A Bloody Mary and Three Days Off...

I am tired of getting up early in the morning. I got up at 5:30 for the past twelve mornings and this morning was my first day off. The prospect of a three day weekend with no real hard and fast goals is a wonderful thing to contemplate. It is not unusual for me to be overwhelmed by the idea of unstructured time; so many possibilities out there- the things I want to do and the things I should do and a limited amount of time and energy. Today this is not a problem. I just won't go there.

After Karen left for work I took my time and made a breakfast of fried potatoes and onions, with lots of salt and pepper. I have been craving this for almost a week. Most mornings I have cereal and toast with my coffee and leave for work nearly as hungry as when I rolled out of bed. This morning I finally had the feeling of being full. Then I made a quick trip to the store for a few groceries and lots of tonic water. It might be a long hot weekend.

Even though the temp will be in the 80's today, we have a breeze and I decided to chance it and make bread. Hopefully, by the time the bread is out of the oven, the house will not be too hot. The beaded fringe on the bottom of the Roman shades in the living room rattles as the breeze moves the shades in and out.

Making bread is often a labor of joy and therefore, I guess, not a labor at all, but something whose creation brings me joy. I am not sure where the transition came in today but I think I am glad something changed. Before I left for town I found myself planning my own eulogy in my head.  I am surprised that I am even admitting this. I still don't know why my mind turned that direction, but it did. I find I have little control over  my mind, but I am working to change that every day. I think I will write the eulogy, but later. It is going to be quite good, a real tear-jerker. Pity I won't be there to hear it.

Like I started to say, something changed and when I arrived home I had two goals; a Bloody Mary and a batch of bread. The Bloody Mary is gone now, replaced by a large glass of water and the bread is rising. I hope the bread turns out as well as the drink. For a while this winter I lost my touch and the bread Ibaked resembled doorstops more than edible loaves. Then I boiled up some fusilli, to make a cold pasta salad. In summer I miss the pasta salad my mom used to make. I try in vain to create it in my own version and get something I like but without the remembered comfort factor of mom's touch. My sister Zoe, can make a very good fascimile of mom's salad; she may even have a recipe. I just know I am going to have some kind of pasta salad on this holiday weekend.

I guess that's all I really need to know.  Tonight Karen and I have been invited to have dinner with Ron and Terry and I am going to have pasta salad sometime and that's it. That is the extent of our plans. Well, at least as far as I know. I have asked to paddle Lake X, out in the Chippewa. Lake X was the bluebill lake of our duck hunting dreams years ago. It is wild and undeveloped and may even have walleyes in it. I really don't care; I just need to feed my wildness and move a canoe through the water.

This week is the first time in weeks that my hips and knees haven't been painful. Well, not quite. They hurt a little bit but nothing like they did even a couple weeks ago.  I find I am feeling more loose, more flexible and when I get out of the car or rise from a chair after sitting awhile, I don't look hobble for as long before I am able to straighten up and stay right. Seems like a small thing but it means a lot to me. I want so badly to, at least, catch up to where I was before cancer, in terms of energy and strength. I will be receiving a new support belt this week. I ordered a bright colored version of Spandex; something that will dry better after swimming and look more attractive when my shirt is off. Basic black and basic white can only take one so far in life.

I called down to Roger Maris Cancer Center this week and asked Kim, Dr. Gross' nurse, how long I should take alpha lipoic acid. He suggested it as something to help me recover from the numbness I have as a result of my last chemotherapy. So I had been taking 600 mg 2x/day for almost a month and wondered how long I was supposed to keep on. Not long after my last visit there, the numbness reached my hands and fingers. The answer to how long, is three months. I went to Sunrise Foods and ordered enough to take me to my July visit with the Dr. The people at Sunrise also suggested rubbing my feet and hands with St. John's Wort Oil. So I am trying that as well. Some people use a version of St. John's Wort to counteract mild depression. I figure even if the numbness doesn't go away, at least my hands and feet won't be bummed about it.

Making the decision to not have the big party to celebrate my beating cancer again, was a difficult decision to make. I felt like I let a lot of people down but I also felt immediate relief by removing the stress of planning and putting together the blowout of the century. I got some nice words of support from friends; words that came at a good time. I want to thank Sue, Brad and George and my daughter Meredith who said I need to quit being so apologetic. (I'm sorry, really I am).

That's what's going on in my life. A little progress every day. I struggle at times to stay clean and positive in my thinking, I worry about the kids, I try not to overwhelm myself with all the 'shoulds' that wait for me. I suspect they wait for you as well. Last night I sat in the shade on our steps and played my drum; really wailed on it. I guess it was the wildness in me. Thank God I still have some. When Karen came home from a very victorious day at work we had payday pizza for supper. Later, before we were too tired, we made love. As our friend Muriel would say, life is good.

