Not taking breathing for granted

Today I went for a hike through the park nearby to get some exercise and to find a few more geocaches. The geocaching part went well. The hiking was a little more challenging. It was cold and that seemed to make it harder to breathe. I had to stop a few times on the way up hills to catch my breath. A couple of times that was difficult to do. When I got home I just sat for a while and spent some time appreciating the fact that I was breathing easily again.

This brought home again a desire to focus on what is truly important. It's easy to let some things take on a great importance when more important things aren't considered as carefully. I've seen lately some of the trouble that that can cause. It can become an infectious attitude and I will be working not to let it get the better of me.

On the nicely flat ending part of the hike today, I took a picture with my phone. Not the best focus but the reflections on the still river water were beautiful.

Wasson Peak

This is my last day in Arizona. I head home tomorrow. This morning I drove through Gates Pass west of Tucson and hiked to the top of Wasson Peak. I'm sending in this post from there.

I am very glad to have made this trip successfully. It was a test for me. It was harder to do than the last trip I made up here. Still, I made it. Not bad considering I'm also older and tubbier than the last time.

It's a 9.8 mile round trip. I still have the 4.9 mile return leg to go!

It's a perfect day here. I'm attaching a picture taken from the peak.

Weather changes

Well, what a difference a day makes. After the beautiful sunset on Thursday, the weather got colder and it started to rain. It rained most of Friday down on the desert floor and snowed up in the mountains.
On Saturday the mountains had snow on them at least as far south as Tubac, which is very unusual. Elaine, Karl, Tracy, Barry and I were down in Tubac to do some shopping. While we were there we did a really cool puzzle geocache that involved finding eight locations, reading some info from them, and using that info to get the coordinates for the final cache. It was a ton of fun. We located the final spot correctly and were all wandering around looking for the hidden item and trying to look casual. It was a hoot. Karl eventually found it. I had almost given up.

On the way home we stopped at the Longhorn Grill in Amado for dinner - the second heavy meal of the day. It was very tasty but maybe not too good for my tubby tote board.

A great day!

Out in the desert

I spent some time yesterday out in the desert. I took my GPS with me and found four of the five geocaches I was looking for. It was a great time. I did have some trouble with the hiking but managed to do OK. This was the first time I had actually rambled off the trails here. It was fascinating. Lots of exposed loose rocks and all the plants have points on them. It was also very windy yesterday and the dust was flying everywhere.When I got back to the car I was dirty, bleeding in a few minor places, and had cactus spines sticking out of my legs. It was great.

On the way back, the sunset was beautiful and the light on the mountains was dramatic. There was a lot of rush hour traffic and I wondered if the people in the other cars were noticing what was going on around them. I wonder if you get used to this sort of thing if you see it every day. Probably so.

In Tucson

I'm visiting a friend in Tucson this week. There's a gem and mineral show here that is huge. I shopped about a bit yesterday but didn't find anything too memorable. I hope to do a little hiking in the mountains here later in the week. They're predicting snow today so I think this won't be the day. The sunset last night was spectacular.

Sunday morning

This morning I started out slightly before dawn armed with my cool GPS device and found my first geocache. If you haven't heard about these, you can find pretty much everything you need to know on Wikipedia and on Geocaching.com. It was my first stab at this so I went for one that was supposed to be very easy to find. I found it and I am unreasonably proud of myself.

Part of the trip involved a short but steep hike up a hill. I was surprised at how many times I had to stop and catch my breath. Less lung has really made a difference for me. What I had wasn't such a big deal compared to what others have been through. Still, things like this remind me that it was substantial nonetheless. I'll be going on a trip to Arizona shortly and hope to do some hikes in the mountains near there. I'm interested now to see how that will work out.

Just after I found the geocache, there was a sudden downpour of little snow pellets. It only lasted for a couple of minutes. With all the pellets hitting the dry leaves, the wind, and the sunrise, it was a multisensory experience. Last week I started what will be some particularly difficult challenges at work. This morning was a good way to get some perspective on that.

I'm including a couple of photos I took on the trip.

Only by being already at home here

It's Ash Wednesday. They really got me with those ashes this morning, too. I got the zealous lay minister. They tend to be very enthusiastic in their duties.

There is a poem by Stevie Smith with the title "God Speaks". In it, she makes a point about how people are eager to get to heaven but seem to miss the point a lot. I think it's still under copyright or I'd post it here. The last line is quotable, though, and sums it up fairly well. It is, "But he cannot come by wishing. Only by being already at home here." That seems to be a goal worth working toward.

