Be thankful for your health, my short story., updated....

[Bryan Tuvell 33ZX]

Just thought I would share a happy ending (we are pretty sure) to a saga in our lives (in the middle of planning the 2003 schedule of boating fun!
2 Weeks ago I was hospitalized, chest pain and no breathe in the middle of the night, of course with Nancy in charge I got the real deal of a work up in the ER (the TV stuff really happens that fast!), her education paid for itself in minutes!
Diagnosis:
Object on/in the lung in an X-Ray, a Solitary Pulmonary Moudule (SPN), 1cm in size, not Calcified (a bad thing), 65% minimum or better Lung Cancer.
Today was my CT Scan to resolve the issue, and their initial read was the "growth" on the X-ray was not as serious as predicted.
Of course an even more detailed study/read by her co-workers is tonight and will be dicated to online this evening.
Outlook is very very positive..

The point of this post is I often read about others in the boating community, as you know Donzi.Net and OSO are always open on my desktop at work, well my turn in the barrel came, no fun, and we believe lifes cards are dealt, not played, our personal belief.

New outlook/attitude on things in this house and life in general for me. I felt shorted on my family and personal goals at age 40, when in reality I am so lucky!
I just thought I would share the good news since a few of you knew behind the scene.
Nothing like a "Thumbs Up" for dad from your teenage daughter too...

Bryan

[Tidbart]

I'll give you another thumbs-up! Glad to hear you'll be around a while.

Bob

[Doug G]

Hey Brian,

We'll keep you in our prayers.

Doug & Jerry

[Extreme Measures]

Bryan, We are very pleased that everything is looking ok for you. You had us worried in the chat room last night. Let me know how it all pans out bud I will be in the room tonight for a while.
Your Friends in Boating
Extreme Measures

[HP 600SC]

Bryan, Very glad to here the good news!!!
We'll keep you in our prayers too....
Ted

[Shanghied Again]

Bryan, Glad to hear your ok, Its funny when life deals you a card that is not expected. Your Health is number 1. You are amoung the best of freinds here and if you ever need anything don't be afraid to ask. Last year when I was carted off to the Hospital thinking I was haveing a heart attack made me look at life a little different. Take care of yourself and a big thumbs up!

[KMLFAMILY]

Bryan, That has to be one helluva scare. I hope everything turns out well for you.They always tell you to enjoy every day,but it is real easy to get caught up in the little s&*t.I guess things like this really puts things in perspective.Our prayers will be with you also.

[Dr. Dan]

:D Big Bryan...Congrats on the Report..hope it continues...Make sure they look real close...could be some of that "Blue silly String" that Lizard blasted you with at the awakening!!! :p Glad your well...keep the faith... wink ...Doc

[Jerry Eisele]

Bryan, Your in our preyers. Your part of our family.

[Lineleader]

Bryan,

How ironic. Yesterday, I celebrated my one year anniversary of a motorcycle accident which nearly cost me my life, not to mention my passenger and wife. I was thanking God this morning for the things we sometimes take for granted. I vividly remember the circumstances of the accident and what COULD have happened.

I am nearly recovered now and today reminded me again of the things that are important.

I'm glad things are going to work out good for you and I hope we don't need any more "reminders" of what is truly important...family, friends, health and "the big guy".

Be well,

Mark

[Bryan Tuvell 33ZX]

Thank you for the kind comments, it was very thoughtful, shows that we all have something in common, I sincerely mean that.

1000 Islands won't get here fast enough! :)

This after my neighbor has been on a ventilator since Sept, (30yo in a motorcycle accident), Nancy had to have someone else see him tonight! The tears were to much for her to do her job, and we wasn't even close to them, reality I guess.
It has to happen to you, before we wake up, don't wait.
Bryan

[boldts]

Bryan,

I had no idea and this like the Supreme Seadog news of a heart attack after AOTH this year, was totally unexpected. Beth and I are so relieved that the out-look looks good.

