I managed to keep my weight up enough to get this round of chemo. I just have to make sure I don’t lose any weight over the next three weeks. Since I will be eating at home for two of those weeks, it should be no problem. They have adjusted the last three treatments to Nov 1, 2, & 3. to allow me to have the pre-chemo blood test done in Creston, the town nearest where I live, on October 31. They do a blood test before each chemo series to make sure they haven’t beat your system up too badly to continue beating it. Actually it is a good thing they do = they can seriously compromise your immune system, if they hit you too hard, and that and red blood cell count are the two main things they look at. Weight loss is a general systemic indicator that they are doing a bit too much. In my case, the weight loss is a side product of the radiation, not the chemo, but they will not differentiate between the two.

I also found out that my receiving chemo and radiation at the same time for three of my four chemo series is a bit unusual = most often they only do two of the four series in conjunction with radiation. Doing them at the same time apparently substantially increases the effectiveness of the chemo drugs. I’m not sure why they made the exception with me = providential timing, trying to recoup the time lost when I fell through the cracks, I was in better shape than most when my cancer was discovered, the extra is needed to accomplish or make sure of a cure, or my attitude said I could take the extra hits. What ever the reason, I’ll take it as it is given. They know a lot more about what they are doing than I do, so I won’t second guess them.

I am looking forward to getting back into the garden for real this weekend, even if I won’t have the stamina to accomplish all that I would like to. I won’t have to short-plan everything to prep for coming back here. Being able to drop a project in mid-stride, and know that I can come back to it the next day, is not something I have looked at as a bonus or a luxury before, but it is.

So far, I have brought about 90 lbs of tomatoes, 30 lbs of squash, and 15 lbs of dried beans, to the kitchen here at the lodge. I’ve also put about 20 lbs of cherries tomatoes and 20 lbs of plums = Green Gage and Italian Prune Plums, in the activities/TV/lunch room. I have a hard time eating the cherry tomatoes and plums, but I nibble a bit from time to time = they usually last about two days, and are all gone.

One of the places I walk past on a daily basis here, has a filbert/hazelnut tree in the front yard. Last week, the morning after we had a fairly strong wind system go through here, there was a woman raking up leaves and debris from one part of the yard (not where the tree is), and I commented on passing, that there were a lot of nuts under the tree. She replied “Take them if you want them, no one here eats them.”

I came back later with a few plastic grocery bags to pick them up, and filled two of them, about 10 pounds. These will make some excellent nut butter this winter, among other things. This week, I paid her back with about 30 lbs of tomatoes (two tall ice cream pails full). I figure we made an even trade = we each gave away something we couldn’t use, and received something we wanted = although she didn’t know at the time that it was going to be a trade.

This next bit will sort of date me a bit, and it’s slightly political, which I usually steer clear of, but it’s something that has been going through my head every time the news mentions anything about the “Occupy Wall Street” phenomenon that has hit all 50 states.

Buffalo Springfield originally released this in 1967 as For What It's Worth but it’s more commonly known as Something’s Happening Here. Judge for yourself if it’s as applicable now as it was then.

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side

It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, now, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

What gets me about the whole phenomenon, is that half the politicians seem to be blind or tunnel visioned about it. One has been on the news saying he is becoming alarmed at how pervasive it is = when he should be alarmed at why it is so pervasive it is = something is seriously broken in the system, and it is not just an American phenomenon. There are versions of it starting in many parts of Europe, it is about to migrate to Canada, and likely will show up elsewhere.

Combine this with what has been seen to happen in the “Arab Spring” phenomenon, and I think the politicos have to start looking real hard at the rule books they have created due to manipulations by big business, both home grown and multinationals. I strongly dislike the violence that I see at things like the G8 and G20 summits, but I think what they have been like will be nothing compared to what may come if no one listens to what is coming out of the “Occupy Wall Street” phenomenon. So far it has been almost entirely non-violent, and I would hope it would continue that way = but I know that sooner or later, if something doesn’t start happening as a result, some group is going to hijack the forum and start preaching violence by example. It happened in the 1960’s, and will happen again. The “99%” want to be heard.

