Dragon Eyez Bahamas Blog

This blog is all about me (The Original Dragon Eyez) and my thoughts. Headlines and news in The Bahamas, movie reviews, random thoughts and observations. Visit Dragon Eyez Bahamas Blog today!

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Look who's got The POX

After been sick for about 2 weeks I finally decided to go to the doctor and get some antibiotics to rid my body from whatever virus was sucking the life out of me. I went to see Dr. Christopher Basden at The Medi Center. After spending quite some time in the waiting room it was my turn to see him, and so my name was called from the list and I went into one of the examination rooms with one of the nurses who asked me some basic questions and took some of my vital statistics.

Dr. Basden came into the examination room I was in about seven minutes after the nurse had left. He did his basic tests too after reading the information the nurse had written down. He concluded that I had the cold/Flu and he prescribed for me a course of _____________ , an antihistamine (I don't remember the name), and 800mg ibuprofen tablets for the pain I was experiencing throughout my body.

I went home and thought nothing of it until I awoke the next morning to find red spots along my hairline and all on my neck. What had he given me? Was I having an allergic reaction to the antihistamine? I went back to the doctor and found out that I was,"...one of the ones that fell through the cracks." I looked puzzled and questioned the doctor, "What does that mean?"

"You have Chicken Pox" he replied.

"What!? I thought so." I was kinda hoping for that cause I had no idea what else it could be and I was a little afraid of the endless possibility that could surround and consume me. It was 'Sour Relief'. Relief because it could have been a lot worse. Sour because having Chicken Pox sucks! I soon realized this in the coming days.

I'm not sure if you are aware of this or not but, once getting up in age and not having The Pox the chance of you dying increases. In other words the older you are the higher the odds. This tormented me at night when I had the worse of my migraines. So many nights I awoke with high fevers, lots of shivers and migraines so painful it literally felt like my head would split open any minute.

Did I itch? Hell yeah I did. That's what's The Pox basically are - very, very itchy bumps that spread all over your body; careful where you touch. If there is one thing that I can say helped me get out in one piece that would be me being Very Careful. I constantly washed my hands and I had to develop new methods of doing certain duties (if you know what I mean?).

My head caused me the most pain. Besides the migraines the bumps were a dime-a-dozen on my scalp. They were so sore *sniff* *sniff* ;(

The only way to get through The Chicken Pox is to use calamine lotion often. I also highly recommend using Aveeno® Soothing Bath Treatment which is made from 100% natural colloidal oatmeal which relives itchy skin too. It also helped to have a few cans of LYSOL® Disinfectant Spray on hand to help kill the virus and stop it spreading to anyone else.

Luckily after two weeks of pain and agony The Pox were scabbing up and I'm happy to say that I had no scaring.

This is a picture I took of myself a few
days after The Chicken Pox started appearing.

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Monday, January 15, 2007

My First Car Crash In Ages

My best friend (who is really my brother - just not by blood) and his wife came down from Florida (where they live) to be with me and my mother during this very difficult time. Tyrone, and his better half, wanted to pay their respects to my father by attending his funeral which will be held on Wednesday 17th January at the church we worship at; Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church, Shirley Street.

My car has been in the shop for a while now getting my transmission fixed by the authorized Honda dealer for Nassau, well it's probably the entire Bahamas. Anyway, Tyrone did not rent a car and his family down here didn't lend him one so I had to borrow my mothers '98 Pontiac so that I could pick up my friends at their hotel and hang for a bit; catch a couple cocktails and chat.


On my way to the Nassau Palm Resort at about 8:30ish in the evening I got in a car accident. I was heading west on Shirley Street, and this ass that caused this traffic accident was heading north on East Street. Well I'm just cruising with the rest of the cars heading west when suddenly I saw a car fly from the left (East St.) and was directly in front of me. It happened so fast that I did not have time to hit the breaks and try to stop the inevitable from happening. All I could do was close my eyes.

