Daily Archives: May 31, 2019

Health, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Death and its meanings

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Beltane and the Cancer Moon

Vanitas

Under the Cancer Moon I’ve wrestled with the news of cancer returning. Death and its meanings. At the Journal workshop I wrote in one exercise, death has found me. I still feel that way, that this is a mortality signal with little ambiguity.

Even so, I’m feeling upbeat, happy right now. Why? CT scan showed negative for metastases. So did the bone scan. That means the reemergence has happened in the prostate fossa. Localized. An easier place to treat.

Ozymandias, Shelley

Death may in fact have found me, but prostate cancer may not be its agent. The word cure comes back into the vocabulary with these findings. If the radiation is successful, I’ll be a 72 year old guy with no cancer. Wow.

This will take a while to incorporate.

General

Out of Elementary

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Beltane and the Cancer Moon

Last night was Gabe’s continuation. The Denver school system marks the transition from elementary school to middle school, middle school to high school with a continuation ceremony. Continuation is Latinate, ugly, and denies a sense of completion, of finishing. Why not graduation? Or, finished. Or, done and dusted. Or, thank god. Or, anything but continuation.

There was cake afterwards on the school yard. “Cake is only for continuators.” Continuators? Ugh. Graduates. New middle schoolers. Our former students. Completists. Finishers. OK. Curmudgeoning officially over.

This will be the last event at Schwigert Elementary in Stapleton. A rush hour traffic jam through the entire Denver metro has always preceded them. A 45 minute trip last night was 2 hours. Not much way around it without going a couple of hours early.

Gabe gets his certificate from his 5th grade teacher
The continuator and his cake
Continuator, cake, Dad, sister

Aging, Family, Health, Third Phase

Peaceful

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Beltane—————————————————————Cancer Moon

Peaceful this a.m. The imaging work is done. At least for now. Three days now with no medical interventions or doctor appointments. And sunny blue skies.

On Monday at we leave Shadow Mountain around 5:30 am to get Kate over to Littleton Adventist for her j-tube placement. She’ll be there over night. Since she’s stronger now, we’re not anticipating any major issues. This is laparoscopic surgery so the recovery should be minimal.

We got the first j-tube feeding accessories in the delivery yesterday from Option Care. Jumbo size plastic syringes for flushing. The j-tube will be a major change from the tpn. No more aspectic procedures. No more bag to carry. Not nearly as much risk of infection. And a consistent source of nutrition.