RECOVERY

Thank You for your patience! I greatly underestimated the effect of that last week of radiation. They added five days to my original radiation schedule and it was a higher dosage. Then they had to add one more day of chemo therapy.

My last day of treatment was Friday, the 7^th, and we moved here on Monday, the 10^th. I thought I was going to start blogging as soon as the treatment was over. During the whole course of treatment, I felt pretty good, I never felt as bad as I have these last several days. When people ask me, “How are you?” I generally give a positive reply. I am not lying. I am sitting in my comfortable chair, being catered to by my loving wife, sure........ I am fine. But I am not.

The Docs warned me. They said I would have my worse two weeks when the treatment ended. One Doc said, “You are going to hate us.” That was a little strong. I met the most loving people I have ever known through this experience.

What they couldn't tell me, was what the nature of my discomfort would be. They spoke of pain frequently. The pain came and went and was manageable with the pain killers proscribed.

Pain wasn't the issue. The problem was a general and deep weakness. I couldn't do anything! Getting out of my chair was the most I could muster. We are seeing the Doctor tomorrow. I thought the tiredness could come from the painkillers. I tried to go a couple days without them. That was a horrible experience.

I have learned a great deal from this experience and I have much to write about. I look forward to writing again. I know I am getting better. I wouldn't have been able to do this a couple days ago.

Did you really believe the world could look nuttier? Don't worry. The poop rises to the top. When we turn on the idiot box, we see the crust of a very old septic tank. Love cannot be kept down!

Love and Peace, Gregg

WHERE HAVE ALL THE CHICKENS GONE

Yesterday was a huge day! We are moving from a two story country home to a patio home, of course we have about twice the furnishings we will be able to use. We can jam a lot into that patio home so maybe it is not twice, but we did have great deal of stuff to give away.

Well some of our kids came up yesterday and hauled stuff away. It was great! It was nice to get things cleared out.

But the thing I want to write about is the chickens. My Son Matt inherited the chickens.

I have raised chickens for forty-five years. Off and on I have raised goats, sheep, geese, ducks, turkeys, guinea hens, pigs, a cow, but chickens I have had continuously. I have heard roosters crow every Morning for all those years.

They are mixed heavy breeds and since we set hens and incubate eggs some of these chickens may have the genes of the original ones I purchased forty-five years ago. In times past some of the chickens had names, I remember a barred plymouth rock we named Hazel and their were many others that acquired names. The roosters were more apt to have names, there were fewer of them and they stood out.

This flock had a lot of aged hens. I wouldn't be surprised if some were ten years old. We still got plenty of eggs, more than we could use ourselves.

So this Morning for the first time in forty-five years I awoke to bird chirping, no crowing. For the first time in these many years nothing propelled me to go outside. I didn't need to take care of any feathered or woolly creature. I do have some sheep that are going with the farm, but they need no care in the Summer.

Although I loved my chickens dearly, I have given up my attachment. I was more than ready to pass them off to my Son. I will be happy to stay in the house until the dew is dry on the grass. I will be happy not having to close them up every night.

Still, I know I will miss thanking them for their eggs when I close them up for the Night and I will miss saying good Morning to them. But it is all good.

I am about to enter a new life stream. More time for writing and more time for study. Life is good.

Love and Peace, Gregg

STILL ALIVE AND KICKING

Yes! I am still alive and kicking. When I said in my last blog that I might be back to blogging soon, I underestimated how much time and energy would be involved in having radiation five times a week and chemo once a week. Of course, we are involved in moving from a home we lived in for 43 years. I must have been dreaming.

Therapy is going well and I have no doubt successfully. I won't be finished until the end of August. We have already sold our house and bought a new one, but we won't be moving until Sept. 10 when we are assured my treatment is over.

As I say, most of the time I feel quite good. I just got back from radiation a couple hours ago, I usually crash for awhile upon reaching home, I haven't yet, but I can feel a nap coming on strong.

We are moving from our little farm to a patio home, all lawn care etc. taken care of, it will be a huge change, but one I am looking forward to. I will have all the time I need to write and then some. Our new home is close to the Mississippi and there is a trail we can take leading down to it, so I will have plenty of chance to exercise.

This experience, although not pleasant, has been very enriching, I believe I have grown and am growing from it. Ideas that were just intellectual spiritual concepts, I have experienced at a much deeper level, a kind of knowingness.

I will expand on this when I return to full time blogging, which should be about Sept. 14 or thereabouts. Between then and now I will blog, when the energy to do so, comes together.

Love and Peace, Gregg

LIFE AND LOVE

We have had a succession of beautiful days on this part of Planet Earth. Today is another one.

As I sit here writing this rare Thursday blog, I feel as I always do, so relating the experience of the last ten days or so is strange.

