Category Archives: Aging

Aging, Family, Health, Shadow Mountain, Tea, Third Phase

Wobbly

July 9, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Summer and the Radiation Moon

Something’s making me wobble. I thought it was a too eager use of bowel prep. When I got back from picking up our groceries, I came in the door with three plastic bags in hand, rushed past Kate, “I think I’m going to be sick.” I retched. Then, went to bed. Sunday.

Monday am was ok, even my treatment was ok, but when I got home, I felt off. A little nauseated, a little fatigued, generally uncomfortable. My body wanted food; but, my stomach said, go slow, so I stuck to ramen. Kate made me ginger tea, which helped, and some chicken flavored ramen. Felt better afterwards.

This morning I’m sleepy, tired. Stomach not quite right. I have a team meeting today, I think, with a nurse and Dr. Gilroy. Will check if these seem like side effects to them. Hope not, but they never promised a smooth experience.

Kate went to a Bailey Patchworkers meeting in the white Toyota. And, she has Needleworkers on Wednesday morning. She’s venturing out on her own, not carrying much, but at least showing up. Big, big advances. CBE’s annual meeting is Thursday night.

There’s progress here. Kate’s stamina has improved over an already big leap. Her weight is in the zone she wants. Perhaps not quite as much as she would like, but ok. We’re kidding and joking. She had enough energy even after a long day to make me some food last night.

Today is day 15 for me. When I get to day 17/18 (Th/Fr), I’ll be halfway done. Beatles yesterday. Stones today?

We’re getting afternoon rains, the monsoons. They help keep the wildfire threat down. Very grateful about that.

Aging, Friends, Health, Science, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Bytes and Pixels

July 8, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Summer and the Radiation Moon

Zoom, zoom. Zoom. From the land of First Light to the top of Shadow Mountain, two in the land of sky blue waters. Friends. Bytes and pixels. Sight and sound. Remember when video phones were still a thing of the future, the distant future? We knew somebody from Bell Labs would create them, but when?

Still no flying cars, but there are multiple instances of the video phone. Zoom and Skype, for sure. Kakao, which allows full on video calling. I know there are others I haven’t used.

These forms resolve one of my problems with the old, voice only phone. No facial expressions. No interaction of a bodily nature except for vocal cords and the ear. Too thin for me.

We spoke of gum and sealing wax and other fancy things. Laughed. Nodded when we gave our ideas about patriotism. Complicated, as Mark said. Mostly we reaffirmed our friendship, saw each other in body and soul. A fine thing to do on a Sunday morning. The church of friendship.

In trying to get back to full bowel readiness for the 4th chapter of the Radiation Tales I went too far. Body rebelled. Nausea. (OMG! Is this a side effect? God I hope not.) Finding the balance for preparations is not easy. Pretty sure I brought this one on myself. In bed early with no supper. Stomach still ouchy this morning. Insulted.

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Expect to hear Mr. Roger’s, “Won’t you be my neighbor!” Toot, toot of the train.

Aging, Health, Science, Third Phase

Radiation Vacation

July 7, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Summer and the Radiation Moon

Back to the beano. Radiation vacation is over. Put away the seltzer water. Chapter four of the photon chronicles starts tomorrow. Now it’s every day till the finish.

Still in the tunnel. Moving deliberately, neither slow nor fast. Holding in my heart this saying. My commitment is to the process. Yes, I hope it’s curative; but, it’s the route I’ve chosen and that is enough.

I’m grateful to the whole chain of folks involved in my care. Eigner and Willis for getting me quickly to Anova. Gilroy for a treatment plan. Nicky, Kim, and Patty for their kindness and care. Carmela for her brightness. Amanda for taking my need to make progress seriously. Kate for listening as I offer some new fact I’ve learned or a skewed feeling, for her own recovery. Alan and his steadiness. CBE for multiple mitzvahs. Shelley for the Lupron. Even Nari for his help with the new car.

And of course there are the folks I’ll never see. Fermi. Einstein. Nuclear engineers. Medical engineers. The dosist. The medical physicist. Inventor of the Cyber Knife. That train of thinkers and tinkerers who developed this particular instrument.

All have my gratitude.

Aging, Health, Third Phase

The 13th Fraction

July 3, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Summer and the Radiation Moon

Heating up here. 94 down the hill. 73 on Shadow Mountain.

13th fraction today, then a four day rest. Got there early only to discover that they were running behind. Quick when I finally got in. ‘Yesterday was 12 out of 35. Bit more than a third finished.