Some of you may know, although I don't advertise it, I am a Type I Diabetic. I have been fighting insulin attacks since the age of 12. I'm 41 now and believe me, I'm thankful for every day my eyes open after a good night's rest. I have been very selfish in the past thinking that I should live every day as though it were my last. I used to not even consider my wife Beth and daughter Allison in the picture. All that mattered was that I enjoyed life and got all I could out of it. I've since realized that I am not the only one anymore. Beth and Allison come first in my life now.

While there is still not a cure, today’s medicine is truly amazing. I have a insulin pump which gives me insulin all though the day with-out the use of taking injections. It has made my life much easier to deal with both for me and for Beth.

So, while I would love to put 700HP into my 22 Classic, I sit back and thank the lord that I have a wonderful wife and daughter to share my Donzi with. So next time the boat breaks down or is giving you a hard way to go, say a prayer for those who don't have it as good as you have it and be thankful that you can enjoy life the way you do. No ones knows what the future may hold for them. :)

[Crazy Horse]

Bryan, Best wishes for a complete and speedy recovery. "Speedy" works well on this site.
John & Trish

[RH]

Bryan, glad to hear that things are working out. Spent the weekend cheering my Beloved Iowa Hawkeyes at the Metrodome in Minneapolis with my stepson who is really a great kid. Then spent Sunday at my sister-in-law's who is fighting the second round of breast cancer and the chance to see her two young girls get through school. Life is precious, family and friends are everything and "don't sweat the small stuff, it's all small stuff!" Quick recovery my friend!
RH

[Formula Jr]

Bryan, looks like the reaper passed you by for now........ smoking sucks does'nt it? Best we can do is tell the youngen's it ain't so cool and show them how hard it is to shake the monkey. Too many personal experiences in this area to relay, but it does alter how one deals with life. Burning at both ends now, taking the time to be involved............ the only way to be...... :D .... and hopefully everyone will get to the place where they can honestly say... Wow! I have lived enough not to worry about completion and such...... wink

[harbormaster]

Bryan,
Keep having fun. I am glad that the outlook looks positive.

I was involved in two really bad motorcycle accidents. One in 75 and 84. (I have now sworn off bikes). These have taught me a few things:

1. Life is fragile and precious. Go for thrills but don't kill yourself doing it.

2. Don't wait till you are too old to do something. Do it now.

3. I will not be on my deathbed wishing I had done something. I will be happy because I have done it all.

I am running a race against the reaper. I am trying to have as much fun as humanly possible and stay ahead of the reaper. He will catch me someday but right now I am ahead(knock on wood). :D

[Donzi Jenn]

Bryan,

I am glad to hear that the outlook is positive. I will be keeping you in my prayers. Plus, we still have house boating to do, right?!?

Looking forward to seeing you!

Donzi Jenn wink

[Woodsy]

Brian...

Glad everythings going to be fine! Princess & I have you & your family in our thoughts....

Woodsy Von Donzi :D :D

[Donzigo]

Bryan,

We sent an email to you and yours. Hope you get it.

Thoughts and prayers,

Smila & Richard

[boxy]

Bryan, best wishes for a full and speedy recovery. We are looking forward to your family's visit to our part of the world this summer.
Take care
Steve Boxma and family

[Forrest]

Bryan, now that's great news! I know you don't want to hear it, but with a wake-up call like that, I would be willing to bet that something is telling you that now is the time to try to give up smoking. Now if I can only get Ginny to quit. Besides, I haven't had a chance to get up to Tidewater and ride on your new Donzi yet. So stick around! Best of luck dude and see you soon!

[Sean]

Bryan, I hope the good news keeps coming. It's always a scare to get news like that. My father has been in cancer remission for over 8yrs now. But when he was diagnosed, life seemed to take on new meaning. Keep healthy. We'll be wishing you the best.

[J&K SHAHBAS]

Bryan stay positive, best to you and your family.

J&K

[BillR]

Bad news into good news. You KNOW I'm wishing the best for ya.

NOW throw the damn cigarettes away!!!!!

