Did Cancer Change Me? i wonder…

Major life events change who you are. In 1976, Dr. Morris Massey created a training film entitled, Who You Are is Where You Were When – when a major life event occurred, taken in the context of where you were in life when it happened. I don’t remember when I saw it, or even if it was for a college course or a career seminar. The premise has stuck with me throughout the years. If something big happens to you or around you, you change, according to your circumstances. In a word, you adapt. But in a major way.

A cancer diagnosis and treatment definitely rank as a major life event. You would expect a brush with mortality to have an impact on you. Right? After all, trauma has been known to alter one’s brain chemistry. People have even died from the physical damage of broken hearts.

Only, it doesn’t feel like I went through a major trauma. Chemo was rough and came close to being emotionally devastating toward the end. However, I never felt as though my life was truly threatened. The cancer had not gone that far and, as my oncologist noted, I was very healthy otherwise. In fact, I had to calm one of my friends down when she started ranting against fate, saying how I was supposed to be enjoying my retirement, not dealing with cancer. I literally had to tell her, “I’m not dying.”

So, despite the fact I will live with this disease, under control, for the rest of my many years to come, I still don’t feel as though my life is in jeopardy. Because it isn’t.

Overall, I have to say the diagnosis and treatment were more of a hardship than an ordeal. Fourteen months later, I am almost fully recovered and living the retirement life I had envisioned. In no way am I feeling traumatized by this experience.

So, what do hardships do to you? Do they change you?

For some, they do nothing. Hard times don’t change them. For others, they put things into focus. You see your habits, patterns, and idiosyncrasies in a new light. They teach us to be resilient and to recalibrate our priorities. They cause us to change our outlook and to grow. Put us on a journey of self-discovery. I find myself in the latter category.

A few years ago, my Godmother asked me if I ever stopped moving. My to-do list was a mile long and I became upset if I wasn’t getting enough done every single day. I had a plan and I was compelled to get it done. But never could because it was always too ambitious. I told myself that if I would just be more efficient, stop wasting time during the day, I could finish my planned tasks. If I took a day or two off, I felt as though I was being a lazy. I didn’t let myself admit I was trying too hard.

I can’t say why, other than I was trained to do so from early on. In grammar school, I overheard my teachers saying to my parents I could be so much more if only I used my full potential. I heard my parents repeat this more than once to relatives at various gatherings over the years. While the pressure was less and more subtle through high school and into college, the seed had been planted. I needed to become more and more and more. I got one degree, then another, then another. Parties, back when I threw them, had to be bigger, better, with more drink and food options. More recently, the garden had to be bigger, better, and produce more.

Then the side effects of cancer treatment brought me to a halt.

When I couldn’t walk up a flight of steps without pausing to catch my breath, when I had no choice but to give myself time off after treatments. It forced me to reflect and re-evaluate how I was judging myself through what I could accomplish in a day, a week, a month. Today, I can fully admit I was trying too hard at everything: the blog, the garden, cooking, entertaining. You name, I overdid it.

Who was I trying to impress? My daughter and my friends were cool whether I finished my lists or not (except maybe the dishes per Beth), and the people who pushed me so long ago have all passed on to the other side. If they’re watching me now from over there, it’s on them if they’re not satisfied with what I do. I no longer care. I’m good with who I am and the me that is becoming post treatment.

Have I given up? Decided to just sit back and sip coffee in front of the computer all day? Said screw getting stuff done because I ended up with cancer anyway? All my efforts to be healthful and productive didn’t do me any good?

No. I just mellowed out.

I didn’t change what I was going to do here at home to make the life we want. I just got real about it.

I developed a long-term schedule for maintaining, expanding, and improving our homestead from the garden to home repairs to building projects. It currently goes out to 2029 and will always look forward five years. What I did differently was to stop and think as to how much time and energy and resources I would actually have to complete projects, then set realistic goals, focused on important tasks with truthful estimates of how long they would take.

For example, housecleaning. I have always and will probably always Hate housecleaning – and I mean that capital H. I did a perfunctory job of it, before, just a bit more than the bare minimum. I mean, I would have to clean the dust and cobwebs off the vacuum before using it. I took for granted that I would have always have the time and energy for it, however poorly I would sometimes do it. A clean house, though, is a healthy house. I rather need a healthy environment now. So, despite still loathing the activity, this has to be done. At first, I only managed one room a day as my stamina recovered. By November, I was able to deep clean each room by devoting an entire week to each one. That caught me up finally and now I clean the entire upstairs in one morning.

Except Beth’s room; she has so many knick-knacks and little stuff everywhere, I vacuum and wash what floor I can find and sort of hover vacuum with our powerful Kirby to dust her desk and all. Any more cleaning is up to her.

As it is, I’m quickly becoming addicted to clean. Had I not been forced to reflect on this habit, I might not have become better at it. I will never enjoy it, but it is now a priority, which I no longer dodge. Although I do enjoy the outcome.

While undergoing chemo, I stopped having my Friday night beer or two, and my Saturday night dinner cocktail. I simply felt it would help me heal faster not to be drinking alcohol. In the time since ending treatment, I’ve not gone back to them. I don’t feel the need to. I’ll have a drink or two at parties. That’s about it. As for throwing our own parties, we’ll have one or two cookouts each summer to share our bounty with the people we care about. That’ll do.

While I’m avoiding activities which increase one’s testosterone, because it’s food for prostate cancer, I’ve gone back to working out religiously with the approval and encouragement of both my doctors. Exercise, it turns out, only briefly and slightly elevates your testosterone. Ten minutes after finishing, levels are back to normal, which is low for me because I get hormone therapy (Lupron shots) to reduce it. After two months I feel so much better; stronger and more energetic.