And life is still good today. The bread is rising in the loaf pans, the pasta is chilling and the only thing I have to do is continue to get better. Enjoy your holiday weekend. Spend time together, enjoy each other and take a moment to reflect on the meaning of the holiday. Love and peace to you all.
Mike

A Year Ago

Yesterday it was a year ago that Mike's colonoscopy found his cancer. Today, we are one year and one day past the gut wrenching terror of that day. I was looking at my journal and thought I'd share with you what I wrote at 11:39 am on May 19th, 2009.

Nymore Beach - Lake Bemidji

A greater merganser floats on the choppy gray lake. A bologna sandwich sits next to me on the seat baking in the sun. I am tired. I've started telling people, started saying cancer out loud, started getting "the hug" from people. It's so freaking surreal. I'm numb, I think. There's something under the surface. I'm sick to my stomach and bone tired. This is what tells me there is something underneath, but mostly I'm numb.

I want this day to be normal. I want it to be a regular day because tomorrow a lot will change, everything will change but really everything has changed because of what we know.

And then I quit writing in my journal.

My journal became this blog and it was here I poured out my thoughts and frustrations. This is where I wrote my pain and anguish over what was happening to Mike and us. I haven't gone back to look at our posts. I don't think I am far enough away from it all yet to do that. Our life has resumed a more normal pattern, a new normal, never to go back to the way it was a year and one day ago....before we knew about cancer. I'm not ready to go back and look at where we were. I'm just glad to be here - a full year away from all that.

Today, I spent part of the morning and most of the afternoon in the woods with my friend Karen Gurney. I took her to "the river." We sat and talked. We ate lunch. We laughed. We let the woods, the water and the sun heal us. It was good. Life is good, my life is good.

Tomorrow we head to the Emerald City (Minneapolis for those of you who are new followers). We are not going for any doctors appointments! We aren't even going near the medical center and the thought of it thrills me! I'm going to the International Quilt Market where I will take a couple of classes on finance and inventory control and then I will shop for new merchandise for my new place of employment. Mike is going to spend some time with his daughter. We are reclaiming our life and it feels good. Cancer no longer monopolizes our life and for that we are thankful.

Peace,

Karen

In leiu of a blog.....photos

Peace, Karen

This ... and a Change in Plans

I am aware that a lot of time has passed since we had a new entry on the blog. Without the day-to-day intensity of actually fighting cancer, the impetus for regular entries has diminished. Still, I do think of blog and entries to make as time allows. Of course, I have just as many hours in the day as the rest of you but lately I have been managing my time in ways that puts the blog on the back burner.

What has occupied my time? I looked back in my journal to see what I recorded and I find large gaps there as well. What I do have are comments on the weather-lots of rain, and the gradual coming of spring. The first thunderstorm of the season left me without power for nearly three hours one evening and after I wrote a letter to an old friend in Washington, I reminesced about life in the tipi when Karen and I lived without electricity for nearly two years. Watching the rain fall made me glad we do not live in the tipi anymore. Rainy weather was the pits.

I spent time re-hashing the same old questions of what I am doing with my life and why I am not as content as I think I should be. Karen and I spent some time on the couch one evening trying to put words to the vague unease and discomfort we were experiencing between us.  Discussions like this can be difficult; emotions come into play and the fear of being truly honest with the one you love can put both of you on edge. We got through the evening without any harm to our relationship and probably made it even better. The next morning we got up and went to the woods to look for morels. The time we spent in the wild made us feel like our old selves again and that was wonderful.

Part of the discussion we had centered around the planned party for June 19th. When I first thought of it long ago, the idea of a party was great. I have lots of ideas that are great. But as the time gets closer the party became one more chore, a thing of work, for me to do. Even thinking of a party became stressful for me as I thought of all the things that would have to fall in place for it to happen. I found that I do not want that stress anymore and so I have decided not to have a party to celebrate coming through cancer for the second time. I apologize to those of you who may have had your hearts set on it or made special plans to attend.  Making this choice has been difficult for me because I worry that I let people down or failed myself in some way. Karen and I do have valid concerns about our neighbor and the likelihood that he would report us for disturbing the peace, after past complaints we registered about his barking dogs. I ask for your understanding and if you were planning to come up, come anyway and we can hang out.

What else?
Karen and I picked maybe three pounds of morels today. She went picking with a friend the other day and that was all it took for us to get out and find 'em on our own. Morels are so tasty. Again, the time together in the woods did wonders for us. We find such joy in being together. One night this week I went to the bedroom to read while Karen was sewing in the living room and that was not good for us. Because of our time in the tipi we feel most comfortable working together in the same room even if we are not working on the same thing.

I have rambled enough. What I thought I had together in my mind fell apart once I sat down to the computer. Sorry. Maybe next time I'll write it out first.

Peace to all of you, take care of yourselves and live your life. I am still trying to figure out mine.
Mike