Category Archives: Shadow Mountain

Cooking, Friends, Health, Shadow Mountain

A Day

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Melissa came yesterday. She made shrimp corn chowder, grilled beef ribs (from her grill), breakfast burritos, a blueberry and a strawberry parfait, and carne asada with potatoes and veggies. In addition to other chores like moving the trash into the garage (bears).

She has a mini-Cooper convertible. Driving it with the top down is one of her favorite things.

Sue Bradshaw called, following up on our telehealth visit. She’s taking conscientious care of me. Offered to bring a bread basket by.

Last night got up for the bathroom. Felt light headed. Tripped on my shoes getting back into bed. A small cut and large bruise on my forearm. Fell onto the bed, but scraped my arm on my nightstand.

One of the downsides of living alone. Tough to clean and bandage something with one hand.

Beautiful spring weather up here on Shadow Morning. Sunny, low seventies, trees leafing out.

I am feeling gradually better. To get much further I need some p.t. Soon.

Well, it’s a sunny day in the neighborhood and my good friend Tom is in town. Looking forward to spending time with him.

Fourth Phase, Health, Shadow Mountain, Writing

Dopy Don

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Good Morning, Ancientrails! (think Robin Williams)

My new normal: limited movement, O2 more often. Weak and tired. Not a happy place. Yet. It represents part of the slow recovery from the difficulties of the last month.

I hope some p.t. will increase my stamina and strength. Any improvement would be welcome.

Irv and Marilyn, Selam and Mocha came for lunch yesterday. Mocha and Shadow played during our meal. Selam is Irv and Marilyn’s granddaughter. 16.

They brought baked salmon, Saltzman Caesar salad, and an Irv baked apple pie. His grandma’s recipe.

Shadow shows a sweet level of concern, coming close to me in bed, her brown eyes focused on mine. What a gift.

Bad sleep last night. Hope to catch up this morning. At least some.

Saw Trump slouched in a Beijing banquet chair looking every year of his age. Sleepy Joe and Dopy Don. Can’t believe he represents us. China may see itself as the dominant power while we try to figure out what happened.

You, my friends, get me up in the morning. Thank you.

Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Shadow Mountain

Enough

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Spring and the Trial Moon

Monday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers. Safety. May. Spring. The beauty of the Lodgepoles. The Aspens leafing out. BJ and Pammy.

Rene Good and Alex Pretti. Say their names,

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mac and cheese

 

Kavannah:  Zerizut.  Zest and Zeal. Enthusiasm. Risking a gray, homebound life. Need a push. Good for another week. Still at risk.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: I pull out mac and cheese. Plate it and warm it. Perhaps a frittata instead. No? A drumstick, blueberries and strawberries. Maybe. Having a refrigerator stocked with ready to eat food. Melissa, my visiting angel.

 

Visiting Angels. A palliative care nurse. A social worker. Melissa. Maddie. Used to be Rachel. My home team. They care about me and I appreciate it.

My friends at CBE. Visiting me. Giving me rides. Ruth coming up to cook for me. Tom and Paul’s visits. I’m a lucky guy. Family coming. Mary. Mark. Joe and Seoah. Ginny and Janice, chosen family.

Alone, but not lonely.

It may be, probably is, that these relationships are my purpose now. Staying in touch. Visits. Zoom calls. Enlivening and being enlivened. Seeing and being seen.

Perhaps this has always been true. I-Thou over the I-Its of career, striving.

Yes. If I-Thou extends to the wild realms, to dogs and cats, to the wonder of the light-eaters, then I say yes. More than skill. More than income. More than knowledge. More than status or power.

The simple, everyday magic of loving and being loved. A hug. A gift of a smile, a kind glance. The warmth of another’s hand. Bedrock for all of life.

