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What are you waiting for?
I seem to have lived several lifetimes in this single span of existence.
Sanity left me long ago. I think I remember last seeing it falling into a grenade pit at the bottom of a foxhole in a long forgotten desert.
I say forgotten as that’s the way I’d like to leave it but it still haunts me from time to time.
These days I just go with the flow and try to keep holding my head up.
I was in the Army for 14 years all tolled. I spent the majority of that time working with electronic intercept systems in hazardous duty and hostile fire zones. Somewhere around the beginning of that, I was married to my first wife Alaine and we had a son Sean. A few years into that marriage, she moved in with a guy who used to work for me while I was waiting for her and Sean to join me in Germany. This helped me to be a better soldier and afford many enemy soldiers the optimal opportunity to die for their country for the remainder of my tenure in service. I was angry and hostile and it was far better for me to spend that time outside of the country than to remain here and get into trouble.
After that I was fortunate enough to be married to a sweet woman who loved me to death. She had one son and we had another together. Her son adopted me and took my name on entering the service, so I guess I must have done something right. She passed in May of 2022 having nearly defeated cancer, but succumbed to a congenital heart condition.
Hycite Corporation in Madison, Wisconsin was my first commercial IT job and I worked there for 7 years until returning to central Arkansas to help my dad with travel and support during his cancer treatment. He fought off colon cancer for 10 years after being told he would only live for another 6 months. SFC (R) Michaud was in the Army for 20 years himself, having been a drill instructor for the strategic air defense command in White Sands NM. Dad rocked this world like a boss.
The sawmill and transportation companies owned by dad’s friends folded in late 2010, and I went to work for Cognizant Technology Solutions. They’re a huge global consulting firm. I was with them for like 13-14 years. I get computers a lot better than I get most people so they are and I guess will always be a large part of my life. I’m working for the Department of the Treasury Internal Revenue Service now. It’s still computer work as I was hired on as an IT Specialist.
The world is still a bit of a vampire, but I find that with time we become accustomed to even the sucking sound of it trying to drain our lives. If you let it get to you, it will drive you crazy and leave you friendless and cross. Enjoy the ride ? no one gets out alive so instead of subscribing to the melancholy, enjoy the time we have here together.
Most recently I’ve been diagnosed with Mantle Cell Lymphoma (MCL) which is stated to be a malady that’s associated with a rare genetic defect. Could it be from eating and drinking in a depleted uranium (DU) enriched environment? Having read some white papers on the impact of DU on the inhabitants of Iraq I wouldn’t doubt it. For all intents and purposes, it seems to have started in the upper part of my stomach at the base of the gastric tract. I’m told it’s treatable but persistent and responds well to chemotherapy potentially followed up with stem cell replacement therapy.
I can only hope it does and in any case I won’t be backing down from this particular suck stream any more than I have the others. So far we’ve confirmed it to be advanced to stage 3 and waiting on the results of a bone marrow biopsy to confirm if it reached 4.