I’ve also scaled back some garden plans, if you can believe that. I’ve not stepped back from our goal to expand what we grow and become more self-reliant. But I have paused projects like the conversion of rotting wood beds into stone ones like the five I built last spring, opting instead simply to remove the wood as it fails and mulch heavily around the raised mounds. The cement walls and pathways would be nice to have, and I really, really wanted to finish the conversion of all of the beds by the end of next year to be maintenance free. But it’s not truly necessary. Not having stone beds won’t ruin our long-term goals. So, they can wait.

I might even repurpose the blocks from the five for a grilling patio and just go with thick mulch around the beds.

In short, I’ve gotten better at focusing on what’s necessary versus what would be nice. What we need versus what I want. Maybe that is a major change, but I don’t feel all that different. I still think I’m basically the same person with the same interests as ever. Mostly, I simply let go of the need to overperform. I’m allowing myself to enjoy just being.

Not that I won’t eventually get everything on my wish-list. Wishes will still come true on our homestead. Just in moderation.

Expectations – The 2024 Version

With the aggressive cancer treatment, and my recovery from it, behind me, I’m going into 2024 with the expectation of having a year like what I had looked forward to upon retiring.

I retired in the fall of 2021, anticipating a good growing season in 2022. Only, as I tried to get things done in the spring and early summer of that year, my energy was lacking. It surprised me that I should have gotten so out of shape. That and a few other maladies alerted me to something being wrong. I had not expected it to be prostate cancer that was spreading into my spine and ribs. I was only sixty-three.

The disease didn’t care. My fatigue was due in great part to what my oncologist called my “disease burden.” A few other unrelated things happened, requiring hospitalization and a surgical procedure in the weeks right before and after chemo started. I had managed to get some things done, but by August and especially as September rolled around, I was not in the condition I needed to be. Our 2022 harvest suffered from my lack of ability.

I would receive eight doses of chemo over a six-month period, ending in the second week of January 2023. The side-effects of the cure ended up burdening me worse than the disease, though it prevented the cancer from getting out of control. I am not cancer free and don’t expect that I ever will be. However, we have it crushed beneath our heels and are shrinking it further with hormone therapy. If we didn’t know there was cancer, my PSA (bad number) is at a level which wouldn’t have registered as even a possible concern to a doctor.

If it rears its ugly head again, my oncologist has a plan to beat it back. We already know what to do. Additionally, we did genetic testing and found I have a P10 mutation, for which there are numerous clinical trials of potential new treatments underway currently. We have that in our back pocket with the hope the trials result in something very effective come the time I might need it. Thus, with my getting back to the gym on a regular basis, I’m in a good place health-wise.

Of course, that’s now; not last year when I was trying to get a better outcome from our garden. Recovering from the side-effects took longer and more out of me than foreseen. We accomplished quite a bit more than we had in 2022 and properly closed the beds for the first time ever, plus got our two-year composting operation set up. However, that was at the end of the year. At the critical months in the beginning, I still wasn’t fully up to the task and we did not get enough to put up for the entire winter, which is our ultimate goal. This year (and here I’m channeling my inner Chicago Cubs fan) will be different. I expect to have the energy, strength, and resources to make it happen.

One thing you absolutely must do as a serious gardener is keep records. Every garden is different and some things just won’t work for one that produce gangbusters for others. I’ve changed varieties of what doesn’t perform well year after year. This year I am also getting some seeds and starter plants from different suppliers in a quest to get what works the best in our little environment. Even then, there will be those plants which outperform and those that disappoint. That’s just part of gardening life.

We’re expanding our “Farmacy” plants with three more medicinal herbs: hyssop, fenugreek, and valerian. We’re adding a couple more lilacs, filling in the roman chamomile, and keeping our fingers crossed last year’s new lavender overwintered well. This is in addition to adding several more items to our Tex-Mex and Asian gardens, and in addition to expanding our berry collection with more raspberries and beginning a cranberry patch. (They don’t actually need bogs, just the right soil mix.) Possibly, in the fall, we’ll complete our front yard orchard with fig and cherry trees.

In one week, we’ll start the long season seeds in our revamped greenhouse for the first time. I’ve never gotten a good crop of Brussels sprouts; they’ve never had enough time to grow to full size. This year, I can give them an extra four to six weeks by starting them in February, something I couldn’t do successfully before. We’ll also be getting a head start on some the herbs and flowers. I foresee a much more diverse and bountiful garden this season.

We should have plenty to share at the two cookouts we have planned for the year.

With the greenhouse, I’m considering starting tropical plants from seeds again during the summer. They need a steamy environment and plenty of time to decide to sprout. Palms in particular need a place safe from our cat, Blano, who finds their tender seedlings to be a delicacy. I can add unusual varieties less expensively than buying them at a greenhouse as well as have an abundance of greenery for the summertime yard and in the house. I once had such a thick wall of plants along a south facing window that I lost a camouflage mug in them for about a month, and it was only on the windowsill.

Starting tropical plants is a summertime hobby of mine from long ago which I want to get back into. Whatever extra plants I have (if there is such a thing), I’ll give away to my friends at our cookouts and all. Giving you plants and feeding you are part of my love language.

Away from the garden (yes, there is more to me than plants) I’ll be getting my woodworking shop in order. One of my brothers gave me his contractors tablesaw many years ago. The wings for the table have begun to sag and the metal base has always been a touch wobbly. But the motor is sound and the central table is rust free. In a future post I’ll detail my restoration and improvements of it. Later in the year I expect to unveil a major build we have in mind. Every year will see a new big project. My dream is to have a house full of furniture I built. We’re about to start making it come true.

Artistically, I have two ambitious works underway simultaneously and a third I am 99.9999999% certain is finished. In other words, I’m releasing a new novel this year (under a penname) after an extensive hiatus and feel positive about releasing one a year for the next several years.

