The unlucky are nothing more than a frame of reference for the lucky. You are unlucky, so I may know that I am. Unfortunately the lucky never realizes they are lucky until it’s too late. Take yourself for instance; yesterday you were better off than you are off today but it took today for you to realize it. But today has arrived and it’s too late.  You see? People are never happy with what they have. They want what they had.

So consider yourself lucky today.

I hadn’t originally planned on posting an update today, but I have some wonderful news:  My brother recently has been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and in addition to getting cancer, he has massive kidney stones that are so big, he needs to get them blasted into smaller pieces so he can pee them out.

Now, while you’re sitting there with your mouths open, cursing at me for finding this amusing, I assure you that everything will be alright.  Hodgkin’s is the best cancer you can ever have.  It’s the good cancer, and his type of lymphoma has a 98% success rate.  He is now on his last cycle of chemotherapy and is doing extremely well; in fact, his body is effectively rid of all of the cancer now and has only two treatments left.  If that doesn’t quell any sorrow you feel, he only lost his eyebrows and some of his hair in the chemo process, which makes him look like a weird muppet character, but a weird muppet character WITH hair.  He was also given an Indiana Jones fedora for Christmas, just in case he did lose his hair.  And before you ask, no he’s not retarded.  He just likes Indiana Jones.

This all started around August when he was admitted into the hospital because he couldn’t stop coughing.  He was then moved to Deborah hospital in Trenton, NJ which specializes in pulmonary conditions.  The doctors found a massive lump on his lungs which they ultimately discovered was an encapsulated tumor that wasn’t stuck to his lungs, but on top of them, applying pressure, and as a result, made him cough violently.

He was lucky the day before.

In order to determine exactly what was wrong with him, they had to collapse his lung to get a biopsy of the growth.  However, days went by and his lung never inflated.  When I asked him why they released him from the hospital with only one working lung, he shrugged.  The conversation went like this:

Brother:  Dude, the last thing you ever want is a catheter in you.

Me:  That statement makes perfect sense.

Brother:  Not only that, but before my biopsy, they had to stick this tube down my throat and I couldn’t keep it down because of my gag reflex.  They even had to give me some kind of drug to inhibit my gag reflex and it still didn’t work.  Hey nurse, did you ever see anyone gag as much as me?

Nurse:  Never.

Me:  I guess you’d make for a shitty gay guy then.

Brother:  That statement makes perfect sense.

Me:  So is your lung ever going to…you know, inflate again?

Brother:  Maybe.  The doctor said he could have pinched a nerve while they were doing the biopsy.  But most likely, it will come back.  He just doesn’t know when.

He was lucky the day before.

After a few months of laying on his couch doing nothing but watching “Married with Children” episodes, as one with only one working lung does, his lung inflated again, and he was able to go back to doing relatively normal things…like watching more episodes of “Married with Children.”  His options for removing the tumors were minimal.  They couldn’t perform surgery because they’d risk cutting the tumor open and having all of that crap spill into his lymphatic system, spreading terror over his body like that disease that makes black people black.

We can’t have that.

Chemo was his best bet.  His only bet.

Then he got kidney stones.

And he was lucky the day before.

A kidney stone, depending on the type, are pieces of calcium lodged in your urinary tract.  They’re typically small jagged pieces of minerals spread throughout your renal system and at the most inopportune time, come out.  People say that it’s the male equivalent of giving birth, and if you’ve ever asked a woman in labor this question, there is no opportune time to give birth.  The best you can hope for is that you’re not in some fancy restaurant when your amniotic sac breaks, and people are slipping on your fetal goo.  Kidney stones are the same way.  Passing it is inevitable, but the best you can hope for is that it’s not at a business meeting when you have to save your company from an economic collapse.  Therefore, there’s no opportune time to pass a kidney stone.

Especially the ones my brother has.

His kidney stones were very big…like the size of small marbles.  They were so big that he needed to have a stent pushed through his urethra to help with his urinary tract.  Basically every time he went to sit down, it felt like a needle was poking at his dick.  It’s the love only a stent could give.  And he was lucky the day before.

He had to get what is known as an Extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) to break the stone into smaller stones.  The process described to me by my brother is like mounting a beanbag filled with water, as if you were going to copulate with it…just before he gets knocked out with local anesthesia.  Then, the doctors blast his kidney stones into smaller pieces by emitting high powered audio waves.  Now he plays the waiting game:  To piss these babies out.

And he was lucky that day.

In fact, he showed me how lucky he was:

When I first saw this picture, I was wondering what it was.  I basically said, “Great! You found your lost IPod headphones,” until he wrote back and told me that it was his stent, and it was lodged in his body for a week.

His urologist was out for the weekend.  It was the same weekend his body decided to purge his beloved calcium-composed ginsu knives from his urethra.  Then again, there’s no real opportune time to pass a kidney stone, is there?  Think of sliding a rod in your dickhole slowly.  Now imagine that rod was wrapped in barbed wire, multiply that by 1,000 and you have a kidney stone stuck in your urethra.

And he was lucky that day.

In fact, he showed me how lucky he was:

Those are two of his kidney stones.  They’re black, which is weird to me because I thought they’d be yellowish.  Evidently, kidney stones can be any color depending on its composition.  Like mood stones or something…

Now my brother drinks nothing but water and cranberry juice.  The same juice that is filled with anti-oxidants, neutralizing free radicals and cleaning his urinary tract, evidently it was due for some Spring cleaning.  If he doesn’t, he runs the risk of getting pregnant with another batch of them.

So consider yourself lucky.  Luck is just an abstract concept to deviate yourself from a point in time when you were luckier than you are now.  One day my brother was saying he was unlucky for getting Hodgkin’s, but was luckier than the next day when he had Hodgkin’s and one working lung, and then luckier than when he had Hodgkin’s and a kidney stone, and was still luckier than the day he had Hodgkin’s, a stent, and a kidney stone.  He’s lucky.

Now all that’s left is to convince him to tie all of his stones together like Rosemary beads and give them to a nun.

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