It's time to get back to work!

After more than nine months away from this blog, it's time to get back at it.

A lot has happened during this time, and I've debated whether or not I ought to talk about it all in this space. In every respect, I have thought of The Happy Hour as a place to talk about spirituality and growth in recovery, and not so much a place to talk about problems. But, I think the mention of them is unavoidable because, ultimately, my experience during the past several months speaks directly to the influence of spirituality in my life.

I struggled at work starting in October last year, and, right up until about three weeks ago, I wasn't certain if I would have a job at my current employer (a place that forbids me from using its name in this blog) or not. As it turns out, I did stay with that employer, albeit in a very different capacity than I was in before. Now, after months of wrangling, I've landed on my feet as an outpatient counselor in a clinic not far from my home. It's a good thing too because I needed to stay with that employer in order to ensure I had health insurance.

The health insurance problem came about because in February I found out that the cancer that I was operated on for in 2004 has reoccurred. As the doctors at the Mayo Clinic put it, I have about a quarter of a raindrop-sized collection of cancer cells in the prostate bed in my lower abdomen. We know this because the PSA count - the way in which doctors measure if cancer is growing - stands at .25 on a large scale that can extend up to 20-30. Now, that isn't altogether that bad except that it ought to be zero because I do not have a prostate that would be generating the antigens that the PSA test measures. So, .25 is a significant enough level for doctors to start worrying about it. They say that we will not have to treat the cancer until the level is between 1.0 and 2.0, so there may be a fair amount of time before something has to happen. My next test is June 29th, so more will be known at that time as to how fast this is growing.

The health insurance part was a problem because, should I have had to leave my employer anytime this past winter and spring, I would not have been insured by a new health plan because the cancer reoccurrence would be considered a pre-existing condition. Lots of worry for several months as I tried to figure out how to get a new job within the same company.

Well...it did work out. And, I'm grateful for that.

One of the things that helped me get through this mess this year was the strength that I got from a new partner. Twyla came into my life at just about the same time I got the news about the cancer. What a blessing and breath of fresh air. She is one of those people who you think you have known all your life despite the fact you may have just met her. She's warm and kind, interested in you and what is happening to you, considerate and patient to the max, and very supportive of who you are as a person. She is a registered nurse and was a great support to me when we thought I might have an advanced form of cancer. She insists on being positive and aggressively pursues healthy outlets like going the the YMCA, bicycle riding, walking the dog twice a day and eating healthfully...all things I struggle with as a man. She supplements me beautifully.

I am very grateful for her in my life.

Add to all this that I am still toiling away at the dissertation and maybe you get a fix on why it is that I let the blog slip to the wayside for a while. Well...I'm back. And, I want to tell the story I have described above as a great lesson in spirituality for me. There were several points this past winter when I wanted to call it quits, march into the boss's office and tell her to stick the job and all that goes with it. And, there were many times when I wanted to give up about the cancer because I started to fantasize about the utter futility of treating it again. But, in both cases, I let the problem go. I let it go so that it could be dealt with within the great cosmic system of my belief in a higher power that guides life for me. Somehow, for some reason, I had to go through what I went through with the job and the cancer these past six months. I may not know why for a long time, but I do believe that eventually it will all come together and I will understand why life unfolded for me this way in 2011.

Until that time, I intend to continue to practice a program of recovery based on knowing that I cannot control the great forces that seen to run the world and my part in it. Instead, all I can do is have faith that life goes the way it ought to and that, as it says in the AA Big Book on page 417..."Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake."

All the best, Roger