Joe, up until November 2025. Nonetheless, I can't get the new shoulders I need, or the new knees I'm 99% sure I need, unless I take a lot of weight off because it's just too dangerous with the anesthesia for a very heavy person and no doctor will perform the surgeries under the current circumstances. I'm utilizing an app called MyNetDiary. You can scan barcodes, and it tells you what the calorie count is and if you have gotten fast food, or food from any restaurant really, it's so easy these days to simply Google how many calories are in this and how many calories are in that. I told the app my weight, my goal weight, and the desire to lose 1 pound per week, and it told me how many calories I'm allowed to have each day which for me is 3,471. This is a complete caloric plan so you can eat absolutely anything you want, but once you run out of calories, you're done eating for the day so you need to choose wisely. Choosing unwisely can mean several minutes of enjoyment, but many hours of hunger pains. I've utilized this app previously and in 2024 lost weight, over 40 pounds, so I was doing very well and then ego and arrogance kicked in. I made the mistake of figuring okay, I got the jist of this and I can just handle this on my own and the results of that arrogance was, shall we say, unfortunate considering not only did I gain those 40+ pounds back, I added another 30 on top of it. Live and learn, I suppose, but this time around let's not get overly egotistical and presumptuous. My ultimate goal is to be 200 pounds but I'm setting my goal in 3 stages or steps. Step 1 is to get down to 340, step 2 is to get down to 270, and finally, step 3, getting down to that final weigh-in of 200 pounds. Let's see how it goes.

One of the issues I have is that exercise is out of the question and my heart condition, sinus tachycardia, plays a direct role. As a stated, if I weren't on medication I can be laying on my bed, which is what I'm doing 95% of the time anyway, watching TV, playing online poker, or playing computer games and the heart rate will be about 120. I'm laying on my bed instead of sitting because of the potential blood clots, in which sitting is the worst thing you can do, but it's not stopping me from playing live tournaments. When it comes to those, I'll take the damn risk. I'm not giving up my love and passion. Also, laying helps the arthritic knees and the back as I stated, as long periods of sitting like in the scooter or playing tournaments puts me out of commission for a few days, so that makes predominantly laying that much better. While the medication seems to solve the resting heart rate issue unfortunately any exertion will send my heart rate flying. Just walking to the kitchen, will raise it to over a 100 and if I have to walk numerous steps, it'll go as high as 130 maybe even a 140. The high heart rates, even at 100 beats a minute causes me to experience profuse sweating and overheating, nausea and sometimes the unpleasant things that come with nausea, and the heart itself and chest actually hurt. Unfortunately, the cardiologist says, as far as the tachycardic heart rate from exertion, there's nothing they can do about it. The heart pill I'm on only helps the resting heart rate, and there's nothing to treat the exertion caused tachycardic episodes, except obviously exertion avoidance. I'm gonna have to just do this based on caloric intake, it's worked before and I know I can make it work again. I will be giving updates on my progress when I do my weigh-ins every Sunday. I saw no sense on doing a weigh-in on the very first Sunday since only 3 days had passed, so this coming sunday will be the first official one. I hope any comments on my weight issues and weight loss journey can at least be civil. Thank you for your cooperation. 

You may be reading this and perhaps thinking, "Well hell, with all those conditions, he's not going to be around too long anyway." Well, that brings us to the final part of this entry. If you knew my past history which I will now share with you, you will understand when I say I must be living forever because death has knocked on the door at least 8 times and i've sent it on its way every time. I tell my friends all the time I'm living forever and that it's actually a win-win situation. If I'm right, I'm eternal, and if I'm wrong, by the time any of my friends can say, I told you so, I'll be dead in a box and not going to hear them anyway. Truth of the matter is dying scares the hell out of me, especially the older I get, and I don't even want to think about it. The other part of it is when death tries to grab you at least 8 times you start to think, I must be invincible. The first thing is the blood clots that I mentioned. I've had so many of them that it boggles the imagination. I've had this condition for the last 30 years and over that time I have had more blood clots in my lungs alone, which are called a pulmonary embolisms or PE, than you have fingers on both hands and that is not an exaggeration. 25% of PEs cause sudden death as the first symptom, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and I've had at least a dozen PEs in my lifetime if not more, so, if you look at the numbers, a minimum of 3 of them should have killed me. I'm not even including the time that I had 7 blood clots in my body, at the same time, 3 of them being simultaneously PEs which is when they found out I had this condition and that put me in a coma for 10 days, not to mention another short term coma I was in with a fractured skull. Either one of those should have been fatal. So now we're up to 5. Double pneumonia, nearly killed me a few years back, so that's 6, and in addition I've been in 2 major automobile accidents I probably shouldn't have survived, so that's 8. I'm not even counting the 400+ blood sugar and 12.9 A1C which I had for God knows how long. My doctor to this day doesn't know how I'm still alive just from that one alone. I will not get into religious things too much in this blog, but I will say this. I am a Christian. I believe in God and Jesus, although I am not a church goer, but after everything that's going on in my life, I gotta think somebody has been watching over me, so bring on eternity, Baby!!

Well, that's gonna wrap up part 2. Now you have a better idea of what has gone on and what's going on in my day to day life. I'm not sure if anybody is gonna read it or cares or whatever, but this blog is going to be about life and poker, and for me, this is life. In posting part 2, as far as I'm concerned, the best thing it could do is just let those younger than myself realize not to take anything for granted and live life fully like I always have, and I'm still trying to do only in slightly more subtle ways. Even with all the crap I'm going through I'm still waking up every morning wondering what sort of mischief I can get into and that's never gonna change. I still have such a love of life. Yeah, the daily pain sucks, but I fight through it. I battle, and the number one thing is I never surrender. I hope whatever's going on in your lives you have that same attitude. So until next time, take care everyone and stay safe.