I felt the impact of our cars and the G-force which accompanied it, then it felt like I was floating. Just bobbing around on white fluffy clouds until I was jolted to an abrupt stop. I opened my eyes and saw that the airbag in the steering wheel had opened and all the white dust was floating in the air. I opened my door and tried to get out but I was moving too slow and had to quickly remove my hand from the way of the drivers door coming right back at me. It slammed. I tried again and this time put my foot out so that the door could not return. I pulled myself out of my seat and my legs were hanging outside the car but they were not touching the ground. I had to hop to reach it; that or fall. I then surveyed my surroundings.

I quickly examined myself searching for ripped clothes, scratches, bruises and blood. A fragment of flying glass from the windshield must have cut me on my right wrist, but I could not find anything else wrong with me. People were now gathering in abundance. I had a small crowd of five to eight people checking out me and asking if I was alright. I then heard a baby crying in the distance. One of the ladies then said,"Oh Lord! She gat a baby wit her." And another lady shouted,"Check if aight. Da baby crying!"

The irresponsible driver that ran the red street light had her child in the front of the car with her. Not only was the driver not wearing her seatbelt, but her baby was not strapped in a child's car seat either. What do you think goes through these peoples heads? Not much, I say. Why on Gods green Earth would you not where your seatbelt, not strap your baby properly in your vehicle, and then not pay attention, run a red light and cause a car crash? WTF!!??

Stupid people do stupid things!

I got out my Sony Cybershot Digital Camera and started taking pictures to document the damage which had occurred. I looked at my moms car and saw that I had crashed into a parking lot wall. The impact threw the Pontiac (with me in it) ten to fifteen feet in the air and right into a brick wall. On the other side of the wall were three cars including a Mercedes Benz, which had blocks, debris and dust on them from the busted wall.

The ambulance had now arrived on the scene to make sure that who ever needed medical help got it. I declined their help as I only had that one small wound on my wrist and it was not bleeding heavily. My legs and arms seemed to be working normally and I did not feel light headed or pain from any part of my body.

Thank God no one got hurt in this absolutely preventable accident. The baby was fine too, it was just crying because it was scared shitless, nearly (but thankfully not) lifeless.

I was busy making phone calls. Called my brother in-law to notify him on the situation and rang my blood brother to see if I could have the car towed to his place because the private community that I live in has rules about these sort of things.

One of my friends that I have not seen in about four, five years was there by my side. He was riding shotgun in one of his friends cars when they passed by and he saw that I was involved in the street mess. They pulled over to see if they could help me in any way. I did require their help.

By now the tow truck that had arrived on the scene and had already pulled my car out of the parking lot wall was ready to take the injured Pontiac to it's final destination that night. I organized a plan with my on-site-buddy "Dex" and I jumped into the passengers side of the Tow Truck. Dex and his driver friend followed us to my brothers house which was about fifteen minutes away. After placing the car right where we wanted it, after removing some items from the car, after paying the tow truck driver I hopped in the back seat with my new friends and headed to get a drink. I was really needing it at this point now; it's time to relax.

I called Tyrone in his hotel room and told him that I was coming his way, we were going out and that I had a surprize for him. Tyrone hates suprizes but I had to keep this one a surprize. He said that him and his wife were not ready and to check them a little later so the three of us decided to get a cocktail while we waited for the two of them to get ready. "Flamingo's" was mentioned and we headed that way.

Turning on the corner I noticed that the bar was in darkness so I new they were closed but that really didn't matter because there were police all over the road. They, (the police) were pulling over cars and handing out tickets for a number of things. They even arrested a few people for outstanding warrants.

The cop waved us to the side. We got out after he told us to,"Turn off the car and step out of the vehicle." He wanted our drivers license's and we handed them over without griping. He wanted to see if either of us had any warrants. After about 25 minutes and total disbelief of the circumstances that were happening to me that night we were given the okay to leave. We headed directly to Tyrone's hotel.

When Ty arrived in the lobby of the hotel he saw me and then he saw Dex. It was a nice surprize since they had not seen each other since Tyrone got married a few years before. By the way I was Tyrone's Best Man.

