The biggies

Day 2

It's all been clockwork. None of our worst fears have materialized thus far. Flight connections have all been perfect. Hertz gave us a brand new car (with only 4 miles on it). The Luxor in Vegas had a very nice room for very cheap with incredibly comfortable beds. Food in Las Vegas was a bit sketchy. It is quite expensive and very meat-centered. But one of the Hotel restaurants was featuring pineapple upside-down pancakes and that got us off to a great start for the scenic phase of our journey.

Abby and I decided that Hoover Dam would be our first destination and then we would push on to the Grand Canyon for sunset. We strapped on the GPS and very much enjoyed leaving Las Vegas. The stereo had an iPod interface so Abby took her navigator/DJ job very seriously.

Our first minor SNAFU occurred as we approached the Dam area. The music was too loud and/or there was some visual distraction at a key moment and we somehow missed the Hoover Dam turn off. Suddenly the GPS found herself (she' a female Australian who can't correctly pronounce "Hoover Dam") on a road that was not in in her database. She kept wanting us to turn around as soon as possible and find a familiar named road. We were probably 10 miles down that unfamiliar highway before we figured out that the "Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge" that we had crossed a while back was the new bridge that spans the same gorge as as the Dam, only much higher. The strange thing to me was that the last time I had been to the Dam, the bridge was still under construction and I remember thinking how terrifying it would be to cross it since it is so high above the gorge. But the reality is that you can't see a thing from the bridge (at least not from the driver's seat of a Kia Rio) so you find yourself thinking about the tragedy of Pat Tillman instead of the potential tragedy of your car hurling into Boulder Gorge. So we crossed it it twice (and then a third time later) without any change in blood pressure.

Soon, our Kia was snugly tucked into the Hoover Dam parking structure and we set off to experience the full tour. Well, it turned out the FULL tour would start in a couple of hours and could jeopardize our Grand Canyon sunset, so we elected for the Power Plant tour that started in 15 minutes. Our docent was pretty fun with a dry sense of humor. He enjoyed throwing in "dam" in the form of an expletive during key moments of his presentation where it seemed like he was swearing until you thought about it for a second. (Example: "Did security mention our photo policy in the power plant since 9/11? No? Good! Because we have no photo policy. Take all the dam photos that you want!")

The guide enjoyed talking about the role of the Federal government in negotiating between the states, financing & constructing the Dam and then recouping the investment for the people, with interest through selling the cheap hydro-energy over decades. After the Dam was paid off in the 1980's, the energy now goes to 9 regions, selling it to them at cost. Interestingly, Las Vegas only gets a small percentage of the power since the electricity rights were negotiated well before Vegas was the monstrosity that it is now. So the Strip is powered through burning coal. Ouch!

After the tour, we walked around and took in the visual splendor. I inadvertently dragged Abby into what I thought was a relics museum but turned out to be a boring, pedantic recorded presentation where you must remain seated while a 3D model of the topography of the whole Southwest lights up in certain places as a stern voice describes the effect of the Colorado River water system and its dams. Abby was pissed off at me for about a half hour after that. It didn't help that we were both hungry and thirsty and anxious for the Grand Canyon phase of our journey,

We drove through desert and rock for quite some time before spotting a kitschy roadside former tourist trap-looking hole in the wall to sell us a couple of cheap bottles of water. We pressed on and found lunch in a Route 66 town, Mohave, at a great restaurant called "Calico's". We couldn't resist checking out a few second-hand stores while we were there.

Judging by the GPS, we would arrive at Grand Canyon National Park about an hour before sunset. We decided to go there first and worry about lodging later. Good decision. We arrived at the edge at "golden hour" and I was excited when I noticed that in a few minutes, the sun would sink below a singular, chroma-blocking cloud. When that happened, we got the full Grand Canyon deluxe treatment with shadows and colors and depth and beauty. We hiked along a ridge toward the sunset, snapping pictures.

It was dark when we sidled in to a great little Mexican Restaurant in Tusayan, Az. It advertised "Great Vegetarian Meals" on their sign. (We never saw THAT in Vegas.) They were right! The complimentary chips and salsa were fantastic and Abby and I split an order of vegetarian tamales with beans and rice. I could not resist trying their house Margarita, which was also perfect.