So, yeah, retirement looks to be turning out the way I expected after all. With all of the above, plus cooking and cleaning/maintaining the house itself on my list of responsibilities, I’m looking forward to gaining a deeper understanding of that fabled concept: Being Busier Than Ever Now That I’ve Quit Working.

Another Step Taken on the Road Back

As part of taking the steps I need (and want) to take to be here for a nice long run, I rejoined our local fitness center at the beginning of January. Despite some days that were colder than Alaska, I completed this first month back without missing a day. (Go me!) I did have one rough day where I just couldn’t get it done all that well. But I was still there. I did what I could and it’s never a “bad” day if you made it to the gym and got something done.

I started slowly to re-accustom my body to working out. On day one, I did five simple exercises and moved a grand total of 810 pounds of iron. I finished with five laps around the indoor track, which is a tenth of a mile, mixing in enough slow running in segments to equal one of those laps. By the middle of the month, I had my chosen routine going: eight exercises on machines for upper body strength, four exercises for all-around core toning, and a mix of running and walking that I lengthened almost every day. On the last day of January, I moved a total of 1852.5 pounds and out of twelve laps, I ran five.

You wouldn’t know how hard I was working from those brand-new shoes I got for $10.87, though (double-clearance priced plus a coupon for half-off that included clearance). They are still bright white. We’ll see how long I can keep them looking new by only wearing them indoors at the gym. Make people think I’m lazy.

Despite the effort my scale disappointed me, showing no appreciable weight loss. I was 237 on January 1 and 239 on February 1, completely within the range of natural, day-to-day weight fluctuations depending upon what you ate the day before, etc. Then again, I did take it easy those first two weeks, and maybe a cheese and salami laden charcutierie board wasn’t the best thing to have the night before a weigh in. We’ll see what February brings as I continue to increase the running, and watch what I eat on the 29^th.

I saw my oncologist this past Friday for my quarterly bone-strengthening treatment (zoledronic acid, aka Zometa). Having spread into my spine and ribs, the cancer left little pockmarks behind when the chemo killed it. Cancer doesn’t sit on your bones. It eats its way into them. With the cancer killed, we need to work on repairing the damage. There is no timeline for how long we’ll continue this particular treatment. It’s not like you can make your bones too strong.

He was happy to hear I had returned to the gym and was getting stronger – carefully. I don’t have brittle bones. I don’t think we could call them weak either. But I’m sixty-five, not twenty-five, and caution is prudent. Form and workout intensity give you the most results, anyway, not slinging the most weight you can manage. So, a measured start and workout are best.

I’ll pump up the volume as I get stronger and leaner.

To wit, I intend to increase the intensity quarterly. In April I’ll add a fourth set for each exercise. In July I’ll make it five each. In October I’ll add a couple more exercises with possibly a couple more added next January. I feel the need to do so not simply to become stronger and better, but also because I still love to pump iron. Back in the day (some thirty-five years ago) I used to joke that I would die in the gym and everyone would be saying, “A ninety-year-old man shouldn’t have been trying to bench 500.”

More likely it’ll be when I’m hoeing the garden or something like that. We’ll find out in another forty years or so, I guess.

And when I’m a ghost, I’m going to tilt all your pictures, or maybe prune your plants, just to let you know I stopped by.

January 10, 2024

Today is the one-year anniversary of my last dose of chemo!

I wanted to keep going, but my body told me I’d had enough. I had gained about 30 pounds; most of the hair on my head and body was gone; my lungs were beginning to retain fluid; I couldn’t walk up a single flight of stairs without pausing; my fingernails were so brittle I couldn’t open the cat food cans; and I had swelled up from head to toe to the point I almost needed a shoehorn to put on my slippers.

The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak as they say. My doctor agreed without question that I couldn’t have managed another session without the side effects becoming dire.

I managed eight treatments over a six-month period, which he said was more than most, and made significant progress. My real trial, however, was about to begin.

You know how sometimes, when life is really making you struggle, you’re like, “Whatever I’m being prepared for, let’s just get on with it already.” Chemo and the recovery from it turned out to be it. Trust me, the recovery is just as hard if not harder than treatment. You have to push through it and work at making yourself better and stronger day by day. The option, of course, is simply to accept your frailer self and live within its limits.

You know which path I chose.

I went back to the gym and was elated a month later when I was able to jog a little bit on the track. It wasn’t really running, though, just a faster trudging for the land whale I felt I had become. I was equally thrilled the first time I made it up the steps in one go. The swelling abated, my lungs cleared, and my nails grew back. Curiously, my hair came back a bit thicker and just as blond as ever. I’m about to do my third self-inflicted haircut since with a kit I bought at CVS back then.

I also had our hyperactive garden to keep me active, which took over for the gym in the summer. With a lot of help from Beth and one of her friends, we got it planted and it did fairly well with my limited ability to tend it at first. By season’s end, I was able to close it out properly for the first time and create a two-step composting station. I expect a good start to this year’s microfarm.

I’m back in the gym three days a week, starting cautiously, yet leaving my muscles knowing I’ve worked out, and I am actually running. I focus on the motion: picking my feet and knees up, feeling the motion in my hips, and putting some spring into my calves. Each time, I string longer bits of running into walking around the track. By months end, I expect to be doing several laps at a time. And this year, I will continue gym workouts as well as working in the garden.

Today I feel better than I did when I first retired. At that point, the cancer was spreading into my spine and ribs. Now, it’s beat down and tamed further than we had first envisioned. I’ve already gotten down from land whale to something more like that grunting rhino at the back of the stampede in Jumanji. Hopefully, I’ll achieve something like retired race horse or at least quarter-horse by the end of the year. You know I’m not yet ready to be put out to pasture.

