The Smell of Blue

A few sunny days ago I found myself sitting in my wife’s beautifully randomly sculpted backyard.  Her knack for growing is Druidic.   

I was sitting in a vinyl chair that is so out of place in her garden staring up at the sky.

The blue of the sky was mesmerizing.  I remember looking up and thinking “How would you describe that color of sky to a blind man?”

Smell!  The blue of the sky would smell like a crystal glacier stream  meandering through a high mountain meadow full of blooming alpine flowers coupled with a strong uphill breeze  filled with the scent of the cedar grove below.  Yep that’s the blue.

I watched the Cirrus clouds dance and form a myriad of mystical shapes.  I was particularly fond of the beautiful woman dancing and spinning in diaphanous ice dresses like a favored   10,000 foot Sheik’s dancer in the sky. 

My wife, knowing my mathematical proclivity, aimed my gaze to the Southwest.  There I saw the Cirrus dance into a multiple curly cue of fractalness that defines our worlds and lives.  The curly was perfect in it’s self similarity and I was amazed.

An hour we were engrossed in the mystical and mesmerizing movements of the clouds that seemed to be placed for just us.  Until...

My wife says “look” and dragged my eyes down from my dancing cloud to the rim of her wine glass.  There on the rim was a beetle doing a tight rope around and around and around.  We both, my wife and I rooted the beetle on and once he/she fell into the wine my wife fetched the now drunken beetle out and sent Mr. Beetle on his way.   

Like a trooper Mr. Beetle walked around the circle that is a small round party table for a hundred times.  Then sober.  Flew off. 

My eyes and attention drifted back up to that blue that you could “smell.”  Much smaller than my 10,000 foot ancient Persian dancer she had now turned into a less than ferocious wolf chasing a marshmallow.  My head was tilted back on the cheap vinyl looking at the “blue" when I was struck!

I can not explain this. 

 It was as if I was filled.  Filled with something way more powerful than I.  It didn’t build up “it” struck me in thirty seconds or so.  Once it was done filling me, my eyes started to fill with tears and before they could fall, the tears….stopped.  I was filled with someone, someone else or someplace else.  It was somehow peaceful at the time. An inexplicable overwhelming emotional response.

I can’t explain what happened and I’m writing it for my sake to see if in writing I can arrive at an explanation. The moment was amazing.  I can say that it was the first time I guess that I was overwhelmed with…whatever.  Maybe this happens to people all the time and I'm an oddity.  I just don't know.  Maybe it was the "blue".

Talk to you later.

Clebration Is The Point

Well I’m back, quit moaning, after quite some time in the grey miasma of what’s the point.  I had plenty to write about but then…the grey mist of what’s the point struck.

Well there is a point and what has made the point and split that veil of gray was a celebration that I was fortunate to attend Saturday.

Maybe I just missed it, but through my lifetime I apparently didn’t know what a celebration was/is.  Birthday, a wake, an anniversary, wedding, Sturgis 2012 etc. etc. marking passing time I had no clue what we were celebrating exactly until Saturday.

Saturday I found myself in sunny Central Washington well into West Yakima Valley.  My wife and I were there to attend, what I didn’t know till later my niece’s wedding.  Knowing that any family event involving my wife meant a family gathering at least 10 magnitudes times my clan’s gatherings.  Actually  clan creates a feeling of many while my family’s reunion would only require a small garage and two card tables all catered by K.F.C. because eight fraps [whatever] and four canopes [whatever] and one bottle of sparkling cider wouldn’t make minimum charge of any real caterer.

“How many people?” I asked anxiously.

“300 invitations were mailed.” She said.

 “Why am I going?” I whined.

“Because you’re the bride’s uncle.”  My wife replied with a yeah duh tone.

Wait.  Stop.  Uncle?  How am I the bride’s uncle?  Well it appears that unbeknownst to me you aren’t only an uncle to your sibling’s children but your spouse’s sibling’s children too?  This put a different light on everything but I’m still trying to count how many nieces and nephews I have.

I won’t go in to the details of the wedding.  Suffice it to say it took place in a stunning West Valley setting at the bride’s Grandparent’s home.  The bridesmaids were lovely in their dresses and cowboy boots as they led the bride’s two bulldogs[?] up the aisle and the groomsman were built to not be reckoned with.  Bride and groom rocked it, the ceremony short, the food just right and I’m guessing a couple hundred people.  The event was rife with all the elements that create a celebration.  

After the requisite wedding dances I started to pay closer attention.  Young, old, cowboy or accountant were all smiling.  Not that stiff political smile at the company office party.  No, young and old were smiling with happiness and the optimism they held in their hearts for the bride and groom’s life forward, and perhaps the smiler’s own life forward.

That’s when I realized everyone their were in the now.  At that very moment in life all their petty life pains to the chronic ones that border debilitating, were personally suspended and all energy was directed in the celebration of life forward. 

Thanks to my nieces wedding I’ve come to realize no matter what we are celebrating even if it is only a mark of time passing we are celebrating now and celebrating time forward.  We should celebrate everyday our time forward.  That’s the point!   