Tusayan has plenty of lodging, being the nearest town to the Park but it was dark and late and we were dog tired. The name-brand chains all had no vacancy so we settled on the retro "Seven Mile Lodge". Abby described it to her sister on the phone as "scary" and the pile of beer cans on the ground at the bottom of the steps to the second floor, did not help that assessment but the room was clean and had a refrigerator to preserve my half tuna melt sandwich from Calico's.

Well, we've missed the opportunity for Grand Canyon sunrise but we will take one more look this morning before continuing our journey to Zion National Park.

Why I love Las Vegas

Our trip started with a decision to drive to Lansing in my car and park in long-term rather than invest other kind people in my scheme to save on air fare. We launched at 10:15 am for what Abby described as the "chillest" airport she'd encountered. Easy to park. No long lines. No feeling of rush. I knew I was traveling with the right person when she alerted me to visible boogers hanging out at the fringes of my nostrils. We can't have that on a trip. You need someone in your corner and not of the dried mucous variety.

I was not used to some of the newer routines to make air travel even more miserable. I was the grown up, experienced traveler on our team with a desire to show Abby the ropes but I was as green as a newbie and constantly being told by people in quasi-uniforms that yes, they really wanted me to do things in a way that was different from how I had done them before. It is not enough to empty the metal from your pockets. You have to empty everything from your pockets. I had to be instructed to empty the receipts from my shirt pocket and pose for a scan.

There is something soul-crushing about a journey that begins with a total lack of trust, humor or kindness. And yet the miracle of a metal tube full of people, hurtling through the upper sky at great speed and transporting us to a time that is three hours earlier than what our watches say to a place that looks like another world and is thirty degrees hotter still blows me away.

We had an outstanding view of the Grand Canyon to our left as we approached our destination (as alerted by our captain) but the coughing lady with a window seat next to me must have been reading a pretty engrossing book. Too busy to glance at one of the natural wonders of the world or notice that two, less jaded travelers were trying to see through the silhouette of her head.

Las Vegas is outstanding in its beautiful ugliness and vulgar establishment in a dessert surrounded by rocky vistas and powered by the force of the Colorado River as it pushes against the turbines in Hoover Dam. Everyone nice there is trying to sell you something. Powered sidewalks and natural pathways lead into the Casinos but not out. Smug boy-men in elevators recite Vegas one-liners learned from TV and movies like it was poetry; here to do the unspoken Vegas thing, whatever that is.

I love Las Vegas because I love leaving Las Vegas. Natural ancient beauty is even more heavenly contrasted against artificial hubris.

New spring, new focus

As evidenced by a whole month passing since my last entry, life has pretty much returned to a plateau. A lack of drama has replaced the steep ups and downs of the past year.  It's time for a vacation. Spring is my favorite season in Michigan but this year I will be adventuring in some other parts of the world with some of my favorite people.

Trip 1: Southwest United States.

Abby and I will be taking 8 days to perhaps explore some of the National Parks greatest hits.  That brief amount of time does not afford the whole road trip experience so we will begin with a flight to Las Vegas to put us in the vicinity. There we will rent a car and proceed on our "bohemian adventure". The rules of a bohemian adventure are simple:

1. Eat, when you are hungry.
2. Sleep, when you are tired.
3. When you want a milkshake, you get one.
4. The kid has final word on which tourist traps, roadside historical markers, or National Parks get visited or passed over.

Planning is forbidden.  We let the road and the weather suggest our next destination.  We do think we may find ourselves in Los Angeles around the time of Alice's birthday. But to say for sure would violate the rules.

The tradition of this kind of "trip with Dad" began when Alice was little (age 5 or 6?) and we ended up in Canada visiting my sister, Ginny, who was working as a geologist for the Canadian government in Manitouwadge, Ontario, a silver mining town in Canada.  It was a great surprise for her and a blast for us (despite the fact that we were detained at the border for suspicion of kidnapping). Somewhere I have some documentary video from this trip. We shot S-VHS as I recall.

About 5 years later, I did a bohemian adventure with Abby and we ended up in the Badlands.  This documentary was shot on mini DV videotape.  But our trip was cut short when Abby got homesick at the entrance gates to Mount Rushmore.  But rules is rules.  We turned around right there and went home and to this day I have never seen the stone Presidents. However, we did visit EVERY prairie dog village between Michigan and South Dakota.

