Cancer Camp and Settling in to Sabbatical

 It’s Monday morning and rather than having a ‘normal’ routine of getting up and heading to the office, I decided to clean my house.  I could (should) have done it yesterday, after getting home from a gold-medal performance in the annual corn maze competition and a less-than-stellar pretzel festival (with minimal pretzels).  But alas, instead I watched the dominating end to the Ryder Cup (one of sports’ best events) and a sub-par movie I couldn’t remember the plot to (Oblivion w/ Tom Cruise).

Welcome to sabbatical.

First, let me get out of the way that the idea of sabbatical is sort of crazy and also brilliant??  I time for focus and refresh?  That you ‘earn’ periodically?  Perhaps this is one thing us silly academics have gotten right.

Am I getting sabbatical right?   It’s hard to say. It’s an adjustment, for sure.  I’m sort of treating it like extended summer, and since I’ve always worked over summers (and had research support) that maybe makes sense?  But in reality, I’m still trying to figure out the best balance.  How to not feel guilty about the free scheduling and taking time when I want it.  How to set a writing schedule and actually stick to it.  How to balance being here as needed and yet taking advantage of the flexibility.  Throw the whole terminal cancer thing on top of it, and it’s quite the interesting mental problem!  

I’m not required to do any ‘service’ activities at work…go to meetings, do all the things besides teaching and research that we do.  But it’s really hard to stay away.  Hard because I care (which ultimately is a good thing) and hard because as a childless single person, for better or worse, my work is a big part of my legacy.  The students I’ve had, the programs I’ve helped change and grow.  My influence comes largely from my work and the people I’ve interacted with there.  So, knowing that the years may be limited, it’s tough to convince myself to fully ‘take a year off’.  Because what if it’s my last year?  What if there isn’t time after to get back into things?  So I still pay attention, and engage.  And actually, that whole ‘space to think’ thing really actually makes it easy to think and ponder the good and bad and future of what the work means.  So the current challenge is to be nice to myself and not feel bad and beat myself up over it.  

I’m privileged to have projects going that will move forward, so the ‘success’ of my sabbatical work (from the research side) will happen, I’m not worried about that.  It’s more this balance and making sure that I do get that sense of refreshment that I’m more concerned with.  #academicproblems #spoilediknow #noticeandname #notcomplaining

Since last posting, in addition to settling in to sabbatical I settled in to the new place!  I’m loving it!  While I spend more time in my car for sure, the openness, daylight, and garage are great.  I’m still on the struggle bus of getting back to my workout routine, but the home gym gives a daily reminder…. The purging I did prior to moving was helpful, and I’m feeling less cluttered.  Refreshing photo frames also reminded me of all the wonderful people and places and memories I’ve been lucky to have.

Gallery walls…a pain in the ass to hang, but great to look at…

Riley Cat managed to do well her first weekend alone, last week when I was lucky enough to go to…CANCER CAMP!

This time around it was through a great organization, Casting for Recovery.  

CfR hosts retreats for women with breast cancer and teaching fly fishing.  The tagline ‘to fish is to hope’ may seem a bit cheesy, but I see why they use it.  Friday afternoon I found myself driving to central Ohio, NE of Columbus for what I thought would be an enjoyable weekend.  I had some apprehension about the amount of ‘support-group-like’ time we’d spend (since that’s not my favorite) but the agenda seemed filled with enough activity.  And hey, it’s free, it’s outside, and since taking a class in CO I’ve always wanted to fly fish, so may as well take advantage of the ‘perks’ of cancer.

From my arrival, I could tell these people were serious about the ‘pampering’ we were to enjoy (they wouldn’t even let me park my own car a mere 50 feet from the front door, and carried my bags to my room).  I was an earlier arrival, but over time, a number (10 I think) of wonderful women arrived.  There was a mix of more recently diagnoses, those who had survived for awhile.  I think I was the youngest, though not be a lot (and the ladies were young in spirit!) and I think the only metastatic.

The weekend was planned really well…enough of the emotional shit with enough activities to keep us busy.  Having a winery next to the lodge was also a benefit.  I sometimes find it hard to get out of professor/facilitator mode and really just relax and enjoy, but I had a great time.  

Sunday we got on the water after practicing casts, learning to tie flies, and the basics of fly fishing.  I caught a few (one literally jumped on my line, at my feet) and enjoyed the time with my ‘river helper’.  The generosity of him, the staff, and the many, many supporters of the organization and event is really remarkable.  We got so much swag! Thoughtful gifts, useful gifts, tasty gifts.  We were truly showered in love and support, from many people we hadn’t ever met.  