And that’s all the “political comment” for this week.

There are a few new photos of this years garden at https://picasaweb.google.com/108421163807481105353/KOZULACOLLECTION2011

and

https://picasaweb.google.com/108421163807481105353/GARDENFINAL20111008

Many of the tomatoes look less than optional, but the photos were taken in October.

I will leave it at that for this post. The next one will be posted from home in about a week or ten days, after I have had a chance to really see what has been happening in the garden, aside form stupendous weed growth, and great late tomato production. Except for the cherry tomatoes, it is hard to see where anything has bee taken from most of the tomato plants, but I know there has to have been at least 1000 lbs taken since the first week of September. I’ll try and document a bit of that and add it to one of the albums.

And the adventure continues.

One short week left

Swallowing got to be enough of a problem that I started losing weight I didn’t want to lose, and had fallen below my start weight for chemotherapy. Had a visit with Dr. Davies, my chemotherapy doctor, and she gave me a prescription for “Dr Akabutu’s Mouthwash” = I saw the list of ingredients = the first on the list is 2% lidocaine. It has to be made up fresh by the pharmacist, and takes them about an hour to make it. It doesn’t completely dispel the pain if I swallow wrong, or too coarse a food, but it mutes it enough that I have regained 2 pounds in a day and a half. To me this is very important, because Dr Davies told me, if I lost more weight, they would have to hold my next chemo series back until I regained some = and that I do not want.

Next week I start my third of four chemo series. After that, the final series is scheduled for Oct 31, November 1, and 2. The end of next week also sees the end of my radiation = which is what is making my throat sore. Basically, the peripheral radiation from shooting the tumor is cooking the lower part of my larynx, and the upper swallowing muscles in my esophagus. About two weeks after I finish radiation therapy, I should start to notice a lessening in discomfort when I swallow = after that things get better in a hurry.

For those of you curious about the mouthwash, it was easy to find with Google =

The formula:

For a 240 ml Bottle

Glycerin

Cortef 10 mg (cortesone)

Ratio-Nystatin susp 100,00 U/ML (anti fungal)

PMS-Lidocaine viscous 2% 100ml

Lens Plus 360ml (saline solution) which contains salt 0.9%

It does not taste as bad as you might think, but it’s also not a flavor that I am likely to become enamoured of. The taste leaves your mouth fairly quickly, and it does make it possible to swallow somewhat easier, but care and temperature control must be exercised.

Energy levels are pretty low now too = I can still do what I used to, just not quite as fast, and it takes a little more for me to convince myself to get moving. The initial burst of 180 paces a minute when walking is a thing of the past, but the walk still goes at the usual 120 paces a minute.

We have had rain here the past three days, so walking gets a little more complex = have to watch for breaks in the rain, and hope they are long enough to let you stay dry. I have still managed a minimum of 5 kilometers a day (~3 miles), but getting started is sometimes problematic. Since getting the magical mouthwash, I have been taking in enough extra calories that I have a bit more energy.

I got very few photos of the garden this year, because garden photo season seemed to coincide with the start of my cancer treatments. Tomatoes didn’t started ripening until after that, so I have almost no photos of any tomatoes with color this year, which is a shame, because I have all of the Kozula collection in the garden, and most of them are uniquely and beautifully colored. Weather and time permitting, I will try and get some photos of the different varieties this weekend = they likely won’t get posted until I am back here next weekend, if I do take them, as I don’t like to waste good garden time on editing photos. I need some photo documentation of what was grown this year for myself as well, because I know I will not remember what color half of the varieties were without it.