 

 

Cooking, Fourth Phase, Health, Shadow Mountain

Trending

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Spring and the Trial Moon

Friday gratefuls: Mac and cheese. Melissa. Her hard work. Lunch. Better sleep. Reading. Emergence. Lodgepoles.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Moon

 

Kavannah:  Zerizut.  Zest and Zeal. Enthusiasm. Risking a gray, homebound life. Need a push. Good for another week. Still at risk.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: A healthy helping of homemade mac and cheese. Strawberries and blueberries. Lunch made by Melissa. Food improved. A lot. One piece of the returning to better health puzzle. Sleep another. Plus, as Kate said, the tincture of time.

 

Yes, I’m feeling better. No longer whacked out. Gut calm. Decent sleep. A start. Feels good to not feel bad.

The path to peak health in the fourth phase can be tricky. Quiet this ailment. Treat the cancer. Deal with muscle and stamina loss.

I’m far from it. The most recent insult has taken a positive turn. Trending in the right direction.

Melissa has taken a lot of pressure off me. Laundry. Dishes. Making food. Prepping the guest room. Trash. Picking up and putting away groceries. Getting the mail. Glad both she and Visiting Angels are in my life.

Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Shadow Mountain, Writing

Visits

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Spring and the Trial Moon

Friday gratefuls: Cold chicken. Asian dumplings. Mac and cheese. Paul, Sarah, Kate, Michael. The tire. Snow.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friends from away

 

Kavannah:  Zerizut.  Zest and Zeal. Enthusiasm. Risking a gray, homebound life. Need a push.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: Sarah came. Fourteen years since I saw her last. When she and Paul moved to Maine all those years ago. A delight. Kate and Michael, their young energy, committed. Targeted. Paul, my friend. Calling time on the visit. Next stop the Train Museum in Golden. For Max, the train obsessed.

 

Their visit came and went too fast. Politics. Women’s fractured bodily autonomy. By red or blue. The sweetness of old friends with whom fourteen years don’t matter. Right back where we were. Paul and I see each other more often, much more. These are friendships of long, long standing. Precious.

Kate did not get a chance to ask her question. What’s everybody reading? Always a fruitful one. I’ve picked this up from her. Next time.

Michael mentioned the Sherpa Restaurant in Boulder. Run by actual Himalayan sherpas. One of the film company principles–Michael works for a documentary filmmaker–had recently come back from Everest. One of the sherpas he had worked with on Everest was at work in the cafe.

Visits affirm the visitor and the visited. You are both worth the effort of seeing and being seen. No small thang.

Sleep less good last night. Though. No longer falling asleep when I write as I did not so long ago. Body still quiet. Regular food. Healing.

A main issue now: detraining. Major muscle loss. Not sure how or when or whether to address this. Will become more front of mind.

Had a kind note from Allison Theil. A fellow docent from the class of 2005. She says she reads Ancientrails everyday. Allison was/is a good friend. Buoys me up to hear from readers.

 

 

Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Shadow Mountain

Seeing Past Illness

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Spring and the Trial Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Shadow. Paul, Sarah, Kate. Snow. Cool nights. Dr. Josy. Melissa. Sleep. Food. This nation. Our lives in it.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fruit

 

Kavannah:  Zerizut.  Zest and Zeal. Enthusiasm. Risking a gray, homebound life. Need a push.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: As sleep has improved, as my diet has gotten more varied, I can feel definite progress. My body feels better. Yet this journey has taken a lot out of me and full recovery will, I imagine, take months. Rehab, movement. More of each. Staying with sleep and diet.

 

I’ve been house bound for a while. Medical appointments the only exception. I can see how being a shut-in (not quite me, yet for the last few weeks…) might cripple a life. Unless friends and family visit, there’s no frisson, no healthy friction between my life and the lives of others.

Why get dressed? Shower? Follow a routine of rising and sitting down, sitting down and rising. Bed to chair to fridge to chair. Of course I have my zoom calls, friends and grandkids visiting. Melissa twice a week. I’m not all the way down that rabbit hole, but its existence looms closer now.