It was Abby's idea to employ the BA rules for this trip.

Trip 2: Snorkeling in the Caribbean.

Mary has had a rough year too.  Maybe rougher than me. On top of all this cancer worry and operations, she has had to continue going to work each day to keep our household functioning. It hasn't been easy.

When we first talked about an island vacation, I'm quite sure Mary was envisioning rum cocktails with umbrellas delivered to her beach hammock by cabana boys.  Fortunately for me, she was willing to compromise and we finally agreed upon a location where the snorkeling was world class: The Dutch Antilles. We will be flying to Curaçao and then hopping over to Bonaire for the bulk of the week.  Mary got hooked on the notion that on Bonaire, there are more flamingos than people.  And I have experienced some of my greatest bliss floating through reefs with a mask and snorkel and Bonaire promises some of the best easy snorkeling anywhere.  We entertained the idea of learning SCUBA for the trip but it got too complicated and expensive.

So I imagine that for the near future, this blog will become a travel blog.  I'm not taking my video camera on either trip but my iPad takes great photos and short clips of video so I will not have to rely completely on the written word.

Karma or something else?

Someone asked me the other day if I was on any kind of holistic diet.  I replied that I was on a high-calorie diet.  My priority is getting enough calories into my system to sustain a 170-pound  man.  You might call it a wholistic diet.  It occurred to me that on  some days I eat vegan and on other days I eat some vegans.  Many days I eat foods and drinks with antioxidants and on other days I’ll eat a bunch of grapefruit.  I try to avoid the empty calories.  A restaurant meal usually lasts for about 3 mini-meals and I’ll often order with take-out in mind. Which of the items on this plate reheat well?  Sometimes I reserve space for a glass of beer at the end of the day. Weird eating habits are becoming the norm. I am all over the spectrum.  Maybe this is the next craze in cancer diets?

Dr. Scott, possible genius

Whatever the combination, it’s working. In the past several weeks, I’ve been telling people that I am quite confident that my CT scans would be clean.  My engine couldn’t perform this well if some of my cylinders were gummed up with tumors.  It feels a bit risky to flirt with fate in this way without knocking on wood but I calls ‘em as I sees ‘em. Turns out I’m right.  After cooling my heels for an hour in a waiting room stuffed full of very sick-looking people, Dr. Scott entered the examining room today with a set of reports that showed a normal, functioning human body. His exact words were, “I hope you feel as good today as your reports show!”  The bottom line: he’s giving me another three months of robust life before I need to see him again.  Next time it will be a mere chest x-ray. 

 So, is Dr. Scott a genius at curing cancer? Is my body a“healing monster”?  Is it my wholistic diet?  Maybe it's the vitamins or the Simpson's oil. I bumped into a friend the other day that I have not seen in over a year (although we brush shoulders in the Facebook world). She mentioned that she and her husband regularly think about me and send me good vibes.  It occurred to me that maybe that is what is making the difference.  Others remind me that they pray for me.  I reason that that any and all may take credit.  Either something isworking or it is ALL working. It’s nearly one year from my first operation and I am very grateful that somehow I’ve managed to turn a pretty dire prediction into a year of straightened out priorities and some serially great days.

I’m one of the few people I know who is not grumpy about cold weather and snow in March.  It feels like winter only just started. Time is moving way too fast. Spring will get here in spite of the date and this year, unlike last year, I expect the cherry tree in my yard will bear fruit.

One Year

Abby mentioned to me the other day that this weekend was the start of her GVSU spring break.  It occurred to me to look at a calendar because it was the day before her spring break last year when I got the phone call from Dr. Lown that my biopsy had come back positive for esophageal cancer. 

Larry may recall that I called him at the last minute to reschedule our beer to the 15th, having just heard the news.

It was January last year when I first had the sensation of food getting stuck in my throat.  It was kind of like choking except that it was deeper down the tube and I could breathe.  I chalked it up to not chewing my food carefully enough.  And then it happened again, a day or two later.  I called my family doctor, Dr. Hazle, who referred me to have an endoscopy with Dr. Lown.  We ganged it up with a colonoscopy, which I had been procrastinating to schedule since I had turned 50 the year before.  Same doctor- same anesthesia. Dr. Hazle suspected that the clog was caused by some damage and narrowing from acid reflux, which I had been treating with nightly “Tums” for quite a while.  He said that an endoscopy procedure could also treat these symptoms by inflating a little balloon and stretching out the tissues.

