Jim Seaman – web log

Ok if you really want to go back to when and how this cancer started I guess it was caused by my smoking for 30 some years but I’m not here to place blame. I quit smoking in January of 2005 but since then I’ve had a heart attack and a 2x bypass surgery. And now I guess that this cancer thing is part two of the punishment.

I don’t really recall when the swelling in my neck first started. I know it was there in March of this year and perhaps much earlier. I had noticed it get smaller on my trip to Mexico in March. I thought at the time that the shrinking was caused by a recent round of antibiotics I had been on.

In May I went to my doctor again, this time for a physical where I planned to ask specifically about the lump. A CT scan was ordered and the results came back as it being a branchial cyst … no big deal. I was sent to see an ENT doctor who reviewed the results and we scheduled surgery to cut it out.

That takes the story to this post: June 8th

Remember the Quakers? – you know … Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn for the religious freedom of the Quakers a few hundred years ago. Well they are still around in various parts of the world (including here in North Carolina) and they are making news on the gay marriage front!

In Great Britain, the Quakers have come out in favor of gay marriage. For decades they have recognized gay unions and performed ceremonies of religious blessings for them. Now they want to take it one step further.

The Quakers plan on formally asking the government to change the country’s laws to allow them to perform same-sex marriages. The British already recognize same-sex unions but do not call it marriage and do not grant same-sex couples the same rights as those enjoyed by male-female marriages.

So different from here in the United States where most religious organizations are the ones fighting against same-sex unions. It’s nice to see a bit of sanity.

If you really want to save money on your insurance, ignore all those ads you see on TV. Don’t trust a caveman (as presented by Geico) to sell you insurance. Also you will find (if you buy from Nationwide) that having an app on your ipod for when you get in an accident really isn’t such a big deal.

All of that advertising costs them a fortune and you end up paying for it in your premiums! Any company that advertises that much can’t offer great deals on anything they are selling. Find a lesser known company … you may have to spend a few extra minutes to find them but try using the Yellow pages and look for an independent insurance agent – it could save you real money.

Also be sure to check out other deals you may qualify for – I use USAA (military affiliations only) – there are also AAA and AARP as well as others. SHOP AROUND!!!!

While making use of Google to find a reference to the original Batman TV show I happened to run across the Landover Baptist Church’s discussion forums. If you have any sense of humor at all, please spend some time there!

Some background info about the link given above: Landover Baptist Church article at Wikipedia

Well I haven’t been posting on this subject since I first heard that I had cancer but since then a lot has happened … and there is much, much more to come!

With so much having happened, I’m going to try to break down the events of the last month and present them chronologically over the next few days.

Almost four years ago I had coronary bypass surgery and at that time I decided to document it here on my blog. I’m going to try to do the same for my current challenge.

While it looks almost the same from the public side, I have performed a major upgrade of the software that runs this site. One of the reasons I hadn’t been doing much with the site is because of the constant attacks from hackers and spammers that I was having to deal with. Hopefully those will stop with this major upgrade. I went from Version 1.5 to 2.8. My site was last updated back in 2005 – that’s a long time as far as web stuff goes.

Let’s hope it works!