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First of all, thank you so much for all of your sleep suggestions, advice, tips, etc. The last few nights have been much better, I’ve been clocking in at 5 or 6 hours of sleep which is a huge improvement over last week, and have implemented a few new things after talking to some of you and my doctors:

• Using sleep stories on platforms like Calm and Headspace. These are brilliant. I start a story and get invested. I listened to one last night about Mont Saint-Michele in France, a place I’ve always wanted to go since learning more about France in high school french classes, and the initial details really captivated me and brought me in, but as the story progressed maybe the details got more mundane, or I was getting lulled by the voice, but I don’t remember…cause it worked! I fell asleep. I think these sleep stories will be key for me coming up, especially if I am waking every few hours…which after talking with a lot of you seems very common! We collectively have trouble sleeping solid nights. 
• More meds. A lot of you suggested THC/CBD products, and some of you told me about other medications. I met with my palliative care doc this week and we talked about sleep, and we decided to try trazodone for a while. I don’t like taking meds, before all of this cancer stuff I almost never took medications and preferred a natural way if at all possible, but given I’m on 437 different meds now I’ve kind of given in and will try the pharmaceutical way for now.
• Limit screen time. I was in the habit of picking up my phone when I would wake every few hours, to check the time, first, but then I would start scrolling. Which is all new for me, again before cancer I didn’t sleep with my phone in the room. So many things have changed with how I live my life now! I didn’t have my phone in the room, so would have to get up when the alarm went off in the mornings, and didn’t have the temptation to scroll. If I needed to get sleepy in the before times, I would read a few pages of a book and that would put me out. I don’t have that problem at least because of the HUSO sound therapy. I listen to that when it’s bedtime and I’m out. So anyway, I haven’t been picking up the phone as much, and I think that’s been helping.

What have I been up to this week? I don’t know, the days seem to melt into each other and it’s hard to determine what day is what. But I do have a big day coming up tomorrow, I get another biopsy! The two I had done in December ended up being useless, at least for what we need to know now about my genetic mutation, so I am doing it all over again tomorrow. I get a deep bone biopsy and it’s a legit procedure, so no food tomorrow and only clear liquids. 

We are going with Foundation One testing, and the biopsy tomorrow combined with the blood draw I had last week should tell us what we need to know! So of course lets look into this Foundation One:

• The company says they are an essential partner to patients, physicians, researchers, and biopharma organizations navigating the complex landscape of cancer care. Their genomic insights help guide informed decisions about treatment plans and research priorities. They built a powerful portfolio of comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) tests that—via both blood and tissue samples—evaluate more than 300 genes known to drive cancer.
• Liquid CDx: I had the labs drawn last week, and apparently this test is an FDA-approved companion diagnostic that analyzes guideline-recommended genes from a simple blood draw. It analyzes over 300 genes—making it the most comprehensive FDA-approved liquid biopsy on the market. Sounds good to me!
• I believe the biopsy tissue sample will also be sent to Foundation One, and they will put it through their fancy-schmancy testing system to give us an even better picture of what the heck I’m dealing with.

So hopefully we’ll know more soon (I’m not sure what soon means…weeks? A month?) about the specific mutation(s) I have and what kinds of treatments are available for it.

I’m also going to get another radiation blast to my ribs…my ribs have been achy with the tumors and slight fracture I have going on in one of them, so we’re going to hit it again next week right before my third round of chemo. 

I’m telling you, its a full time job to have cancer.

What else do I have going on? The hospital provides Reiki, so I’m doing some of that. My PT is coming over this week, so we’ll go over exercises now that I’m out of the wheelchair and walking around the house. I did a lot of walking yesterday at the hospital trying to get some labs done, and it felt good, and I’m a little sore today. It’s been super mild outside in Bend, so I think I’ll try some outside time here soon. I’m trying not to go too hard too fast, yesterday was quite exhausting by the time we finally got home. It’s going to take me a while to get back into walking outside every day condition again, but it’s on the horizon!

Lets go to intermission 

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Are you an Oregonian who loves hiking?

As many of you know, I enjoy hiking so much that I’ve become much more active in joining in with other trail advocates around the state to share our love of trails and strategize how we can work together to defend our current trails and build the trails we envision.

