It seems we are all becoming wabi sabi humans. Or Velveteen rabbits. The same perhaps. Deepening the love for ourselves and others, wearing the roadmaps of our lives for others to see while we sort through the inner souvenirs, not so visible.
I agree. Third phase life, done well, could also be called the
Velveteen Rabbit phase. When we become real to ourselves. The cracks in
our lives mended with gold, their existence treasured. Even the
impermanence of life becomes beautiful, a frame for the whole. Our
imperfections, flaws, mistakes as crucial and necessary as our
achievements. We see that now.
Kate’s going to be in the hospital one more day. They want to be sure the j-tube is working, no leaks. A gastric function test today with contrast. Like making sure all the plumbing is in order after sealing the wall. Not sure what they’ll do if they find a leak.
Today it feels like I woke up in a Truman Show simulacrum, one focused on medicine, a Grey’s Anatomy in which Kate and I are a plot thread about medical issues affecting the geriatric demographic. Maybe I’ll drive out to Littleton Adventist this morning and someone there will tear a hole in the screen separating us from the cameras and crew.
Having Kate back in the hospital has flashed forward the bleed and its long aftermath, the second bleed, the pneumothorax. On the first day she’s gone my reaction is to be self-indulgent. Eat poorly and watch a lot of TV. Yesterday was hot dogs, ice cream and several sessions of Big Mouth, a Netflix cartoon about hormonal middle-schoolers. It’s surprisingly good, recommended by Ruth. Not sure why I have this reaction, marking her absence surely, but why self-indulgence?
Tom Crane’s guy.
I suppose those are denial strategies. Eat and forget. Watch and forget. Suppress. Repress. Good thing I have this bandage stripping habit. Wouldn’t want to get stuck. My inclination these days, these third phase days, is to be more forgiving of myself. As somebody said, if your compassion does not include yourself, you are not yet (something): fully compassionate, enlightened, realistic? Ah. Looked it up. It is incomplete.
One of the places where we searched for the j-tube
Out of the house at 5:35 this morning. Headed for the j-tube placement. This procedure had reached almost mythic status. It was said to exist. Some where. And it was said that some could find it if only they searched diligently among many, many medical offices. In one of those offices the one who would say yes, it not only exists, but we will do one for you, surely dwelled.
And lo, finally, on this day, in a land to our south, Littleton, suburb of the city Denver, this fabled one, named Edwin Smith, took matters into his own hands and did in fact do the surgery. As we expected, it went well. None of the demons claimed to bar entrance manifested. Her lungs did well. Her weight and overall stamina proved more than adequate. No barriers from previous surgery like mesh and transflaps, no stomach adhesions. All was well.
She’ll come home tomorrow. Not sure when we actually begin the feeding using the j-tube. There is some weaning off the tpn apparently. But soon. Later, when this whole process has calmed down, we’ll head back to Gupta and the issue of lung disease. Diagnosis and treatment of that will end this no good horrible 8 months.
Just where we’ll be after that we can’t know, but a calmer, more stable place we both hope. Of course, there is the issue of my cancer and its treatment, too. We’ll know more about that after Friday.
Yesterday was Miss Ruth again. I can help with that. And, she does. A bag full of pruned Russia Sage by the garage door. The dogs fed. Pancakes for breakfast. Plucking the chicken off the carcass for the leek and chicken pot pies. Pitting a quart of cherries and baking them into a pie.
How did you get interested in baking? I read a Jodi Picoult book about a baker. After that, I just wanted to bake. Ruth’s the sort of reader I understand well. She reads and wants to inhabit the world she’s conjured in her mind through the words. She’s building multiple places she can go, people she can be, things she can do. It’s the trick to a versatile and imaginative life.
Kate. Ruth’s learned at an early age how to stop doing something if she’s frustrated. And, she has. When she comes back to it, she’s ready to go again. When you consider the trauma she’s been through over the last three or four years (and the conflict in Jon and Jen’s marriage even before that), she’s adapted and learned from it.