I pride myself on resilience. Take the hits. Timex. Keep on ticking. When my body kept signaling distress, when sleep seemed faraway, I found myself shrinking, diminished to a janky physical platform and an I can’t see beyond this mess version of my self.

With sleep and good food, as my body has quieted, I’ve begun to see past my illness induced narcissism. I can be grateful, very grateful, for the kindness and love I’ve experienced. Tara and Eleanor. Ginny, Janice, Annie, Luna. Melissa. Ruth. An old man, especially when ill, needs folks who see where he is. Ruth comes at least once a month, cooks for me, tells me, “You’re not old, you’re wise.” Bless her pea-pickin’ heart.

Time for breakfast. Melissa made frittatas.

Fourth Phase, Health, Shadow Mountain

My best guess

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Spring and the Trial Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Melissa’s shrimp stir fry, chicken noodle soup. Some sleep. Sweet Shadow. Searching for the pony.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Sadness

 

Kavannah:  Zerizut.  Zest and Zeal. Enthusiasm. Risking a gray, homebound life. Need a push.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: Shooting for minimal but still daily posts. The view from Shadow Mountain, a bit bleak. Weak. Fatigued. Fever yesterday. So. Tired.

 

Not sure, but here’s my best guess. Two vectors, intimate yet distinctive. The physical: Bout, tough bout, of constipation. The trial introduces prednisone. Several sleeplessness nights. Perhaps a g.i. bug of some sort. Limited nutrition. Persistent dry mouth. Side effects of actinium. (maybe) Fatigue induced by low testosterone, low blood pressure, inadequate nutrition.

The psychic: Hard to bounce back emotionally. The body. Day after day. Unrelenting. Little, or glacial, movement forward. At some point a week or so ago: Is this worth it? No. Let’s go with the downward arc. Let it be.

Eleven years, now into twelve of cancer. Blood tests, insurance hassles. A constant, significant background, sometimes pushing into the foreground. Like now. Jon’s divorce. Kate’s long illness. Her death. My grief. Jon’s death. Much more involvement with Ruth and Gabe. Metastases. Stage 4. Holding myself up, finding purpose. Yes. Also. So many points of pressure.

Flash forward. See physical above. Now layer onto that eleven years of shocks and upset. The two together. Reinforcing. A negative synergy.

I know. Stabilize the physical. Clear up the psychic by reaching back, towards resilience earned and learned. Recharge. Forward.

I need to ride this out. Take care it doesn’t overwhelm me.

Right now? Difficult.

 

Fourth Phase, Health, Shadow Mountain

Finally.

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Spring and the Trial Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Melissa. Ruth. Gabe. Shadow of the morning. CNS. Neck. Gut. Shrimp stirfry. Mac and cheese. Sleep.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Naps

 

Kavannah: Zerizut.  Zest and Zeal. Enthusiasm. Risking a gray, homebound life. Need a push.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: First. Apologies for my erratic posting. Life over the last month, six weeks has taken a toll. Second, I am getting better sleep. Not enough, but better. I’ll admit the last two weeks have been tough. Yet, I’m still here. Adapting. Moving forward.

 

Ruth came up Thursday around 11:00. We talked. My woes. Her ulna–too long–which will get surgically shortened in early June. She had her last final that morning and all the while we talked, she kept refreshing her phone, hoping more grades had been posted. She’s done well so far.

At 6 PM the now committed Regis University student, Gabe, came up by commuter bus. He and Ruth bought pizza at Ripple for supper. Gabe says he’s not excited yet about Regis. In July, I will be.

This fall all the grandkids will be in college. Wow. A long way from Ruth’s first trip with me to the National Western Stockshow at age 3. From holding a naked 8 day old Gabe on my lap as the mohel made him part of the covenant.

The Great Circle of life.

Melissa came again. Her husband, former paratrooper in the Army’s 101st Airborne, works now as a mechanic on heavy equipment, an installer of car stackers, and the go-to guy if industrial strength belts are involved.

Yesterday she made chicken noodle soup, shrimp stir-fry, and one I don’t remember. She’s quite a cook with a wide repertoire.

