Tumors Are Back With A Vengeance

I received my test results.

It’s confirmed. The cancer is winning.

Big time.

Payout is about two months away.

I won round 1 only to be sucker punched into a Round 2.

I am emotional to say the least.

The bastard got me. Hook, line and sinker. Or so it believes!

I can’t stand up to face Round 2 without a referee. My referee will be my Faith.

If it is to be a clean fight I will need a few well placed right hooks, or we will go down fast.

Cancer doe snot fight a clean fight.

Cancer is a dirty fighter.

I will have to fight as a true Urban Viking and utilize whatever I may to bring this wretched , demonic dease to it’s knees.

I am “The Original Urban Viking” , as such it is up to me to lay the ground rules for future Urban Vikings, who may follow and have to fight for their very lives.

The most important rule to fighting cancer is to not be afraid to cry or laugh.

You will be scared. No one fighting these battles can say they were/are not afraid.

YOU ARE FACING DEATH!!!!

There will be days when you beg your Creator to just take you and end your suffering.

DO NOT GIVE IN TO THIS NEGATIVITY!!!!

There will also be days that you are smiling and ready for whatever is tossed unto your lap.

You will have emotional days where as you feel you have lost all your manhood or womanhood. Days where the mirror becomes your enemy as you realize that you look like a holocaust survivor. Where you do not recognize the poor soul in the mirror.

Just bear in mind that you can recover. It will take time. A long time. But, you will recover.

My recent test results surprised me. I was not expecting such a severe diagnosis. I expected bad, but not horrible.

I committed the biggest mistake in a cancer battle ….

I let my guard down and allowed hope to give me a false feeling of a battle already won.

This leaves me in the uncomfortable position of choosing which remedy best suits my recovery.

Option one:.

Death within 2 months. Not acceptable!

Option 2:

Another round of heavy duty radical radiation. No one else has survived.

On my right shoulder I have a cute white winged Angel telling me to follow them.

Her remedy was to pass the bucket on the left hand side and, thanks to the miracles of modern medicine, ingest large quantities of radiation. With no guarantee other than months of discomfort.

Of which my chance of being cured lay at a measly 7 percent survivor rate.

On my left shoulder stands a drunken mini version of a Keebler Elf with tossed salad in his hair.

His remedy was to allow the Winds of Change and Darkness to take as much time as they need to devour my frontal lobes.

Totally unacceptable.

Which would you choose?

I opted for allowing Nature to attack at her wish.

I will counterattack with all my resources. The human body is an amazing machine and with the right positive attitude is capable of much that modern medicine cannot explain.

My surviving the first round of this battle is living proof of this.

To quote my team of doctors,

“Only words to describe my winning so far is ‘Miracle’.”

I have to wait now.

Patiently.

For Ascension.

To put this in “Layman terms”:

I got two cancers. First we thought we were winning. This was a ‘hope’.

I know I am far stronger than most believe. More than I even believe.

I will do what I must to stay alive. The only thing I will absolutely refuse is disfiguring surgeries.

For, I am The Original Urban Viking and Valhalla is not ready for me. Helheim is afraid of me.

I will go down head held high and my axe swinging.

Frack cancer.

I choose life!

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Was My Life Hard? I Think Not

I am ‘LightHouse Dann Verner’.

A man who some say has lived many tragic lives.

The first decade of my life I had lived in thirty-two homes. None of which I ever spoke the words, “Mom or Dad“. Only “Mister or Misses”.

I started my ‘Walks‘ at the age of ten fighting the monsters in my head. The demons were winning for many years.

I left my siblings Father’s house at the age of twelve to join a hippie commune and learned how to be a Heroin addict.

I have never slept in my father or mothers house since that day.

That was over fifty years ago…..

Was my life hard?

I think not.

Every life is difficult.

It is our trials and tribulations that define who we become in life.

I have done many things I am ashamed of.

I have done far more that I am proud of.