In my last blog I mentioned I had undergone a medical procedure. I have been having difficulty swallowing since the second week in May. It went up and down but trended worse. I was sure I had Dysphagia. I looked it up with Dr. Internet, I had all the symptoms of a lower esophageal sphincter not opening properly.

An upper G.I. Scope is the procedure for determining this diagnoses. That was the procedure I was referring to. The doctor said they found a mass and they took a biopsy. He said it could be a squamous cell carcinoma. Well that wasn't happy news, but maybe it wasn't too. The next day I got a call from the doctor, the biopsy confirmed the diagnoses. Still, he felt it was treatable. So an operation, I can deal with that.

They scheduled me for a PET scan on Friday and an appointment with the oncologist on the following Tuesday [the 16^th]. He spent an hour with us. Showed us the results of the PET scan. Took a detailed history and examined me. Then he got down to the nitty-gritty.

He said that the tumor involved two associated lymph glands and it was inoperable. He said it wouldn't be operable even if I was only 43 instead of 83. He recommended radiation to shrink the tumor and make me more comfortable. I asked him how long I would live if I did nothing. He replied that I would probably not make it past three or four months. I would get to the point where I could not swallow my saliva. Wow! We sure were not expecting this. He said I had a spot on my spine and a couple spots on my liver that needed further checking out. If they turned out to be nothing they could proceed with the radiation more aggressively.

I had a CT scan and an MRI to check out the spots yesterday. That MRI is a trip.

Last night about 9 P.M. The doctor called me to say that the scans showed no problem with the spots. The one on my spine was a bit of arthritis. I can't remember what he said about the liver spots but they were not to worry about. I was very pleased he took the time to call me and I told him so. I have been very pleased with his kindness, dedication and professionalism.

We have an appointment with the radiation people tomorrow.

Although this has been a stunner, it is much worse for some of the people I might leave behind. Jamie has been overwhelmed by the move, she sure didn't need to hear I might abandon her. We are hopeful that the radiation will give me a few more years.

Except for the pain and compassion I have for the people I may leave behind, I have been fairly comfortable. I am not afraid of death. In fact I don't think death is real, in the sense we are not bodies, we are spirits inhabiting bodies for a period of learning. I think we come to this planet where we can experience both positive and negative. Our goal is to learn to create only with unconditional love. When we have learned enough and mastered the lessons we wanted to learn, we leave.

However I don't feel ready to go! I have much more work to do on myself. I have a long way to go in giving up judgement and I am still quick to retreat to my ego when I feel threatened.

The other day when I was driving through the countryside, I was suddenly hit by how I will miss all of this. I shed a few tears and found myself bargaining, as if I could persuade the Universe [God] to give me more time. I felt silly. I know this life is my creation, although the little self doesn't see it is a co-creation and we don't remember what we planned before we came here. We don't know when it is time to leave our bodies and we don't know how we serve by leaving as well as staying.

So I really don't know if I will leave in a few months or several years. I do expect miracles and know they will be realized by accepting and loving each moment that comes to me. Bargaining and other such activity just muddies the water.

I intend to love and appreciate every moment that comes to me. I intend to accept life as it emerges and look for the unconditional love that is there. Unconditional love is all there is. Everything else is painful illusion.

I don't know how this will affect my blogging. Nothing has really changed. We are all marking time. I will bring it up if I think it has value to folks. We will see. I don't know what my schedule of radiation therapy will be. I could be back to my regular blogging schedule next week.

Love and Peace, Gregg

BLOGGING

I am late because I had an exploratory medical procedure because of difficulty swallowing. I feel great at this moment but there needs to be more examination. I know I won't be able to blog on Friday as that is the day they are doing a follow-up scan. I don't want to promise a blog on Wednesday as we have so much going on with moving etc.

My blogging may be hit or miss in this next month. When we get settled down in our new digs it will get back to normal.

Love and Peace, Gregg

LETTING GO

Jamie and I are having a quiet Fourth of July this year. Unless we have a surprise guest we will be celebrating by ourselves. I am not complaining. We have had a hectic week. We have a neighbor who sends up a glorious display of fireworks. He has a license, they are professional quality.

I keep getting the message to “let go”. I know I need to let go of this farmstead, but it is bigger than that. It has to do with life itself. Sure we are the directors, producers and actors in our drama, but we are not the only directors and producers. Life come to us from the totality. What we think of as ourselves, the little “I” rather than the “I AM” often just mucks up the works. Do we know what is really best for us? I often claim how much faith I have in an unconditionally loving universe. Do I really keep the fingers of my thoughts from trying to manipulate what life [love] brings me? No, I am constantly attempting to influence how life comes to me. It is with loving intent for myself and everybody else, but what would it be like to be a little child, just wide eyed and in love, trusting that everything will be all right?

