CANCER!! ... and Doctors, Horses, Volcanoes and BIGFOOT!

This is a horse.

This is my Urologist/Oncologist.
Seriously.  It is an actual picture of him.  I stole it from his website.  I'm trying to figure out if he'll be honored or offended that I used his actual picture in my blog.

This is a doctor riding a horse.

Perhaps you are beginning to see where this is going. (I doubt she is a Urologist....)

This is some poor soul falling off a horse.

This is a picture of what an X-ray of broken ribs looks like.
I believe they said he had a punctured lung too.  Yikes!!

This was supposed to be "kill my cancer week."  A huge celebration of the freezing to death of my sausage-sized cancer tumor was planned, although it involved a catheter.  And, I'm a GREAT planner, this was to take place during CANCER AWARENESS MONTH!!  Cancer awareness, my @##.  Cancer GONE month.

But, somehow someone mixed a doctor and a horse together and got broken ribs........so the procedure has been delayed until November 1st.

I dutifully arrived at Sacred Heart Medical Center for my pre-op blood work.  I was taking selfies of myself bravely preparing to battle cancer (for my blog, of course).  In front of the hospital.  In the parking lot.  With the staff.  And imagine my confusion when they told me I had to call my doctor's office before they could take my blood.  Huh??  The scheduler there informed me that my doctor had been involved in a serious family incident and they didn't know if he would be able to perform the procedure when scheduled or not.  So blood work = ON HOLD.  She said he was STILL IN THE HOSPITAL!  I pictured him being in one of the rooms on a floor above me and I actually contemplated hunting him down and seeing his condition for myself.  But I restrained myself out of respect for his privacy.  (Until I wrote this blog and included his actual picture.)

Later that week, I was scheduled for a pre-op consultation to talk about how much fun it was going to be to kill the cancerous sausage-sized tumor.  I had questions, so still went.  And got to meet with a "new doctor" about half the age of my real doctor.  He was nice.  Informative.  Transparent.  It was like a (let's see..........counting..........) SIXTH opinion.  He agreed that the diagnosis was correct and the treatment proposed appropriate.  (YEAH for recent medical school grads!!)  He was itching to operate on me, but was inexperienced with my particular procedure, Cryotherapy, so would leave that to my doc, once he recovered.

He spilled the beans.  The story about the horse and ribs.  He said the doc would probably be OK by the date of my procedure.  But it would be his first "operations" day back.  NO WAY!!  I trust the guy, but after being off with broken ribs for two weeks, I don't want to be one of his first patients as he gets back into the swing of things.  Not with a procedure demanding this much precision and in an extremely delicate part of my body.  So I chose to reschedule it out almost two months to allow for rib recovery time.

The new guy assured me I wouldn't die and that the cancer's growth during that time would be insignificant.  In fact, the MRI and map from the biopsy would be good for a year.  Good news.

Also, he took a sample of my blood to run a PSA test on just to see what it was doing.  Results:  5.9!  It has dropped from 8.0 to 5.9 over the past six months.  The official scientific explanation for this drop is "your immune system is strong enough that it is killing cancer cells faster than they are replicating."  (Hanna credits the veggies.......)  Nice.  But don't think the cancer is shrinking or going away.......

With a huge grin, the young, new doc asked if we wanted to see the MRI results.....an actual picture of MY CANCER!  Heck yea!!!!  And just because I'm cool that way, I'll SHOW YOU TOO!!

THIS IS MY PROSTATE WITH CANCER.

Both the cursor arrow and the official MRI screen medical-dotted-arrow are pointing at the prostate gland, its outline is whitish and the cancer makes it look like a scrumptious doughnut.  The dotted line going diagonally with no arrow is measuring the size of the dark mass, which indeed is my cancer tumor.  27.00 mm is about an inch.  Yup, the size of a sausage.  It looks pretty ominous.  Which is probably why my broken-ribs doctor didn't volunteer to show it to us. (YEAH for young new doctors trying to win patients..........)

So there is my medical experience with cancer this week.............now let's talk about volcanoes.



This is Mt St Helens, the ONLY active volcano in the entire lower 48 states, on a very bad day.  She was pissed off beyond belief and freakin' BLEW UP!!

Many people say she blew her top, but you can obviously see that is not true.  She just plain freakin' BLEW UP!  She blew SIDEWAYS (scientists apparently call this a lateral blast), which was a bit unexpected and resulted in the deaths of dozens of people, mud slides, massive flooding, and a volcanic heat wave that killed everything in its path for miles.  The huge landslide filled Spirit Lake with 200 feet of dirt, ash and mud, moving its waters upward and outward.  Buried in the bottom of that now eerie lake is one of the coolest and most traditional Boy Scout Camps ever, Spirit Lake Boy Scout Camp.  What was so cool about it?


