Monthly Archives: July 2015

Beyond the Boundaries, Faith and Spirituality, Health, Memories, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Travel, US History

Week II Post-Surgery

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Summer                                                                   Recovery Moon

Week II post surgery. My energy improves daily though I’m not back to full stamina. The surgical stigmata, six wounds where the robot’s arms pierced my skin, are healing nicely. It no longer hurts to lie down on them. An unpleasant, but anticipated side effect of the surgery, temporary incontinence, seems to be clearing up much more rapidly than I’d imagined it would. And, most importantly, I’m presumptively cancer free, the only question being possible microscopic metastases. I test for that in early September.

The tomorrow wall has crumbled. I can now see into the future again. Yesterday I made Amtrak reservations for my 50th high school reunion in September. The overnight California Zephyr runs from Denver to Chicago and then a short ride on the Cardinal to Lafayette, Indiana where I’ll pick up a rental car and drive the rest of the way. I do it this way because the Cardinal gets into Indianapolis after midnight and this allows me a good night’s sleep, plus I can gradually re-enter Hoosier space driving familiar highways back to Alexandria.

camp chesterfield2
The Trail of Religion

Again this time, as I did for the 45th, I plan to stay at Camp Chesterfield, a Christian Spiritualist center. It’s a quirky, old, interesting place. And, it’s cheap.

The loft is ready for its second round of construction, more shelves, then more shelving. I’ve abandoned my attempt to get the books properly organized as I shelve them because I need to clear space for more shelves. I can sort and organize as much as I want come fall.

My psyche has not caught up to my body’s healing pace. Though the tomorrow wall has fallen, I still find my days somewhat chaotic, not sure what to do, then what to do next. We’ve had a continuing drip, drip, drip of other matters: cracked tooth, dying boiler, Kate’s very painful back that contribute. All those seem to be moving toward resolution. I’ve even found a plumber for the generator install, a niggling thing still hanging on.

I’ll find my psyche back to its usual eagerness over the next week or two. I look forward to it.

Again, gratitude to all of you who sent notes over the cancer season. It matters.

 

 

Beyond the Boundaries, Politics, US History

Bless Them All

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Summer                                                           Recovery Moon

I’d not even begun to read Ta-Nehisi Coates‘ new book, Between the World and Me, when I came across Cornel West‘s (picture) defense of his review of the book. I met Cornel at a Liberation Theology conference in Detroit. This was the late 70’s when all things seemed possible if we could just get organized. He was a young academic star on the rise.

Now he’s professor emeritus from Princeton in Philosophy and still teaching at Union Theological Seminary in New York. West’s critique of Coates’ work lies in Coates’ unwillingness to connect his observations to the struggle for black liberation. West is an unreconstructed black and 1960’s activist who sees all things through the prism of praxis, saying must be connected to doing. Me, too, but he’s been far more faithful to the dream.

What interested me even more than Cornel’s critique of Coates was his critique of Obama as the first black president. He used it too as an example of a place Coates was not willing to go with his analysis. I don’t recall all of it but he called Obama out on drones, the closing(non) of Gitmo, the national surveillance state, and his support of the occupation of Palestine.

Some of us follow our thought where it goes and in so doing allow our actions to be guided by the most fiery, the most pure of our ideas. West is such a man. So was King and Malcolm X. I admire all 3. They stand as bright sentinels on the margins of our culture, illuminating the path of that broad arc toward justice. Often such people can seem irrelevant, too willing to forego gains for the sake of a further dream. And that’s a fair argument, but it discounts the larger ecology of the work.

We need pathfinders, ones who can see the way forward and cast light upon it. Others can make the day-to-day compromises that actually move society forward. Without our Wests and Kings and Malcolms, our Freidans and Steinhems and Stantons, the path ahead would remain hidden, tailing off in the dark edges of the future. Bless them all.

 

Minnesota, Mountains, The West

The Mountain Difference

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Summer                                                       Recovery Moon

The last few nights the clouds at sunset have been what seem to my eye a color of red peculiar to the west. They remind me of Riders of the Purple Sage or High Noon if it had been made in color. The sun goes down behind Black Mountain from our vantage point, so just beyond it the old west could still be banging saloon doors, its streets filled with dust as the cowboys ride in after payday.

I’m no geographical determinist, but to say that living on a mountain is different from living on the flat lands of the Midwest is only common sense. In Minnesota the variation in the landscape came from beautiful rivers, forests of deciduous trees sprinkled with conifers, lakes and ponds, wetlands and the changes going north wrought on all of these. It was not big sky country, but on the way home to Andover the dome of the sky was large and largely visible.

In the Front Range the variation in landscape follows an altitude gradient, different trees and different plants, wildflowers appear as we drive up from Denver the 3,600 feet that separates Shadow Mountain from the start of the high plains. The sky, once in the mountains, is visible in fragments determined by the height and shape of the mountains. The trees are mostly conifers and firs, green throughout the year, though the aspen grows well even at our 8,800 feet. Along the creeks willows and dogwood grow, deer and elk browse.