Never let your past transgressions define your future.

Hold your head high and hold the attitude that you are the best you that you can be today.

For yesterday has ‘passed’.

Tomorrow is always “tomorrow“.

Today is ‘now‘ and only the Creators know what each day will teach you, show you and bring to you.

Never be leary to stand head high.

Always treat each new day as another ‘birth“.

“Walk With Dann Collection” tells you of my many trials and tribulations.

Available at:

amazon.com/author/lighthouseverner

How many tears does it take to fill a broken heart?

How many tears does it take to fill a broken heart?

Tears are the measurement of emotional pain.

Love teaches various hurts via the trials and tribulations of a new and advancing relationship

Deeply, madly and truly.

I have been alive 61 years, 6 months and 12 days. I have had my heart demolished and my soul spilt into the gutter more times than any person could withstand.

One of the top priorities in my daily prayer sessions is my six plus decades of begging the Creator for a day, one meager 24 hour time slot, where I do not hurt or cause hurt to someone else.

The two cancer diagnosis,

the stroke,

the abscess from Hell,

the following septicemia battle.

Top that off with an exploded spleen and by the Lords of Donegul I swear you will have a uniquely, traumatic story to tell.

By estimate I can safely say I have cried an Imperial gallon of heartbroken tears in the past 5 months. Or so it seems. Either way it’s suffice to say I cried an enormous quantity of tears.

Of which, ninety-nine percent I have no knowledge why they come.

This causes me to lose a little more of my already drained genetic interpretation of manhood.

I am trapped in the gray brink of Darkness. As I try to get into the Beacon of Light I slide increasingly deeper into the Dark.

I am afraid of THAT darkness. Nothing good can come from within it’s demonic fog.

Definitely not the tears. They are tears of a 61 year old man. One who lived a tragic but full life.

My being raised in the latter 50’s and 60’s gifted me with a learned, but unwanted red neck rampage attitude towards a relationship.

Sprinkle that with the chauvinistic and bigoted attitudes of that era and you will see how it did my young pubescent self no good.

I left my father’s home at the age of 12. I have never slept in my Father’s, nor my Mother’s, home since. This alone should show testimony as to the dancing pool of hormones and rebellions in my mind.

I didn’t cry then.

I never cried.

No.

Not through the beatings.

The tortures.

Nor the loveless foster homes.

I definitely was that boy. The one who WON’T cry.

I am crying now, though. I do not know why.

I am just crying (again).

I was lonely most of my life. The “Stranger in a Strange Land“. The boy who refused to cry. No matter what was hurting him.

To put it in layman’s lingo:

“I have been lonely since October 5th, 1957. I will be even more lonely come October 5th, this year.”

I have been battling personal demons all my live long days. I have never shed as many tears in a few week period as I have shed these past five weeks.

This causes me grief. Greatly.

I developed insomnia – seems to have patterned itself into four days of being wide awake and one day of rest. Leaving my mind to ask,

” How many tears does it take to fill a broken heart?”

I am a starving author – (literally)

That calls for a weakened physical state and a mind full of swirling emotions. All of which give the Dark entranceway to the control room of my LightHouse. The demon tries his best to win, but each prayer are bullets of Light.

Especially since I have had to fight the Demon of Suicide 24 hours each day since my beloved spleen exploded and left me crying in the rain.

My last few posts show how I have crawled backwards.

I am trying to bounce back. It’s hard. I am not sure I want to be here.

I fear not Death. Not in the least.

Sad to actually say that.

I would not try suicide. Since my brother committing such I was quickly schooled on being a survivor.

Also, August 22, 2002 I succeeded in killing myself. After a four hour battle in my basement to revive and to stabilize my body, I now sit here before you.

Poring out my inner thoughts and my broken moments. My soul with all it’s hidden secrets would lay before you.

A guess would be that one who cries this many tears is depressed beyond depression. Sad beyond sadness.

Yet, it’s a truth.