This is Bigfoot.  He lives at Spirit Lake.

Spirit Lake Boy Scout Camp was so cool and traditional because it was all about Bigfoot!  The Native Indians from the area used to believe that Spirit Lake was where the spirits of their passed family members lived.  And there are literally dozens of stories about how a black tall creature about seven feet tall protected the sacredness and sanctity of Spirit Lake.  Many claimed to have seen it.  And they avoided Spirit Lake.

Ironically, more sightings of Bigfoot have been reported in the three counties surrounding Spirit Lake and Mt St Helens than any where else in the ENTIRE WORLD!  Very cool place, right?

This is a picture looking into the ominous crater of Mt St Helens.

If you look closely, you can see the steam still coming up from the cone inside.  Spirit Lake is just to the right of this picture.  LOOK FOR BIGFOOT!!

This picture shows how steep and rugged the volcano is!

This is a picture of where crazy people climb to the top of the volcano.

This is a picture of me celebrating the fact that I am one of the crazies that made it to the top!!

If you keep up with our crazy lives, you know we spent last week hiking around and gawking at the Beast, the live Volcano, Mt St Helens.  And that we actually climbed her twice, in years past, making it to the top of the rim on our second attempt.

So why did we come back last week if we had been here before?  Because.........

I WANTED TO SEE THE TOP!!!

The first time we tried to ascend, in 2014, we underestimated the Beast's steepness and the endurance it would take to make it to the top.  And also overestimated our own abilities.  About two thirds of the way to the top, we were exhausted and out of water, having taken forever just to get that far.  We surrendered, completely defeated, and went back down.  Probably a good thing because our situation was precarious and we may have just died on the side of that volcano.

My extreme Acrophobia was to play also.  (Ok. I'm trying to sound very smart and educated.  Acrophobia is a fear of heights.)  The way was incredibly steep and at one point, Hanna climbed up onto this rim and told me to take her picture.  It looked like she was standing on top of the world!  My Acrophobia kicked in big time as I looked up at her.  Huge case of vertigo.  And that kicked my butt.  Climbing a steep, tall ashen and pumice mountain while fighting off vertigo is not fun nor safe.

Because the failure haunted me (I could actually hear the volcano LAUGHING at me, MOCKING my failed attempt as we drove away the next day) we returned in 2017 to try it again.  This time we were much more prepared in every way possible.  And to keep from relapsing into extreme Acrophobia, I had a plan for it as well.

That first try, I literally stood at the base of the mountain and looked up at the top and proclaimed "Holy Crap!!  No way can we climb up THAT!!!"  The fear, doubts and Acrowhateveritis kicked in.  And we weren't even set to start climbing until the next day.

On the second try, I decided not to look up at the top. Ever.  It was too much to handle.  Too high.  Too steep.  Too much of an ascent.  Too huge of a goal.  So I DID NOT LOOK.  What DID I look at?  Two things.  First, where I was placing my next step.  And two, when  I wasn't taking a step, Hanna's back.  That was it.

ONE STEP AT A TIME.  HER PACE WAS MY PACE.

Together, we climbed clear to the top of that live, active, steaming volcano, one step at a time, sticking with each other's pace.  I could ALWAYS muster the strength and courage to take that next step.

And I never ever looked at the top, or at the bottom.

After NINE GRUELING HOURS, we ascended at exactly 3:30pm on June 21, 2017.  It was by far one of the greatest and grandest physical accomplishments of my entire life, bar none.

So, we went back last week so I could look at the top.  I wanted to see what I did.  What I climbed. And frankly, it crept me out!  Only CRAZY PEOPLE would dare climb such a mountain!  My knees shook and my head spun as I stood there on solid ground at the Beast's base and looked up at her.  Part of me rejoiced that I made such a climb.  Part of me also wondered if I really did it, if it were real or just a dream.

Moral of the story:  I CAN ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING IF I TAKE IT ONE STEP AT A TIME!!!  And I keep my best friend ever in my sights and we keep each other's pace.

That includes PROSTATE CANCER!!

I dare not look at the end or the doom of my cancer.  I simply wake up each morning and ask myself, "what do I need to do today to fight this cancer?  What is my "step" today?"  And I can DO THAT.  I CAN HANDLE THAT.

HERE IS A PICTURE OF US BEING VICTORIOUS OVER LIFE!!

If you look closely and carefully, perhaps you will see Bigfoot there behind us.  Or at least his huge foot print.  

What is YOUR step today?  Just take it.....................