The forecast for the next few days has lows of 3 C, which means the tomatoes may get hit with frost this weekend = we often get a touch of frost here, when the forecast is 3 or less. I hope it doesn’t happen, but if it does, the call goes out to come strip the plants, and I start ripping beans down and inspecting for frost damage before storing to dry. Melons and squash are close enough to the ground they may not be affected if there’s only a light touch, but a killing frost means I start processing and freezing squash immediately, and melons may or may not be usable right away. Seed harvest will get a big boot in the butt = do it or lose them. It looks like most of my walks while I am home this weekend, will be in the garden, for one reason or other.

Well, I’m back at Kelowna again. Got most of what had to be done, done = I think. Got to take the photos of the Kozula collection, but the plants and fruit are showing the effects of weather in most case. Considering that it’s already October 10, it’s hardly surprising. A real different year. I still have grasshoppers flitting around, if the day warms up enough for them to move, and there are still yellowjackets showing up in unusual places, hiding out to try and survive a little longer.

My Chires Baby corn has decided it will tassel and start ears now, thank you. Supposed to be 75-85 days = I planted it first week of June = 120 days, and still no cob formation.

This long row of squash foliage is one hill each of Musquee de Provence, and Muscade de Provence. I wanted to see if they were actually the same variety that had just been misnamed someplace along the road. It seems they are the same thing = I can see no difference in the fruit from the two hills. I duplicated the experiment in a different area of the garden, with the same result, but lower production.

This barrow load was hiding under the squash foliage in the above photo. 94 Kilograms, or 208 lbs.

The greenhouse has become bean drying central for the moment = also onion and what ever else makes it in here.

There are a couple of cucumbers and a few tomatoes waiting for me to get to seeding them, but they will hold until I get home at the end of the week.

The majority of the beans have been picked but not threshed. There are a few bush beans that need to be done,and a couple of lima beans that I am leaving up as long as I can, because they haven't started to get dry pods yet. Got very few chick peas, a much smaller crop of soy beans than I expected, and far more Ethiopian Lentils than I expected. Now I just have to find out if I like eating them = I hope so, as they are a very good source of protein and are high in calories as well = and they are dead easy to grow. I tried munching a couple while they were immature, and they are as sweet as peas, but somewhat different flavored.

I have this one week of treatments left = actually only four days = then I go home to stay, and get to wear myself out in the garden, instead of wearing out my shoes walking. I am hoping for at least a few days in the garden before frost hits hard, but likely won't get it. Fall rains started last week, and the forecast is for lowering night temperatures = down to 2C Saturday. Being home and able to work in the garden will definitely speed my recovery along = too many things to do to lay around, regardless of how little I feel like getting started. Keeping myself moving is the best way for me to rebuild, provided I stoke enough calories in = and Shaoling will see to that. I look forward to Friday, and going home. They didn't wear me down as much as I expected with the radiation or chemo, and I have been lucky enough to have missed most of the side effects of the chemo that were possible. I have lost about 70% of my hair, but not all = yet. I expected to be able to polish the dome before this = I still may, but it doesn't seem like the second round of chemo cost me any hair at all.

And the adventure continues.

.

Five weeks done

Home for the weekend now. Eating is becoming problematic = one little bit of inattention when chewing and swallowing, and I get brought up short very quickly. I knew this was coming, but it is somewhat disconcerting when even taking a drink of water requires paying close attention to what you are doing.

I am going to be doing a lot of blender work in the next few weeks, and learn to like everything served cool to cold. This makes it possible to swallow, but in small amounts, and carefully. It’s only going to be for a few weeks, so I’ll weather it okay.

The tomato seeds I left to ferment last week, may or may not be okay = I’ll have to germination tests on most or all of them, after they dry down. Some of them ballooned a bit from being immersed so long, which may or may not mean they are toast. Most of the beans still need to be picked, at least partially, to ensure I get the seed I need for next year. Melons have to be gathered and labelled = half at least are not mature yet. Squash are still playing hide and seek in the leaves, the pears are starting to drop at the least excuse, so it’s about time to pick them, and get ready to process what I can’t store.