I've made an assortment of vows for Lent. They all center about trying to be a generally better and kinder person. I won't list them all here. One simple one will prove to be the most useful, I think. I'm going to take a little time each evening to review how well I did that day. I should learn from that.

Today marks three months since I had my surgery. It seems so much longer ago than that.

Mardi Gras

It's Mardi Gras today. I celebrated by buying donuts for the office and then eating several of them. That might be all the celebrating I do this year.

I'm setting myself up for a lot of things to do over Lent. The religious tone of that period causes me to keep to some self-improvement things much more successfully than anything else. I might as well do that to best advantage.

Some flowers

I bought roses for myself yesterday. A bit of a pick-me-up after a challenging but generally successful week. I was going to buy hyacinths because they smelled so good in the store but went for the roses instead. The flowers reminded me of a poem I read many years ago. Buying yourself flowers is worth it sometimes.

Here's a picture of the roses and a copy of the poem. The wording varies depending on who translated it but this seems to be the most popular version.


If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,
And from thy slender store
Two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and with the dole,
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.

~ Musharish-Ud-Din Sadi

Pulmonology follow-up

I had a follow-up appointment with the pulmonologist today. It was a fairly simple visit. He talked to me and listened to my lungs. No other fancy tests this time. The news was good. All seems to be going as well as possible. He will want to see me again in midsummer after I've had my second follow-up appointment with the surgeon. That one will feature a CT scan and the pulmonologist is interested in seeing those results. Evidently my insides are still healing up and shifting around a bit so it wouldn't help to do that test any sooner. Things should be nearly settled by midsummer. I sure hope so.

He told me things that I had heard from him and others before - that it was a typical carcinoid tumor and that it isn't likely to recur or spread. Still, they'll be watching for that just in case. They'll also be monitoring my lung function to see how I'm doing. At my next appointment with him I'll have a pulmonary function test to see how I'm doing in comparison to the one I had before surgery.

Another bright note is that I was eight pounds lighter than I was when I saw him last. I'm supposed to continue to exercise and work to lose weight. I celebrated this news on the way to work by stopping for a sausage biscuit and hash browns. This was a bad plan but I'm back on the straight and narrow now.

As of today I'm calling myself done with the most dramatic part of this whole drama. Now I'm in the maintenance phase and I'm glad to be there!

Food, glorious food!

OK, I've been on this system cleanse since last Tuesday. My brother John and I were doing it. Today I called him to say that I was over it and wanted to stop. I am sick to the teeth of lemonade. It turns out he had a party to go to on Saturday and had stopped two days ago. It pays to talk to your family regularly.

So, I'm done with the lemonade-only diet. Six days was enough. Actually, I think it was too long. Yesterday I was doing well and could have stopped without being crazed by hunger. Today it's hard for me not to eat everything in the whole house. I have celebrated by eating a few unhealthy things and now I have some vegetable soup on the stove. I hope that once this off-the-wagon craze ends I'll be eating more reasonably. I did lose five pounds this week. Not bad.

In other news, I go back to the pulmonologist tomorrow. He'll test my lung capacity and see how I'm doing. It'll be interesting to see how these test results compare to the ones I had before surgery.

Learning from disappointment

I was up for a very big promotion at work and found out this week that I didn't make it to the second round of the selection process. I'm surprised that this has sent me into such a spin of disappointment. It took me until today to get to the point where I could write something reasonable about it. I hadn’t expected this to be such a big deal when compared to all that went on in the year just past.

I had planned to spend this weekend just thinking about things in general – about life, priorities, and how I spend my time and energy. If this is the way it was going to go with the job, then this was a good time for it to have happened. I will be working to make more conscious decisions about where I’m placing my time and effort – giving more energy to the things that are important and less energy to things that are less valued by me or less valuable to others.

A system cleanse

Well, this is being an interesting week. Now that things have quieted down, I have launched into a health program to cleanse my system. Mostly I think the aim of this is to clean out one's digestive system (ick) but my goal is to flush out toxins and things and see how that feels. It seems a very popular thing to do nowadays. The program I'm using involves having nothing but drinks made from water, lemon juice and maple syrup. Evidently that includes all the nutrients one needs to live on - at least for the short term.

The plan is to stick with this system for 10 days. I'm in the middle of day 2 and it's going OK so far. Although I wouldn't say no to some fries if an armed gunman told me to eat them. At the end of this program I should be pure, thin, and possibly unconscious. We'll see how it goes.