Mozart today. The time went by fast. It starts with a whir of gears, then the bird’s head of the cyber knife begins to swing toward me. It stops at about my knees, seems to consider what’s next, then moves just above my abdomen. It’s choreography is the same as the little video you may have seen here.

There’s a moment when it dips below the table on my right side, then aims up from underneath. A whir, a twist, and it comes back up high. Finally it returns to roughly the starting position and swings away. Treatment done.

Kim, or Patty or Nicky come in and remove the rubber band from my feet, undo the loose velcro band over my legs, and take the small donut I use to give my hands something to do. The table is lowered to an easy height for getting up. I collect my things from the table, say good-bye and head back toward Conifer.

Today 470 was a mess going west (or north, if you’re silly enough to look at the compass). On occasion it’s bad. The construction to give users of this highway express lanes has been ongoing since we arrived. There are often different traffic patterns due to moved concrete barriers, dips and turns as the road shifts from one old portion of highway to a new one.

Aging, Commentary on Religion, Family, Great Wheel, Health, Holidays, Judaism, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase

Round 3

July 2, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Summer and the Radiation Moon

Under the warmth of nuclear fusion’s endless possibilities my body takes in fractions of photon radiation, breaking the DNA of cancer cells and friendlies alike. Outside it was 83 degrees, the sun hitting us with more direct beams. Inside it was all Cyber Knife and its accelerator hitting me. Different nuclear generative processes, but both powerful in their own way.

This is a three day radiation week. The long July 4th weekend is time off, then back at it five days a week until done on August 6th. Yesterday I listened to Bach’s well-tempered clavier. Today, Berlioz. Night on Bald Mountain.

After I said I still had no side effects, Dr. Gilroy, in our weekly management meeting yesterday, said, “Well, you might slide through the whole time. In the last week there’s often an increase in urinary frequency.” Of course that’s just the radiation. The Lupron’s an agent all of its own. Still no side effects from it either.

Kate on the porch on Pontiac Street, 2015

Trying to feel my way toward the life after radiation. Kate’s feeling better, not all the way back, but much, much better. At first I was thinking about 7 weeks in the Cyber Knife tunnel. What it will be like when all the fractions have been given?

I realized though that we entered the true tunnel when Kate’s Sjogren’s began to effect her eating. A couple of years ago. The tunnel narrowed on September 28th, 2018, now nine months past. The bleed and its subsequent hospitalizations, imaging studies, doctor’s visits, and surgeries took more and more of both our energies.

Fortunately, Kate’s long ordeal began to have positive notes as cancer returned for me. If we’re lucky, and I think we will be, we’ll reach a point in September, after the second Lupron shot and a surveillance psa, when we can catch our breath, assess where we’ve been and where we’re going.

One of the tricks of living is to stay in the moment as much as possible without losing sight of life’s context. Not easy. The context includes the past and the future, yet we never inhabit either one. Only the present. Right now I’m living life fraction by fraction. One trip to Lone Tree at a time. One meal at a time. One workout at a time.

In September are the High Holidays, Sukkoth, Simchat Torah. The month of Elul precedes Tishrei, the month of the High Holidays, and as such is considered a time of repentance and preparation. Perfect for us this year. Too, on September 29th is Michaelmas, the springtime of the soul. In this instance Michaelmas falls on erev Rosh Hashanah.

And, in my own inner calendar, daylight’s change from 14 hours and 54 minutes on June 21, the summer solstice, to 11 hours and 53 minutes on Michaelmas, means that I’ll be moving further into the deep parts of my soul.

Looking gently forward to Elul, to Michaelmas, to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This year Rosh Hashanah could be a true new year for us, the start of a healthier time. May it be so.

Aging, Cooking, Family, Health

Recovery

June 30, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Summer and the Recovery Moon

Kate’s recovery sped up during the Recovery Moon. Yesterday she went with me to the grocery store to pick up a few items. First time in a year or so. She’s doing all the clean up after I cook, a big assist. She’s laughing, smiling, joking. She folds the laundry, does the dog’s second feeding on days I need to get my workout in before radiation. Picture me jumping up and down, grinning. Her, too, for that matter.

As for me. Itchy eyes. Check. Sneezing. Check. Clogged sinuses. Check. Pine pollen season, unveiled now by the recent dry weather, has come to my head. Not as bad this year as last, at least so far. Thankful for that.