Even under the present circumstances, I just love this time of year, even when it drives me nuts to be so far behind everything = and that happens every year.

Shaoling has finally conceded that we have far too many tomatoes for us to use, and she really hates to waste food, so we are going to be opening the gates to all comers pretty soon. She was a shop keeper all of her working life, so she want to sell everything we can’t use ourselves, and yet share with those who can’t afford to pay.

Next year is still a mystery to me, as far as knowing what will be planted. I do know that the garden is not going to be allowed to consume all of my time, but I also know that I will, one way or another, plant every foot of bed I have = just not possible not to. I know there’s going to be a lot more sweet corn, and a lot of that is going to get processed for winter use = soups stews, and the occasional batch of kernel corn smothered in butter. Probably a lot more squash going in too = the church can use them for school meals all through the winter. And a large contingent of beans, as usual. Have to look around and see what strikes my fancy now. And beans, lots of beans = They also benefit the church's lunch program, and they look so damned impressive when they get going.

Processed another 30 varieties of tomatoes for seed. Never did get to picking the beans, but they’ll be fine for another few weeks anyway, if need be. I have it set up now so that Shaoling can pick them, and label the buckets she puts them in with the varietal name = She can copy from the special labels I put up. She tries very hard to pick up as much as she can for me, trying to keep me from tiring myself out (futile effort, which I think she knows, but she wants to help as much as she can).

And I only just remembered to take photos of the spud pit as it now is = I saw my camera bag as I was loading the car to travel back to Kelowna, which jogged my memory.

I get 14 tall ice cream pails in the pit = it was designed to accommodate them, with a little play left over, so I can squeeze in another half row down the center, if need be.

The rack on the bottom keeps the pails off the soil, and allows ventilation through the pails (about 24 3/16" holes in the bottoms).

I use half length fiberglass insulation batts in feed bags, to insulate the top of the pit.

I put a double layer of batts on top of the pails, one layer running cross ways, the other going length ways.

I never have mouse problems in the pit = the cats like to sleep on the batts in the winter.

It is still going to be a few weeks before I dig up spuds, carrots and leeks to fill the pails. I don't know if the leeks will do well or not = I do know that we get a hard enough freeze here that I will likely lose most of them if I leave them in the soil. Onions didn't size up worth a damn this year, so I have none to hang in the basement. I know they require a little more air movement than they would get in the pit, so I won't try them there.

We are starting to get sizable harvests on our pears, both Asian and European varieties, so I may try building another pit for fruit storage = have to keep them away from the veggies or they speed the ripening there. More things to cogitate for the future.

And the adventure continues.

We need a little help here

We need a little help here, so this is an aside from talking about me and mine = I have a American forum-friend that has sort of painted himself into a corner with his desire to help those who need it. He started to gather seed to send to a seed distribution agency ( Wintersown ) that sends seeds to people in need.(free, private, non-profit), and suddenly found himself with a pallet load of seed (800 lbs). He is unsure how, (and cannot personally afford) to send the seed to the seed agency.

If anyone out there can help with this it would be a boon to him and Wintersown . I will send personal contact information for him to any who contact me about this.

I think someone who tries this hard to pay it forward should get a little help from the rest of us = my own seed money receipts are going there.

On a more personal note again, still no sign of me starting to feel as badly as I am apparently supposed to be feeling. While my energy level could not be described as particularly high, I am having no trouble getting started in the morning, and once in motion, I keep on going. Don't have quite the sustained speed capabilities walking, but still walk faster than most I see around me.

It is likely that my good luck will not hold forever, and that I will, sooner or later, start to feel like the knot hole is getting smaller by the day, but for now, I revel in the level of goodness and life I feel within me.

I will make a full post when I get home for the weekend again, and try to catch up on some of the photos that should be posted.

And the adventure continues.

Four weeks done now.

I think for a while the blog is going to become a bit more like a journal for me and my trip through the medical system, and back to good health. I will keep it garden oriented as much as possible, but I think it is likely going to slide into my current circumstances fairly often.

