Not completely idle all this time...

Appoaching Glacier Park, MT near sunset, May 2014

Remember that old saying from way back when?  This one:  "Life is what happens after you make other plans."  Well, that pretty much describes the last year or so.  My brother thoughtlessly had emergency brain surgery while I was waiting to be scheduled to have my gall bladder out.  If this were sibling rivalry, he wins, hands down.

I'm glad to say there's no rivalry involved, but it was unnerving to have to wait several months 3000 miles away while he went through the hole-in-the-head kind of surgery and had his brain remodeled, followed by the nifty sci-fi movie kind of laser surgery with a custom-fit medieval-torture-looking helmet, followed by radiation therapy on the tumors in his head and in his lung , followed by months and months of chemo-therapy.  Which will go on for life.  Life, of course, is the point. I really wanted to be there, getting in the way, demanding answers, making his wife nuts, and fussing over my little brother (who is a foot taller than I am, but ten years younger, so is still my baby brother).

The good news is he made it, has regained all his function, and is just as ornery as he ever was, which is a relief.  He's a good guy, and I like him a lot. Most of the time.  He's still a brat sometimes.  After a year and a half, the scans show no sign of tumor activity.  The treatments sort of ate up his energy, and he ended up retiring early.  So now he goes fishing, and gets on his wife's nerves.  And sits in the sun or under the apple tree with his dog and a cup of coffee and rejoices.  From that I get great joy.

When I recovered enough from my own surgery, I took the train out to visit. It was good to just hang out with him.  I got to visit with a cousin I haven't seen in a long time, too, and that was great.  Then I took the train to visit my aunt in the Oregon valley where I grew up.  I got there just in time for her 97th birthday!  I spent a week with her, visiting her everyday, and collecting more stories about her childhood growing up in the mountains of eastern Idaho and as a young woman working for the railroad in WW2.  She is alone now and I am her only known living relative, and she is the last living member of the generation before mine. Even though we aren't related by blood, but by marriage, she was my second mother when I was growing up, and still is.  I cherish her. She is nearing 98 this year, and I hope I can make it out to be with her.

Then I took the train back across the country and collapsed.  Which one would do, but in this case I mean it literally.  I had been feeling tired, and having spells of light-headedness, which I attributed to over-doing.  Then one day, I passed out and went down while talking to a friend at our village farmers' market.  I was trying to sit down, but did a faceplant instead.  Came to with my friend in a panic and trying to call an ambulance.  I can't believe I did this: I told her it was okay, and that I'd just drive myself to the doctor about half a mile away.  Which I did.  I tell you, I was not thinking clearly.

At the clinic, when I told them what happened, they took my vitals. My pulse was 32.  Well, that would do it.  So ensued an afternoon of tests. I got sent home with a list of things, all of which started "DO NOT....".  I spent the weekend thinking "heart disease".  On the Tuesday, my doctor called me to tell me I am hypothyroid.  I had no idea that hypothyroidism could do that to a person.  I am slender, but every cell in my body was struggling to do what it needed to do, including pump blood to my brain, and digest my food, and breathe, and think. No wonder I hadn't been thinking clearly.  She had called a prescription in to my pharmacy, who were going to mail it to me.  She told me to start it immediately.  She added emphatically, "You will have to take this for the rest of your life." 

I was just relieved that all it was going to take was some pills every day for the rest of my life to replace a hormone that my body had decided not to make anymore.  What is this, compared to emergency brain surgery and lifelong chemotherapy and the enormous courage shown by my brother and others like him? 

In the meantime, I'm still spinning.  More to come on that.

Mona, blessed. May she rest in peace.

Mona joined me almost 17 years ago.  It felt like a summoning:  I was driving home after work, taking my favorite back road through the Yakima Canyon.  The sun lay low against the hills, highlighting the ridges.  I felt oddly compelled to stop,  so I pulled off onto a side road that led to the wildlife refuge along the river to take some photographs from the field above. 

Then my dog took me for a walk along the path to the river.  I talked to him as we walked until I heard a high-pitched sound.  Thinking I'd heard a hawk, I looked overhead. No hawk.  Looked at the half-bare trees along the river. No hawks.  I still heard the hawk-like sound, only now it sounded like a cat.  There were no houses nearby, and I wondered if someone had dumped a cat.  So, feeling only slightly foolish, I stood there and called.  "Here, kitty kitty. Here, kitty kitty." over and over again.  The sound stopped.  I kept calling, wondering if I'd read too much into the wind, or is there was a cat taking a bead on the sound of my voice and making its way through the tall grass as fast as it could.

Suddenly I saw some movement about ten feet from the path, and a tiny fluffy tail popped up.  And stayed.  And stayed.  I finally coaxed it out far enough to see it.  It took my breath away:  scrawny, but still gorgeous with long hair in blazing patches of orange, black, white, and butterscotch.  She was frightened, and would approach and retreat, approach and retreat.  My dog (a Llasa named Toby) was wonderful, sitting calmly in the path.  When the kitten saw him, she went right to him--  mama-size, on all fours, and safe.  I quickly swooped her up and put her inside my jacket.  (I still have little claw marks where she grabbed on with all she had.) 

I zipped up my jacket. She had shoved herself as far into the sleeve as she could, shaking.  I drove the 20 miles home with her in my sleeve! 

At home, she quickly adapted and she and Toby became close friends, a friendship that lasted the rest of Toby's long life. She mourned him as I did.  When I moved to Vermont, I got her a companion cat, JellyBean, a rescue, to keep her company while I worked.  Eventually, I got another dog, my chihuahua, Rudy, also a rescue, and they became friends, the three of them.  

Today was Mona's last day.  She passed away quietly this afternoon.  Both JellyBean and Rudy are looking to me for comfort. I am certain they are aware of what just happened.  I think they knew before I did.