On October 4th, 1980-something I was born to a new proud mother. (Day 6)

One of the goals of taking these medications is to help me become more focused.

I've been entirely worried about losing what it is about me that allows me to write. But I've been told I can't do this or that my entire life, and as a result...

As a result I live to spite everything, and everyone.

When I was four years old, a condition appeared in me that would cause temporary paralysis of the legs and my entire body would emanate with pain.

That was what I remember about those years of my childhood; confusion and pain. One day I was called into class early with my mother to have a conference with my teacher to see about having me being taken out of school while my problems were sorted out.

But even being five years old, I knew that Doctors who'd flown from around the world to come look at me to try and make heads or tails of it, they hadn't figured it out now...they never would.

I always got treated with gloves on. What I mean is, I got treated with such caution as to not injure me. And I never understood it, because I always felt like a normal kid.

One of the worst things I've ever had to deal with, was shortly after that meeting and having declined to be removed from school for an unknown amount of time, one of the conditions the doctors would only allow me to stay in school was I had to wear this black, uncomfortable back brace.

Four whole years I wore that brace.

Instead of just letting that be what inhibited me, one day I picked up a basketball.

For those of you who don't know me, I'll explain it the best I can: I have a lot of loves in my life. Movies, books, writing, chess, education, comics, history, instruments/music, etc. If it stands in my way, I'll figure it out, and I'll do it right then and there, and move on. Because I have to prove it to myself. I don't care if you think I should or shouldn't do something physical; if anything it validates and warrants my need and wanton desire to become better at it than anyone else in my way.

I'm not saying I'm the best at any of these things. Don't get me wrong, I've met a better in everyone of these subjects and thats fine. But I hold my own.

But one day I picked up a basketball after having read about James Naismith, during the Phoenix Suns 92-93 title chase which they ultimately lost to the Chicago Bulls. You just can't touch Michael Jordan, BJ Armstrong and Scottie Pippen.

I picked up a basketball, and every single day after school for four years I practiced. Hours on end, rain or shine, I would stand behind the arch and shoot. If I missed I'd shoot from the same spot 10 more times, and if the average wasn't in my favor...well, I just stayed in one spot.

One of the issues that came along with my back problem was my right foot is turned to an outward angle of about forty-five degrees. I never found out what my back ailment was, but the foot thing would come back to haunt me.

After years of playing basketball and football, without correcting my foot's turn it took a lot of strain on my knee, eventually causing a torn medial meniscus. Over the years I've re-aggravated the injury about six times. The last time was in January of this year, resulting in the most serious the injury can get, the Unhappy Triad.

I've had surgery more times than I can count all over my body, but only once to correct the problem. I've never done the rehabilitation.

But the initial injury to my knee was the most depressing of my life. For five months prior to the surgery I couldn't walk without heavily relying on crutches or a cane. another two months after the surgery, since I couldn't afford rehabilitation I just had to keep on going.

So you keep on going, right? You pop a couple pain pills and move straight, because what waits behind you is so god damned depressing. Being restricted from the things that gave you joy when there was nothing else because your body is falling apart takes its toll on the soul.

Recently I've begun playing basketball again. Weekly, for upwards of 4 to 6 hours a night throughout the weekend. For the first time in years, I can run almost as fast as I used to be able to. My stamina has drastically improved, and I no longer feel like after twenty minutes that if I were a horse, someone would've mercy killed me by now, and I'd be glue.

But the aftermath is a swollen knee.

The catch-22 is that people still want to treat me with gloves on, when all I want is the best from everyone at ever turn, whether it be basketball or anything else. I'm capable of so much more than I get credit for...but if I go down, I go down hard and the next three months suck.

The catch-22 continues outside of that realm: I need arthroscopic surgery to repair the tears in my knee (and shoulder, another story) but I can't a) afford the surgery and b)bare to be out of an active commission for the long period afterwards while I "rehabilitate".