Got out the old Rommertopf clay pot yesterday. Plopped a 5 pound chicken in it with some potatoes, carrots, pearl onions, oyster mushrooms, red wine, and home made chicken stock. Cook from a cold oven for sixty minutes at 480 degrees. Remove lid. Cook fifteen minutes more.

Hadn’t used this handy kitchen tool since we moved here, but I will again soon. The chicken was so moist. A real treat.

No Beano yesterday, drank carbonated water. Enjoying the day off from the radiation protocol.

Aging, Family, Great Wheel, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Myth and Story, Science, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Wild. Wildness. Wilderness.

June 28, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Summer and the Recovery Moon

Wild Man on a coat of arms, Albrecht Durer, 1499

Jimmy Johnson. Woolly, artist, designer, wayfinder, South Dakotan. He emphasizes an old men’s movement idea, the wild man. Find your inner wildness. Keep it alive. Present. That way our vitality remains.

OK. But. Cancer. Is wild. Exhibits a form of wildness that has no care for its environment. Only about replication at the expense of whatever can feed it. Sorta like capitalism. Especially fossil fuel companies.

A certain form of inner wildness has found me and I don’t like it. It’s the opposite of the wild man’s inner wildness. Instead of bringing vitality it feeds on life until it is no more. Again, like capitalism, especially fossil fuel companies.

In another sense though cancer’s wildness is no different from any wildness. It’s red in tooth and claw, survival of the fittest it’s prime directive. This vast forest, the Arapaho National Forest, in which we live is like that. Wherever there are deer and elk, there are mountain lions. A Rocky Mountain truism.

The mountain lion feeds from its environment, is ruthless and opportunistic. As an apex predator, the mountain lion may have no enemies here, but after the mountain lion dies, the forest will absorb their essence, put it back into the plant world. Which feeds the deer and the elk. The circle of life.

Cancer is part of this. It’s an element of the natural world just like decomposition, photosynthesis, a mountain lion attacking a mule deer. This wildness within me lives by the laws of natural selection. It doesn’t care who I am anymore than the mountain lion cares which mule deer they can catch. Cancer is predator and I’m its prey.

Luckily I have a means of fighting back. Even so, cancer is wily, persistent. It’s an open question whether this prey can take out so formidable an adversary. TBD

Aging, Asia, Family, Health, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Science, Third Phase

Kudos to Mary

June 28, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Summer and the Recovery Moon

Kate’s recovery continues to go well. She drove the half hour to PetSmart and picked up Kep yesterday. I took him in on my way to the Cyber Knife. She’ll also drive Mary to the Federal Center RTD stop. Mary tried to find a shuttle or taxi and experienced the mountain way. Either not possible or folks didn’t answer the phone. Wish I could take her, but the Cyber Knife beckons.

Mary’s working on school libraries in Singapore. They’re surprised when I tell them I have Masters Degree in Library Science. Libraries are under a lot of pressure these days and are rethinking how they fit into colleges, universities, communities. Mary has helped the nation with her knowledge of how students actually use libraries. She’s so successful that she’s working well past the usual retirement age. Unusual. Kudos to Mary and her internationally acclaimed work.

Brother Mark likes to comment on the Vietnamese currency, the dong. He says it’s drooping right now. What kind of stimulus might make it rise, he wonders. LOL. He’s on vacation, plenty of time to consider the world around him.

With nine treatments my inner glow has increased. I may be a beacon on Shadow Mountain for aircraft trying to orient themselves. Listened to the Cream yesterday. Nicky was not familiar with them, but she knew Eric Clapton. The Cream was one of the first super groups: Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker. I saw them in a weed smoke filled theatre in Chicago’s old stockyard district, maybe 1968. Got stoned just sitting there.

No side effects so far. But. Every ache, like the hip ouching me as I fed the dogs, or some shortness of breath, or general weariness makes me wonder. Is this it? Are the side effects commencing? No. No. No.

Well, at least I think no on that last one. It’s hard to separate the fatigue from driving back and forth, the treatments, pushing myself to get all my exercise in, and any that might be the result of either the radiation or the Lupron.

A strange place to be. Waiting. Not wanting to invite trouble. The runup to both treatments had a lot of focus on the side effects. Cancer care is like that. Here, take this. It’ll help kill your cancer. And, oh, by the way, your hair and teeth will fall out. But that’s only temporary. Oh. Good.

Most important of all: remember why radiation, why lupron. Kill cancer. Go for a cure.