Last weekend I didn’t quite get to seeding the tomatoes in the greenhouse = a few other things got in the way. We canned another 58 quarts of tomato juice, I picked a few more seed tomatoes, and I picked all of the dried pods off of 6 or 7 varieties of beans.

Speaking of making juice, I think I have created a monster = Shaoling has never had a garden before, and had never done any canning before this year. I introduced her to canning with cherries. Now she wants to make juice out of everything in the garden and orchard.

At least 200 quarts of tomato juice (which is normal for this household anyway). Carrots are next on the list, if I plant enough, and celery, and onions, and all of the other ingredients for a good mixed vegetable juice.

We have already made 30 odd quarts of cherry juice, in addition to the canned cherries.. She wants to make plum juice, and pear juice and apple juice, and if we get a good producing peach tree going, I am sure peaches will be on the list, as well as apricots, if we get a good crop.

I will quite willingly go along with all of it, for the simple reason that walking through the garden with her renews for me the awe and excitement that got me hooked on gardening in the first place. It awakens memories of walking through the garden with my grandparents, at eye level with the hornworms when they were discovered, the explanations of who and what they were and would become if left alone, and why they were not left alone. I used to love running to the nearest free range chicken with one.

I am now walking 2.6 kilometers (1.5 miles) before breakfast, doing the first and last 400 meters (.25 miles) at 180 paces/minute (8.2 kph or 5.1 mph) and slow down to 120 paces a minute (5.5 kph or 3.4 mph) for the rest of the walk). I do the same walk 3 to 6 times a day, depending on how wired I feel, and what else there is to do here. I should have the same energy in the garden!!

Over the weekend I seeded 30+ tomato varieties using chemicals, and got another 20 varieties ready to put chemicals on, then got sidetracked for a bit doing other things = and had to leave them to ferment until next weekend. I will see just how they do, sitting for a week in the greenhouse, with its cool nights, and pass judgement on them when I get home. If they need re-doing, I still have the tomatoes available to do them, if not, then it’s just a matter of cleanup = then I can turn my attention to the other three trays of less ripe tomatoes that are setting int he greenhouse waiting for me to gut them. Cleaned a couple of squash, ripped up the Ethiopian Lentils and hung the bundles to dry under cover, for thashing later, stripped off all of the dry soybean and chickpea pods, and cut the grass int the pathways, some of the orchard, and the yard.

The Bradshaw plums are ripening now = I had forgotten just how good they can be = they are a variety I ate as a kid, and put in the orchard for the memories. Italian prune plums are coming on, apples and pears getting very close = The Asian pears have to be thinned a whole lot more than I have been doing so far = I’m only getting half sized fruit, because I am leaving far too many on the tree.

Time to start getting the spud pit ready for storage use = the carrots are sizing up, most of the spud plants have died back, and this year I will try sticking some of the leeks in the pit as well, just to see how they do. I have a rack in the bottom of the pit that keeps the pails off the ground, and holes drilled in the bottom of the pails to allow ventilation of the contents. Feed bags with fiberglass insulation go over top the buckets, and keep everything from freezing. I have already sprayed the interior of the pit with fixed copper, to eliminate any fungal growth, at least for the first half of the winter.

You can get an idea of what I am talking about from these photos =

I will take some more current photos when I am home again this weekend, and update this post with them.

I’m back at the lodge again, starting another week of radiation treatments. I am no longer taking Prednisone, and it’s two weeks until my next chemo treatments, so no other meds either. This will be the first period that my body will be dealing with everything on its own. I am supposed to be entering the period of my treatments, where I start to feel the effects of the radiation and chemo = so far, nothing much that I notice. I have had no steroids or other meds for 36 hours now, and still feel somewhat wired, where I am supposed to start feeling fatigued. I did try to counter the lack of steroids by drinking my four cups of coffee this morning, and it seems to have done more than that = I felt more wired than I did while drinking coffee and taking the steroids = time will tell I am sure, in the meantime, no more coffee = I could not sit still and felt extremely speedy for about three hours after the last coffee. Tomorrow morning will likely tell the tale about whether I stay energetic and hungry, or start to feel like they say I should.