I forgot to tell her yesterday, but I admire her willingness, eagerness to learn, to help, to get in to something new and stay with it until she gets it. She does this with academics, sewing, art, friends, grandparents, dogs, food, life. Unless I’m missing something big, she’s gonna do/is doing fine.
Ruth remembers who taught her something. And thanks them. She has gratitude at her base. All she needs to thrive, really.
The Cancer Moon is a sliver, headed toward a new moon. June 3rd will be the new moon, Kate’s surgery date. On June 7th I see Dr. Gilroy to discuss radiation therapy, probably get scheduled to start. By that time yet another Recovery Moon will be shining over Shadow Mountain. We had a healing moon last October after Kate’s bleed and a Recovery Moon in March following my flu/pneumonia.
A third recovery/healing moon makes sense to me. That lunar month will encompass Kate’s recovery from the j-tube placement and our getting used to this new method of getting nutrition for her. It will include much of my radiation. By the end of it we should both be in better places.
Rigel’s nose
Ruth came up yesterday. She pruned the Russian sage, flattened all the boxes for the trash (Chewy, Amazon, Option Care), and got Kate back into her sewing room. This morning she’s going to make pancakes, a cherry pie, and help me make chicken and leek pot pies.
We went to Sushi Win yesterday for lunch to celebrate my CT scan findings. Ruth had a Sushi platter. She ate it all. Dad says I have a teenage appetite. She does.
She’s a scholar, loving Mandarin and math. She’s an artist working in oils, photography, prints. She’s a cook and a good one. She loves animals, brushing Rigel and Kep each time she comes. Ruth has become a sweet, loving young woman. May it continue.
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.
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
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.
Looking up at the paneled ceiling tiles from the ct scan table was a tile made of plastic and full of butterflies. Leftside. On the right, another plastic ceiling tile of clouds. Between them the circular ct machine through which I was fed on a moving slide.
I’d drunk a bottle of orangia like liquid 45 minutes before, but getting the iv in for the additional contrast material was painful. The gal who poked me twice didn’t have it down. She, in her words, tapped out and got a new wrestler to come and put it in. The new nurse was an old pro. She twhacked my elbow crease, looked, then put the iv in place.
“You’ll have a warm feeling in the back of your throat, then you’ll feel like you’re peeing, but you won’t be.” An interesting introduction. Sure enough though the back of my throat warmed up, a flush of heat that spread to my groin. The dye working.
Osiris and early ct
“Take a breath and hold it.” That was the ct scanner. In case you didn’t get it there were little faces, one blowing air out, the other with plumped out cheeks. They lit up.
Took no time at all. When will it be read? You’ll have results in a couple of days. Oh. It’s Thursday, so next week. Oh, well. Been waiting this long. Gilroy’s out of town until next week anyhow.
When the first try for the iv went in, it hurt. A lot. Lying there on an imaging machine, in a hospital, a serious illness underway, I cringed. Will I have to have lots of these? I got back to the moment, looked at the butterflies, then the clouds.
Some heaviness in my walk. Taking out the trash for its delayed pickup. Memorial Day. Getting the Denver Post in its orange plastic wrapper. Putting it at Kate’s place.
The sun rise has begun to melt the frosty crown on Black Mountain. All conditions are impermanent, disappearing in the sun, blowing away in a Chinook.
Gabe called last night and wanted to know if I was coming to his continuation. Fifth grade to McCauliffe. I’m not sure, buddy. I have this procedure tomorrow. In his world fifth grade matters as much. I had already taken my thc for bedtime, tired.
It overwhelmed me. His need. Ruth’s. Who wants to go, but had planned to be up here today, to help us, the conflict hidden until it wasn’t. Jon’s navigating their worlds and ours.
My view on the ct today. The cancer is already there. This is just a pair of special binoculars that can peek inside the black box, see where it is. Once this gets read, a treatment plan will fall into place. Unless it’s equivocal, a finding I don’t want. I could know by tomorrow what’s next.