If you have aver had the dreaded colonoscopy or endoscopy, you may be familiar with the groggy recovery where you may or may not remember what the doctor is telling you.  I do remember that he told me that my colon was great but that he had not done the balloon stretching in the esophagus because it looked like there was something in there and he had taken a biopsy instead.  Mary remembers him saying “It looked really bad” but I only recall that it was suspicious and they would reschedule the stretching after they ruled out the slight possibility it was cancer.

It was March 2, 2012 in the early evening when he called to tell us that the test results revealed cancer.  We were quite shocked.  I remember because in the morning we were planning to drive Abby to Chicago to get on a plane and visit her sister Alice in Los Angeles. We were bringing along Marlee and her cousin Isabel and the rest of us were planning to stay overnight to do the Chicago thing and go to the Shedd Aquarium. Reservations had been made. What do you do with this news?

We decided not to change our plans. We also decided not to tell the girls so as not to put a chill on the much anticipated spring break adventure.  The news could wait until after Abby returned.  

At a restaurant just outside O'Hare Airport, March 3, 2012

That was a good decision.  It was a fun little road trip going to the airport. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of doing a little Internet research and I had a hard time sleeping at the hotel. I called my sister Ginny, early the next morning. I asked her to tell my brother Rob and my other sister Betsy because it was really difficult for me to go down that emotional path over and over.  I called my mom and dad too.

Waiting in line with Marlee and Isabel at the Shedd Aquarium on March 4, 2012

 The rest is captured in my blog, which I re-activated after sending out some emails to some key friends to leak the news in my various circles.

On the occasion of this one-year anniversary, I went back and re-read the first couple of months worth of posts, starting last March.  It is quite a gripping narrative!  I had forgotten a lot of the details and was grateful for the decision to write down the experiences soon after they happened.  I wrote about pain and fear and a nasty cough that I barely remember now.  In fact, besides the physical changes I carry with me every day (scars, small eating capacity, shaved head, neuropathy) there are relatively few cancer artifacts around me.  I take vitamin supplements instead of medicines. Life is fairly normal. My outlook is positive and getting more so. I’m on Social Security disability so I am freed up to do volunteer projects and lower-stress work. I am 170 pounds instead of the 210 pounds I was a year ago and my feet thank me for this.  I am off blood pressure meds and cholesterol drugs. All the strangeness of the wonderful outpouring of sympathy has subsided so I no longer feel the pressure to keep people’s spirits up.  Despite, the statistics and what my oncologist, Dr. Scott tells me, it seems like I am cured. I will try to live like that every day if I can. My hope is that this one-year cancer journal will become a curious, ancient artifact about one difficult year in my long life; a year that made me a better, more aware, and grateful person.

My friend Laurie was diagnosed with cancer last year too.  She had her one-year anniversary about a month ago.  She confided in me her fear of recurrence, just before her 1-year scans.  Every ache or pain raises anxiety that this may be the cancer knocking on the door in some new way.  I do get that. What is that twinge in my chest?  Why do I have a headache?  What if?  Laurie’s scans were all good and those fears (and aches and pains) evaporated with the news.  It will likely be a while before those lurking fears totally dissipate.  My next CT scan is in two weeks and you can bet I’ll have panic moments.

Life is still more precious than ever and watching TV commercials is the lowest form of unimportant use of time I can imagine.  In spite of that, I helped make one last week. It was more about helping a friend and maintaining my craft.  Like we used to say back in my Public Access Television days, “Don’t watch television, make television.”   I had fun, even if I care nothing about sales or furniture or the "happiness" those bring to some people. Please forgive me for adding to the mind clutter in the universe.

And if you are new to my blog or even if you are a long time follower, check out last March and April’s entries and enjoy them as re-runs. Pretty hair-raising stuff!  Glad to be feeling this good after all of that!