Every aggravation to my knee makes it weaker. A wrong step, a slip in some water, kneeling the wrong way, falling the wrong way...thats it. Game over.

And to look at my body...I wonder why I've pushed myself so hard. I haven't proved anything, and I've sacrificed my body just to push the envelope further.

So one of the purposes of this drug is to help me focus. I've been all over the place...I'm a Jack of all Trades and a master of most. I just wonder if the damage has already been done.

Mentally, physically, sometimes I wonder if it's too late to salvage any of this. Especially mentally.

I love my mother, but we aren't particularly close. My Step-Father who, to know him...you'd love him immediately. He's the last of what I'd consider a 'real-man'. For every adversity he has ever faced, he's been there to say fuck you to it at every turn. He's 73 years old, and he's had injuries you don't just "come back" from.

He was a truck driver all his life. Worked on ranches, with his hands in the earth. The way he knows his tools is nothing short of admirable...it's inspiring. He can build a car blindfolded, and to me thats amazing.

In 1979, a poorly secured load by the person in charge of securing said load caused Ed (my step Father) to almost be killed.

A two-ton piece of pipe became unsecured and landed on him, crushing his pelvis, hip and leg. There isn't a single solid piece of bone in his leg that isn't fastened together with screws, nails and steel rods. It's particularly entertaining in this day and age to try to get on a plane with him.

You don't just walk away from that. But somehow...he eventually did, after a year of recuperation.

He was there with me playing basketball. He was there to push me when I couldn't walk, he never allowed me to just give up.

In August of 2007, I lived three thousand miles away from home. Home is Arizona...it may always be my idea of home, even if one day I no longer reside here.

I called him on his birthday. What he got for his birthday that year was pancreatic cancer, and both of his knees were shot. His left knee enough so that he had to have it fully replaced with a steel knee. His right knee suffered from the same ailment as myself, a torn meniscus.

I moved back shortly after learning this.

Fathers are over looked in our society, with most of the grace falling on the mother. And while theres nothing necessarily wrong with that...he taught me more than any book, any teacher, anything.

He was a father he didn't have to be. He'd raised a son already. His own flesh and blood.

But he never treated me like I wasn't his own. When so many fathers leave, or ignore their very own seed, he took the helm the SS Crazy that is me.

To hear that he'd been wracked with a disease that has such a high mortality rate, to see his legs taken from him was the worst thing I've ever experienced in my life. Yet he never let on if he was worried or not, continuing to smile and crack jokes. To be proud of me...for God only knows what reasons.

When I moved back he started radiation treatment soon after. Extensive, five times a week.

At nights I'd be sitting right where I am right now, and he'd come out of his room soaking wet from perspiration, in agony from the radiation coursing through his veins.

Only once he complained saying, "It wasn't supposed to be like this."

Soon after his radiation treatments, he had the knee replacement surgery. As a testament to his being, and who he truly is, after the surgery he asked when he would be allowed to leave the hospital.

"When you can walk 100 feet."

Within hours of having his entire knee replaced, he walked the destination without the aide of anyone. To the astonishment of the doctors, he walked it. They wound up keeping him for a week anyway.

If I hadn't seen it, I'm not sure I could believe that.

Everything thats remotely good about me is because of him. He taught me how to read, and while that might seem par for the course...consider this:

He's severally dyslexic. In the age he grew up in, he was just viewed as stupid, resulting in his father pulling him out of school at the age of twelve to drive a truck.

The human spirit is something that cannot be defied. Focus, patience and living with a "fuck you" mentality is probably the most pure and unadulterated concept of thought humanity has overlooked completely in way for quick fixes.

The will to prevail is so much more dense, so much stronger than bones and cartilage. But if that breaks...then what?

So heres to the future. Whatever happens at this point happens, but I won't let medication be the deciding factor in my life. If anything, it's the neosporin to this cut that just won't go away.

Until tomorrow.