Busy day yesterday interspersed with naps. Sorting through my feelings about weakness, my neck, cancer. Trying to find a sweet spot. Eluding me so far.

Fourth Phase, Health, Shadow Mountain

Debt

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Spring and the Trial Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Better sleep. Melissa. 101st Airborne. Katie. Visiting Angels. Relief.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Sleep

 

 

Kavannah: Contentment, Histakop. I have enough. Friends. Family. Money. Health. House. Help

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: Last night. Woke up only once. Still knackered, but chipping away at the mountain of sleep debt accrued in the days following trial session #1. I also got back to sleep. Though. When I got up, I kept falling asleep at my keyboard, often leaving long trails of a single character I had to delete.

 

Melissa came yesterday. She lives in Pine, a small community west and south of here. In four hours she did two loads of laundry, cleaned up the kitchen, got my mail, and made four containers: two of chili, shrimp scampi, tater tot casserole.

She made these from ingredients I already had. This gal is serious about her work. Lifts some pressure from me.

Melissa, raised in Oregon, has lived all over the U,S,A, Her husband served in the Army, 101st Airborne Division. She has five dogs including a Great Dane and a French Pug.

Once we get ourselves fully in synch. Wow.

Protection protocol for actinium leaking from my body ends today. It’s a hassle but mostly doable. Should be easier the second time.

My body seems to have equilibrated. Glad. Biggest issue now is exhaustion, sleep debt. Strong.

I see Maddie today. Palliative care nurse. We’ll have a lot to discuss.

After Maddie, Tara and Eleanor come. With lunch.

2:30 to 6:30. Window for delivery and installation of my new dishwasher, Whew.

Gonna stop here. Tired.

Cancer, Fourth Phase, Health, Shadow Mountain

Touch better

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Spring and the Trial Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Mary. Tom. Ruth. Gabe. Shadow. Night sky. Back to the Moon. More sleep. Visiting Angels. Start today.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: New drugs

 

Kavannah: Contentment, Histakop. I have enough. Friends. Family. Money. Health. House. Help

Tarot: paused

One brief shining:  Dry mouth. Makes food taste like cardboard. And, not tasty cardboard. Told my oncologist. He said, “Sweet, wet, and cold foods retain their taste best.” An odd breakdown, but o.k. Wet? Ramen it was. Sweet? Hmmm. Cold? Shrimp cocktail. Watermelon chunks. How to put together?

 

How was last night different from all other nights? I had more sleep than wakefulness. Felt almost normal. Still over tired. A big sleep deficit. Not resolved in one night. Felt so good to realize I’d slept.

A blur. A sleepy haze. No way to spend a day. Reading. Nope! TV.  Making some food. Then, a nap. Or, two.

I let inner darkness, deep shadows taint my mood, my feelings, my thinking. Yesterday. Like a fever breaking. In a moment I recast all those melancholic ideas, feelings. They come from an extreme place. When the cancer rises. When sleep recedes. With extreme visions. Enough. Let’s coast toward the end. Your G.I. tract will never stabilize.

I saw them for what they were: my back against the wall solutions. Accept what they send as a message. Don’t be afraid to do something. Radical moments require radical responses.

Or. Do they? What if the slip into fearful solutions gets hijacked by a miserable guy, leading a not so happy life. For the last week. Could he, say choose hospice? Or drink more Miralax?

A week of disorientation, stomach/bowels upset only evokes a temporary setback. Just feels bad. Yet in the moment I had my melancholy blinker on. I would let in information or thoughts that confirmed my bias. A trap, a Chinese finger puzzle of the mind.

That moment of clarity I mentioned? Took off the blinkers, helped me see the whole wonderful world. Not just the parts of it causing pain. The note from Mary saying she might come and stay with me a while. That ramen. RJ and Michelle at Bond and Devick.

Disoriented? Yes. In psychic pain? Yes. Also companion to Shadow. Maker of ramen. Liking the cool weather.