I'm in the military and so is my wife. She's been having medical problems, and if any of you know how fucking stupid the military medical system is, you know how frustrating it can be. Her ailments come in spurts of pains and, what I can only imagine, is just a bunch of bad luck. It almost seems daily she has something wrong with her, and this gets really frustrating because all I want is for her to be happy and healthy.

My dad emailed me and says he was sick this week. Had a pain in his rib that hospitalized him. Turns out it was a lung cancer tumor. According to my sister, it's stage 4 and he has slim chances of surviving past the next 5 years. Should that be the case, both my parents will be dead before I'm 30. Shit, he doesn't know that I know, and I'm on here putting off calling him right now.

In my spare time, I lift weights. I first did it as a bro, to kick it with friends at the base gym and add a little size to my 5'10 150 frame. Then I got into body building and serious training, but never focused on strength. Once I realized how crucial steroids were to bring any bit of success in a body building career, I switched over to power lifting. Earlier this week, I had a really bad session that got in my head and at this point I was just doing my lifts to finish my training cycle and take a de-load week, take a hiatus from powerlifting training and go see my dad.

On Friday, after I got off work, my last day scheduled in this training cycle, I went to my gym and hit a deadlift PR of 310 lbs for 4 reps. A really easy 4 reps. I needed that PR more than I knew I did at the time. Nothing beats some iron therapy, or so they tell me.