Now that that’s over

Humble apologies for neglecting my blog during chemotherapy treatments. I meant to bring you on this journey with me, but found I couldn’t after a few sessions. Altogether I had eight sessions over six months and reduced my PSA (bad number) from 394 to 5.5. At the moment, I’m at the end of a month of feeling good and am on the upswing.

Let me tell you, chemotherapy takes a lot more out of you, and in ways you might not foresee, than you would expect. You may have seen people going through the struggle and gotten some idea of the exhaustion. But you can’t really know it unless you go through it, until you feel your energy stolen, feel the sheer lack of strength in your muscles down to your bones. Until you can’t even open a jar of pickles or hold onto your phone.

My particular drug weakened my fingernails and toenails. Opening cat food cans bruised my fingertips. Eventually, they swelled and stayed swollen. Taping or bumping them against anything was painful and I had to wear latex gloves when washing dishes because the hot water made them sting. At the end of treatment, as new nails were growing in and pushing out the damaged ones, my right, big toenail broke loose at the top, while remaining attached to the new nail at the base. To prevent it being ripped off, I had to keep it taped on.

Chemo side effect

A month later the new nail growth is progressing nicely and I have been able to put the dish washing gloves aside. My fingertips still feel somewhat swollen, though.

You lose hair from everywhere on your body, not just your head. Because chemo drugs attack fast growing cells: cancer, fingernails, hair follicles, etc. My daughter and I buzzed my hair with a do-it-yourself kit. It wasn’t a perfect cut, but my hair was too thin to worry about it. Also, when I suddenly grew winded just walking up a flight of steps, my hairstyle became the least of my worries.

Of course, it’s all growing back unevenly, including my beard. Although, surprisingly, it appears to be all blond still.  For a while I expected it would just come back pure white and I’d be growing it out for the Gandalf look. As it seems to be going back to where it was, we’ll just have to get better with the DIY gear. The wizardly guise will have to wait for my later years.

My hair seems to want to come in at an angle.

My ankles began to swell, which the doctor had told me to watch out for. Eventually, all of me swelled up and my weight expanded with my ballooning body. When I looked in the mirror, I saw what could have been mistaken for a beached whale walking upright. Well, not quite that bad. But definitely a hairless, bloated, white ape. I was the heaviest I have ever been.

I joined the community fitness center to begin walking a few times a week just to keep from getting worse. The swelling was making any use of my legs difficult. I was literally plodding as I walked the track. I couldn’t walk up the stairs from our basement without pausing. Halfway through a weeklong course of water pills the swelling had reduced to where I could get up the stairs without stopping. Today, I can ascend them without needing to grab onto anything or lean on the wall. I have also started using the stationary bike at the fitness center as I work to recover normal movement.

Another set of short-lived, fast-growing cells are your tastebuds. Did you know they only last two weeks and are constantly replenishing themselves? I do now. After each treatment, and I managed eight cycles, I would have five to seven days of altered/diminished taste (dysgeusia/hypogeusia) to no taste at all (ageusia), while I waited for enough tastebuds to grow back as the initial blast from the medication eased.

There were a few days I could barely eat because everything tasted wrong or bad. Did nothing to help the weight gain, though. Guess I made up for it when my sense of taste returned.

Fortunately, the worst part of the recovery period only lasted a week. I would have a bad week, a so-so week, then a good week before receiving the next dose over the six months of treatment. I was able to get a few things done in the so-so weeks and was almost like normal in the good weeks. I managed some small projects over the winter. A few. My daughter is beginning to drum her fingers on the table waiting on some home repairs I need to make. I can put them on my radar now.

When it came time for a ninth treatment, my doctor and I took an assessment of my condition and the diminishing returns of the medication. The cancer and your body gradually build up a tolerance to the drug. Unfortunately, the cumulative side effects remained. My fingers looked ready to fall apart and if I swelled up any more I would have needed a shoehorn to put on my slippers. As it stood, fluid was beginning to collect in my lungs. We opted to stop chemotherapy at this point and go on a maintenance regimen of two drugs, one received quarterly and the other semi-annually. Neither one results in debilitating side-effects.

I’m still working to get my lungs to feel clear. My health goals for the next few weeks are to concentrate on rebuilding my lung power and endurance.

The outcome was acceptable to my oncologist. We never expected to reduce my PSA to zero. Given anything over 10 would signal a concern, had I not already had cancer, I’m also pleased with the low number. While ideally you want zero, levels of up to 4 are not unusual for a man my age. So, I can live with 5.5.

Which was the goal at the beginning of treatment; get it to a level I could live with. Literally. I will always have this disease. However, it’s at a controllable point and won’t impact my life anymore. Other than time spent going for the maintenance drugs six times a year.

If it should resurge, we have other options. One, most commonly applied, is a third medication which is like a low dose chemo drug taken daily in a pill form. We won’t go this route unless it’s necessary. Two, we did genetic testing of my cancer and found I had a P-ten mutation, for which there are several clinical trials going on right now. I could be put into one of those or go on a treatment resulting from one of them.  We have a few more tricks up our sleeve even in as good as position as I am right now.

Of course, I turn sixty-five this year and know I will need to adjust my activities eventually, regardless of having cancer. I had already begun building my new beds out of low maintenance stone so I’m not rebuilding beds every year. The expansion went on hold last fall. This week, I received the blocks and got back to it. I’ll pace myself; one dug in and leveled out per day when the weather is decent. Then, two weeks from now, I’ll start my seedlings for the year, one I look forward to being more normal. I have never craved normal and boring more in my life.

As though our microfarm bores me. It’s challenging and what I’ve always wanted to have. And now that cancer is no longer in control and chemotherapy with all the associated lost time and damage to my body is over, I can.

