Pain, Pills, Poker and Fighting for Life! Are You At Risk?

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Pain, Pills, Poker and Fighting for Life! Are You At Risk?

We all whinge and whine about bad beats, suck outs and donkeys at some stage. The words ALL IN, with your tournament life on the line are frightening words! Being knocked out after those words really sucks! Tell me though; would you say those words ALL IN if your life depended on it? Not your tournament life your life existing on this planet.

Let me tell you about those suck outs whinges and whines I have had to deal with beyond poker. Let me tell you about my ALL-IN call. Let me tell how amongst everything you all see me do what I battle. I don’t write this for sympathy or for attention. I don’t write this to big note myself either. A friend told me BLOG IT! Blog what you do and what you are going through; you could save the lives of fellow players, it will also inspire people who don’t want to fight. Well; here I am blogging a personal struggle for my own existence. I am battling my final table on the felt of life!

Here is what I have done in the poker industry in the last 2 years. These are things you hopefully know of: Columnist Australian Poker Weekly, Columnist Woman Poker Player Magazine, Pokerpodradio Co-Host, WTF Poker Show Host, Poker Coach, Manager Raidbet, Manager Australia New Zealand Cybertech, Book Co-Author, Director PR Cybertech, Played Poker and Administered Various Poker Forums. I also have 4 kids and a house to care for. I am busy to say the least.

At times I have battled to lift my head off a pillow to do these jobs, not through laziness but illness. I have had personal issues that no one has a clue about. Normally it isn’t a good thing to spread personal business but for the sake of the countless poker players that may be in a similar position this time I am.

During the course of doing all the above I have spent countless hours back and forth to the doctor. I have a condition (endometriosis) and my doctor’s treatment of this condition has all but left me fighting for my life. I had 4 operations; more surgery was pointless according to the specialists. Surgery hasn’t worked.

The doctor continued treating my symptoms, agonising pain. Pain in my tummy, my back, my legs, my groin, the pain was so bad; so excruciating I was prescribed 120 panadiene forte at a time, 8 each day. I was relieved at having these meds on hand. The pills didn’t completely kill the pain but did take the edge off it. I remember having dinner with Barry Shulman and Wife Allyn (Card Player Magazine and Spadeclub) in Sydney and going into sudden agony. The pills were not going to work that night. Thank goodness they are understanding people because I truly started acting odd as it onset, all I could think was OH NO! Now? This happened many times to me over 2 years and this precious moment was one of them.

I changed doctors just recently and thank god I did! I had to have a nasty lump cut out and of course had blood tests and what not taken. I was crying so hard the night before my trip to the doctors to get my results. Always a bad thing when the nurse rings up and says “The doctor would like to see you ASAP, and no he won’t wait til your next appointment, he would like to start treatment tomorrow, your tests have come back bad.”. I expected I had malignant cancer of course, not a benign tumour after these words. I knew I had dreadful news to deal with.

“Your tumour isn’t going to kill you” explained the doctor, “But your liver is going into failure. How much alcohol do you drink?” I was honest of course, a few bourbons every few nights and a ton of them at parties which are few and far between with my busy poker and home schedules. He then asked about the medications the other doctor had placed me on and also the length of my treatment. I told him, pain pills prescribed by the doctor. For the record they are Tylenol (I think) in the USA and Panadiene Forte in Australia. He declares: “YOUR PAIN PILLS HAVE CAUSED THIS! THEY ARE KILLING YOU!”

Any wonder I was sick! My other doctor was killing me. I took those pills to function, to walk tourney floors, play long poker sessions, blog like I am now, do interviews write articles, mother kids, mow the damn lawn! They worked somewhat and were better than nothing it seemed. They were better than no poker!

Listen everyone; I have a long road to a full recovery. I am not taking pain meds and am in agony 24/7. I am having more surgery on my stomach and implants put in my body, I have changed my eating habits and can’t drink alcohol all in a battle to save myself and all this change in a matter of days. I must rejuvenate the liver! Thank fully it is one organ in the body that can fix itself. It takes, time effort and work though.

POKERPLAYERS – If you have a headache; a backache; a tummy ache; any pain at all – avoid taking pills(Yes I have seen quite a few of you reach for the headache pills at tables!). Find out why and have it fixed if you can and go for a second and third opinion. Choose the right ALL IN. Don’t go all in on the felt as you use a bandaid treatment for your pain. Go all in off the felt working out what’s wrong because if the pain isn’t going to kill you the medications will.

You can’t play poker when you’re dead; simple!