[ToonaFish]

Geesh, listen to all these non-smokers... see, if it isn't cancer, maybe exercising his lungs with all those deep inhales may have actually prevented the big C... ahem.

Glad the news is good!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bunches,

Celene 'grasping at straws and exhaling deeply'

[Bryan Tuvell 33ZX]

Thank you all again.
Nancy and I are glad to be a part of this Donzi family.
I will keep you guys posted.
Bryan

[GEOO]

Bryan,
Glad to haer things look good. You should talk to Frank, he managed a new boat out of his scare!!!

[BigGrizzly]

Bryan let me give it to you straight: July 12,1999 went in for a physical, doctor said "you need a stress test" I said when ? "Now" was the answer. After testing heart doctor gives me 4 months unless I do a valve job. I said schedule me for October- need to get my life in order for the family. October 3, 1999 won the formula 750 championship. drove home with the wife. October 4, 1999 7:00am went under the knife. Won the biggest race of my life. February 1, 2000 I was diagnosed for prostate canser, and started treatment, and beat that too so far! I wasn't about to give up- needed to go 80 in the Criterion!! Now your Navy---Don't give up the ship. My Dad Dr A.A, Carabelli Sr. was a world renound internest made advancements in TB and Lung Cancer Treatments. Look in Whos who in medicine. He once told me "Out look Is everything". If you give up it will beat you. Live your life and enjoy today and look forward to tomorrow. We are winners and will continue that way. One day I will loose, but not today nor in the near future.

[Bryan Tuvell 33ZX]

Well the offical reading was good and bad, the SPN they were looking for turns out to not be there on the CT scan, the down side is they did confirm and find another, small (a good thing, 3 to 4 mil.)

Keep me on that prayer list!
Nancy is driving the issue hard, I am now lined up with a Pulmanary Specialist and maybe a nuclear med appt. Cancer certainly would be a devastating blow to this house.

Thanks guys, I will update you as I find anything out.
Bryan

[Crazy Horse]

hang in there Bryan and Nancy...
best wishes.

[Team Jefe]

Bryan, I’m usually a reader of the .net more so than a contributor, but this is a subject near and dear to me. 2 years ago, I was rushed to the ER with Heart Attack symptoms, at age 32. Turned out to be pancreatitis (yeah, I'd never heard of it either), it’s the "other" pancreatic disorder from Diabetes. Cholesterol level 850, Triglycerides 2000+, the Doctors thought I should be dead, but the Big Guy must not be ready yet. Long Story Short, I spent 7 days in ICU, 3 weeks in a hospital bed with LOTS of time to think and realize I hadn’t done enough living in 32 years. SO, I have completely changed my life, I lost 110 lbs. (I can now go topless without embarrassment), I work less and see my wife more, and I bought a great big Donzi to satisfy my passions for Going Fast and Fishing (a 30ZF fit the bill great). Few things to me feel better than showering down on the throttles and feeling The Revenge come outta the hole.

Although I’m going to dare to be 100, I’m living my life now, not waiting until I’m 60 and hoping I have some good years left.

Harbormaster is right on the money (as usual). It’s a race with the reaper. I felt his hot breath on the back of my neck, and I was able to find a little more throttle and get away…this time.

So, my Donzi Friend, my prayer for you……May you find a little more throttle

Via Con Dios !

JEFE

[fasttrucker]

glad to hear your felling better.just got home from mn.logged-on and saw this post.wow things happen fast.i flipped my truck over a cliff in washington state once with a load of apples.just one scatch on me.then i had chest pains a couple three years ago.did the stress test.the radioactive dye test.skipped the sonogram turns out to be acid reflux.took the doctors two yrs to figure it out now i take prevacid.iam 43yrs old and i belive in not waiting for the things in life you want.like donzis.all the best. wink

[PrestonZX]

Dear Bryan & Nancy,

If feels a little strange calling folks I've never met by their first names but this seems like that kind of place. Hope you read my post from earlier today. This is my first day "back" at the Donzi Registry. I'll leave most of the major details to the prior post. My grandfather and father died of heartattacks. In fact my father was having triple bypass surgery at Shands Hospital in Gainsville, Florida at the exact same time I was taking my first law school exams in Birmingham, Alabama. I drove down to see him shortly before my exams and didn't know if it would be the last time I ever saw him alive or not (open heart surgery was very new then especially in Florida). He recovered and lived another thirty years and I got all A's and a B.