When chemo hits hard

Chemo does a number on you. Cancer itself slowly steals your stamina away. Treatment, however, hits you hard in the week after. I make a to-do list, but when just going up and down stairs leaves you out of breath, you hit a point where you need to sit and recover. Some days, you don’t manage to get back to your list.

Relaxing and warming up after a hike and a couple errands.

This past weekend, when the thunderstorms blew in and the temperatures dropped ten degrees into the fifties, it hit me like a wall of bricks. I was doing well, had popped over to Aldi for some last-minute items to can beef stew for the winter. Then, BAM. Done for the day and almost for the weekend. As I type this on Monday, I am still aching and some of my fingertips are a little numb, a potentially permanent side effect.

It normally takes me about a week to recover. I receive chemo on a Thursday morning and it gets to me late Friday night or Saturday morning. I feel like I have the flu with fatigue, joint pain, and muscle aches from head to toe. My sense of taste becomes deadened until the following Thursday. I simply eat canned soup and just make something for Beth. I don’t think much of the soups, which we added to the stash when they were on sale, but given I can’t really taste them, it doesn’t matter. I guess you can call that a silver lining.

During the week right after treatment, energy leaves me quickly during the day. I don’t fully recover my strength until sometime in the week after the week after, i.e., the second week. For example, when we put up our shed in the week after a session, the three days surrounding prepping, erecting, and utilizing it took enough of my energy I ended up resting (doing nothing) on the fourth day. It was a low energy day to begin the second week.

Princess and Yui didn’t mind, of course. They got a couple of hours of extra lap time. I spend much of my day cuddling them individually as it is. (Can you say spoiled?) During recovery week, they get their fill and then some. Yui seemed to be enjoying the hockey game I was watching at lunch.

Of the other two, Wyfa is a good one for hopping onto my desk for short periods while I’m working. I’ll always stop to give her attention. Cute, little Blano comes around now and then, when she feels like it. She lives life on her own time.

I bounced back the next day for a short walk to get some air and check out some early fall colors at a nearby park. After which we stopped by our (relatively) local, independent butcher for some very fresh brats. We posted a video a few months back about the processor and how you can get farm to table beef even in the heart of the city. Of course, I was getting tired by then and was glad Beth did the driving that day. We stopped for lunch, which I really couldn’t taste, but was needed sustenance.

Fine dining while your laundry runs next door. Small town life.

Without a doubt, loss of taste is the worst side effect. The lethargy and body aches I expected and was prepared for. The chills come and go. I can handle those symptoms easily enough, because I’ve experienced similar malaise from the cold or flu. The loss of taste is an entirely new sensation (or lack thereof) and I am still mentally and emotionally adjusting to it.

During the third week I am at my best, feeling normal; as though I wasn’t sick and generally with my usual energy. I can still end up worn out sooner than expected. Though that doesn’t happen as often or comes on after a doing significant amount of work in the third week. I had one of those days after the October session with a lot of garden cleanup, getting more stuff into the shed, and making a couple of desserts for the Halloween party I went to.

Today, the start of the week after the early November session, I have only one task on my to do list: the beef stew because the meat is thawed and the veggies are fresh. It involves chopping celery, onions, etc. for a while, which I will do while sitting. Still, this alone may tire me out. Tomorrow’s goal is yet to be determined; it depends on how well I do today. It’s frustrating not to be able to do everything I normally would.

Of course, the point of aggressive chemo treatment is to knock the cancer back to where I can live my normal life going forward. I have three sessions left.  My oncologist has said several times the idea is for me to able to live my life and he foresees a lot of years ahead of me.

So do I.

I’m making plans, short and long term. For example, the outdoor greenhouse I just put up. Short term, see how well it works, given this will be the first season I’m using it. Next year, I’ll beef up the frame inside with some wood and attach some very heavy plastic to the inside to create a second wall with reduced drafts in an attempt to use it year-round for greens and other cool weather crops, as well as expanding its capacity. Long term, replace it with a permanent structure toward the back of the property once the old elm needs to come down.

The wooden garden beds are being replaced with cement blocks and pavers between to make them more maintenance free as I get older. As I mentioned before, the orchard is already started in the front yard. We have room for eight dwarf trees and need to try some different fruits to determine which types it will be. In the spring, I will add four more blue spruce or balsam firs to the eight spruce we have at the back, which we are growing to become our Yule trees of the future. We’ll be able to harvest the first one in a few years, about the same time we’re getting enough apples for making hot, spiced cider to sip as we decorate. Well, me anyway. Beth will likely stick to hot cocoa.

A walkway. More blocks will be set to contain the bed. Half cinder blocks form the corners and make for planters.

The price of replacing a tree is less than half of buying one from a cut-your-own, tree farm and we are addicted to live trees. The one we use will return to the garden as compost or wood ash. Nothing gets wasted.

Not even my time during recovery week. Because a body does need time to heal. Which leads to the thought floating around in my mind this week. Yes, there are times when you need to make your coffee strong, put on some loud, rock music, and handle your business; like getting chemo regardless how hard it hits you. When that’s finished, though, it’s time kick back, put your feet up, and quietly sip a hot cup of tea to replenish your energy stores, while you decide what’s next once you have.

Halloween 2022

Halloween. A season to many, a nuisance to some, but generally a fun time for most. With my oncologist’s blessing, I went to a party. The theme was childhood fears. To be able to wear a mask, when necessary, I went as a dentist.

Theme: Childhood fears. I had a mask to wear if the room got too close.

Retirement for me has been remarkably agreeable and peaceful. I know so many guys who went back to work, or refuse to retire because they don’t know what to do with themselves. Sadly, they don’t have hobbies or post-work goals for their lives. This comes, in my opinion, from having been indoctrinated and trained in revering the almighty corporation, in being brainwashed into believing there is virtue in living to work, rather than working to live.

Not me.