Been focusing on simplicity of the heart as I drive back and forth, reminding myself to stay in the moment, to not let other drivers, current circumstances drag me out of my inner calm. Tough for me, but really good practice. I failed yesterday when a peloton rode up narrow, no shoulder Shadow Mountain Drive. “Ride single file!” I yelled out the window.

Simplicity is about navigating the churn, the “blooming, buzzing confusion” that is our mind, as William James put it. I’ve taken to using advice for people experiencing panic attacks. Find five things you can see. Five things you can hear. Five things you can feel. I like this because it echoes techniques I learned long ago from the existential psychologists like Carl Rogers. Grounding. It helps.

Aging, Dogs, Family, Health, Travel

Family Week on Shadow Mountain

June 27, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Summer and the Recovery Moon

It’s family week on Shadow Mountain. Mary is here, arriving Tuesday night from Minneapolis, heading out tomorrow for Minneapolis to see her friend Debbie in Eau Claire. After a brief stop in Indiana, she heads back to London, on to Cornwall, Devon, for a memorial service. Greece for a conference. Back to England, Cambridge, for a conference with Japanese colleagues from her time in Kobe last year.

Meanwhile Mark sends missives about Bangkok. He’s been in Chinatown, Yaowarat Road, the old main street of Bangkok. I stayed there when I was in Bangkok in 2004. A fascinating place with traditional Chinese apothecaries, lots of street food on weekend nights, small, crowded lanes packed with shops selling diverse wares.

Guru, Mary’s s.o., is back in K.L., Malaysia, defending a couple of drug traffickers facing the death penalty. They’re tough on drug dealers.

The Kep, shredder extraordinaire, goes into PetSmart today for furmination. If, that is, I can find his rabies certificate. No, I know where it is. He still doesn’t like to be left. He is joyous when we return. You remembered me!

Yesterday I listened to Creedence while the Cancer Predator bobbed and weaved around my body-as Mark observed. Keith, who’s taking the radiation cure for just diagnosed prostate cancer, said, Half done! I’ll get to half some day, but not soon. Another guy, older than me, gave me a bemused smile, all radiated! We’re all on death row, hoping to commute the sentence with clean living and radioactive photons.

Kate saw Gupta. He’s going to see her again in a month. No diagnosis. She’s doing so well that getting a lung biopsy done, the only way to make a definitive diagnosis, might interfere with her recovery. It’s a surgical procedure, requiring anesthesia. If she continues to improve, and I think she will, then any lung disease is not bad enough to justify the trauma of the biopsy.

Aging, Family, Health, Music, Travel, Weather +Climate

Wisest of Owls

June 26, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Summer and the Recovery Moon

The weather here has veered back toward seasonal norms and will continue warm to hot. Hard to say when the next snowfall might be.

Gabe found the antler. A very excited 11 year old. He went for a walk with Ruth and found another bone. A knife blade, too. He’s a bone collector. Jon says he wants a metal detector. Oh, boy.

Ruth varnished the owl house. It will get up in a tree soon. It has book jackets on it. She made it in wood arts class and gave it to me for my birthday. I told her the book jackets would assure I’d get the wisest owls. “I didn’t think of that metaphor!”

Drove down the hill last night at 9 pm to the Federal Center RTD stop. Picked up Mary at 10. The lights of Denver twinkle coming down 285, the air was warm, the sky clear. Perfect summer night. Good for a drive.

She’s going from here to Wisconsin, thence to Indianapolis, and, after that, back to London. She came through London to Indy.

Kate had a not so good day yesterday. Some random not feel good stuff. Another grocery delivery. What a mind saver.

Pattie told me my bladder was perfect yesterday. So nice to hear. Took the last of my radiation to Riders in the Storm. I did ask Nicky what was the most popular musical choice. Hmm. Let me give you the top four: classic rock, blues (pretty appropriate), classical, and new country. Interesting.

Got to thinking about why classic rock. Listening to the Doors I replayed college. Hmmm. At 72 I choose to transport myself back to when I was young and foolish. Made me wonder what musical choices are made in hospices these days? Anybody leaving this world to “I’m So Glad” by the Cream?

Prostate cancer tends to produce patients of a certain age. Like me. When we pass each other, we smile. A bit grimly. Yeah. You, too? The guy with the Titelist ball cap on Monday looked serious today waiting his turn on the gurney.

I’ve wondered, once or twice, what the attitude is like in breast cancer treatment centers. I imagine it as a bit more warm and fuzzy.