And the adventure continues.

Drip Irrigation System

For some time, I’ve been meaning to do a proper rundown on my drip system, complete with photos. I am going to start by giving a general description, and linking to some of the photos that I have already posted elsewhere, that reasonably represent what I do. I will try to get into the garden and take some photos to go with this, when I am home this weekend, but I tried to do that last weekend too.

I keep this blog ad free on purpose, but do occasionally plug companies or products that I like and use myself. I have no affiliation with any company I name here, other than being a satisfied customer. I also reserve the right to pan any company that I am dissatisfied with = and they will have to be very deserving of the pan before I will give it.

That being said, I buy my ⅛” micro-tubing from http://www.submatic.com. I have dealt with them since 1980 or 1981, and have always been satisfied with their service.

I make my own punch from a block of wood

and an appropriately sized nail, sharpened to a fine point. End clips are made from pieces of what ever I am using for feeder lines, or garden hoses or what ever comes to hand and will stay in place. If you are covering the drip lines with mulch or anything else, the end clips are not really necessary = they just convert the water to a drip, instead of letting it squirt across the bed (if you are running higher pressure/volume to increase watering, they can squirt quite a ways). The best feeder lines are the black plastic variety, although that can get a bit expensive if you have any amount to purchase. Cheap garden hose will work very well, but usually has the disadvantage of getting stiff after a season or two, and does not hold onto the emitter lines quite as well. If you are not going to be rolling the lines up to move them, garden hoses are a good cheap alternative = if you will want to be able to roll them up every year, spring for the black plastic.

You can make your individual emitter lines what ever length and spacing best suits your needs. If the drip lines are always going to be in the same locations, and the crops are going to be the same or similar every year, you can get very particular with your emitter layout, and reduce your water consumption accordingly. for instance, if you are always planting tomatoes with the same spacing,in the same rows, you could easily put very short emitter lines in exactly the right position, and reduce the amount of micro-tubing and water required. If you are going to be rotating things through the beds, or re-orienting garden areas, you might want to do a more general configuration, with longer and closer spaced emitter lines. I move stuff all over my beds, so I tend to do longer lines, and closer spaced. Since I have no water constraints, I tend to use a bit more, and a bit more frequently than I might otherwise = for me it pays off in larger harvests.

One of the advantages to using the micro-tubing is that it is very easy to clean a plugged emitter (which I seldom have to do) = pull the end cap off, and stick a piece of 16 gauge wire down the emitter line (metal guitar strings are great for this = they are stiff and don’t kink). When you cut your emitter lines, cut them at an angle

so you won’t plug them by pushing them against the far wall of the feeder line. If you make your emitter lines too long, they are going to be difficult to clean, as the wire will want to bend and kink. If you have an emitter in the wrong place, just cut it off at about 1”, and burn the end closed, or just pull off the end cap, and burn the end closed, leaving it in place in case you change your mind again.

I run a header line across the top end of all of my beds, and use the cheapest taps I can find to control the water on each bed (usually water tank taps). Run the largest diameter header line you can, to allow the largest volume possible to your feeder lines, bearing in mind that the first restriction in the line sets the volume for all of the line behind it = ie the tap that regulates your water sets the volume that will flow through the lines downstream from it. If your first tap is ½”, that is what regulates the volume you pass to the rest of the system. This doesn’t necessarily say to put the rest of the lines in at ½”, because you also have to deal with friction in the lines, which can make a difference if you have longer runs. I cobbled my initial header lines out of what ever was available here when I started, so I have a mix of 1”, and ¾” headers, which is all made moot by the fact that all of my taps controlling the beds are ½”. The individual feeder lines on the beds are a mix of ¾” black plastic, ½” black plastic, and ½” and ¾” garden hoses. My beds vary in length from 40’ to 100’, with emitter spacings from 9” to 18”staggered down each side of the feeder line. Emitter line lengths are from 6” to 15”, mostly around 9”. I can adequately water 400 emitters at once, using two hours for watering time. This gives me enough time to water my whole garden in one day (I have two taps and two header systems, with about 1100 feet of bed). If you use water soluble fertilizer (MiracleGro, etc) or lots of well filtered compost, other teas, or molasses,invest in an injection siphon.