I don't want to mention how other people may find me controlling. So I won't mention it. I have been told a time or two, sometimes in a loud voice. Of course I protest my innocence or my good intent or both.

I don't mean we need to give up our dreams. Dreams are great. We do need to let go of our dreams and not tell the universe how and when they should manifest. The idea of being in the here and now is so simple, yet so hard to do. Can we find that place of love, peace and joy inside us and then just trust it to continue? If we pay attention we will note we always dispel that state of being with some wayward thought.

We have difficulty believing life will turn out how we want without our meddling thoughts. We have these egos that are constantly tuned to any threat real or imaginary. They accompany the little “I” or “me” wherever we project ourselves. Can we imagine what life might be like if we only believed it was coming from unconditional love?

I know I have to “let go”. How about you?

Just some thoughts for today. Friday I will be looking at houses. Next blog will be Monday. Ahh- that is only an intention. I don't know the future.

Love and Peace, Gregg

THE TWISTS AND TURNS OF LIFE

What a gorgeous day on Planet Earth! Brilliant Sun, not too hot not too cold, perfect. This amazing weather followed a day of rain, 2 ¾ inches of not entirely expected rain. I didn't know what the forecast was but when I checked it out it said a possibility of a ¼ inch, by that time we already had over an inch. I have great admiration for the weather folks and they usually are dead on. I enjoy it when Mother Nature can still fool science.

It is such a beautiful day I am reluctant to say I have been in a funk much of these last few days. There were three things putting pressure on me; moving, my health and Jamie's health. I was dealing pretty well with moving and Jamie's health concerns, but my sudden health concerns magnified everything. It is not that I couldn't find any peace or happiness. I could retreat into a quiet spot inside me but everything outside didn't change. I don't know if it is the nice weather, but everything looks better today.

Moving; we were perseverating on moving to the St Croix valley area. We always loved the area and my family had a cottage on Big Marine Lake and I spent most of my Summers there as a child and young man. We went all up and down the valley from Marine, North and South, on both sides of the border. We, also, have three children who live in the area and we thought it would be fun to be near them.

We have received hundreds of ideas from a Real Estate agent in the area who is licensed in both Wisconsin and Minnesota. All of the presentations were either out of our reach or would leave us with no money for a slush fund. We kept in constant contact with the agent by telephone and E-mail. It is too far away for us to casually run over there and check it out ourselves, however we were planning to do that this week.

Then, when I was driving through Mora last week, I thought why don't we just move here. I knew it was affordable, but did we really want to move to Mora? Shortly thereafter it occurred to us we could check out St Cloud. We love St Cloud and it has everything we would want. Then on Saturday, our daughter Naomi came for a visit, she lives in the St Cloud area, we were able to expand on the idea. It turns out we can get the exact same dwelling in the St Cloud area and end up with enough extra money for a decent slush fund. We are going to pursue that idea. I suddenly feel more optimistic about moving.

I don't have much to say about Jamie's health. Things are pretty much the same. She is extremely diligent in finding a remedy that helps. She feels there has been an improvement in her memory. She has a follow-up visit at a neurology clinic this month.

What complicated matters was an emerging problem with my health. It acted like a magnifier and seemed to make every other problem more insurmountable. I was driving to Ogilvie one Sunday Morning to get the paper. It was about the second week in May. I suddenly felt a lump in my throat as if I needed to swallow and I needed water to do it. In itself, not a big deal, and something we probably all experienced. I thought it might have had something to do with a supplement I just took. I had eaten nothing yet that Morning.

It started out to be difficulty swallowing which progressed as the days went by. I quickly learned how to manage it, plenty of chewing and water. But eating wasn't as much fun. I consulted Doctor Internet and was told that most swallowing difficulties are related to GERD. The symptoms described did not fit my condition. However, another affliction did fit, achalasia. It has no known cause. It is the paralysis of the lower esophageal sphincter. There is no cure but there are remedies for relaxing the sphincter. I have learned how to mange it. I don't like it but I can live with it. At this moment I don't know it exist, I am not aware of it at all. It gets worse as the day progresses and with eating.

I have an appointment to see a flesh and blood Doctor on Thursday. We will see if he agrees with Dr Internet. It would be great to discover it is some milder malady.

Of course, my mind goes to, “Why am I calling this to myself?” I don't believe in accidents. Do I lack compassion for the afflicted? Do I need to learn a little humility? I will learn a little more about myself. Well life comes to us and we could remember it is our show and we are writers, producers and directors as well as actors. Yes, we are on both sides of the camera.

As we learn to love every moment our creation will reflect it. And I will love every moment.

Happy Monday everybody!

Love and Peace, Gregg