Outside perspective

Last Friday, Mary had a scheduled procedure to remove a ganglion cyst from her right index finger.  A ganglion cyst is also called a "Bible Bump" because a common cure used to be whacking it with a big book (almost everyone had a big Bible) but we could not bring ourselves to attempt this cure.  Dr. Hazle recommended a hand surgeon in his building, Dr. Marilee Mead.  Both Mary an I assumed it would be removed simply in a doctors office with local anesthesia so we were surprised to find out that it required a visit to the hospital and conscious sedation. 

We arrived at the hospital and checked in on the third floor discovered the receptionist had a volunteer trainee learning the ropes.  There was a funny moment as she escorted us to a different waiting room.  We were walking down a hallway and she belched out loud.  Mary, thinking it was me, shot a dirty look in my direction.  I returned my best, "It wasn't me it was her" look/shrug.  The trainee opted to pretend it hadn't happened at all.  It was only her second day so we cut her some slack.

So there at St. Mary's, Nurse Mary prepared my Mary for Dr. Marilee.  Kind of a theme there.

I found myself feeling a bit giddy being in the supportive role this time.  I was in a very familiar environment (the surgery was performed at the Lack's Center operating room) and all the waiting rooms, check-in personnel, forms and procedures were not at all foreign to me.  But this time I was the bystander to the  all of the pokes, weird dressing gowns and obligatory checklists of medical history.

The nurse inserted a slightly less than perfect I.V. (causing some bruising), we met the anesthesiologist who asured us that this operation would be much safer then getting into the car to drive to the hospital, and Mary got doped up with the first dose of the Versed before Dr. Mead entered the room to fill us in on the procedure.  She was a bit kooky (which I really like in a doctor). Mary was sleeping by the time they wheeled her out the door.

Mary was sleeping when they brought her back to the room about 40 minutes later.  She was roused and immediately asked the nurses who they liked for the Academy Awards. Apparently she had asked the same question in the O.R. and the consensus had been Daniel Day Lewis as Lincoln. Mary thought some of them surely would choose Bradley Cooper for Silver Linings Playbook.

Dr. Mead came in explained that the cyst had grown right through the middle of her tendon.  That was quite unusual as typically they would go to one side or the other.  Dr. Mead looked right at me and used a metaphor, "It went right between the fibers, you know, kind of like parting your hair". Suddenly she looked horrified and I realized that she was looking at my bald head and thinking that she had just committed a faux pas.  She was turning red and I found myself turning red too as I explained to her that I was familiar with the concept of parting hair.

All is healing up well now and Mary will have a cumbersome bandage for a week but on the bright side, she's finding that it gives her a very effective, "I have an idea" look.

Speaking of others who are currently suffering more than me, here is a follow-up on on my friend Bob Russell, who in my last post I told you about his esophageal cancer metastasizing to his brain, his current chemo regimen dispatching with his trademark beard, his daughter being diagnosed with cancer and his classic bed & breakfast inn on Mission Peninsula catching fire and destroying a big section of his home, business and belongings.  There was a community fundraiser to help him with expenses for some new off-insurance treatments and it was extremely successful.  He needed $3,000 and over $10,000 was raised.  Thanks to all those who contacted me to find out how they could contribute.

Bob and Sally at the concert fundraiser

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Northward Expedition

I’ve been slacking on my journaling. Chalk it up to lack of suffering. I need more grist to inform this artistic expression. So today I am reaching out to external forces. 

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may remember meeting Bob Russell.  He was diagnosed with esophageal cancer about a year ahead of me and made the time to visit me on my first day of chemotherapy.  He was a great source of encouragement and wisdom for me.  I’d been thinking about him a lot lately and wondering how his treatments were working.  He does not really tell of his progress on Facebook (nor do I) but I could see by photos posted there that he had lost some weight.  I decided to make a long overdue trip up north to stay with my mom and dad and then make a side trip to the Mission Point peninsula, where Bob runs a bed & breakfast, on the way home.

After a Sunday morning, uneventful trip up to Glen Arbor, I arrived at Mom & Dad’s place and got to first spend some time with Mom alone as she prepared for a church function and then later some one-on-one time with Dad after he returned from watching an Opera at a Traverse City movie theater with his brother, Rich.  Dad enjoyed telling me about how he and Rich were pretty much alone in the theater and that was typically the case at this particular venue. (These are not the LIVE Metropolitan Opera performances that are well attended at the State Theater.) 

