“The first week of August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after.” - Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
Granted we’re just about to finish the second week in August,
but I love this quote and figured we were still close enough to use it.
We are still hanging with the dogs. We’re down to two at
this time, Vinnie & Freddy. We refer to them as “The Boys”. The third, Mac,
had some challenges and he’s moved in with some folks who are better positioned
to help him.
We’ve had a great spring and summer, lots of projects
completed. The garden keeps us busy. It’s very green right now with everything moving
quickly toward harvest. We’ve been picking berries for several weeks now, started
with the strawberries, then the raspberries came in, now we’re picking
blueberries as well. We get 3-4 lbs each time we pick and yet we don’t seem to
make a dent in the patch. We’re eating a lot, giving some away and the rest are
going in the freezer for smoothies and pies. Potatoes and cukes are starting to
show up. We’ll start making bread & butter pickles soon. And we already
processed some apples into apple sauce, one of my faves.
We’ve been fortunate to have some visitors lately. My
sister and one of her college friends came in May for a week. We did lots of
touristy things, Port Townsend, Pike Place Market, Winslow Way, to name a few
spots explored. We made great diners every night and crashed early to be ready
for the next day’s adventure.
Our sister-in-law travelled from New Zealand to visit in
July. She was in the area for a high school reunion. We were so happy to have
her here for a few weeks. The weather was sunny and warm for her visit. We
picked berries, took The Boys on lots of walks, did some touristy things and
made so many great dinners that we started a list (menu?) to keep track.
My older brother will here in 10 days. He’s travelled from
New Zealand as well and is in Maine, hanging with our other siblings and their families.
We’re the only two in our family who don’t live in the Northeast.
After 42 years of gainful employment, in two very
different, but very satisfying careers, I retired on the morning of July 1st.
That afternoon I went to UW Medicine to get a PET/CT scan to determine the
length and breadth of my prostate cancer, great people and facility. Prior to
the screen, they inject you with a liquid that marks the cancer. It has to be
inside you for a bit before they start the scan, so we walked up to the Suzzalo
Library Reading Room, amazing spot! The scan was 20 minutes. We hopped the
light rail back downtown and stopped at Wild Ginger on the way back to the
ferry.
We got a link to the scan results Wednesday evening, the night before July 4th. We have no medical experience but could tell that it probably wasn’t good. Our suspicions were confirmed on Friday when we visited our urologist. The cancer had escaped my prostate and gone walkabout. It was in my nodes and possibly a couple other places. The procedure scheduled to take place that morning (a tour of my urethra via ‘microscope’) was canceled. It was hard to get any information from our urologist beyond that we needed to go to Seattle to take care of this and that we should make appointments with a radiologist and a urologic oncologist. We left with no referrals for facilities or doctors. It was disappointing, to say the least.
Upon arrival at home, we started googling and dialing. By 2
PM we had appointments with a radiologist at Fred Hutch and a urologic
oncologist at UW Medicine. I’d just like to say that the folks at Fred Hutch
and UW Medicine are knowledgeable, compassionate and very nice humans. I feel
that we are in good hands.
We have since completed the appointments and have the beginnings
of a strategy. After meeting with the urologic oncologist at UW Medicine we
know that surgery is not an option. We meet with a medical oncologist at the
end of the month to schedule hormone therapy to stop my production of
testosterone (it feeds the cancer) which will be followed by 5 weeks of
radiation.
The timing of this is fortunate in that I am retired, and it
takes some time to navigate the Byzantine labyrinth we call healthcare. The
unfortunate part, my condition was revealed at the start of summer and many of
the medical staff, doctors especially, are taking their well-deserved summer
vacations.
I should add that I have the best partner in the world;
smart & resourceful, focused & disciplined, caring & compassionate,
and, as luck would have it, an absolutely awesome human! She is motivated and
tireless in her support, I definitely hit ‘The Lotto’ when we met!
It may sound bleak to many of you, but we do not feel that
way. Yes, it’s been difficult, can’t remember dealing with this much stress,
ever. I wake in tears most mornings, but it’s more of a pressure release than sadness
for my condition or remorse for not acting sooner to address the cancer. We
have faith and welcome the work ahead. We are active with healthy lifestyles
and with a few tweaks, we’ll dial it in to create the best support system
possible. We’re doing lots of yoga, have moved to a vegetarian diet (mostly),
maybe vegan soon, lots of walks with The Boys and whatever else we need. Also, we’ve
discovered some great resources for; reducing stress, staying active, making
meals and lots more ideas for building our support system.
Please keep us in your thoughts and send some positive energy
our way, we can use it. We’re planning on many years to come, but right now, we
just need a little bit of luck.
More to follow…
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