The Kumiski Report
Thank you for reading this week’s report. I wanted to give my friends an update on my condition. There’s no fishing in here, so if you don’t care about my condition, close this and find something else to do.
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This week’s story is an excerpt from my still unfinished life, which I have yet to name.
Achieving a Higher Level of Suck
“We sure can bring the suck!” -Tammy Wilson, to me, at the end of a particularly fruitless day of fishing
When I was 54 (2006), I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Which sucks. But, even though it was an aggressive cancer, they found it early, removed the offending organ, and I had healed enough in three months to start my Alaska guiding career. Problem solved.
Not so fast, pardner.
Fast forward 13 years (2019). I had been troubled by a persistent cough. It was aggravating enough and lasted long enough (a couple years) that by working my way through a series of doctors, I was finally diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. 2019 was my last season working in Alaska, or as a fishing guide. When I got home that September, I put the Mitzi up for sale and got out of the guiding business.
I was officially Retired.
I bought and modified the Toyota Sienna van into a camper, and Susan and I proceeded to do some traveling. West coast twice, New England twice, eastern Canada twice, we shore were gittin’ to see stuff! For being sick, it was pretty awesome. When home, I went paddle fishing and hiking two, three, four days a week. I joined the Oviedo Photo Club. But the disease, progressive and incurable, was working on me, and I was gradually getting more and more sick.
In early March of this year I got sick, something common like a cold or flu. It put me in bed for thirteen days. When I recovered, I had lost both strength and stamina- I could only get out a couple times a week now. Could no longer maintain our house or property. We made plans to sell the house.
In June I started getting what, for lack or a better term, I called “dizzy spells.” What was happening was my heart would go into atrial fibrillation. While blood puddled in my not-pumping heart, it would start to clot. When the ticker started ticking again, the clots would move too. The ones that reached my brain caused “dizzy spells” that were actually each tiny strokes. Some really were tiny and relatively innocuous. A couple, one of which I had at Advent Health in Orlando, actually in the hospital, where it went undiagnosed in spite of my spending the afternoon in the ER, kicked my butt.
The one that kicked my butt the worst happened on the airplane, flying to California. I walked onto that plane, but had to be taken off on a wheelchair because I could no longer walk. I can walk a bit now, but it’s slow and painful. I no longer enjoy it.
Two days after getting to California, Maxx checked me into the ER at his hospital. I spent three days tethered to a bed there while I got poked, stroked, and tested. The folks there came up with the a-fib idea for the strokes.
One thing that happened at the hospital that everyone except me got to ignore was this deep-seated soreness/pain originating under my right armpit and stretching down my back under the right circumstance, pretty much any time I tried to use my right arm for anything. Since I’m right-handed, this made for lots of “oh, shit” and similar comments.
Maxx is a PA in an emergency room. He got sick of watching and listening to me constantly being in pain because of my right side, and finally got out a stethescope and a dollop of curiosity. He discovered I had broken a rib. How? Apparently by coughing.
Not so fast, buckaroo.
The VA here in the Bay Area is a completely different animal—in a good way—from the VA in Florida. Hardly a day passes when I don’t hear from someone at the VA.
During one of my appointments, someone snuck in an MRI of the area where the soreness was.
What they found there was not good.
The prostate cancer I had 20 years ago, the cancer that was supposedly all gone?
It came back.
It had settled onto some of my ribs, causing lesions. One of those lesions grew enough to weaken its supporting rib until it cracked.
That explained the whining.
The doctor who told me all this asked if I wanted to talk to an oncologist.
My response was, “What’s the point?”
I’m under home hospice care now. Although I’m still running on 1,000 mg of acetaminophen during the day, I take morphine for pain every night.
Those nights are long.
Not a lot of sleeping happening.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for staying with me. I will continue to publish the blog as long as I’m able. Just understand that may not be too long.
And Tammy, not catching fish does not constitute bringing the suckage.
Not having any hope of ever fishing again?
That’s achieving a higher level of suck.
It is my sincere hope that nobody reading this will ever reach the heights of suck I’ve detailed here.
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Photo Corner
This image is available for purchase at https://www.etsy.com/listing/4517690493/lost-to-the-storm-katrinas-ghost-yacht
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That’s this week’s Kumiski Report. Thanks for reading.
Every day is a blessing. Don’t waste it. Go fishing! Go paddling! Go walking! Stay active!
John Kumiski – https://spottedtail.com – https://www.etsy.com/shop/PhotographybyKumiski
All content in this blog, including writing and photos, ©John Kumiski 2026. All rights are reserved.