YOU CAN JOIN US TOO by registering today for Trails Day at the Oregon Capitol on March 10.

For the Love of Trails! 2025 Trails Day at the Oregon Capitol Tickets, Mon, Mar 10, 2025 at 9:00 AM | Eventbrite

What will happen on Monday March 10 in Salem?

• 8:30-9:00 am: Attendees arrive at our training venue about a half mile from the capitol to sign in and pick up up a schedule, training materials and talking points, and materials to share with legislators. (There will be coffee and light snacks!)
• 9:00-10:30: Welcome and training: We’ll let attendees know what to expect, go over tips for a productive meeting with your legislators, and give a primer on our key issues.
• 10:30-11:00: Small group practice and Q&A.
• 11:00-4:30: Grab a (free) sack lunch and head to the Capitol for meetings with legislators and/or legislative office staff. Expect to have 2-4 small group meetings (generally 15 minutes) scheduled during the afternoon. We’ll ask each meeting group to share a short meeting report so we can track support for our issues and respond to any questions that legislators or staff may have. (You don’t have to have all the answers!)
• 5:00-6:30: (Optional) Join a group of trails advocates at the Joint Committee on Transportation Meeting. (We don’t yet know if there will be a public comment opportunity during this meeting, but it’s a great opportunity to see a bit of the legislative process at work.)
• 4:00-7:00: (Optional) As you wrap up your meetings, join other trails day participants for camaraderie, an informal debrief, and a bite at a local watering hole before heading home!

What are we asking for? Our platform is straightforward!

• Oregonians love trails! More than 80% of Oregonians use local trails and are happier, healthier and more connected to their communities because of it.
• Oregonians want to keep our trails open! We’re working toward a lasting legislative fix to recreational immunity through passage of SB 179 with amendments.
• Oregonians want alternatives to walking, biking, running, and skating on high-traffic roadways! We must address the funding shortfall for the Oregon Community Paths program as part of a safe, green, fairly-funded transportation funding measure.
• Oregonians want to see beloved trail projects move forward! We must continue to build on recent planning efforts for Oregon Signature Trails like the Salmonberry Trail and Oregon Coast Trail and not let those plans gather dust on a shelf.
• Oregonians love trails! More than 80% of Oregonians report using local trails, so of course we want our state legislators to partner in the work to keep trails open and build the trails we envision for our communities.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to be (game time decision?)  in Salem on March 10, which is why I’d like to ask you to consider going on my behalf!

I went last year and many of us were learning to speak up and have meetings with our electeds for the first time. It wasn’t that scary! I wrote up a blog post about how it all went last year so you can give it a read and decide if this is something you would like to participate in. You don’t need to be affiliated with a trails group, and you don’t need to be a hiker! The Oregon Trails Coalition represents motorized and non-motorized trail users, and there are lots of issues we can combine our voices on together. 

A hiker, biker, and equestrian walk into the Oregon State Capitol

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Memory time

Early this morning I got an email from Mark Trails (one of my CDT hiking buddies) with a photo that brought back a flood of memories.

Instead of rehashing these first few days going into Colorado with Mark, trying to ski the trail, and getting spit out, I’m going to redirect you to my blog posts from those days to help tell the story of one of the hardest weeks of my life on the trail.

Here are a series of links to my blog that will explain everything:

• Lets start with the skiing and shoe bindings that Kirk made me!
• Chama, NM, I wait out the snow with a bunch of hikertrash
• I go into the mountains with Restless Wind and it’s a pretty good day
• Things get hard
• We meet up with Mark Trails and bail, it’s still hard.
• I go it alone for the day, trying to make it to Wolf Creek Pass
• We head to Durango for some R&R

That was a good chapter of the CDT, things got a bit easier from there, actually did they? No, they didn’t. 

Mark Trails and I went low again, he had a scary fall when we headed back to the trail from Creed. I lit myself on fire and had to walk with 3rd degree burns to Salida, and wow, I guess the brutality didn’t end at Durango. Keep reading my blog to get all the deets!! (at the bottom of each day’s blog post will be a link to the next day) 

That’s it for today kids. Have a good one.