I cry still.

I wish I knew the real reason.

I am tired. So very tired.

Physically.

Mentally.

Emotionally I am the sinking of the Bismark.

I am done venting on you.

I am too old to be crying.

Yet …….. I am crying once again and even still shall I cry forever more.

My only regret is I know not THE REAL REASON I have this half full bucket of silent tears.

Perhaps the 2 stage 4 cancers?

Maybe because I am single.

Or maybe my loneliness.

Or because I am realizing that I am not considered as Maria’s “man“. That we aren’t on any channel.

To be officially known as her “man” would be an honor. I would be the happiest man ever.

But, the Darkness has prevented that.

It may very well be that I am dying.

Any how …

I am crying real tears.

Perhaps even the tears of a clown.

The Binds That Tie

I have not been writing much as late.

I have to get back to doing so.

I am overloading my mind with chaos and confused emotions.

The cancer eats at me even when it is laying dormant. “Am I going to die?” or “Will I soon be a husk of my former self?” – these two questions echo to and fro within the confines of my mind.

The tears I have yet to understand. They flow without rhyme or reason. Occasionally I have a warning. Many times I have not. On a crowded bus they leak out my eyes and trickle down my cheeks. I have learned not to be embarrassed. We all cry occasionally.

Why am I crying???

I know not why. Perhaps it is fear of the cancer, or sadness from the condition of my emaciated body, or my feelings of unworthiness.

I know I have worth. I know I have been allowed to live for a greater reason than I have knowledge of.

In a few mere weeks I transitioned from one tough mofo of a streetwise gangster to a 102 pound HUMBLED man. A man who at 61 realizes that honesty, caring and devotion are the key ingredients to being a productive cog in the machine of life.

The cancer, stroke,abscess, septicemia and exploded spleen were just mere bumps in the road. Nudges from the Creator.

Unveiled clues to the meaning of my life. A “reset” of my inner core thought process.

Will I be happy sitting on a chair aging into an old man held hostage by thought in a ghetto apartment? Or, will I rejuvenate my soul’s energy and start the final ‘Walk With Dann’ with a new found love of living?

I chose the latter. I chose a life.

I have now been declared legally dead on 9 occasions. How many people can say this?

I used to wonder why I have been Blessed with returning from Death. I do not wonder now, for I know that I have a purpose yet to be revealed. A calling I will soon discover and understand.

I will not allow my physical ailments nor my psychological turmoil to steer my Walk.

I will leave those steps in the hands of the Creator.

When my calling and purpose births itself, I shall be ready.

It may well be as simple as writing yet another book about life lessons learned, or, it may be a complicated array of lecturing the youth or teaching the elders.

Only the Creator knows for sure what my destiny holds. I look forward to the day I obtain self realization and take the first step onto the path I must “Walk”.

I am but a grain of sand on the beach of life …….

Yet, I hold the power to change the world

Namaste’

Some are confused between the radiation therapy being successful on my tumors and my cancer NOT being cured

Just got to explain my situation to those who do not understand how cancer works.
1- yes, the radiation was successful. It killed the 26 tumors.

2- I am not “cancer free”

3 – my cancer is in remission

4 – before they killed the tumors my body got very damaged. Mostly in the frontal lobes of my brain. Hence, the deafness and possible blindness. It is possible that I could easily lose all bodily functions as the frontal lobes are the most important part of our body. If the pharyngeal cancer comes back it could easily make me a vegetable.

5 – I have 2 cancers – the “pharyngeal”, which is responsible for the 23 floating neck and head tumors. 3 of which are in my brain, 3 next to my heart and 17 roaming around in my neck. These tumors are outside of my esophagus. The radiation killed the existing tumors.

THEN, I have “Squamous Cell Carcinoma” – – – this is the killer – it is responsible for the huge tumor on the base of my tongue and two little ones beside the large one. It has destroyed my tongue beyond repair. I will have a large hole in my tongue for life.

