What started it all.

5 years to live?

No sir - I’d like to get a second opinion.

2017. I was 26 years old.

Doctors told me I had maybe 5 years to live. Why exactly? I’m not really sure they knew either. After several miserable months of barely functioning, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I admitted myself to a hospital.

I spent a week there undergoing test after test.

One day I open my eyes just like I had routinely done the past few boring yet painfully dreadful days there. What do they want now - another blood sugar check? Nope. A doctor walks into my room. My symptoms were bizarre. Nobody could find anything wrong with me. The MRI’s, CT scans, and x-rays all showed nothing. Did they finally have some sort of diagnosis?

They sure as shit did.

The doctor tossed a packet of paper at me that looked like some middle school essay printed off Google. Stapled in the corner hot off the press of wikipedia. Cute.

5 years they said.

“We don’t know all too much about this disease, to be honest.”

- wow doc, I sure appreciate the honesty.

Smile! You get to go home!

…well if that wasn’t a damn kick in the teeth.

I was discharged and referred to a “specialist” who in all honesty wasn’t so special after all. She never did a damn thing for me - other than charge me for visits, of course.

You know? This “disease” they diagnosed me with - it never sat quite right with me all that summer.

Some may say it was a stage of denial.

Hell, it probably was.

Refusal to believe.

Denial is the first stage of grief they say, after all.

Maybe - just maybe though - I knew my body better than a cheaply printed packet of paper a doctor had printed just to clear a hospital bed.

I admit, I owe my life to a friend of mine. He’s a doctor. Not my doctor - or the fool who threw wikipedia’s finest at me - but a doctor nonetheless. A doctor who got me a referral to a team of specialists at a different hospital who were willing to take a look and bless me with a second opinion.

Turns out, that second opinion saved my life.

A tumor was hidden beneath my liver in my bile duct. Nestled up nice and cozy at just the right angle so that all those fancy tests done at the other hospital were useless. It took several endoscopies, but they finally found it.

“Antibiotics for a week - come back in one month for surgery.”

“Sure thing,”

What a month, can you imagine? No anxiety there!

The day finally comes and my mom walks with me to the room that would forever change my life. Doctors and nurses load me up with a fancy hospital gown and all sorts of IV’s and in for surgery I go. “4 hours tops” they tell my mom. That was approximately 1:30pm. I’m wheeled into the operating room and they had me count backwards from 100. I think I made it to 96. Go me.

It’s after 9:30pm now. I’m in a post-op room. A nurse switches out my breathing tube. I remember she was kind and I had thanked her for being that way. She laughed sweetly and said I wouldn’t remember any of that moment because of the residual anesthesia - much less her.

Well ain’t that something. Here I am remembering it.

“4 hours” had turned into 9 hours. 9 sweet hours under the knife. What damn day was it? I can only imagine what was on my mothers mind as she waited all that time in the waiting room.

I remember the post-op room. I remember the kind nurse who told me I wouldn’t remember her. What I don’t remember is being wheeled into a miserable room I would spent the next month of my life at.

I say miserable room - and it was. It was hell on Earth.

But you know what else it was?

A second chance.

I’ve got a trendy 7-inch scar to show for it, too.

Recovery was long. It hurt to move even a bit. I don’t think I could stand upright for weeks without pain. Walking? Rolling over in bed? Oh no, honey. Everything hurt.

But with the tumor found and the surgery done, the 5-year life expectancy I was given thanks to a misdiagnosis of some little-known disease handed to me just months ago was gone.

What exactly I did with that little stack of papers I don’t remember. For all I know I tossed them in the trash. Goodbye and good riddance.

It was a rough road to recovery but the key word there is recovery. I made it through and I see life now in a new light.

Adventure makes my heart flutter.

I love to stay busy.

I want to see the world. See things. All of the beautiful places and hell - even talk to the people!

Yes I said it… talk to the people. Wow.

Middle-school me was as quiet and shy as a church mouse. Who would’ve ever guessed I’d end up as one who thrives on talking to people and making YouTube videos for the public - any and all - to see now?

Months after my surgery, it was my 27th birthday and I took my very first trip alone to celebrate another year around the sun. No particular plan in mind. No destination printed off of good ol’ wikipedia for me, thank you very much.

It was my first time out on the open road alone. Every moment unplanned and new. It was exhilarating.

It was also my first time filming for YouTube. The camera was my friend and my only partner on that trip.

And it continues to come with me now for many of them.

__

So there ya have it folks. A casual little “about me” story. Something ordinary you’ll forget about by your next meal, I’m sure.

I don’t know much about how things changed so drastically in my life and personality over time - but they did.

One thing that has never changed is my love of thrift and the thrill of the hunt though. It’s like an adult game of hide and seek. What treasures can I find today? What will I learn and where will the road take me?

So that’s what I do.

I travel and I find things.

Just to sum it up lightly :)

With this website, I open my heart just a bit and share with you some of my treasured finds. I travel far and wide - as often as my schedule will allow - to bring you these goodies and timepieces.

Perhaps you’ll find one that speaks to you.

Welcome it into your home.

Decorate with it.

Place it somewhere special and smile when you see it.

Allow it to ease conversation when friends come over and maybe someday pass it down along to your own special people.

I hope whatever you choose brings a smile to your face the way finding them did for me.

As the old saying goes - if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. :)

Please enjoy.

& thank you kindly for reading my story.