Time Traveler

I had intended for this blog to cover the extent of my journey through battling cancer, which it pretty much did in that I continued posting until all signs of cancer were gone from my body. But is it...really. Can any of us ever be free from cancer? I have celebrated that concept for three years now...I have gone organic...so much so that I now have an organic garden (currently freezing its organic ass off in this the beginning of another Idaho winter)...I am raising organic chickens that I feed organic chicken feed with omega 3 fatty acids, for the good of the hens themselves but also greedely for the good of my cancer fighting self...and I have patted myself on the back for these efforts...but have I escaped the ravages of that terrible desease that I am so dilligent to avoid? To this I would have to answer a resounding NO...I may not, to the best of my knowledge have any cancer cell currently percolating inside me but I am never the less surrounded by cancer...just as you are.
In my previous entries I wandered into my past to explain my present, to give some inkling as to why I am, and out of this past I have come to find no small part of my near future. My best friend growing up...we all have one...contacted me recently to "catch up" as we hadn't kept in touch for many years...and as it is with true best friends...there was no gap...no void...no uncrossable chasm dug out of life by years of indifference...just a voice that was as familiar today as it was when I was eleven or ninteen when we started college together or as recently as sixteen years ago when he showed up unexpectedly at my sons funeral...the last time I saw him until this month.
He had called earlier in the summer after searching me out on FB and we caught up...comparing notes...amazed at how parallel our lives had been so distant...he had retired as had I...he had been a volenteer firefighter in his community...the profession I loved and retired from....he had a passion for cooking...need I say more. We were excited to reconnect and the opportunity came up when Elaine told me she had a seminar to go to in his neck of the woods...I called him and told him of the good news and plans were made to spend time together cooking and catching up on lives seperated if only by time and distance...then he called me again just ten days before we were to arrive to tell me that we had one more thing in common...he had just been diagnosed with kidney cancer...you have two kidneys my mind screamed...oh but its also here...and its also there...and there doing a bone scan on Monday...and my doc neighbor suggests a brain scan...and yes its in my left humorus...and there are four tumors in my head.
Oh my best friend you always had to beat me at everything...but why this.
I hate cancer despite it's love for me.

Time Travelers

I started my education in Pocatello Idaho at Jefferson Elementary...named after a man that I now find extremely interesting and admirable. Kindergarten was a marvelous place back then...with those inkwellian, fission proof, protectors of a booming generation our teachers called a desk. We each had a small rug that we brought from home for the nap we took after our break (we were there for an unbelievable four hours). The break consisted of a snack, usually a cookie of the Oreo type, and a drink, sometimes a small container of milk, but on most occasions the liquid refreshment of the hour was an orange colored, metallic tasting, liquid that now always comes to mind when I hear or think of the word tepid. This was not at all pleasing by and of itself...but wash an Oreo cookie down with that liquid warmth and you had something memorable...it may well be the reason my favorite candy to this day are those chocolate covered orange sticks I get from my family every Christmas and birthday...I never buy them for myself...and never...ever..."just cuz"...some things are too special...sacred.

At the kindergarten period of a persons life...time is endless...there is actually too much of it...enough to get into trouble...enough to start a fight with with your sister...enough to think this ride in the car will never end and you will never actually get there...but the more time passes the more precious it becomes...it hasn't actually changed in anyway whatsoever...and as I am writing this, someplace, somewhere, a kindergartner is waiting impatiently for that endless four hours to be over...while I look for the emergency brake to slow the whole damn process of time down!

We arrived back home to our new fence and old familiar sights...the couch that fits like a glove...our own bed! But what first caught my eye when we started to settle back in was the clocks...none of which had the same time. The antique looking pendulum clock in the living room said 9:47...the coffee maker said 2:16...the clock in the bedroom said 11:52...and the clock on the microwave said 00:00...00:00...00:00! How does this happen...we were gone less than two months...which due to the circumstances seemed like twice that...but how do clocks do that...was I constantly going around synchronizing my clocks for the last fifty years?...I don't remember that chore but it certainly would be just that...could it be that just like having cancer has totally thrown a wrench into my time, space, continuum that it has somehow affected the time pieces closely associated with me!?...I'm sure this will continue to be a mystery and if the whole thing was perpetrated by someone with a devilish smirk on there face as they read this...my hats off to you.