I got over that edification of the corporation long ago and while I may have liked the work I was doing, I treated my job as my job, and did not define myself or my life by it. I traveled a bit, did some big-time ghost hunting, tried a side-hustle as a professional baker, and often (usually) ended up short on cash. At parties, I never liked asking people what they did for a living. I would always ask about what they had been up to lately. What fun were they having in life. Once I grasped it was utter BS to devote yourself to a corporate career (unless you became the kind of boss people hated), I rededicated my life to myself rather than an employer who only wanted the revenue I generated for them. When I retired, I told people I’d worked enough years of making money for other people.

Despite my health troubles this past season, the garden was a source of resting my soul and rejuvenation. I may not have kept up with it as planned, nor gotten as much from it as hoped for, but I did enjoy it. The garden is my happy place. The gazebo is my Zen Den. I forget the world exists when I’m planning, planting, or harvesting.

Located my Zen den in a shady spot.

The comfy egg chair no longer sinks into the earth with the new floor.

Rockers we added this year.

Gazebo ready to use. Added the carpet this year.

Preserving, on the other hand, is enough work that I recall I did other jobs once in life and think how grateful I am that the work I do now, keeping our microfarm, is strictly for me and my family and friends. None of my efforts go to benefit a distant Board of Directors, who don’t even know or give a damn about me, but whom I have to keep happy to keep my job.

Anyway, what I’m getting at is I’m the guy who enjoys spending quiet days at home with his hobbies, books, and pets. I’m not the guy who gets bored after two weeks at home and has to get another job, any job, to preserve his sanity. My peace of mind comes from my home and myself. It’s been fourteen months since I quit working and I don’t miss it, nor am I going stir crazy. I have been enjoying every moment of it. Although I got antsy in February to get going on the garden.

Still, as a rather gregarious person, I also enjoy interacting with people. I still stop by to have coffee and donuts with my barista crew from my last job once a week (usually). I don’t hesitate to chat with my neighbors or people I meet when I’m out and about. I’m usually cracking jokes and being my curious self when I’m interacting with my health care crews. And a party was just the thing to really invigorate my soul.

To be honest, I did tire out about an hour or so earlier than I might have in years past. Despite that, I enjoyed myself and had some good and some rather interesting (to put it politely) vegetarian and vegan food in the pot-luck dinner. I made the desserts, full bore fats and sugars in the pumpkin roll and an apple and pear cobbler with gluten free flour for our hostess. I’m kicking myself for not having taken pictures of them.

Internet picture, but mine looked just like this. Honest.

When you’re dealing with cancer, your support network is one of your lifelines. Being able to get out and see my friends and make some new ones was a treat. We may not have stayed long, but it was fun and worth the hour-long drive. Their concern for my well-being is heart-warming and soul-soothing. It helps you in feeling that the disease is just another run-of-the-mill, everyday thing that just takes a little longer to get over, but from which you will recover and be just fine after a while.

Which, of course, I will be.

The two beers I drank at the party were the first alcohol I’d consumed since my niece’s wedding in August, which was the first in over a month back then, as I decided not to drink during my chemo treatments. Part of the reason for that is also to lose weight. I’ve managed to trim off about ten pounds since August. If I can get another ten off before the end of the year, despite holiday dinners and treats, I’ll be happy.

And hopefully I don’t just gain it all back again next year.

Toward that end, we will be joining our town’s fitness center in January. I’ll be done with chemo (at least for now) and on a daily pill. I’ll be seeing the doctors every few months instead of every few weeks. I’ll have the energy for some light exercise, and I need to keep myself active in some way during January and February, when I’m done with one growing season and waiting for the next. It will also be another opportunity to interact with people. No job necessary.

In the meantime, I’m going to start taking morning walks again. I was sidelined last year because hikes of even the shortest nature in the cooler weather left me with an urgent need to pee. Like, immediate, not going to make it home, find a tree type of urgency that came with little to no warning. Which was one of the first signs of my illness. The TURP procedure I underwent in September has resolved that problem. I can take an hour or two long walks now, and need to.

Between that and getting out to a party, life is settling back to a more normal routine. A new one, that is, in which I’m managing my cancer as a chronic condition. It may go into remission, but it will never go away. I’ll just have to do the right things with my diet and exercise, and keep an eye on my condition. Another round of chemo next year is quite possible. I’ll deal with it then, if need be. For now, life is what I make of it.

In other words, just like it was before. With an occasional double chocolate chip cookie.

Now and in the future

Something I didn’t mention last time was my reaction to being in the hospital. I was only inpatient once before when I was nineteen and needed a pilonidal cyst removed from my tailbone. That was forty-five years ago. Meaning my concept and expectations of staying in the hospital were more outdated than VHS and even the first desktop PCs.

I couldn’t have been more surprised, waking up the morning after my admission, to find myself in a large, private room with cable TV and a huge bathroom. The transport person, whatever they are called now, brought me in at eleven the night before, exhausted and just wanting to sleep, after ten hours in the ER. When I came to in the morning, I opened my eyes to a room looking more like a hotel room than some institutional gray chamber with a drab linoleum floor.

At first, I thought I must have picked some really good insurance to get a private room, until I walked the hallway to stretch my legs on day two and saw all of the rooms were like mine. With some sixty channels to choose from on the TV, I found something to watch throughout the day and evening and, because I mostly watched Food Network, learned a few more things about preparation and cooking. I can never say I’m truly self-taught for all of the tips and techniques I’ve learned from watching cooking shows.

What really amazed me, and still makes me shake my head, was the change in the food and how they serve you. Forty-five years ago, you were given a paper form the night before and chose your meals for the day from three choices for each breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They brought them to you when they brought them to you, along with everyone else on your floor, on cafeteria trays with covered plates and basic condiments. It was basically the lunch ladies coming to you instead of you going through the line.