Thanks Niece, be happy.

Reduce Regret

Since I started riding the train to work I passed it every day twice a day.  It was a tree.  A giant of a tree that stood alone in the middle of a large park.  Not only did I see the tree briefly as the train accelerated but I would think, twice a day, that I should stop and visit the tree.  Months passed by and never did I stop and visit.                                

As fate would have it the other Saturday I was returning from a visit with one of my doctors [yes it’s true my PCP works on Saturdays] and out of the blue asked my wife to detour via the park.  It was time to visit the tree now dressed in her spring finery.

What’s the big deal about visiting a tree in a park?  Though the tree was amazingly large, though the feeling of peace while standing beneath the canopy was amazing, and though you could feel the ancient tree magic the big deal isn’t about the tree.  The big deal is about actually acting.  Though it took months I actually acted instead of just thinking I should go see this tree.

I find it amusing it took getting ill for me to learn that there are things that are good for all of us whether sick or healthy. 

Taking action on a thought is good for us because it reduces regret.  Gone is the thought “oh I always wanted to do that,” or “I wish I had fill in the word.”  Your mental curiosity about that pub, that bookstore, that tree, that place is now a new experience because you took action.  

So take action and check out that cute little pub.  Hell it may be a dive on the inside but at least you’ll know.  Act on going into that interesting looking bookstore.  Even if you don’t need a book maybe you’ll find a copy of the one you’ve spent years looking for.

Reduce regret and act.

Talk to you later.

I Would Be Dead and I'm Pissed

I’m not a doctor nor do I play one on T.V. or anywhere else.  I do know I would be dead if not for a PSA. test.  Yesterday the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force [UPSTF] said that a PSA test causes more harm than good.  Really how can a test, a simple blood test cause harm.

Let me back up more than 31 months ago.  Back then my doctor was treating me for back pain that was becoming excruciating pain.  I was sent to pain management specialists, MRI’s, Osteopaths, subjected to a myriad of tests both common and rare, digital exam, acupuncture and I think once a witch and shaman [whom at that time I trusted more than Western medicine].  I was too young for prostate cancer.  I didn’t present any of the usual symptoms of prostate cancer.  I didn’t fit the model. I was dying.

One day the pain was killing me, literally, and I called to make yet another appointment only to find that my doctor was no longer with the office and I was given a different doctor.  He X-rayed me and later as I sat looking at the X-rays waiting for his assessment my laymen’s eye could deduce nothing structurally wrong in my spine which my new Doc confirmed.  He’d also taken more blood for more tests.  I wondered why since it was just back pain, though excruciating, that we were trying to figure out.

Before I could even get home that day from visiting my new Doc I was called back in for an afternoon visit only to find out my PSA was 2640. [Normal is 1 to 5]

If the UPSTF had their way then and swayed the insurance companies and doctors then I would be dead.  Dead!  If you are curious scroll back in my posts and take a look at my subsequent bone scans.  My doctor would have never ordered a PSA.

It’s not the test.  PSA test is the only tool we men have against the number two cancer killer of men.  An elevated PSA isn’t a call to action it is a call to thoughtful consideration.  It is an opportunity to make informed decisions.

What a PSA test isn’t, as the panel wants you to believe, is an instant trip to chemical castration, removal of body parts, impotence, urinary and bowel complications.  Please.  If your car starts spewing clouds of blue smoke do you immediately take it into your favorite mechanic and say “pull the engine?”

If you fit the profile for prostate cancer do the test.  It’s a needle and blood damn little of both.  Then depending on the result make informed and educated decisions.  Simple and possibly life saving.

241,740 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year.  Probability says that a little over 28,000 of those men will die from prostate cancer.  Probability says I’m likely to be one of those 28,000 at some time.  However, I’m in my 33 month of what statistically is a 24 month death sentence.  A PSA test was the beginning.

Quoting Dr. Anthony D’Amico chief of Genitourinary Radiation Oncology in today’s Wall Street Journal. “There’s a huge difference between over-diagnosis and over treatment.”

Think about it.  A test killing you?  What’s next PAP smears?

Talk to you later

GET TESTED

Real Time

Today I received a reply from a friend of mine of many years whom I love dearly to an email asking how her Mother's Day was.   I've known her for decades but as the fates would have it   she became my "cancer buddy" when she was diagnosed with breast cancer about the same time I was diagnosed my stage IV evil empire. All looks great for her but she is going through the frustrations, depression and worry that go with fighting the evil empire that we all do.  She being my "buddy" has frequently kicked me back into the positive as I have her.  

Today, her reply to "how was your Mother's Day?" was, "My kids think I'll live forever..."   

In an attempt to kick her back into the positive I wrote via e-mail:

WTF is “The kids think I'll live forever....”  What the hell does that mean?  Should I get my frecking violin out?