We had planned to be home for six weeks while I healed from the radiation...then back for the real fun... and we had looked forward to this brief bit of normalcy...but it was not to be...we are moving out of our house (anyone looking for a great buy in the mountains)...and we found a two week "boot camp" for cancer patients that can fit us in during this respite...so instead of a relaxing six weeks...we will accomplish many great things in a small amount of time! I am looking forward to the treatment center we are headed to...its in California on the edge of a desert and it follows a regimine of diet, exercise, and mind body connection that many of the books we have been reading on the subject have recommended...(I did previously mention eating a tree as a cure)...but our research leads us to believe this will be a positive move and we are both looking forward to it...reports to follow!

Landscapes

Early last Saturday morning found Elaine and I on the streets of Rochester Minnesota headed to the farmers market. The city itself is an island of concrete surrounded by fields of corn...lots and lots of corn...and multiple farms with multiple corn silos...and in the middle of town stands a water tower like many towns across this country...but instead of being emblazoned with the proud "ROCHESTER" across the center...this one is in the shape of a giant corn cob...which means you can't get lost here...you might get disoriented (especially if you hail from a place with large mountains)(to get lost in) but if you keep your eyes open in Rochester you'll eventually spy this giant effigy to the provider of high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated corn oil, corn solids, corn flour and all of the other forms of the plant that gets added to our diets to make meal (I almost forgot corn meal) after meal more delectable...if a bit less digestible!

So it was with the corn phallus standing proud to our right that we headed off to get our fresh fruits and vegetables for the week...and this farmers market has a plethora of both....mostly strawberries and rhubarb this time of year for fruit but the veggies are coming into their own and some of them I failed to even recognize...beets of multiple color...orange...yellow...and our favorite was one that Elaine exclaimed "look at the size of those radishes!!"...which were actually the brilliant red and globe shape of a radish but the size of beet and had it not been for its position amongst it's brothers and sisters of red, orange, and purple beets...we would...in the days to follow...be telling everyone we know, about the size of the radishes in Minnesota! We met an Amish farmer with his Amish family (very pleasant people) who proudly displayed a varied offering of organic delicacies of which we purchased some beautiful strawberries to add to our morning smoothie and some white carrots...not snow white...but albino enough to be called white carrots and which proved to be quite tasty as an afternoon snack....with these and a couple of bars of goats milk soap in our bag of tricks...we headed back through the canyons of the city towards our home away from home.

The sun by now had risen to a point that it added drama to the city streets...Rochester has done a fine job of mixing flora and concrete...add the suns rays at the proper angle and you see yourself surrounded by man made beauty....through which we now found ourselves wandering with the giant cob on our left (exposing itself occasionally between the concrete canyons)...and as we came around the next corner I spied a familiar sight...a big red firetruck...with its occupants no where in sight...and as the thought crept and crawled through my mind "I know where the key is!!"...I realized that this object in front of me that represented what I was about for the last two decades...was what I feared I would languish about the most once I retired...but as I looked at it I came to the realization that what I miss the most...is me! The one thing that I am surely not anymore is me. This cancer has taken me away from me...I should be amongst the mountains I love...or wandering the country looking for some new adventure...or wading a stream stalking a Willey trout...or hiking a trail, breathing in the aroma that makes a mountain so alluring...and making the best of the situation, we have done many of those same things here...but with the tether of this disease wound tightly around what I know as me!

We may well be on our way home by the time you read this...the radiation treatments will have their final "blastoff" tomorrow...the nasty looking "J" needle will be pulled from my chest with the last drip of kriptonite glistening on its point...and I will be free to catch a plane back to familiar terrain. Elaine and I are excited about the prospect...to say the least...and we hope to see the many that have offered and given their support...oh...and did I mention we have a new grandson to lay eyes on for the first time! Life goes on...no matter what...life goes on!

Perspective

Many have said that my words can be eloquent...but on occasion...a picture is worth more than a thousand!