It greatly simplifies feeding your garden, and cuts down on waste as well.

Because all of my lines are either plastic, or garden hose, I don't have to worry about winter frost damage. I disconnect the feed line, and open all of the valves and taps in the system, so there is no chance of water getting trapped in anything metal. The worst that might happen is a joint may get forced apart if water gets trapped in it, and it freezes solid.

In addition to the drip irrigation, I hand water new plantings of beans, carrots, onions and similar, two or three times daily, until they are large enough to mulch around. It substantially reduces the losses from stress.

Two weeks in

My first week of treatment consisted of 3 chemo sessions, and 4 radiation treatments. I am now in my third week of radiation, with another 3 sessions of chemo next week. Already feeling slight improvements, and so far, no bad side effects, although I know they are coming.

I'm staying in the Rotary Lodge behind Kelowna General Hospital during the week, and driving home Friday nights and back again Sunday evening, or Monday morning, if my first treatment is late enough in the day. It's a 5 hour drive each way, and I will go home every weekend, unless I start to feel too rough to make the drive. I have a mattress in the back of the Montana (all seats pulled to give me ample room), so I can pull over and recoup with a nap if need be.

Total treatment routine for me will be 12 chemo sessions = 3 consecutive days, a two week break then another 3 days, etc. and 33 radiation treatments. I expect things may start to get a bit unpleasant after about week four or five, but I am willing to be disappointed in that respect.

I've been taking Prednisone for a rash since just before the treatments started, and it is keeping my appetite at a higher than usual level, and my weight is staying up with no problem. I am also wired all the time, also due to the Prednisone. I'm walking 10 t0 15 kilometers a day (6 to 10 miles), just to keep the energy under control.

A note on the garden and home front = I have seeding tomatoes picked for almost everything now, and they are waiting in the greenhouse for me to process when I get home this weekend. I will have to do chemical processing for this years seeds = I'm only home for two days, and fermentation takes more than that here, but less than a week, which is when I would be here next to finish them.

I have about 60 varieties that I have to get seed from this year, and some of those will have multiple entries, because they are stabilization grow outs, and have presented more than one good expression. So I am looking at 70 to 80 batches of seed to process. I'm not really rushed on these, thanks to having the greenhouse to hold them in, so I'll split the time I have, and do a day of tomato squishing, and a day of bean picking = they can hang and dry in the greenhouse too.

In the two weekends I have been home, we've processed 46 quarts of tomato juice, and a half dozen quarts of kosher dills. Shaoling picks the tomatoes on Thursday, and cuts them into canning pots and puts them in the oven Friday evening to cook. Saturday morning we start processing the tomatoes into juice, and can them in the pressure cooker through the day. If there is more than one canner load, it goes in the oven Saturday night and gets processed before I leave Sunday afternoon.

It's going to get interesting a bit later, when the pears start wanting to be canned, and the apples are ready for juicing, and we still have tomatoes to process. Storage is going to become a bit of a problem for a while too, when I start bringing the squash in from the field = I have only a slight idea of just how many squash are out there hiding in the leaves. And I believe I have a few watermelon hiding someplace under the tomatoes and squash in the main garden. This weekend is going to full of discoveries, I think.

And the adventure continues.

Personal Update

I think I will start this by quoting something I first wrote in 1998 =

“There aint no reboot, rewind, or start game over. This is the only run through you get, so get it right, and do it now, because you have no guarantee the game will continue.

