Surviving Three Cancers – Page 8 – Couldausedanotherday

It Served Us Well

We sold our van Friday, a Plymouth Grand Voyager. We bought it new in ’96. It’s been great, a family van, a youth group van, a camper and a daily driver. It has the typical battle scars and ailments of a 19 year old vehicle. After about 200,000 miles the transmission began giving us signs that it may need attention, but it has continued to serve.

The potential buyer and I took it for a test drive. I jiggled the keys as was usually necessary to turn the ignition and get it started. The transmission will sometimes hesitate to go into gear, and has been growling when in gear, but it didn’t hesitate today. I stopped soon and traded places so he could drive.

He was watching for it to overheat (driving up Chehalem Mountain) but the temperature needle remained center gauge, although the front struts rattled, the headliner was sagging over the driver with a dark stain from an attempted repair, and the serpentine belt resumed squealing loudly halfway through the drive.

I didn’t think it likely I would get my full asking price considering the transmission noise and random failure, the leaking radiator, cracked passenger mirror, frequent squawking interference of the stereo speakers, and 209,000 miles on the odometer.

His cash offer might not have been an unreasonable. The green coolant streaming down the driveway between us as we stood at the open hood made it difficult to counter his offer with any sincerity.

I hope he made it home.

Twenty Six More Shots Please

On April 10th, 2015, I passed the one year mark with my bi-weekly Velcade subcutaneous injections. That would be 26 shots in the stomach, except one was withheld because my platelets were too low. So, it’s 25 down and potentially 26 to go.

My Oncologist said the current thinking is that two years of this low dose maintenance chemo is optimum and will likely buy me time, but continuing beyond two years has no real benefit.

The chemouflage pattern I had across my stomach from the shots has turned to more of a mud smear. Each injection is the same dose, but the reactions vary. None of the reactions even come close to being a deal breaker, so on with the shots!

*Robin took this great tripod shot on our hike above Horse Tail Falls Tuesday.*

Invenstory?

Although the years have streamed by at an incredible rate, I have discovered a couple places at my house that the passing time has overlooked. The clock may continue to advance, but dust is the only evidence of it’s movement.

How can all those years march past so closely without even peering into the garage attic, and how can they so obviously miss the top shelves on the back porch?

I started cleaning out the garage attic. I found an original box containing a Star Wars Ewok Village, two McDonald’s Happy Meal boats, a box full of very old letters and a June 1955 This Week magazine, a library of 8 track tapes, a Toyota bumper, a box containing 3 roughly painted model pick-ups, and many original packing boxes (slide projector, lava lamp, boom box, Associated RC car parts, etc.) all waiting there, patiently collecting dust, just in case I need them again.

How could an arsenal of squirt weapons (hard evidence of the last great summer squirt gun battle of 1995) lay in wait on the back porch top shelf for 20 years?

The air powered motorcycle I got for Brandon when he was about 3, souvenir Canfield Diet Chocolate Fudge soda cans, baseballs and fishing lures from when Robin was 8 or 10, wooden clothes pins, drum sticks, a shaker can of Burnishine Glide Rite Dance Floor Wax from our 25th anniversary party, a plastic bag of Lucky Beer twist-top bottle caps with hieroglyphic riddles printed inside, two “welcome the new baby” flower pots from when the boys were born, an incense burner, a sand candle, Diane’s Tempera Poster Paints pack, five bottles of Imperial Miracle Bubbles, and a railroad spike; all this and more waiting on those shelves.

But this is not an inventory, its an invenstory. These are precious artifacts from a society that once flourished here. Why disturb their peaceful slumber now?

I get to hold and savor up close the color, texture, the weight, even the sounds from these memories. When I’m gone they will be disconnected memories in a garage sale or off to the Salvation Army? I’m not crying, that’s just the way it is.

Our house is almost 110 years old. We’ve lived here 42 of those years. Looking out through my eyes, I still feel much like the guy who recently moved in. Looking back from the mirror, I see an old man.

Time has been speeding for me but it’s undeniable that it stands still in these two areas. Maybe if I made a comfortable place to curl up and rest in that dark, quiet garage attic……..

I put the joy away

I put the joy away this weekend. I took down the lights, recycled the tree, and put the joy away. It’s taken a while to get to it. It was looking kind of lonely and out of place, like the last bit of Christmas Joy trying to hang on as long as possible.

A little Christmas Joy to greet us on the back porch.

When the curtain comes down on Christmas, it’s definitely over. The music, the decorations, the snacks, and certainly the anticipation that builds for weeks (months?) – gone with hardly a trace.

I have mixed feelings about Christmas – childhood memories, raising our kids, what are we celebrating and what does it all mean?

Seeing old style lights on a Christmas tree often takes me back to the Christmas tree I would stare at as I wondered about my ten year old world that was about to change dramatically and forever.

My siblings and I were to report to the Juvenile Detention Hall right after Christmas and from there we were soon placed in foster homes.

I experienced no family specific Christmas traditions growing up. My wife’s family traditions became mine – ours. Those traditions weren’t modified while raising our boys. Christmas was always at Grandma & Grandpa’s house.

As a kid, Christmas was receiving presents, it was great! Eventually I learned that there really is far more joy in giving than receiving. That is a sweet joy I hope to never put away.

I hope by having our kids and grandson home this year we’ve started (or renewed) a Christmas tradition in my family. Now we’re the grand parents. I hope to practice that tradition.