Stream of consciousness. William James, a blooming, buzzing confusion. That’s the world with us. What about the world within us? Perhaps a booming, seething well? My posts are often stream of consciousness. Yes, of course. What else can they be? Tighter, more logical, less streamy, more broadcast television? Sometimes. I can do it.
Ancientrails started as a replacement for my long time hand written practice. Keyboards and pens are different. They educe thought in part by the feedback of the screen or the page. Pen scratching across paper. Keys clicking, letters appearing against a white screen. Some folk say one is better than the other. Pen being mightier than the keyboard, too.
Don’t think so. Of course I’ve been typing since I was 16 and took typing in high school. Before computers I used a typewriter, first manual, then Selectric with the ball. I’ve been writing with a keyboard for over 56 years. That’s a long time. Think I’ve gotten used to it by now. It’s my chief manual skill.
Most days I start with a Natalie Goldberg mind, free writing. Start out and see where it goes. If this blog ever seems like associations evinced by the sentence before, well, it is. I’ve tried to be more systematic, more philosophical, more academic. Just isn’t me. I’m more a first person sort of guy, telling you what’s on my mind right now.
The downside of this style is obvious. It’s self-centered, myopic, less than fully considered. True. It’s also self-revelatory, honest, and fresh. At least I think so.
Moving out of the time of the first harvest though Lughnasa has three weeks to go. The combines will be in the fields soon, contractors working through the night with the aid of the Harvest Moon.
Dreamy and sleepy this morning. The dogs had to wake me up. Working on getting a friend out of prison. He got out, then reoffended right away. There was a road work project near the top of a high hill. Jesuit’s were the work crew. There’s some Jungian stuff going on here, I can tell.
Picked up another tradition of better days. After Thursday afternoon mussar at CBE, we drove into touristy Evergreen. At CJ’s, I bought two Vienna beef sandwiches, one with giardiniera, one without. CJ sold the place to his daughter last year, but he was behind the counter yesterday.
The parking lot across from CJ’s, which made it much easier to stop in ( parking is bad), has been out of commission since the flood. That was 2012. CJ got flooded out by water pouring down the rocky hillside. Not covered by FEMA. The parking lot, flooded out by the swollen Bear Creek, was. He’s convinced the reason the parking lot’s taking so long to fix is “…because the government’s involved.” Whatever the truth he makes great Vienna Beef. Best I’ve had outside of Chicago itself.
2014, Andover
Mowed. Put roundup down on the five foot perimeter. Had to fix my sprayer, which hadn’t been used in over five years. Since the move at least. Lot of crud in the nozzle. Walking with it, wending the wand here and there, took me back to the Andover garden. Rarely used roundup there, mostly for products from the organic folks Bill Schmidt introduced me, too.
One more week. 5 fractions. 50 minutes. Photons off. Make it so.
Stomach unhappy as I head into the final round of CyberKnife sessions. Not unexpected, but I thought I had it managed. Nope. Head down, forward.
Some fatigue, more after the treatments and the drive home. More now than the first four weeks. Low energy, low motivation. I’ve given exercise and the radiation first place each day. Today, my third resistance session for the week, I plan to up my workout to three sets for each exercise from the initial two. No Lone Tree trip for today and tomorrow.
Dinners from the Mitzvah committee folks will keep coming for two more weeks. After that I should be running around like a guy with his cancer cut off. Cooking, writing, generally raisin’ hell.
Lucky number 7. 28 fractions as of yesterday. 29 today. Weary and distracted, but I can feel a positive energy eager to emerge when the radiation finishes. Will not miss the daily trips to Lone Tree. Nothing from the Lupron except some mood changes. Hoping I’ll stay that way.
Kate’s having some tough times right now. Gupta, the pulmonologist, who seems knowledgeable but disorganized, has not give her a diagnosis, prognosis, or a plan. She started seeing him in January. The lung disease is the last piece of the long march and his foot dragging has caused her anxiety.
Kate’s mom had a lung disease, died from it. She says, “I’m becoming my mom.” No, I said. You may share some physical issues, but you are definitely not becoming your mom.
Her body has been giving her trouble for over two years. That’s a long time to deal with a cranky gut, weight loss, Sjogren’s, debilitating bleeds. Stress has built up and has so many triggers for her that it’s hard for her to achieve inner peace. Illness spreads out to the mind, to the family, to the community. Few are ill alone.
Kate went along yesterday on my Lone Tree trek. She saw me get on the table. Kim and Nicky bound my feet and knees, put a pillow under my knees, and handed me the donut. Kate left and it was the cyber knife, John Prine, and me.
One guy, talking to Kim, said, “I drank a quart of water before I left home.” We exchanged glances, amused at what we have to do to get ready. We want to do well, get that bladder at 100 ml or above. It’s magical thinking to some degree. If we help as much as we can, the therapists will make sure we get the best from them. And, here’s the magical part, we’ll kill all the cancer cells together.