Update on the home front...I have had a few issues with pain in the past week or so but with the help of my doc and the amazing things that they are able to do with pharmaceuticals these days...I believe I will be juuuuuuuust fine!

Up for the Count

I was born on the turn of a page in history. The War to End all Wars (ha) had just ended and those who survived it were in the throws of creating a whole new league of little soldiers to combat the next evil villain on the horizon. Those tiny school desks I mentioned earlier were being built by the thousands to help protect us should the evil ones, we were on the frigid front with, decide to drop the big one in our neighborhood. By the time I was old enough to walk, talk, and try to learn to whistle we had a phone on a party line shared by several in the neighborhood. The milk and brushes and cleaning supplies and ice were delivered to you door...I found the ice man to be the most interesting...with his nasty looking hooks that he would slam into the sides of the ice block to carry into the ice box in the kitchen...and his ice pick that he sheathed in a leather case on the side of his belt ....I would find this instrument far more exciting in the years to come after we got television and it became the focus of many a horror movie.

At that time the Friday night fights were near religion as Howard Cosell pounded out his classic play by play over the radio and eventually on the television that followed suit with the radios of the day in having a round face to stare back at you as you stared at it. The screens weren't all that big back then and when the test pattern was on prior and post transmission it did look very much to a kid like a face watching from across the room.

My father had been a Golden Gloves Boxer so we never missed a Friday night at Madison Square Garden. The fighters were tiny on that Philco and there were no close ups or artsy fartsy angles by the camera man...just the raw footage of a stationary camera that allowed you to watch every punch on that little screen...and although the fighters looked small they were good and many became legends we hear of today. But back then they were just Friday night and everyone would gather around the TV and yell for their favorite as the rounds pounded on until one of the valiant went "down for the count"...the exact place he had no plans on being at the start of the night...which is exactly where I find myself today!...(how was that for a segway!!...I have actually found a place that rents them to ride through the backwoods...photo to follow!)...not down for the count but in a place I had no idea I would be spending even one Friday Night!...as for the counts...we received some great news this past week...my numbers are great!

I have been following the diet in the book I mentioned Anti Cancer a new way of life and the blood samples they take (and they are many) are showing that all of my levels (hemoglobin, white cells, etc.) are all still within the normal range...even for someone who isn't being Kriptonited!...except for my platelets which were low to begin with and have been historically low and who stubbornly remain low...damn those platelets!...but the doc says that this is tolerable (he doesn't have to live with low platelet shame) and with the other numbers I am putting up a good fight. We also got a call from the genetic folks who look at your DNA and genetic links...at least from the way they explained it, that is what I think they do...and we were told that if any of those genetic markers came back positive I would be in a much more serious situation. The surgeons would most likely take everything from the top of my descending colon to my exit! Did I mention before that this was serious shit! Anyway...(dramatic drum roll) I am up for the count! NO positives on my double helix, all of my blood work looks good and except for a few of the expected side effects of being in this kind of a fight...I'm lookin' pretty good for the fourth round!...with twelve more treatment sessions to go! Keep cheering me on and I promise to keep the play by play up to date...sorry about the game delay...must have been a commercial break.

FENCES

Growing up in eastern Idaho I had miles in which I could roam without ever encountering a fence...and so I did...it was my habit to wake up with the birds,,,make a lunch of peanut butter and honey on white bread that promised to build strong bodies in twelve miraculous ways...and head into the hills behind the house before the sun had broken the horizon. I was almost eight years old and there wasn't a fence that could stop me.

There were eventually five of us kids and so to help my mom get through the next pregnancy and just "cuz they love havn' us around" my grandparents would take each one of the older three in for a couple of weeks each summer. My mom's folks were very self sufficient people... raising their own chickens and a pig each year...early on they had a cow for milk...fruit trees for canning...and a garden that supplied everything else a person could need except fish!

Fresh fish were a necessity in my grandmother's eyes and so we stalked them with a passion...you didn't walk up to the stream and cast your line in...you crawled the last fifteen feet and peered between the tall grasses into crystalline water where you could see the brookies pulsing in the current.