After a little chit chat we all managed to squeeze into the black car Dex's friend was driving. We all wanted, and some of us needed a drink. We hit a number of bars and we all had a great time. It's just such a pity that I had to have such a bad time to have a great time.

Here are some of the pictures I took:









This is the car that ran the red light. You can see in the first picture the street sign in the background. That road is East Street. The main road that the car is pictured on is Shirley Street.

Nice Axel




















I can tell you one thing. That car was tough. Dad bought this car for my mother because he wanted a strong, solid car that would protect her and keep her safe. Not only did the car keep me alive and pretty much injury free, but I believe that my father himself took part in protecting me and keeping me from harm.

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Saturday, January 13, 2007

My Father Passes

On Wednesday 10th January my father, who had been fighting cancer for 5½ to 6 years, passed away to a better place where he will not suffer in pain and anguish anymore.

We had known that dad was on the final stretch. We had the doctor come over to the house fairly regularly and we also had a nurse who would come by and check in on things. The doctor said that daddy was going to pass on soon because his lungs were filled with fluid. You see, daddy was having a lot of difficulty breathing. He was coughing so much too. He became so weak that he could hardly move his good arm. His appetite had depreciated so much. He always used to eat so good. This was a clear sign to me that his time on this planet was almost over.

Dad was in so much pain from the coughing because the cancer had spread all over his lungs. And every time he would start coughing it would be hard for him to stop. There was so much fluid being produced on and in his lungs due to the cancer that you could hear the fluid vibrating in his throat as he breathed. When he spoke this sound was even more evident.

It got to a point that dad would say,"No more" "Make it stop" "Too much pain" "I wanna go" among others. We discussed with daddy the scenario informing him that we can lessen his pain by putting him on a Morphine drip but that he would eventually be incoherent. He understood us, we made sure of this. He had to understand his options. We knew what we wanted, but the final choice was his.

We put him on the Morphine drip (as per his wishes) which increased from level 1 to level 3 in one day. The next day he got up to 5. He was in and out; sleeping most of the time. This was nice because he was not in any pain when he was sleeping.

We were all there, his immediate family that is. His wife (my mother), his children (myself, my sister & brother), his grandchildren (my two niece's - my sister's girls), his son-in-law and various close friends which came and went throughout the day including his twin brother.

I was keeping myself busy the whole day. Keeping my mind off things because I knew what was slowly creeping up - The Reaper - and he's no friend of mine!

When the time was right (before daddy was incoherent) we each spent some alone time with him saying what we had to say. It was a very personal time for everyone. There was a lot of crying and lots of sniffles. But nothing compared to the overwhelming emotion after daddy's passing.

My sister was on the bed with daddy holding and stroking his good hand and arm while she spoke softly to him. She raised her head and looked at him when she noticed he starting breathing differently. He was gasping and his eyes were now open. She demandingly told my older brother to fetch mom which he did. Mommy ran into the room, but it was too late. Daddy had already taken his last breath and he was just laying there staring.

I've never heard anyone scream like that before. Well, on a side note I have. I had an acquaintance/friend who died in the hospital at the tender age of fourteen after been on life support and in a coma of a number of weeks because of a drunk driving car accident. I still cannot get her mothers screams and wails, and those of all her high school buddies out of my head after six years.

Anyway, my mother took it bad. She was screaming "No!" a lot. She could not believe it. I couldn't either. I found the nurses stethoscope and placed the cold metal on daddy's chest to make sure that his heart had stopped. I kept moving it all over his chest trying my best to find a heart beat. My sister looked hopefully at me but all I did was confirm the horrid end.


Here are some pictures I took that day


It was really overcast and windy that day. Can't you just feel the sadness in the air?


My father, dressed in his favourite shirt, spent some of his last moments with his lovely angelic granddaughters whom he loved so much. He wanted to be buried with two pictures he adored of his beautiful granddaughters, which were placed on his chest next to his heart.



"We were all there, his immediate family that is."

You can rest now dad.

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