In 2000 I lived alone in the country with no neighbors in Lutz, Florida. I started having a funny feeling in my chest but didn't pay a lot of attention to it. Then I started sweating profusely and began to void uncontrollably. I rushed to the phone to call 911 and the battery in the phone was dead. I don't know how I did it but I finally contacted 911 through my computer.

The EMS rushed down dirt roads to my house, put me in their vehicle started shooting me with morphine and I took what seemed like the longest ride I've ever had in my life. I was still conscious when I arrived at the hospital. They gave me more morphine and the next thing I remember is walking up in CCU. I was later told that they had to insert a stint in me. After going through my course of recovery including a checical stress test which has to be worse than any torture they ever came up with in the Middle Ages, I was released from the hospital.

My cardiologist whose name if you can believe it is Kalvin Kline had me take a physical stress test when he felt I was strong enough which incorporates a bunch (that's a medical term) of other noninvasive tests. He is a doctor who doesn't pull his punches which is one of the reasons I wanted him as my doctor. I could tell from his facial expressions as he was reading the results of my tests that he was not going to have good news for me. Making nervous small talk with him I mentioned that I was glad that my heartattack wasn't as bad as my father's which had required a triple bypass. He sat down with me and said you don't understand. You are living off the front wall of your heart and have lost 60% of the function of your heart. In fact, he said, I have never had a patient that has suffered this much damage and survived. I'm no Clint Eastwood and I said what can we do and how much time do I have. Fortunately or unfortunately for me, depending on how you look at it, I am divorced and my children are adults so my responsibilities were limited. He looked me straight in the eye and said there's really nothing we can do for you except put you on some medications, follow you closely, and see what happens. I again said how much time do I have. He said we could be talking, weeks, months and at the outside two years. Well at least I knew. Unfortunately I also have an inherited chemical brain imbalance which requires pharmaceutical treatment and I was having bad interactions between the head medication and the heart medication.

I'm sorry this is drawing out so long but I hope you have the patience to keep reading. I sold my house and bought a much smaller one, as my ability to take care of my needs were limited. I was walking down the hallway several months after moving into the smaller home when I fell flat on my face. When I tried to get up I couldn't. My right leg was broken. To this day no one is sure why I fell and the nature of the break in my leg my was impossible to have occurred according to my orthopeadist. We figure that due to a drug interaction I had a sudden drop in blood pressure and passed out. The nature of the injuries to my leg are a mystery still.

Well I was back at the hospital again. You will probably have more insight than most but my doctor said I was facing two problems. The minor problem was that he had to operate but I would probably never be able to walk again. The major problem was that, due to my heart condition, I had only a 10% to 20% chance of surviving the operation. The situation was so bad that he had to go out of state to get an anesthalologist who would handle the operation. Obviously I survived the operation. After two months my doctor told me that my leg was healing very badly and that I would have to undergo another operation facing the same odds. That was November of last year. Again I survived. Not only that but through a lot of effort on a lot of peoples part I regained my ability to walk.

My story doesn't end here so please stay with me. The operations, nursing homes, living by myself in a wheel chair at home, etc. went on for about 9 months before I could limp but get around. I am a trial lawyer. One, I know more jokes than you do and two, as an insider I know that lawyers as a group are the finest people I have ever had the fortune to know.

However, I was very interested in making money and have devoted most of my life in an office or a courtroom working toward that goal. Well with all that I had gone through I was almost broke.