Not anymore. Now you’re given a menu and a number to call whenever you’re getting hungry. They even write the number on a dry erase board on the wall so you don’t forget. You call them any time during the hours of operation (6a to 8p) and they answer, “Room Service.”

Room service! Really? Aren’t you hyping yourselves up a bit there?

Well, actually, not by much. They’re not going to earn any Michelin stars, but the food was quite decent. I’ve had worse at some diners during my days. You order what you want, no real limit, and they bring it to you in about half an hour to forty-five minutes. If you want, you can order for the day and tell them when to bring each meal.

Between that and having cable, and my daughter bringing me a notepad, my two days in the hospital turned into a nice, little break I hadn’t realized I needed. At least, once I was out of the ER, and after I had figured how to manage the catheter without much pain or discomfort.

Of course, next time I need a break I’ll get a hotel somewhere. I’ve been wanting to spend a few winter days in a snowy cabin in the woods with a fireplace and good places to eat nearby. I’ve been checking out Starved Rock and might still book a cabin in February. Take a few brisk hikes. Eat a bit too much. And read beside a fire in the evening. We’ll see.

I’m actually just beginning to feel mostly normal again. August and September were a whirlwind of procedures and recoveries. I’m still tender from where they installed a port two weeks ago. The port became necessary because of what chemo does to your peripheral veins. For the TURP procedure, the OR nurse wasn’t able to start my IV. The anesthesiologist, who’d been around for ages and carried her own supplies just in case, needed two sticks to get it going. The following chemo required two tries and a lot of painful maneuvering of the catheter in the vein to get a good flow. The port eliminates that issue (and pain).

The result of three sticks to get an IV started for the TURP procedure, and why I had a port installed.

It’ll be another couple of weeks before I’m past the ten to fifteen pound weight limit for lifting and carrying. The doctor who installed the port told me to listen to my body and the tenderness at the site is telling me to wait a bit longer before getting back to normal activities. Currently I’m relying a lot on my daughter’s strong back for tasks which cannot wait, like moving tropical plants inside from the gazebo. I need to lay some dark colored pavers in the greenhouse, but I should have some time yet before it gets too cold for working outside.

I definitely want to get outdoor activities completed before the real cold starts. I’ve erected greenhouses and done other projects in the cold. Your fingers get cold and raw, and your pants end up frigidly soaked from cuffs to knees at least. I don’t recommend working outside in the cold. Are you considering a greenhouse, hoophouse, or some built-ins for your garden? Do it now while the weather is still relatively mild. Because I can guarantee the conditions will be raw in the early spring, when you can’t wait any longer. Get everything outside done in the next month. That’s my advice to you.

If you’ve been with me for a few years, you know I’ve been starting my seedlings in a basement greenhouse for the last five seasons, the entire time we’ve lived here. For 2023, I’m moving to an outside greenhouse for a few reasons. One, hardening plants of in the spring means a lot of trips up and down the stairs. My knees aren’t what they used to be, though, and don’t want to be doing that anymore. Two, I’ve doubled the tropical plants for the gazebo and yard. I need the space to keep them over the winter. Three, because I can. I already owned a 6×8 ShelterLogic greenhouse. The 5×5 one I’ve been using in the basement (absent the cover), will fit inside it. I’ve researched my village’s codes and nothing prohibits me from using the ShelterLogic structure. In fact, I have seen several of them around town.

Peppers and Roman Chamomile

The basement greenhouse with cat protection.

My six by eight greenhouse. The front and back panels need some locking down.

Of course, I’ve locked it down. It’s cabled to stout, thirty-inch earth anchors; 2400lbs of holding power each, or 1.2 tons at each corner. It’s stable. Having the smaller one inside of it will give me basically a double-walled structure I can stand up in. Pavers will give me a solid floor. Heat will come from an old, oil-filled radiator type space heater set at about 55 or 60 degrees. Additional heat will come from a dozen heating mats, attached to a thermostat-controlled outlet. These devices are normally used to keep reptile terrariums within the proper temperature range. I will use mine to switch off the mats before they get too hot and cook the seedlings, then come back on when the greenhouse temperature has dropped low enough to need them.

Two independently controlled outlets. Each will support six growing mats.

This setup will give me the cooler temperatures broccoli and cauliflower want, while providing the warmer soil temperatures tomatoes and peppers need. It also allows me to expand from twelve to twenty shelves for trays and pots. For 2024 and beyond, I’ll increase the capacity to twenty-four shelves by removing the smaller greenhouse and applying a second, very thick layer of plastic to the inside of the outer greenhouse frame.

I don’t have the time or money for that this fall, even had I been recovered enough. And the weather will definitely be uncooperative when it’s time to start seeds early next spring. The greenhouse within the greenhouse will have to do for 2023.

I’m going to be here for years and years yet. I can wait a season; and see how moving outside works for this coming year. There’s always something that needs tweaking.

One thing we decided not to wait on is our orchard. We planted a honeysweet pear, a granny smith apple, and a gala apple at the end of September. It will be at least 2024 before we get the first fruit. Next year we will add, at a minimum, self-pollinating varieties of brown fig, cherry, and cold hardy peach. There will be two more, but we haven’t decided yet amongst pomegranate, apricot, plum, pawpaw, or something we haven’t considered yet. We need to do some taste testing and recipe trying.

Granny Smith apple ready to plant. The stake in the background is where the Gala apple goes. You need both for proper pollination.

Granny Smith apple in the ground with lower trunk protection.

The orchard is going into the front yard, which I discovered through failed pumpkins, would need a lot of amendment and improvement of the surface soil to be productive. We’re using dwarf varieties to keep them shorter than the house, given we will eventually install solar panels on the roof. We also don’t need the production volumes of full-sized trees. I’ll be needing to buy a freeze dryer for the eight varieties we’ll have.

