I don't know whether this is possible but I have already spent 1500 dollars in tickets for a concert in Portland. I wanted my oldest daughter and boyfriend to join us (4 tickets) for this. This appears to be going to happen. But also, I'm trying to keep myself alive by doing things that make me want to live.
There is physical survival and then there is quality survival. And if you have been following my struggle for survival it goes back to arriving in Mt. Shasta March 27th 2015 when later that night I had to be taken to the emergency room and put on a Saline drip (to prevent death from throwing up 12 to 15 times including several times in the emergency room), a Morphine drip (I was really scared of the hallucinations that accompany this especially because I'm 6 foot 5 inches and stronger like a professional football player and capable of hitting someone and killing them with one blow if I was hallucinating or angry. Physically, I'm pretty terrifying for some people to be around. I always spend half my time making people comfortable so they won't be afraid of my strength and size. My weight then was 318 pounds. Think about this for a moment if you ran as fast as you could into me or by accident you might just die from it without me doing anything. People have told me who accidentally ran into me when I was just standing there that it is like running into a tree or brick wall. It could be fatal to just be running and run into me even if I was stationary at the time.
And finally because I had thrown up my heart medicine I could not adapt quickly enough to 3500 feet which is the actual altitude of Mt. Shasta City. So, soon my life signs were beeping and the nurse said,"I've got to give you oxygen or you are going to die right now!"
They stabilized me for about from 2 am to about 7 am the next morning at which point they released me to suffer with pain at about a 4 to 7 in my hotel room all alone. My friends brought me what I asked purple Pedialyte, a case of Arrowhead water, plain Kefir and 3 mangoes. Other things they got me I just threw up completely during the Morphine constipation of the first 3 days when nothing moved so no food could stay down.
This quickly changed my relationship with food to "If it makes me throw it up I won't eat that anymore because throwing up takes so much energy I might die from throwing up." (Very very practical stance if I didn't want to die).
Then when I was released from the emergency room I was at 10% to 20% of normal. In other words I knew I had a 50-50 chance of dying the first few days so I just slept and went to the bathroom and drank water and took my medicines armour thyroid, Lisinopril and Spironolactone on a regular schedule by setting alarms to wake me up on my Iphone at intervals. So, I barely survived the weekend. Finally had a bowel movement on Monday morning. I was so happy I asked my friend to drive up to Mt. Shasta to Bunny Flats with me because I couldn't drive at all.
So, we did. All I could do is sort of freeze there for a few minutes looking at the beautiful snow there and watching people climbing up Mt. Shasta that day from the parking lot at bunny Flats. I lasted about 5 minutes there and then couldn't breathe right and asked them to drive me down. But, it's amazing how the mountain can lift your spirits.
Today I thought of an amazing Idea to make me really happy. First of all, I'm not poor, I think you gathered that already.
But, one of my greatest sadnesses is that I cannot get a medical certificate to fly anymore to pilot a private plane. However, I was thinking while sitting in the sun yesterday that that doesn't mean I can't offer an instrument rated pilot money for gas to and from wherever I want to go. So, maybe this is sort of like hitchhiking where I say, "I'll pay for your gas if you are going to such and such a place.
In this case I want to go to Portland, Oregon to visit my older daughter by a private plane maybe the size of a Cessna 172 or larger. So, for me, it would be almost sort of like a med flight for me to get to Portland. So anyone who needs hours who is instrument rated (like they want to become an airline pilot and own their own plane or want to rent a plane to do this (I won't pay for a plane rental because I don't think this is necessary. So this works best for a man or woman who own their own plane and just want extra flight time in their log book. I plan to bring my flight book where I soloed in 1987 after my father passed away too. So, in doing this maybe they would let me fly some along the Sierras so I could see the snow capped peaks up fairly close because most pilot of smaller planes like to fly long distance at around 7000 feet or so because of the generally softer cusioned ride with thinner air.
I wouldn't ask to take off or to land the plane because legally that wouldn't be safe. But would like to pilot the plane at altitude while the pilot navigates for me around storms and the like. This is my dream for my birthday while fighting for my life right now. So, I want to fly to portland from the SF Bay area in something like a Cessna 172 or larger and I will pay for all the gas both to and from portland back to the Sf Bay area in return so the instrument rated pilot gets the hours necessary to become an airline pilot or whatever they want the flight hours for.
Also, since I am only a VFR pilot trained on Cessna 152s and 172s to fly them I want to only be flying during the daylight hours of 6 am to 6 pm. I want to fly anytime during the day from April 20th to April 23rd.
In Portland ORegon I plan to rent either a Mustang or Camaro Convertible (I owned a brand new 1968 Camaro metallic blue new in 1968 and kept the car for 10 years time. I really miss it now but then I was a young single father in 1978 and recently divorced and living in apartments and didn't think I could afford to be racing with my 3 year old son on the streets. I had to give that up to raise my son to adulthood.
He is now 40 years of age with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from San Bernadino State university
and is happily Teaching English now and is married with a son (1 year in June). Since he is in another country doing this he makes 3 times what the locals are paid to teach in a public school. Amazing life he leads. Very high quality life in the country he teaches. But, I have to fly up to 15 hours to get there to visit my grandson which makes me sad they are so very far away. 15 hours on any plane is hard at age 67.
Meanwhile my wife and her best friend plan to take the train to Dunsmuir and be picked up by a local taxi and retrieve my Tundra 2011 4wd truck and drive it to Portland. After my birthday celebrations we then drive one week later to Seattle to move our daughter out of the dorms of her college for the summer and put the rest of her stuff in storage that she doesn't want in the bay area at our home. She has her 2013 Hyundai Sonata waiting for her here at home. I mostly have been driving it and keeping it running for her first year in college to which she won a merit scholarship of 32,000 dollars. Her grade point average this first year has been around 3.95 which is pretty good too.
However, this all hinges on two things, my health and the weather.
For example, if my health is survivable that week and the weather is iffy I would just purchase a last minute 1st class ticket to Alaska Airlines and fly up and rent my convertible Camaro or Mustang for a few days until my wife arrives with my 4wd.
But, if my health isn't strong enough my wife would take a train to dunsmuir with her best friend, get a taxi or shuttle to my friend's 2 1/2 acres of land where my truck is parked, get it and head north to Portland and Seattle without me.
One more thing I would need to be on oxygen if we flew above 2500 feet in altitude. So, I would rent and oxygen canister and plastic nose dispenser like you find in hospitals so I would be safe at up to 15,000 to 20,000 feet in altitude flying depending upon which plane we were in.
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