You may feel that this is only the first inning, period, quarter, or half, but I tell you it is the bottom of the ninth, the end of the third, the last kick of the fourth, and the end of the second half, and you have no guarantee of getting off of the bench again.
If you have to play in pain, do it. If you wait for the pain to leave, the final buzzer, bell, or whistle may go before you get back in the game, so don’t wait.

Make the statement you want to make, and play the game as you want to play it. Don’t wait for the rules to change = they won’t, unless you change them yourself.

Lest you think I am saying what I don’’t do, I tell you I am playing the game I chose, and have made my own rules long ago. Things I don’t want to do, I ignore. Face, appearances, respect of others, all of the things that we run our lives by = they are not for my rule book, unless they fit with what I feel my life should be. I do what I do, because I must to be me. The only person whose respect I have to work at keeping, is me. If I do what I can live happily with, I am doing alright. I respect my own value set more than most others, and if I meet mine, I don’t need to worry about meeting those of others.”

I have put off writing this post for several reasons. At first it was because I was not ready to share with the world what was going on with my life yet, as I had not fully absorbed what it meant to me, and how I was going to deal with it. Another reason I did not post, was that I did not have enough information myself yet about anything/everything, and would be unable to answer any of the questions that I knew would come.

Since I now have enough of an information set I think it is time to post what is transpiring.

I was diagnosed with lung cancer in May. To be specific, Type 3A lung cancer. The designation indicates that I have cancer in one lung, it has spread outside the lung to some of the lymph nodes, but not metastasized = I have had a total bone scan, a CT scan of my abdomen and head, and a bronchoscopy with ultrasound and a biopsy thrown in. The lung and nymph nodes are the only locations there is cancer.

The prognosis, based on the statistics for Type 3A, and how I am presenting the symptoms is good. The median survival rate for a diagnosis of Type 3A is 15 months (that is the point at which 50% of those diagnosed will have died). The 5 year survival rate is 23%.

Because of the way I am presenting the symptoms = very good general fitness, still good lung function despite 56 years of smoking (I quit August 23, 2010), no weight loss, and no difficulty swallowing = the oncologist says I will be in the 23%. He also said that he thought he could cure this, not just drive it into remission, and that is the premise he is treating me on.

I know this blog has been badly neglected and very infrequently posted to for some time. I could make excuses about various things happening that made it impossible, but the fact is, life just sort of got in the way, and the garden got looked to first.

I've had my bell rung again with this latest development, and will listen up a little better to what I preach in the above quote.

As a result, the garden is no longer going to be the sole focus of my life. I will still garden in a big way, but it's going to have to fend for itself a lot more than it has in the past. I will expand the variety of things I grow, but reduce the amounts of some of the crops at the same time.

The orchard will see better maintenance, so I don't end up taking 3/4 of the crop off with a pruning that should have been done two years earlier. Thinning will take place on time for a change, watering will be more frequent, and there will be a lot of manure spread around the trees for a change.

The trade offs come in that I will actually go fishing, and do a little travelling for a change. Things that I have shunted aside for most of the past nine years here, in favour of spending more time in the garden, are going to get done again.

It's not that I don't still love gardening = it's just that I have been reminded that I do not have all of the time in the world, and there are still flavours of things out there that I have not sampled.

I will keep you all apprised of what is happening, as it transpires.

Strangely enough, this might also result in a lot more gardening content being posted as well, as there will be more time to do it in (I think).

As with everyone else, I have more facets to my life than gardening and this blog = I have just faced away from them for a bit too long, and will start doing at least a few of them again.

I do ask that you not let this announcement change or shade the way you interact with me. I am still the same guy, and I still plan to be around for a long time. If you think this has me thinking long about my mortality, don't = I just started crossing tomatoes, and am going to be replacing a few fruit trees that have had to be removed.

Life is the great adventure, and no adventure is complete with out days or periods where things do not go as planned, or it would be a very dull adventure.