The further you hold it from you the bigger it looks…

 

Wooly Bugger!

Sometimes I feel a little guilty about this…I’ll be honest.  Like I didn’t do anything to get cancer.  And all I’ve really done is listen to my doctors, take my meds, do the thing.  Have a really ‘earned’ this love?  These gifts? These opportunities?  Maybe since being stage 4 it feels a bit more deserving.  Hard to say.  And yet I’ve also had it ‘worse’ than a lot of other people, and I don’t really criticize them for it.  And the cancer camp experience does help.  It helps me be ‘good at cancer’…which I also feel when I’m there.  Staying in the moment and not being judgmental…much easier said than done.  And also, I definitely put my name in for more cancer camps that I found out about while I was there! (Colorado? Hawaii?  Yes please!)

So what’s next…treatment on Friday, which makes 3…which means we’ll rescan in a bit, after I escape to California for a couple weeks.  We will see if the magic koolaid is doing anything and I’ll learn more about what the next 3 months may look like.  I got my COVID booster a couple weeks back, had a day of suck after, but well worth the increased protection.  

In the meantime, I’ll enjoy my slow mornings of breakfast and coffee while reading my Daily Stoic.  And, try as much as I can to live out what I wrote on the prayer flag at cancer camp…

Overdue Updates

 It’s been over a month since I last blogged, and what a month it was!  All good things really, so that’s the summary…things still good, living my best life, etc.  For those interested in more details, read on.’

Last I left you, I had just spent some amazing family time in Colorado at the ranch (which is in the final process of being sold…a long time coming, and a good move for the family.  How lucky we all were for so many great times there!).  I was only home for a night and then I was off again, this time to Lake Placid NY!  A collaborator had invited Paige, my summer research student and I to join his group doing some field data collection at a rugby tournament hosted there.  The project has been a multi year effort to collect data post-match, specifically looking at concussed players.  In the ‘say yes’ spirit, I agreed and worked it out for Paige and I.  We flew into Burlington, drove over to NY (via the ferry!) and spent some time walking streets of Lake Placid before the rest of the crew arrived.  The next few days were hard, rainy, busy work, collecting a ton of data.  We planned a couple extra days on the back end, and spent them hiking, bobsledding (did you know this is a thing at the Olympic training center?!), and eating good food.  I’m so lucky to have such a stellar student and one who was pretty fun to travel with.  It was great to be able to show her new things (staying in a B&B, new foods, always jump in the lake! etc) and she was great company.  She also arranged the sweetest gift…a photo book including notes from lab alumni over the years.   It was super heart warming and something I‘ll always treasure.  If you haven’t been to the Adirondacks, I highly recommend!  So beautiful.  It was fitting my only other time there was my first First Descents trip, more than 5 years ago.  A lot has changed since then, but it’s still a beautiful place.

Back home, it was a busy few days of getting caught back up at work, working on some projects, and then it was time for Treatment 1 of the new drug, Doxil.  Doxil is the ‘red devil’ or ‘magic koolaid’ as I prefer to call it.

It’s fairly common to have a reaction the first time, sort of like an allergic-type response.  I did, but it cleared with some additional steroid and benedryl.  Points towards my ‘best cancer patient ever’campaign in that the nurses said I was probably the calmest person they’ve ever seen who was starting to have a reaction!  Probably was able to keep my cool because I remember the feeling from when I got a similar drug first time around.  Since then (it’s really impressive how fast cancer progress goes) they’ve reformulated it so it better targets just the cancer cells, meaning that I should keep my hair! As grey as it is :). The side effects were not present—>minimal.  Perhaps a little fatigue, which is such a hard thing to really judge.

After treatment, I enjoyed spending time with my good friend Kevin that was in town for a visit as well as an old college friend Rachel who was visiting her in laws.  I’m so lucky to have long term friends that I can be totally honest with…whether it’s talking about end of life decisions, finances, the latest meme, and everything in between.  

Since I’m on sabbatical, I had strategically planned a backpacking trip in northern Michigan the week before classes started in order to force myself to disconnect from the meetings, emails, preparations for the semester.  I drove up to Lansing and from there, Erica, Ted and I headed up to Painted Rocks in the UP.  

So.  Amazing.

Seriously, what a beautiful place!  There’s a 50 mi through hike of backcountry sites…Erica and I did about half, (3 nights backcountry), Ted did the whole thing.  20+ miles of hiking with 35 lb pack…take that you stupid lung nodules!  We also kayaked, explored Grand Island, and I had my phone in airplane mode and didn’t use a screen for 6 days.  Magical.