They don’t think that but they want that.  What would you have them do, hold a wake for you while you sit there smiling?  I may be missing something but that sure doesn’t sound like a very positive statement.  AND it really really doesn’t sound like a [name] statement.    Don’t forget I totally am in the same boat you are and Mr. Positive is not my name a lot of the time.   

Believe me I know how brutally tough, tiring, frustrating – god I don’t have enough space to write all the words – this frecking cancer thing is.  But this is new to them too and just as scary but in a different way.  If I’m off base here or read your statement wrong by all means kick my ass but right now I’m kicking yours my dear. 

Even if, as a parent, if you weren’t sick, all children think their parents are larger than life [for good or bad] and will live forever [whether they want them to or not].  Then one day we as children look up and see these two frail people and say, what the hell they are old!  

Your kids and mine don’t realize it but they are afraid that they won’t get to have that day of realization.  They are afraid that if they need us in their, as they define the future - immediate [though on the surface they think they won’t and don’t] we won’t be there.

Though my future scares the hell out of me I move on leaving those I love.  Those I love on the other hand have to stay behind with a large empty space that is hopefully partially filled with happy memories and lessons learned.

Sorry I kind of went off there but dammit your future is to live to a ripe old age of raisondom, prunedom or any other wrinkledom…that’s what your children are calling living forever. 

Love ya'

[name]

 So went my email reply.  Defense comes in many ways and perhaps "Dad I gotta run the boys and I have a tee time." is one of them.

talk to you later 

Trouble and Afraid

Thirteen or Thirty years of age I’m guessing that at some time you have been in so much trouble it scared you to no end.   

I’ve spent a large portion of my life courting trouble, bulls, ice, mountains and stupidity.  In each of those situations I’ve been scared, or at least terrified.

While on the annual vacation centuries ago I convinced my brother to piss on an electric fence.  Upon my father’s arrival I knew I was in trouble and I was afraid.  Afraid because I knew I was in trouble.

Years later on the same annual island vacation I really got in trouble that resulted in fear.  I had discovered while roaming about in the bay if I turned the raft over there was this really cool breathing space. My father roared that I was in trouble to the point that I was scared.  I’d never seen him so upset. 

My two children that have graduated our house years ago have taught me why a father looking at an over turned vessel containing his child would freak out.

Same island different year a friend of mine and myself doing the 70s thing hitched to the island.  We ended up walking a ways and looking across the tidal flat from the dike toward our ultimate destination I said “lets cross here it will save us miles”.  Result…?

Trouble, quicksand, tidal mud and incoming tide and terrified beyond belief. Through the muck and fecund smell we struggled with every thought in mind we would die soon. 

As I grew older I had many an occurrence to be in trouble.  Whether, mountains, ice, bulls or as I mentioned stupidity I’ve been in trouble.

I’m in trouble now [as of 7:28 P.M. PST]    I’m hoping a miracle happens.  But this kind of trouble you really aren’t afraid.  Sure I’m afraid of pain.  Sure I’m so totally afraid for my loved ones.  

 But I didn’t put myself in this position life did.  That’s the difference. 

A climb, a bull or whatever we put ourselves in front of that trouble.  I believe you are afraid in those situations because you did it on purpose and a small cell in your brain is saying “how could I be so stupid.”

I didn’t do this disease on purpose.  Then why am I afraid.

Lack of Participation

I’ve always been a firm believer in participating in life.  Some partial things on my life list of participation include everything from climbing rocks and ice, bull riding, driving cars stupidly, loving, and a whole bunch of other stuff both normal and scary.  Hasn’t included the last two months that I’ve been hiding in the woe is me hole.

Pain, sickness and stress can easily impede participation.  My guess is that’s why they make Zoloft, which I take.  It is true, all those stresses, pain and whatever, can sneak up on you and tamp your “gee I’m happy” right down into that “crap everything sucks” hole.

Treatments, oncologists, nurses, techs, and the list goes on and on.  They are all part of the most incredible cancer team that takes care of me.  My caregiver/wife and best friend I can’t ask for more.  They all make this easier to participate.   I do wish insurance and investment companies would quit playing music from the seventies though.

A few weeks ago I went with my family over to the park.  They played baseball and my “participation” was to stand around and take pictures.  Which I did until laughing, giggling like a kid and ignoring my wife’s admonitions, I pitched and batted.  OK it was a nine year old and two four year old twins but I played and I fell down.  I laughed and laughed and laughed.  I participated and when it was all said and done I was happily admonished by wife for being foolish. 

I had participated in life, was active and laughed.  The last time I’d done that was when I went to the cabin last August.  I fell down there too but it was an incredible time of my life.

It’s tough to be part of life when you feel like crap.  That includes simple things like writing a blog.  It certainly includes being active.  I think I’ve climbed out of my hole and I thank the reader who posted the other day about simple things and hoped I was well and found more simple things.

Oh, by the way, I was admonished when I came back from the cabin last August because I was limping similar to the most recent “baseball” game.

I know it’s tough when it feels like the world is kicking your ass.  Typing this blog tonight I once again don’t feel like the world is kicking my ass quite so hard.

I’ll talk to you.