I have to interject what is suppost to be a true story here that may not immediately make sense. When Confucius was alive a man came to him and said "Great One I desire wealth and power." Confucius replied "all men desire wealth and power, the question is what are you willing to trade for it?"

I have a brother that is five years younger than me. We look like twins but are as opposite as two people can be. He never got past high school and became a contractor. He loved the outdoors and spent a good bit of his time travelling around the country hunting, fishing, riding his motorcycle with this friend or another. He was very outgoing and never met a person who did not immediately like him. I on the other hand was so much better educated and successful but didn't really have much time or interest to do the things he loved including getting to know people. About the only common interest we had atleast for a while was riding motorcycles. We would take our wives every fall to the Smokey Mountains and ride our motorcycles up the Skyline Highway. Well, being a trial lawyer and seeing the realities of what happens to people who ride motorcycles I sold mine many years ago feeling I was pushing the odds. My brother, with his carefree nature, continued to ride his as often as possible. Four days after I returned to work from everything that had happened to me my brother was killed while riding his motorcycle by a drunken 17 year old boy who turned right in front of him.

Even though I was so much better "educated" than my brother he often had observations that stuck with me. One of those observations original or not was a question. He said "I wonder how many people taking their last breath would say gee I wish I just had one more day to spend at the office."

Sorry to be so long winded but I am hopeful that you can draw something from my experience. I still live in my small house, I'm still poor, I have three abandoned dogs that I love and that love me, everyone, except me, including my doctors are amazed not only at my recovery but the extent of my recovery. I still deal with the stress of handling trials involving hundreds of thousand of dollars but I have learned at least three lessons. One, don't sweat the small stuff. Two, its all small stuff. And three, don't waste the wonderful day that God has given you living in the past or in the future.

If you ever get down my way stop bye and say hello. I'll be here.

PrestonZX

[Bryan Tuvell 33ZX]

PRESTON, thanks for sharing that wih all of us.
I am trying to remain positive and continue to hope for the best.
The support, prayers and thoughts in reply to my thread have been very touching.
Thank you all again,
Bryan

[harbormaster]

Geez Preston. What a story! I feel like we met in a bar and you told me this story.
You sound like a fighter. You have lots of friends here. You need to join us at some of out donzi events.
Email me your mailing address. I have something I want to send you.

[Gearhead99]

Bryan,

Wishing you the best and you're in my prayers.

[Jackson148]

Hey Buddy....
Sorry to read about your health scare, but glad to know that you are doing better.
Bryan....do you think this might be a wake-up call to change your lifestyle? And by that I mean to cut down on your smoking. Yes I was a smoker too and I'm sure you hate to hear this all the time but we all know that they are no damn good for you. Let's get you better.
Happy Thanksgiving! And you have much to be thankful for.
Good luck from your friends at THE BOAT STORE
Talk to you later, Bryan.
Jack

[Bryan Tuvell 33ZX]

Thanks Jack... I have gave them up.
I am on Zyban and the patch.
I love smoking, 25 years, but I know this is my only option.

Happy Holidays to you too my friend,
Bryan

[RedDog]

Bryan - I started smoking around '72 and quit September '97 (I could spot the day if I had a '97 calendar - morning after Peyton Manning's last loss to FL - at least something good came from it). Still want to smoke and I guess I will to the end. I think the key is to NEVER give in to the "just one." That would start it all up again for me.

And I found the nicoderm gum to be the best for me - I chewed it more often than prescribed and a lot longer - but in the end it worked for me. The patch was just to mild/slow release for my addictions

Good luck and be tough on yourself - you have a lot of friends and family who like having you around!

PS - and does Nacy smoke? If so, she has to quit too. My wife and I tried to quit out of synch several times - it doesn't work. TEAM EFFORT is in order

[Digger]

Holy medical scare, Batman. I go out of the country for a while and everything goes to cr*p.

Bryan and Nancy, thanks for keeping us informed.

You will prevail.

[Bryan Tuvell 33ZX]

Hi DIGGER, welcome back.
Your post gave a great chuckle...
Thanks.
Bryan