March 23 Cancer Update

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Get ready for some neck.

I saw the neck surgeon this week to evaluate my collapsing C7 and look at my C4 three months post surgery, and I got the all clear! The doc said the C7 doesn’t have to be addressed, and that I can live with it (we didn’t talk about backpacking, I have a feeling a full-weighted backpack might paint a different picture). I then took some x rays which showed that my C4 is appropriately healed. So that means I can start taking my c-collar off. Get ready for some neck!

So the last few days I’ve been spending more time with it off, getting used to the weight of my head again. I’m practicing turning my head and nodding again, all things I haven’t been able to do for three months. A bulk of the work will come to play with my PT. I’m transitioning away from the in-home PT to an outpatient situation, and it’s like I’m graduating or something…I’m slowly being positioned to live without daily doctors appointments and check-ins. We are also looking at decreasing my meds…I’m already off the steroids and we are looking at the pain meds next. Am I in pain anymore? It’s hard to say. Are the meds masking pain or do I even have pain any more? I have discomfort for sure, but pain? 

All this is coming as I look at making my first trip to the trails summit in Wisconsin in three weeks. Can I be ready to walk around without my collar most of the day in three weeks? Can I have a glass of wine at a happy hour in three weeks? Can I sleep without an adjustable bed in three weeks? 

The rash is still rashing, but it’s not getting worse, I guess it’s clearing up, maybe a little?

I still feel the cancer in my spine and in my ribs. Is the tagresso doing it’s job? Maybe a little?

I’ve been sleeping a lot. Like half the day away, but again, I’m not fighting it. But I feel like I’m in a bit of a daze all the time. Sleeping so much puts a dream-like quality to everything. If I’m not myself right now it’s because I’m a dazed and dreamy version of myself. 

I’m struggling with the habit of productivity. I went on a walk with a friend yesterday and we talked a bit about it. She wondered if it was a mid-western quality…this need to always be moving some ball forward, even when dealing with stage 4 cancer. What am I trying to be productive about? Well, writing here for one, diving into my past for two, and putting out there that I want to write a book (Really! Sometimes that just seems insane), and then writing thank-you cards for everything. That it’s ok to let some or all of it go.  I know that it is, but the blog serves as a processing time as well, and it is keeping you all in my life, which I really need these days. 

I got a card from a stranger, a hiker that has been reading my blog for years but I’ve never met, and I needed to read that card that day. It made such a difference in my morale and mood. I need all of you in my life, so I want to be productive enough to update the blog to keep you all informed and close. I need all of you. 

I got another card recently from a volunteer that came on one of my trail work trips last year. I only met her that one time, and she wrote the most beautiful card with gifts of song and book recommendations. I love that, that kind of thing fuels my day, and I’m thrilled to add to my reading list too 🙂

So all of this to say, I don’t know where my need to be productive comes from, but I don’t want to give up the need to write, and sure maybe I’ll stitch some of this together into something that could be called a book, but I do want to give up the idea that I’m going to come out the other side of this looking for a publisher. I want to give myself time to just be. And right now that looks like a lot of sleeping. Not as much reading as I’d like (reading puts me to sleep right now), but I’m just going to let it be and not fight against it. 

You will probably have to remind me of that from time to time! 

9 thoughts on “March 23 Cancer Update”

  1. You completed thru hikes, started businesses, taught people how to be in the outdoors and wilderness and became a well respected advocate for trails and the environment. None of those things would have been accomplished if you were not goal oriented. Yes, move the ball forward. I do it, too.

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  2. Howdy—The neck—- we’re ready for it! It is such a big deal to hear of your progress— lowering the meds, taking the neck brace off, not having to concentrate

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  3. Get some sun on that neck girl!!! That nice warm pacific northwest sunshine! I am so glad to hear the healing is inching forward and your hope and spirit is still soaring sky high.

    I totally resonate with what you said in this post: that unquenchable thirst to keep moving. It’s there for a reason! It’s a way to live out our values and to pursue passion and purpose. It serves as a distraction when times are tough and it’s learned behavior that sometimes we have to unlearn so we can learn a different way through. It can be your best friend and lead to incredible accomplishments and it can also be the devil on your back, nagging you on, putting you down. Never enough.

    When I moved to Maine I had no idea that it would set me on what I can now see has been a spiritual path toward healing. I never realized that my previous pursuit of productivity and always seeking something more, something else, was me trying to escape something and was one of culprits to too many years of pain in my past. Call it mid-western quality, trauma, ADHD, perfectionism, a thirst for life, anger with life, or simply just an absence of being a participant in the present moment. In life as it is now. That’s my thoughts anyway. I think it’s important you find a sense of productivity in life–a sense of purpose that satisfies the soul. And finding what we call the middle path, the art of balancing our doing mind with the being mind. The goal oriented, driven mind with the absolutely nothing to do, soaking up the moment mind. I wish I understood all this years ago, but it simply wasn’t available at that time. Now I have a good foundation of it, and more awareness of the warning signs when I sink too far back into doing mind. So long story short, I totally get where you are at. You and I and many alike are standing in a wide open meadow together, each of us having gotten there from a trail or bushwhack or paddle that is very unique, very different and very much our own. And yet here we are in the meadow now with a shared commonality and a source of strength to keep us going because you are not alone in this!

    Sending some mail your way shortly.

    Love you!

    PS…I’m still waiting on a new trail-name, FYI. Selfishly you need to kick cancer to the curb to make that happen!!! Keith has named me YOYO which comes from crossing a creek in Baxter and halfway through—him nervous for his life and me nervous in getting my shoes wet and I called out without hesitation, you’re on your own! Hence YOYO).

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  5. We are here, cheering you on! Sleep is regenerative, you’re doing what your body tells you. Ha yes that urge to be productive is a hard one to curb. I’m 65 and had six lifetimes rolled into one…( or is it that folks are just lazy now ? ) and learning to slow down a bit to take care of my body and mind…it’s kind of weird but I want to not burn out. Two time cancer survivor I forget….how hard it was, the months of recovery, the medicine…I am praying for you to someday have this so far in your rear view mirror that you too occasionally forget. Humans are amazing creatures. Love and hugs from an old hiker and horseback rider.

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  7. Sending you love and light from sunny western australia. Ive been following your blog for years and have always enjoyed following your adventures. Wishing you healing and speedy recovery so you can get back to your happy place! X

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