6 – For now I am safe from “cancer”, BUT, if my body doesn’t absorb the benign pharyngeal tumors the doctors will have no choice but to crack open my chest to remove the tumors by my heart – open my neck to get the ones floating in it and they are hoping that they can pop out my left eye ( cause it is already very damaged from the time I was on life support for 6 weeks and I can barely see through it) and hopefully be able to get to and remove the 3 on my brain.

They wanted to do actual brain surgery but I refused to allow them because they would have to remove the existing plate in my head and there is a 95 percent chance that my body will reject the new plate. I will not EVER allow them to open my skull. (The existing plate I have had since 1972 – obtained in Montreal during the “biker wars, nuff said about that)

So, yes, I am very happy about my diagnosis of the radiation working on the tumors.

I still have cancer.

My body has to deal with the damage from the tumors.

Also, the stroke, the septicemia poisoning, the abscess and my spleen exploding damaged a lot of my organs – which some can be repaired and some not repairable

So, my dear friends …. we have cause of celebration of the successful radiation treatment. And believe you me, I am forever thanking the Lord for His mercy.

I still have a year or more of treatments ahead of me. And many possible surgeries.

And this I shall get through via the mercy of the Lord, the Prayers and love from my beautiful Prayer Army and the love and support from my truest soul mate, Maria Angelica M.

Nothing Less Than A Miracle

Praise the Lord!

No one is going to believe this, but I have a witness.

The doctors both said at the same time that I “am way ahead of schedule” and it appears we got all the cancer.

HIS WORDS AS WERE OURS WAS,

“It’s nothing less than a miracle”

They are dumbfounded that I have gained so much weight and I am eating regular food.

Stomach tube comes out in two weeks.

The power of your PRAYERS and the amount of LOVE and ENCOURAGEMENT from all of you has been the catalyst behind this.

I will still have problems as the cancer cells and tumors continuing to die off. My body still has to repair itself.

But, the cancer met it’s match with LightHouse Dann Verner and I have been Blessed with a MIRACLE directly from God.

I want to cry I am so happy

When Maria and I left Princess Margaret Cancer Hospital it was pure joy and disbelief.

Praise God ♡

I will forever be giving thanks through prayer.

I will forever be amazed at the amount of people who joined my Prayer Army and showered me with nothing but Faith, Love and Prayers both night and day.

How do you say thank you to so many?

Maria, I fall deeper in love with you everyday. We have been through so much these past 7 years. I love you more than any words can say.

I can only show you my appreciation and gratitude for having you in my life.

#ATrueMiracle
#FuckCancer
#LightHouseDannVerner

The Dark Void

I have been through some heavy predicaments in my life that left me dazed and confused.

Looking back I wonder how I made it through most of them.

Now I have been battling this cancer.

It would not have been so difficult if I hadn’t had a minor stroke the first week of treatment – luckily the nurse was changing my IV bag as it started to happen.

The next week they discovered a huge abscess in my abdomen. Painfully it was dealt with.

Bear in mind I am also having double radiation sessions daily.

T

hen after the abscess I get hit with septicemia and almost die.

A week after that my spleen explodes.

No one knows how I survived that.

There is no way I should have survived.

And I finally graduated from my radiation treatments.

And now, as I wait for the test results to tell me if we got all the cancer, I sit here in a very dark void.

I am scared. It could be extremely bad news on the twenty – eighth or the best news ever.

But, I sit here day after day trying to stay positive and ready as any Urban Viking to go to war against the cancer again if I have to.

But this dark void contains my biggest fears, my greatest wishes, who I love, my family love.

And I am getting scared.

So, I pray and I pray from the heart and soul. I have confessed my sins to my God. I willingly accept all and any penence I may have to serve.

Prayer is what pulls me from this void.

I am scared but ready. Only a fool would state he was not afraid of the battles I have yet to fight.