I’m struck by how much like a sacrifice these radiation treatments are. I get ushered into the holy of holies where resides the god of radiation. To get his favor I lie down on clean sheets, the priestesses make sure I’m in the correct ritual position. They leave the room, the encounter between god and sacrifice being a sacred act dangerous to others. I lie still and let the photon’s stream into me, hoping the god will grant me a miracle.
With 12 more fractions to go I’m at the two-thirds point. Blessedly, I have found a combination of meds that keep my stomach more or less calm and my bowels steadier. I feel better and that makes the whole experience less fraught.
Got our first meal delivered last night. Lasagna from Marilyn. Yummy. A real relief to get help. We both are grateful.
This ancientrail of disease, treatment, and healing continues.
Week two began with the Grateful Dead. Sugar Magnolia, then Fire on the Mountain. Today, the Doors. Gonna ask Nicky today what’s most requested. My bet is country.
Finding my rhythm with the bladder. Came in around 280 ml yesterday. Goal is 100, but anything above 100 is ok. Cool, clear water. A western thing, now a radiation thing. Tumbler of water in the cup holder, I drink it on the drive. The Water Flow Way, I suppose.
Haven’t yet figured out the trick with audio books and my phone. Gonna go to the library on Wednesday after breakfast with Alan. I’m sure they can tell me.
Ruth stayed up Sunday night. She’s still here and now Gabe is, too. Gabe wants to hunt for antlers and I’m going to salt the backyard with an antler I bought in South Dakota years ago. I think he’ll enjoy finding one.
Jon picks them up around 4:30. Mary, sister Mary, flies into Denver around 7: 20 pm. Pick her up at the RTD stop at the Federal Center in Lakewood around 10. She’s on a visit back, hitting Minnesota, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Indiana. My peripatetic sibs. Mark’s in Bangkok. Me? You can see my glow at night if you fly over the Front Range from DIA.
Mary and Guru at the Fort, August, 2017
Kate cooked the meal last night. ! Her stamina is so much improved. We did drive all the way into Swedish Hospital for yet another imaging study yesterday. Not approved by Medicare. Drive back. Not sure what’s going on here. Kate sees Gupta tomorrow while I’m under the photon beam. He ordered the test.
Move to Colorado. Visit many different hospitals, medical clinics, specialists, imaging locations. It’ll be fun!
Because of my midday treatment schedule, I had to get my workout in early. Often, if I felt a need to do that, I’d shrug when it came time. Do it tomorrow, I’d think. Sometimes I’d do it then. More often, I’d let it go.
Did it. I’ll keep it up; I’m sure. That’s three days a week, the resistance workout with a bit of cardio. The other three days are cardio. I’ve started back on the high intensity, interval workouts I used to do. Gradually. Gonna keep my muscle mass, my fitness level as best I can. Does wonders, too, for the psyche.
Had to leave early for Lone Tree due to Kate’s 11:30 annual physical. Drinking water the whole way there. Part of the protocol. Also, soup Sunday night for supper. Lighter proportions on the meals. Protocol. Reducing gas. That’s the goal.
Dropped Kate off at Lisa’s office, County Line Road to Broadway and Broadway back to 470. Still pretty early for my 12:20 appointment, so I drove around, trying to get familiar with the navigation screen on our new car. Slow progress there. RTFM, I know. But I’m a do this and see what it does sorta guy at heart.
Time to stop driving around listening to the computer voice. Over to Anova. While I sat in the waiting room, men of a certain age in sweat pants came and went. One guy, tall, gray headed like all but one of us, had on blue sweats with pink stripes. Keith had on jeans. I didn’t want’em to cut on me. You know. No, I didn’t, but I nodded anyhow. He’d made his decision.
Ultra sound of the bladder. That’s always first. Lie down on an exam table. Patty put a little gel on my tummy. Wand. Hmm. 200 ml. We want you at 100. Take this cup. Fill it to here. Then, to here. Not so easy, but I managed.
Take a seat out here. OK.
Come on back. OK. A room with computer monitors, narrow, more like a hall way. Desk chairs. New woman, about Patty’s age, maybe a bit younger. Early thirties. Attractive, like Patty. Attractive younger women to manage old men. Makes sense.
New woman, I didn’t get her name. I will today. We’re right here the whole time. If you need us, just yell and we’ll be right there. I couldn’t imagine what I’d need them for, but it was nice to know.
What music would you like? We have Pandora. The Band. Do you know them? She pulled up The Band’s Pandora page. No, I don’t think so. Wait. Yes. My grandpa told me about them. Oh. I see.
Patty and new woman both liked my radiation hazard t-shirt. No reason to be glum, eh?
Anova’s cyber knife is a bit different. I’ll get a picture.
Down to it. A metal table. My spot. Cyber Knife to my right. Two oblong, speaker like things hung on the ceiling on either side of the table. Above me a circle, big, filled with nice wood, lights all around the rim.
Patty and the new woman began positioning me on the table. A pillow under my knees. A red laser line up my midsection. We’ll be back. If we come into to reposition you, we don’t want help. Just let us do it. OK.