But first you had to get there...and the better the fishing the more fences there were and of course the more gates involved. My favorite was Ching Creek which boasted eleven gates to open between the little town of Kilgore and the secret camping spot. Then, as now, the treasured spot to be in on the ride anywhere was "shotgun"...on the door in the front seat...where you could hang you arm out the window...fly your hand like a kite...and feel the warm summer air on your face....that was the coveted position to be in unless en route to Ching Creek and the eleven gates!

Each gate had a different and increasingly more difficult mechanism involved to open it....they were all made of posts and barb wire...which once released from the grasp of the fence as a whole....would fall limply onto the ground where the strands of wire would enter twine into a mess that usually took at least two people to untangle....therefore it was "shotgun's" job to get the gate loose from the fence and while holding it taught...swing it aside to allow the car to get through...and then position your body on the other side of the gate and reattach the gate to the fence..."and hurry up about it...the fish are bittin'!!!"

The fences in those days were made to keep things in...yes there were gates but all that was asked was that you closed them behind you "please"...but otherwise one seldom saw a NO this or No that posted on a sign and I don't recall any NO TRESPASSING...ever. The only signs I can remember were notices posted...on a post...(I wonder if that is where the word posted got it glorious start)...these were often notices warning us of the dangers of the dreaded Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever or informing us of an upcoming rodeo in the next county but you never came across one warning of litigation if boundaries were ignored...no... these fences kept cattle and sheep in their respected places and gates allowed us fisher persons to hunt and gather.

As I recently found myself contemplating fences I realized just what an important role they have played in my life...as a boy I could jump most of them and of course it became a competition. I got my first job because of a fence. Our neighborhood had lots of fences to keep the dogs home and most were of the four inch square wire kind and then someone invented chain link...but the one that landed me my first job was a brand new picket fence of red cedar with numerous knots in each plank...each knot looking very much like a bulls eye on a target and when you eleven years old and there is a bulls eye in sight and a rock within reach and a friend to complete the term "friendly competition"....then trouble can start itself... as it did that day. There were three of us and lots of rocks and at least one hundred feet of new fence with bulls eyes "abeggin"!! I was the first to hit the target...which to our surprise knocked out the knot...which of course raised the stakes and caused the size of the projectiles to increase to meet the challenge and before you knew it we had ventilated that brand new fence to the point that a gentle breeze was now able to move through the owners back yard. But that's not exactly what happened next...no... the owner...a really nice lady who was "oh so proud" of her new fence came around the far corner with tears in her eyes caused by our friendly competition followed by blood in those same eyes as she asked us "What in God's Good Name do you think you are doing?!!!"

Now at eleven a boy is extremely intelligent....but to a question of this magnitude his natural reaction is RUN...which my two friends did...being just that much more intelligent than I...but I knew and respected this distraught woman...so I stood there and in those next few milliseconds as she covered the distance between the corner of the fence and my skinny eleven year old body...I have my first epiphany...realizing what a horrible thing we had done in destroying her fence in the pure joy of target practice. Hence I got my first job as a shoeshine boy in my great uncles shoe repair shop and it took me most of that summer to pay for my part of the replacement cost (my friends folks coughed up their share) but I learned how to shine shoes and remained a good neighbor to that poor woman...although I know to this day that those tiny hairs on the back of her neck came up a bit when I came around! Sorry.

Today, I am again faced with fences playing a part in my life. They say a good fence makes good neighbors and I suppose that's true. I had started one at my place in hopes of putting some critters in to keep down the summer grass. Our neighbor brings in a couple of horses or a cow or two each year to keep the field grass down and had offered to put them on my property for the same reason if I had some way to contain them (I think mention of a steak barbecue had come up when the cattle were there) so I had started a fence before I decided to visit Minnesota...so in this case a fence truly could make good neighbors. But occasionally good neighbors and more so good friends...make a good fence....and while we are stuck out here "puttin' up a fence" around something that has gotten out of bounds within me...some good friends took the time to finish that fence I started at home... and this...like the other fences in my life...will change and shape me for years to come...because of that...I and Elaine would like to say "thank you" to each one of those involved...with all our hearts.