Namaste’

I Am Scared

Was all excited yesterday when I heard I was soon to go home, (Thursday), then an hour later, BAM!!!

I was a completely different person.

Very ill, extremely lathargic, dizzy, confused and in pain beyond comprehension.

I slept from one in the afternoon yesterday till 6 this morning. How does anyone sleep 17 hours?

Doctors are increasing my Fentanyl to 75 milligrams. “To make me comfortable ” was their words. I have found in the past that when doctors say such things to patients with terminal illnesses, what they really mean is they won’t let you die in pain.

I am not being paranoid. I was told from the get go that my chances of survival were slim. For 2 months I have heard everyday how everyone is amazed I have “made it” this far. Add in the constant use of words like make me comfortable, use as much pain medication as I feel I need, and then there are the constant “team meetings”.

And yesterday they asked how I felt about going into a hospice. No one walks out of a hospice.

All this makes you think the worse.

I have asked for a case conference later today because if what I suspect is true just send me home to be with my dogs.

But, I won’t know for sure until they all get at the same table and tell me. It’s hard when there are so many professionals involved. 2 regular oncologists, 2 radiation oncologists, 1 ENT surgeon, a whole team of pain palative care and five or six others from dieticians, physio and psychology.

Until then all I can do is pray and pray I will.

For Those Who Wonder Where I Have Been

As most of you know in late October I was diagnosed with Squamous Cell Carcinoma and Pharyngeal Cancer.

Due to the advance stage conventional chemotherapy and radiation were off the table.

My only options being surgery to completely remove my tongue, larynx and most everything else within my neck or radical radiation treatments twice a day for 20 days and see what the result would be.

I, of course, opted for the radiation. I began treatment in early December.

I had to have a gastric feeding tube implanted as I would definitely need it as treatment progressed.

I was doing well until early January when I developed a very large abscess in my lower abdominal cavity between my stomach and muscles.

Mind you, this abscess had nothing whatsoever to do with the cancers or the feeding tube. It just decided to appear and grow and grow.

The fine surgeons here at Princess Margaret Cancer Hospital immediately dealt with the demon infection. Part of the process involved inserting a necessary draining tube.

If it were not for bad luck I would have no luck at all.

Hence, I had many complications from the drainage tube requiring me to spend most of January in the hospital.

Fortunately, I was still receiving my radiation therapy as per scheduled.

The infection took a fair amount of time to get cleared up and by the end of January 2019 I was declared infection free and discharged to home.

I would resume my radiation therapy as an outpatient as per the original plan of care. I was so happy to finally get to go home after almost a whole month of hospitalization.

I arrived home February first. Very sore, but happy.

I slept well the first night. The second night I had a slight pain in my back but I put that off as getting used to sleeping on my own bed instead of the hospital bunk.

I am not sure what time I woke up that morning.

What I am sure of is that I woke to the most excruciating pain you could possibly imagine.

The pain was so intense I could not even scream for help. I literally had to call to the next room to wake my good friend who was watching over me.

I honestly thought I was going to die.

Immediately she called 911 and within minutes I was in an ambulance with a police escort rushing me to the nearest hospital at full speed.

All I remember about the ambulance ride was the EMS man telling the driver they had mere minutes to get me to surgery. My blood pressure was 49 over 43.

I passed out.

Next memory was surreal – I was in an elevator, someone was cutting my shirt off and I heard the surgeon say,

“I have to open him right now.”

I felt the scalpel cutting through my abdomen and I saw my blood covering everyone in the elevator.

I passed out.

I awoke many hours later in ICU.

Surrounded by my family and dearest loved ones. I was not sure if I was alive or dead. But, when I blinked my eyes, everyone single one of them cried and I knew I had survived something very serious.

My spleen had literally exploded. Like a small nuclear bomb.

Apparently I had lost almost all my blood – if not for my living so close to a hospital I definitely would not be here to author this blog.

I spent one week in the Michael Garron Hospital in East York, Toronto. Bless the surgeons there for saving my life.