A few tugs and pulls later. The table began to shift up, down, sideways. Huh. The table’s an important instrument in this case. This whole 3-D guided radiation treatment requires precision at an exquisite level. Don’t want to burn the bladder or the rectum. Do what you must, Patty.
The music starts up. Patty says something through the loud speakers, but with The Band playing “The Weight” and my poor hearing I just say, ok.
Cyber Knife comes to life. In motion it reminds me most of the industrial robots I’ve seen at work in automobile manufacturing. It’s movements have that slightly jerky but intentional way about them. The one the kids use for robot dance moves. Metallic sounds. Gears grinding. Not loud, but audible.
The pointy end, the lens that aims the radiation moves around me. Stopping. Moving again. Up high. To the side. Below the table aiming up. All the while the large head of the Cyber Knife looms over me. Defenseless. What if it goes all Skynet on me? Gotta say, it was creepy.
All this to a favorite song, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” The weirdness level was very high. My sixties past brought into my 2019 present, a robot aiming death-dealing rays into my body. To protect me. Very, very weird.
Took around ten minutes. See you tomorrow. Thanks.
I’ll write about the rest of the day in the next post.
Made a decision about the commute for radiation. Gonna go home through Deer Creek Canyon. Use the Canyon for its consolation. I did that today after picking up another O2 concentrator for Kate.
The sky was blue with cumulus clouds rising high above the mountains. Deer Creek ran fast down the canyon, fed by the now melting snow, late and in large volume. The rocky sides of the mountains, sometimes square, sometimes fragmented, sometimes rising in sheer cliffs sported lodgepole pines on either side of the road.
Looked up at the clouds. Then to the mountains, the rock, their height, lifting on either side of the canyon created by the running water, Deer Creek. Oh. We look at the mountains and we see permanence, stolidity. Mass unmovable and unmoved. We look at the clouds and we think evanescence, temporary. Gone as the heat rises or as the night cools.
But. We’re wrong. The clouds are only a visual manifestation of the water that is of this earth. It moves in cycles. Down the creek. Filling reservoirs and lakes. It evaporates and rises until, chilled by the cooler altitudes, it forms clouds. The temporary appearance of the clouds is an illusion, a trick of what Alfred North Whitehead would call a fallacy of misplaced concreteness. We see them as objects isolated against the blue sky. They’re not. They’re a particular manifestation of the water cycle and their essence, water itself, is not lost when the clouds disappear.
The mountain’s permanence is, as I’ve written here before, also an illusion. The snowmelt now feeding mountain streams all over the state takes a swipe, a soft swipe at the rock, dislodging particles created by the freeze and thaw cycles of winter. The lodgepole pines, scenic, supported by these rock behemoths, dig in, too, their roots spreading in crevices, forcing pebbles and small rocks to roll down hill. These are young mountains, these Rockies. Some day they will be rolling hills like the Appalachians.
Then, of course, there is the day itself. In this case warm, even hot. But the heat will flee the setting of the sun. Yes, the earth will continue to radiate heat, but not as much, when the sun sets. And the season, leaves coming, flowers blooming, deer fawns and elk calves following more mature animals, will get hotter and hotter. The fawns and calves will grow. The leaves will die back. Cold will come again. Another cycle.
I look at my hands on the steering wheel. These are old man’s hands. Wrinkled, blue veined, knuckles a bit swollen. My life is another cycle. I’m not permanent. Neither is the mountain. Neither are those fawns and calves.
This is maya. We see the cloud and think of its short existence. We see the mountain and think of its long existence. We feel the warmth of the day and imagine each day just like this one. No. The Great Wheel turns. It’s turning reminds us of the impermanence of all things.
Paradoxically though all things are permanent, too. They may change organization as entropy, the change agent of this universe, works its destructive powers, yet becomes the unwitting supplier of parts for the next mountain, the next human, the next cloud.
Slight change in my plans. Got to thinking over the weekend about radiation. I mean, who wouldn’t, right? Littleton Adventist versus Anova Cancer Care. Anova is Dr. Gilroy’s shop. I like Littleton because I liked the imaging folks there, both Kate and me had good experiences there. It’s also closer to home, though not by a huge amount.
But. Their radiation folks do a lot of breast cancer. I know that from the two dedicated parking slots for breast cancer patients. They probably do a lot of other kinds of cancer, too. All good. Yes. However. Anova does mostly prostate cancer. Got to thinking about those radiation beams, the possibility of the radiation impacting my bowels, my bladder, my kidneys. It’s a tight space and aiming the beam will have a lot to do both with the main goal, kill, kill, kill, as well as with the likelihood of side effects now and later.
Went on followmyhealth (a website Anova shares with New West Physicians, my primary care folk). E-mail. Hey, Dr. Gilroy. Decided I’d rather do my radiation in your shop.
Weird choices, where to do radiation. Where to get my Lupron shot. They are though both up front and center. Right now.