TATTOO CURIOSITY

A few folks have been inquisitive about my new tattoos. I always thought being tattooed was a bit frivolous, listing towards foolishness. I have numerous scars that I have earned honestly over my many years each with a story to tell...some quite interesting...some completely fabricated...like the one just below my left hip extending in a straight line to the outside curve of my patella...fancy words add to excitement and scar curiosity...I will tell my grandchildren as their curiosity wanders to grandpa's numerous scars{they become more evident with the passage of time}(scars and grandchildren)...that this lengthy scar was the result of a foolish quick draw accident when I was but a youth of their age with a new 22 pistol that only came with a left handed holster which can obviously be a dangerous situation for one born or raised as a right hander! In actuality this scar (don't anyone mention this to my children's offspring) actually came about when I decided to use a four foot, well built, solid particle board, red oak photo laminated, IKEA book case as a ladder to elevate me to a higher position in a storage unit to retrieve a most valued item that had been lost in storage for two years....I managed the climb up just fine but once the item was in my hand the combined weight of myself and the lost treasure became too great for the IKEA warehouse elevator and I began to descend (one shelf at a time) until I landed squarely on the concrete floor of the storage unit...."that wasn't so bad" I told Elaine as I stood proudly with our treasure in hand...to which she commented on the loss of a new pair of blue jeans due to the rip from pocket to knee pad...upon further investigation she suggested I do something about my new tennis shoes filling up with blood..."where'd that come from? I queried"

Have I told you about the scar that runs parallel and just above my left eyebrow....that one involves firewood and uncles and axes and gravity and eventually tricycles and motorcycles and of course more gravity...but I again digress...this is after all about tattoos.

Several have asked (with great curiosity) about my new tattoos...what are they and exactly where. Unfortunately mine are not the kind one might contemplate for months on end about...no mine were more, "here ya go mister"..."hope ya like these!"...actually the radiologist told me to hold very still (again) as she lined up my torso in the exact position and bam...she pokes me with a syringe filled with ink!!!...to which I jump and squeal (did I tell her I was a fireman?) But in my defense I do not believe this was actually a syringe like that used in a hospital but more possibly the likes of the old fountain pen I was taught to write cursive with when in grade school...those of you old enough to have at least one colonoscopy behind you (where else would you have one)...will know what I'm talking about...these pens were the reason for the small round hole in the upper right hand corner of those tiny old desks you see on antique shows or in museums...we weren't really that small...discomfort was the norm....that hole in the corner was called the ink well and the fountain pen was dipped into it to allow you to perform the magical task of putting thought to paper...at that age our thoughts were fleeting and not well suited to finding purchase on a piece of paper. The pen once dipped into the ink well and now full of our every thought would be brought to the surface of what was called paper in those days...no one had to tell you that paper was made from wood...you could see small chips and slivers of the very tree the paper came from on its surface and the pen didn't have a roller tip but was flat metal with a slit in the middle going up towards the handle (the slit being the stream on which the ink was to flow blithely towards the prose emanating from our minds caught up in that tiny little chair)....and as the metal tip of the pen hit the oooooh soooo smoooth surface of the paper our very thoughts would skate onto the surface with the flare of twenty little John Hancock's!...the end of that fountain pen was what that tattoo weapon felt like!...and you thought I had lost my train wreck of a thought of where I going with this!...which brings me back to tattoo curiosity...the tiny tattoos on my buttocks should not cause tattoo curiosity...tattoo curiosity is brought about by the girl on the Harley with the t-shirt that is struggling to find its way down to her jeans as she leans forward to control that two thousand pounds of metal muscle...you know the girl I'm talking about....the one that your wife declares..."what..is she crazy"...the one that causes fire trucks to list to that side as she passes by...the one that causes old guys with at least one colonoscopy behind them (because where else would it be) to think they ought to get a Harley...that girl, the one with the jeans that can't hold the shirt, that can't cover the top of a tattoo, that runs most of the way across her back just exposed above the belt...now that is the essence of tattoo curiosity!