How the illness has changed me

As I was scrambling to get ready for work this morning I was thinking about how this illness has changed me. I'm a little disappointed to say that the true answer is 'not much.' Thinking back over the last few weeks, I don't feel that I've been more thoughtful, more kind, more careful to spend my time on the most important things, or any of the other qualities that I had assured myself I would develop. I had heard that it's typical for people in this sort of situation to vow to become the best possible person and then let that vow slip as time passes. Still, I had hoped it wouldn't be true of me.

Some of this, I think, is the result of the holidays coming right after I finished the most intense surgery recovery period and then that killer cold coming on just as the holidays wrapped up. I haven't really devoted any energy to this. I am setting myself a goal of next weekend. Due to the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, it will be a three day weekend and I'm signing it over to devote some time to introspection. It will also be a good time to move ahead. A good time to finally sign off on the year that passed and begin to look forward.

Anticipating a quiet day or two after the drama and hubub of the last few months, I'm reminded of yet another poem. This one is "Weariness" by Sara Teasdale...


Weariness

Oh let me be alone, far from the eyes and faces,
Let me be alone, awhile, even from you;
My soul is like a desert, sick of light-filled spaces,
The urge of useless winds, the sky of pitiless blue;
Let me be alone, awhile, in twilit places,
Waiting the merciful night, the stately stars and the dew.


The other evening as I was leaving work, the sky was that rich, deepest blue that happens on a clear day just after the sun has set and the sunset colors have faced. That was when this poem popped back into my head. I took a picture from the parking garage at work with my phone camera. It doesn't really do that moment justice but I'll include it here anyway.

(as always, click the picture for a larger version)

Two poems by Whitman

Michael and Eric and I were discussing Whitman last night over dinner. (Wasn't that a great opening sentence? It's rare to get a chance to sound so much like a snooty literary type.) Two poems from Leaves of Grass came to my mind that I had read a long time ago. At one time I had been working to memorize poems. It's handy at times and is a good concentration exercise. Here are the two. I looked them up because I didn't trust myself to remember them accurately.

A Noiseless Patient Spider

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.


When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

Sleepy all the time

I am sleepy all the time. I'm able to keep it going at work but when I get home I can barely keep my eyes open through dinner. This will pass, I know. In the meantime, it's a challenge to keep all those usual home things like cleaning, bills and laundry in the works. As problems go this is a tiny one.

I scanned through the whole blog the other evening. It really has been a remarkable run. I need to work now not to become lazy and think that the show is over. Time to get that exercise, stop eating that junk food and drop those pounds. That'll help, I know.

Two months

Yesterday marks two months since I had the surgery. It seems like so much longer ago. With the recovery, returning to work, and then the holidays, the time has flown by. This is an interesting time. That post-surgery grace period has ended. Work is busy with the usual flurry of activities and short deadlines and life outside of work is back to as normal as I can make it. I'm still not feeling great but I think/hope that will pass. People tell me it takes a long time. And some of that might just be this $%&*@ cold. It seems to be going away slowly but I'm still really sore from the coughing.

OK, enough of the complaining. It's the start of a new week and the first full work week of the new year. Time to make the best of those landmarks.

So sick

Wow, that has been a miserable burst of a cold. Fever, chills, the whole deal. I slept last night in a chair with my coat on and the electric throw on my legs. I think that must have helped burn it out. Yesterday I was beginning to wonder if I am now going to be one of those people who is always sick with something. I do worry about that a bit. Today all is much better and that's encouraging. If I had to get a cold with a lot of coughing, I'm VERY glad that it waited until this far after the surgery to kick in.

Grrr! A cold

OK, yesterday I got a cold. It's mostly just a cough and the usual other symptoms. The cough is annoying, though, because all of my seams haven't completely set yet. I'm working with the usual over the counter cold items that friends have recommended. We'll see if that works. So much for the exercise campaign - at least for a couple of days. It didn't help this morning that it was 18 degrees when I got up. Staying in bed was very attractive!

Jim's tubby tote board

OK, I said that I'd take on some challenges proactively this year so here's my first step. I realize that one of the easiest ways to deal with my reduced lung capacity (and it's not all that bad, really) is to get more exercise and lose weight. I'm motivated, of course, but often I let this sort of thing slip. To keep me on task, I've decided to post my weight weekly on the blog. It's on the right side in a little block entitled "Jim's Tubby Tote Board". I've put it at the bottom of that right sidebar, though. I don't want it to be too prominent. We'll see if this moves me along at all.