The changes are more subtle here and require some to time to absorb though the mountains, in their bulky looming make themselves known like the slow-moving, light blinking semi-trailers that crawl slowly up the highways into them. You have to move around them. In the fall there is no blaze of color, jack frost running from tree to tree calling out magenta, dark red, yellow, subtle browns. In the mountains there is green, the conifers and firs, and gold, the leaves of the aspen finished with their summer’s work.

 

Health, Our Land and Home

Crowning Achievement

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Summer                                                             Recovery Moon

Ever since my first crown years ago I can’t get the old gospel hymn, Crown Him With Many Crowns, out of my head when I go to the dentist with a cracked tooth. Aspen Park Dental sits just off 285, snugged in the mountains near the Safeway and a Starbucks. Nice folks. Dr. Higuchi got his degree at University of Iowa. A Hawkeye. Karen, the dental assistant, lives in nearby Pine Grove, and has a Great Dane. We talked about loving big dogs and their short life spans.

Back home to Shadow Mountain where lack of hot water dominated the rest of the morning. This time I found Ken, the only guy with a boiler license working up here. Ken, unfortunately, knows his business. Looks like a new boiler. Interesting reason, too. This high efficiency boiler was not made for altitude. At sea level it’s rated about 85%, not real high, but aiming in that direction. In the mountains it’s about 70%. The reasons relate to different flame setting requirements and difficulties with hard, acidic water. It has developed several problems, the sum of which would be too costly to fix given the likelihood of their recurrence.

Ah, well.

Faith and Spirituality, Health, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Oh, You Were Lucky

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Summer                                                                        Recovery Moon

Been thinking about luck and fortune. The meanings are slippery and often adjust themselves to rationalization. For instance. I was lucky to find my cancer early enough for successful treatment. Well, yes. But. I was unlucky to find cancer at all. It was my good fortune to find, with Kate’s help, competent and caring medical professionals in Colorado. Again, sure. But. It was my bad fortune to need as much of their competence and caring as I did.

Over the last few days since the catheter came out I’ve had this thought, “Boy, was I lucky. I had cancer, but it was treatable. And, I found it and treated it quickly.” The facts are true. I had cancer. It was treatable. It was found and treated quickly. But lucky seems askew. Lucky would have been to have never had cancer at all. Lucky described my state prior to diagnosis, not after. After, it was data, decisions, actions.

I write this because I’ve been tempted to another line of thought, too. I was lucky; I had prostate cancer, not lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, any cancer that most often defies treatment. There is a tendency to diminish the severity of our own situation and compare it to the dire circumstances of others. This helps psychologically, but it changes neither the fact of my situation nor theirs.

Each situation is as it is. Cancer is bad, no matter what type, no matter its response or lack of response to treatments. This disease is not one, but many; it is polymorphous and diverse. I’ve had friends with terrible cancers that eventually caused death. I’ve heard the stories of many men who’ve had the same arc with prostate cancer that I have. And others who have died.

Lucky and fortune play no part, save as soothing conceptual anodynes. Facts. They are what matter. Love and friendship can give aid in real time and I’ve experienced it. But that was not luck. That was kindness, compassion.

Health, Science

Ah

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Summer                                                                Recovery Moon

I won the catheter pull! It’s gone and I’m implement free for the first time in 39 days. Could you hear the sigh of relief?

My urologist, Ted Eigner, explained my pathology report and the next step, an ultra sensitive PSA done 8 weeks after the surgery. Anything under 0.2 PSA signals no apparent lingering prostate cells kicking out antigens. As time goes forward and the PSA’s continue with good signals the confidence level of a cure goes up. It’s pretty high right now, but not 100%. The reason: microscopic escapees taking up residence elsewhere in the body. That’s what the PSA tests for. The gross pathology of the removed prostate indicates no cancer in the area: clear margins.

A friend who has been through breast cancer wrote with feeling about those two words: clear margins. Not too important to you until they become very, very important.

I consider this the beginning of the end. The end will come when I’m fully continent and have had my first PSA test results. Eigner says about 3 months. Not bad.

 

Aging, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Retirement, Third Phase

Third Phase Summary

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Summer                                                            Recovery Moon

The third phase. First phase: childhood/education through at least high school, maybe undergraduate college. Second Phase: career/family formation. Third phase: Post career with adult children. This last phase has become an extended and to some extent new part of normal life. In the recent past the third phase was often short, interrupted by illness and often marred by poverty and ended not long after it began, especially for men.

Advances in medical science, improved social security and medicare and the maturation of the baby boom generation have combined to push the third phase into greater and greater prominence. We live longer, with better health and improved economic conditions. Too, the large population bulge of the baby boom is forcing society to see the third phase. In the past it may have been possible to consign the aging third phaser to the margins of society, but with the huge numbers of those born between 1946 and 1964 third phase citizens will be a larger and larger percentage of the population.