And that’s that for this week. Getting better in the present and preparing for the future, near term and years out. A friend of mine, who’s a physical therapist, told me he has a client who’s been dealing with prostate cancer for thirty years, and that the only way anyone dies of it anymore is if they live to be one-hundred and fifty years old.

Which, as I’ve told several friends before, just happens to be my goal.

October of an unusual year

Okay. Wow! How does one encapsulate the madness that was the second half of my summer? I feel like I lost half of this year, although the harvesting and all continued to a lesser extent than normal.

My cancer turned out to be further along than I had thought at first. Having spread to a handful of points in my bones, it is considered to be an advanced cancer. At this point, it is a chronic condition I will have to manage for the rest of my life. Which should be decades I expect, and my oncologist does not disagree, because I am otherwise so healthy.

The first reality check that my body can’t shake things off like before came at the end of July. I didn’t think it worth posting that I was in the ER in April with severe back pain. After several tests, we determined I’d simply strained it with hammering in new posts in the cold, damp weather. I reaggravated the injury in July, probably putting in the floor for our gazebo. I had some pain meds still from April and figured, same injury – same meds.

Nope. Didn’t work out that way. I ended up in the hospital for two days getting my blood levels squared away thanks to severe constipation and urine retention. How bad was it? I didn’t feel the catheter being put in. If you’ve ever been cathed, you know how much pain I had to have been in. I found out the following week when I needed a second one put in, because I was still unable to pee correctly after the first was removed. It’s an experience you never forget. If you’ve never had one, my wish for you is that you never experience it. (Although there are a few people I would wish it on. None of you though.)

Diet and medication cured the constipation. The urine retention, which was related to the enlarged prostate, required surgery (TURP procedure), which I am thrilled to say was totally successful. I cannot tell you what a pleasure it is to be able to empty your bladder and get back to sleep for two or three hours instead of being up every forty-five minutes or so all freaking night.

After the hospitalization, I needed two to three weeks getting back a minimum of energy. I spent considerable time in the gazebo looking at what I needed to do without being able to spend more than five or ten minutes a day doing so. Beth did much of the harvesting in those weeks. The beans got out of control, though, and we only managed to put fourteen quart bags into the freezer for the winter; about three months worth.

We did still manage to put up twenty quarts of tomato sauce, only a few less than my goal. And the peppers! It was a good year for peppers. The jalapenos went nuts. We have eleven jars of pickled, green slices and twice as much sriracha as last year, almost an entire half gallon. We dehydrated the Anaheim peppers and I have about three jars worth of sweet peppers to pickle. With the size of our garden, we dedicate an entire bed to Alma peppers for sweet paprika. We got enough to fill an entire sixteen-ounce jar this year, probably enough for the year. (I use two tablespoons a week in my taco seasoning on Tuesdays.)

The rest of the garden produced adequately, with the exception of the sweet corn. This was the second year trying an heirloom Bantam variety; it has failed in both years in different beds. I’ve already chosen a different type for next year. Likewise, our celeriac failed to form bulbs for a second year in a row. Granted I did have them in some new garden mix I had trucked in at the start of the year. It might have been good on nitrogen, while light on potassium and phosphorous. I’ll give it one more season with better control over the soil before deciding whether to stop trying or change varieties.

This is why you keep notes; to be able to make these adjustments. Another change we’re making is the number of parsley plants we put in. We got more than enough; so much in fact we were tired of processing it by the end. We filled the ten-shelf dehydrator twice!

As for my cancer, we’re moving in the right direction. The component of your blood they use as an indication of prostate health is the PSA; prostate specific antibody. Anything over ten is bad. Mine was at 165 at my annual physical, my first in years for not having been able to afford insurance until I retired. It was a couple of months before I could get in with the urologist. By then it had reached 196. He determined, over a few weeks of testing, it was in fact cancer and that it had spread and I got the referral to the oncologist, who was able to see me a week later. It was another two weeks before we started chemo, at which point it had spiked close to 300. The first session of chemo brought it back to 180, about where I had started.

Fast forward nine weeks to session four. (I get them every three weeks.) Blood tests taken before treatment (to be sure I’m healthy enough for it) astounded me. I was hoping for my PSA to be below 100. I was blown away to see the result: 42.5.

It’s definitely working, and I’m definitely feeling it in the days after. I get treatment on a Thursday and it hits me on Saturday, although this last time it started overnight Friday. For a good five days, I feel like I have the flu: muscle aches and joint pains, accompanied by hot and cold flashes, and limited energy. ( I have renewed sympathy for women going through menopause.) As I write this on a Monday, I am still achy and a little nauseous from session four last week. The most annoying side effect, however, is the loss of taste for up to a week.

We grow our garden not just for sustainability, but to be able to make delicious meals from scratch with ultra-fresh ingredients. I’m also a scratch baker and dessert maker. A week where even water tastes funny is as close to being tortured as I ever want to get. I still season as I think fit as I cook, but need Beth to tell me if the food is as good as I wanted it to be. For breakfast, I have corn flakes and bran flakes to which I add whatever fruit I want. When my tastebuds are like this, Beth is quite accurate in referring to them as wood chips and sawdust. If there was an emoji for laughing and bawling at the same time, I’d insert it here.

Finally for this quick update, I have been purposely losing weight; so far around fifteen pounds. I’m doing this through portion control, resisting junk food, limiting desserts, and suspending having my weekly cocktail or two until after I finish with chemo in a couple of months and go on a daily tablet. I’ve been a little peckish at the end of some evenings and there have been moments where friends posted about their cocktails and I really wanted one. But I’ve held the line to this point. I can probably make it through the rest of the year.

Although it may be too early to take bets on that.