We totally lucked out on weather (it was perfect).  Hiking with 2 other physiology professors was probably a little nerdier than some might like, but was perfect for me.  I got some pretty gnarly blisters that I toughed out (Erica tells me I downplayed it a bit much…), the black flies were super annoying on some beach afternoons, but overall, it was just a really great time.  10/10 recommend.

I was heading to Chicago for Tucci’s birthday after and it worked out I got to drive through and see Sonja at her place in Iron Mountain (I essentially circumnavigated Lake Michigan on this trip).  It was great see her and her people, even if for just a night.  I arrived in Chicago on the day of Tucci’s 95th birthday celebration.  That stubborn ol’ lady still hanging in!  It was great to see some cousins and extended family.  We celebrated Monday, her actual birthday with Portillo’s cemetery trip, and driving around ‘the old neighborhood’.  It’s kind of crazy to think of everything she has seen in nearly a century of life!  Thanks to technology we connected with the whole family one day on FaceTime…it’s understandable how it’s hard for Tucci to keep track of us all!

From Chicago, Mom rode back to Dayton with me to help with the big move!  As I said before, I was downsizing/simplifying a little from the house I was renting to an apartment home rental, a little further in the ‘burbs, but with no yard work, single story, attached garage, etc.  Mom is a packing machine!  We figured out she’s helped with 11 moves and in that time only one kitchen item has ever broke.  She’s seriously like a professional!  We divided the work over a few days (I of course had to draw up a schedule), with some days having me go to the office for a bit to get some work done.  Movers came on a rainy day (ugh) that thankfully lightened up, and we unloaded on Tuesday and then spent the next couple days unpacking.  It felt slow to her and I, but being totally unpacked in only 4 days isn’t too terrible…

I love the new place! It’s bright and clean and my stuff works really well in it.  I’m excited for a dishwasher and a big kitchen and the garage is already coming in handy.  Riley has adjusted well, finding plenty of new places to explore (she’s mastered the counter, fridge, top of cabinet move).  

It was so great having Mom here for 2 whole weeks!  We got to visit with friends, see folks she had met on study abroad, had some really delicious meals, watch a lot of tennis, and in general spend some quality time together.  Mom also got to accompany me to a doctor’s visit, where all was well…the plan will be to rescan in November to see if the Doxil is working.  My doc is keen to work around holiday schedules (Chicago for Thanksgiving with Mom and Tucci, Christmas in Boise followed by whole family fun through New Years), which I appreciate.  I had treatment 2 on Friday, and all went well again.  Hard to tell if the napping after is really due to the drug or just because my couch is pretty damn comfy :). 

Yesterday, Mom and close friends helped celebrate my 36th birthday.

I know you’re not supposed to say what you wished for, but I’ll share…I wished for another birthday.  They hit a little different when you have a terminal disease, I’ll be honest.  Mom kept saying that if she didn’t know better, she’d not think I was ‘sick’, and honestly, this past month or so, I’ve probably felt the same.  I hiked, I packed, I did what I needed to do.  But there was also a lot of time for reflection.  Floating in a mountain lake in NY, hiking the ridge looking at Lake Superior, sitting in zoom meetings (at home, in Chicago, in the chemo chair).  A lot of thinking has gone on.  

I wish I could be more profound or articulate better where I’m at or what it all means.  For now, I really am just focused on trying to enjoy the moment.  The bit of respite that sabbatical has provided has been welcomed (though I think it also shows me I couldn’t not work/do something).  The people I’ve gotten to spend time with are so special to me.  As part of moving, I purged A LOT.  For many reasons, I think it’s always something you should do when you move, I reread Marie Kondo’s Art of Tidying, and practically speaking, at some point when my family has to go through my stuff when I’m no longer here, it’ll be less for them to do.  I’m a bit of a sentimental pack rat so it wasn’t the easiest task.  I did take the KonMari approach though of thanking things for their service…for what they’ve done for me, or in my life.  It’s a little cheesy, sure, and Mom was cracking up sometimes, but it’s true!  I am grateful! And it does make it a bit easier to pass things along.  Gratitude has maybe been one of the best strategies I have to deal with the shit parts of life, so I might as well apply it to downsizing as well.  

So this past month plus, I’m grateful…for the travels, the time off the grid, family and friends, a successful move, and a birthday.  Upcoming I have a fly fishing trip in Ohio with a cancer group, getting back to working more, a trip to California in October, a COVID booster shot on Friday, and a treatment the first week in October.    Until the next time…