This is exciting. It allows our culture as a whole to reconsider the third phase and its implications for both individuals and society. Since the third phase is post career/work and usually represented by a couple with no children at home, it places an inflection point on the question of individual worth. The normal external markers affecting self-worth are employment and children. Both of these are in the past for most third phasers. Or, at least the time when they dominated an individual’s life is in the past.

Though it may be frightening to some this means that we each get the opportunity to reshape our lives, often around activities more closely aligned to our own interests. Kate, for example, always a hand-worker and seamstress, now focuses on quilting. I was able, earlier than most third-phasers, to focus on writing, political work and the arts, interests which sustain me now in my late 60’s. Family is still important, of course, with grand children and the lives of adult children, but those interactions happen occasionally rather than daily. This allows a pleasant mix of intimate, family contact while ensuring enough time for independent activities.

The third phase continues to fascinate me as I see friends headed into it and experience it myself with Kate. Friendships matter even more, with the hard work of friendship done while family and career dominated, and become increasingly precious as those factors reduce in importance. In my case the Woolly Mammoths and the docent corps continue to enrich the third phase.

 

 

 

Faith and Spirituality, Health, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase

Don’t Leave Town

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Summer                                                   Healing Moon

With the waning healing moon 13% full I have been healed.

Here’s an analogy. One April day when the air is a bit cool and daffodils have broken through, yellow against the gray, a stranger comes up to you, perhaps at home or at a bus stop, in the grocery store.

“I have something to tell you. You have been chosen at random to be put on trial for a terrible crime. The maximum penalty for this crime is death.”

“Wait,” you say, “What do you mean? How is that possible?”

“You’ll know more after an initial hearing before the judge. Until then keep yourself available. Don’t leave town.”

A month later, in a Gothic courthouse, you visit a judge who opens your file.

“Hmm. Well. This is all in order. Yes. Sorry you had to be chosen, but these things happen all the time, you know. I’ll call with the results of the trial in about a week. Don’t leave town.”

Shaken even more than when you met the stranger, you go home. You don’t leave town.

“This is the clerk of court calling. Is this X?”

“Yes.”

“You have been found guilty and the sentence is death. You’ll be under house arrest since the execution date is not certain. Sometime in the future. Don’t leave town.”

Stunned, you fall back in your recliner. In every way you feel the same as you did before the stranger came except for your various reactions to his news. Anger, fear, courage, hopelessness, resistance, frayed anxiety. Now this.

“Hello, X?”

“Yes.”

“The judge has decided to hold another hearing on your case. Please come back to the courthouse on this date. Thank you.”

On a day almost 3 months from the stranger’s visit, you climb in your car in the dark. They’ve set the hearing for a very early hour. On the way you realize this might be your last chance. You consider the suddenness, the arbitrary nature of your guilt. And you feel afraid. Again.

The hearing is long and you are present, but can neither hear nor see. Hours later you awake in a prison cell, disoriented. You don’t remember why you are there. Slowly, it comes back. The trial, the sentencing, the final hearing.

A jailer in blue prison garb says, “You’re free to go. The report of your hearing will be available in three to five days. Don’t leave town.”

Unbalanced and unsteady from the hearing process your wife drives you home, this time through dense rush hour traffic. At home you gradually put the hearing behind you.

On a quiet afternoon three days later the phone rings. You pick it up. It’s the judge.

“X. How are you feeling? I see. Well, let’s get right to it. The panel looked over your case and decided to set you free. No capital punishment. You may leave town whenever you wish.”

 

 

General

Wow

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Summer                                                             Healing Moon

Wow. Path report came in early. Clear margins all around. Gleason score 4+3 with extracapsular involvement. This last means I had to have surgery. The first means the surgery was successful. No seminal vesicle involvement. In effect this means I no longer have prostate cancer!

I’ll have PSA tests on a regular basis but the presumption is that I’m now cancer free. This will take a bit to integrate. Just as it was difficult to absorb being a cancer patient, it will also be hard for me to recognize myself as a cancer survivor. The whole episode lasted almost exactly 3 months, April 14th to July 11th. Which is odd. To have something that momentous arise as a possibility, become a certainty, then disappear as a problem.

Lisa Gidday, Ted Eigner and their supporting staff…thank you all. Without you I would have fewer days in which to write, to laugh, to love. How can that be repaid?

General

Old Self Gone

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Summer                                                  Healing Moon

After three months of seriousness, distraction, medical visits and surgery I’ve told Kate many times I just want my old life back. And I meant it. Or, at least what I meant was, I want out of this pit of uncertainty and back to a world where tomorrow is not a question mark.

Now, three days after the surgery, sort of the top of a bell curve of anxiety, I see I was wrong about wanting my old life back. The me who lived that old life-writing, Latin, family, hikes, friends-is gone. My pre-April 14th self has vanished, the one who had those priorities. That’s not say there aren’t continuities, yes, there are, but it is to say that my post-cancer diagnosis and treatment self is different, substantially different, I think.

This awareness is only coming to me now so I can’t see with any clarity those differences. They will emerge as I live into the fall and winter. But they exist and want to claim their own ascendancy as time moves forward.

I did not expect this, but in retrospect it makes sense.