I was then discharged from there do I could go into Toronto General Hospital as an in-patient and then transferred across the street to Princess Margaret Cancer Hospital where I am now.

It sounds complicated but Toronto General, Princess Margaret, Mount Sinai and a few other medical facilities are all side by side and part of the same University Health Network and also connected to The University Toronto.

I am in one of the highest rated cancer hospitals in the world and I am forever thankful that the Creators have given me yet another chance to live.

My road to recovery is going to be a long difficult journey. The spleen is an important organ. Yes, you can live without it, but I need many vaccinations and for the rest of my days I will have to be very vigilant not to get infections and such.

My radiation therapy is back on track and I finish my first series of treatments on March the first. Which is also my oldest son’s birthday – so I take that as an omen of good fortune.

I will write more at some point down the road. I just wanted my followers to know why they haven’t heard from me in a while.

People, look around at your family and friends and let them know how precious they are to you. Life can change in the blink of an eye. Or the pop of a spleen. Never be afraid to tell them you love them.

I am a tough old dude with very tough masculine friends and I have no qualms hugging them, kissing them and saying, “I love you Brother. “

The greatest gift I received from this disaster was seeing my dearest and most close friend standing there with love and joy in his eyes when I blinked that first blink. To see my sons faces fill with relief when I spoke.

Life is a precious gift and to have life and love together cannot be matched by any other thing.

Namaste’

I Cannot ‘DO’ This

I have tried and tried to keep myself on the positive side of all this.

I knew if I were to start crying the tears wouldn’t stop.

I realize now that there is no positive side.

And the tears will not stop.

For where lays the positive side of dying a slow, very painful death?

Show me.

My Maria Angelica M who had said she would always be there for me through out this has up and walked away.

Her false vows of love meant nothing to her – easy to say, but much to me on this tearful darkened day.

Her anger misplaced on my shoulders leaving a trail of blame on my heart.

I am losing my home. I have no time to find a place before months end.

I have lost my beloved Maria Angelica M or perhaps she has lost me.

I have the love of Roy, Dakota, Lisa, Randy & Emma in my immediate life.

I have the extended love of family & my many friends.

But, as I have feared, the tears are here and they just will not stop.

Where is that shoulder to cry on Maria Angelica M?

Oh yes, I forgot.

They were texted with false nailed fingers and etched onto my heart.

Some falsehood testimonials of how we would never be apart.

I discovered one lie after another and and the blame you sent to my heart.

Your love and devotion were quite easily redirected and here is the saddest part.

Your reason for running to another was the most hurtful part.

It took you but one minute to easily rip out my heart and here I do quote the answer you sent to me and destroyed this foolish heart.

I “pissed you off so you turned around”. and abandoned me for your love was a lie from the start.

I needed that shoulder to cry on. But in your deceit towards me you had already found some other arms to hold you so lovingly sweet.

I was shown by a mutual friend and saw through my own eyes on your Facebook these words you did speak.

They were not written for me, but another love in your life.

You may as well etched them with a knife for they have scarred my broken heart.

I needed your false love, if only to get through this one storm.

Then like the many other times in six years you could roam night after night.

And once again leave me crying at home for yet one more night.

I needed that shoulder. I needed your false love, if only to get through this one storm.

For a false love is better than no love when your whole world has fallen apart.

Now, like the skies out this hospital window, my very heart and soul have turned stormy and dark.

For …..

These tears are too real and the pain is too great.

For this broken man named Dann whose soul needs a break.

These tears are embarrassing as I sit here on display.

And pray to the Creator above to take me this day.

I will cross into oblivion when Death has her way.

How easy it was to deceive me with the words of love you say.

I know I sound foolish and broken for believing the love you did say.

I was raised never to say I love you unless the love would forever stay.

I cannot stop loving you forever more each day.

For my love is more real than your hurtful display.

#LightHouseDannVerner #FuckCancer