I took some time to analyze and then rewire their new television set-up so that they could watch VHS tapes in addition to DVDs.  Dad has a huge collection of opera performances on VHS.  We chatted a bit and then went over to Art’s Tavern for Dinner.  We split a delicious Michigan IPA, brewed in Kalamazoo.

Monday morning, we invited Rich (and my Aunt Alyce) over for a visit where I gabbed a little bit too much and then after we bid them adieu, my parents and I decided to check out the Leelanau Sands Casino and have lunch there.  I’d been hearing reports about how Dad had been gambling my inheritance away and thought I’d check out the experience first hand.

It was an absolutely beautiful drive up to Suttons Bay. I certainly “get” that part of the ritual.  We decided to have lunch first and we trotted over to the cafeteria where the soup and salad bar was highly recommended.  For 6 bucks each, we loaded up on salads, soups and ice cream sundaes and I have to say we were all highly satisfied with our meals.  (The Dutchman in me always laments the small stomach I now carry around in my chest, especially in the proximity of an all-you-can-eat buffet.)

As we left the dining area, a young girl chased me down to show me that I had dropped my iPod.  It felt so nice to have that sweet encounter with honesty right out of the gate.

On the walk over to the penny slots, Dad pointed out how the casino supplied all the coffee you could drink at no charge, as he helped himself to a cup.

The penny slots, I learned, are a gateway drug.  The bells and the lights point out when you are winning and it seems like every third or fourth pull returns a one or two cent return.  These particular games are based on a Draw Poker hand and if you should happen to be dealt an electronic Royal Flush, you could rake in 40 cents!  It can take a very long time to lose your whole dollar bill- Dad’s maximum investment per trip to the casino. When he is not wagering one-cent bets or enjoying hot coffee, he’s watching people; taking in the sights and the sounds.  I do feel like my inheritance is fairly safe.

On this trip, Dad was simply a kibitzer. He gave Mom and I each a dollar, showed us how the game worked, and then stood over our shoulders and cheered us on as a dealt pair turned into 3 of a kind with the draw.  I hovered around 80 cents for quite a long time and finally switched to nickel bets to make the totals go up and down faster.  I have to admit that the bigger bets were more fun.  Uh-oh!

The ride back to Glen Arbor was once again just glorious.  I quickly packed my bag, said goodbye and launched for Bob Russell’s place on Mission Peninsula.

I was low on gas but decided to fill up on the way back home since I was running late.  I was pleased to see that gas prices were comparatively quite low in Traverse City.  The drive up Mission Peninsula hugs the beach so it was an visually spectacular drive.  I envied Bob’s commute.

When I arrived at the Neahtawanta Inn, I saw Bob shoveling snow off the walk.  He was indeed skinnier but he was a sharp as ever.  I received the grand tour of the inn along with its renovation history.  A big group had just left and Sally decided to go cross-country skiing while Bob and I sat in the library and sipped hot tea.  I learned that Sally’s family also had a cottage on Glen Lake in Burdickville, very close to our family’s little piece of heaven on earth. At one point, he got up to feed the boiler with wood and he showed me how it heated all the rooms (with hot water).  It toggled to fuel oil overnight so they would not have to stoke it in odd hours.

Bob first showed me all the new things he was up to with video production and website building, all promoting healthy ecology.  We eventually got into a discussion about the progression of his cancer.  It had metastasized to his brain in two places and he was receiving chemo and radiation treatments.  The latter involved a plastic mesh facemask that was bolted to a platform for precisely placed radiation pulses.  He was unbelievably positive and optimistic and had been studying some new treatments; one that involves the Ebola virus as a chemo-delivery system and another that works by maximizing your own immune system.  He also regularly uses Chinese medicine and practices yoga.

Sally returned from her ski expedition.  Temperatures were rising and snow was turning to slush.  It was dusk and time for me to head back to Grand Rapids.  We vowed to stay in touch and I drove off energized by the encounter.  I quickly observed that during our 2-hour visit, gas prices had risen 30 cents per gallon.  I pondered the nature of time and transformation on my foggy ride home.

In a shocking postscript, I just learned that less than a week after that visit, the Inn had a devastating fire.  If you read this article, you can pick up on Bob’s incredible optimism in the face of multiple adversities.  You can also gather how much his community appreciates him.