Transition

My 65th birthday is tomorrow, just a push pin on a calendar. Today was a day worth celebrating.

After a short nap I walked a mile and a quarter. Twenty more of those and I would have walked an ultra marathon. A good beginning.

My catheter was removed this morning and I won't be needing a cancer screening for another three months. So this is the last cancer entry you'll see for hopefully a long time.

Summer arrived yesterday and this is the first time since last September the weather site is showing all suns for the next seven days. Pretty soon we'll be saying "Just another boring blue sky day". Ha, fat chance amigo!

No lifting for around two weeks but then I'm off to enjoy that sunshine in whatever manner I choose. I doubt I'll have any great feats of physical prowess to report but I'll make a post or two of what summer is like in the Great Pacific Northwest.

The goal is to be in good enough shape to climb a 14,000 foot mountain in Colorado in September and I be sure and take some pics of that.

Thanks again for all who took the time to send good thoughts and notes. Much appreciated!

Good News!!

Got the news today that the cancer was confined to the prostate so they got it all as best as they could tell. I'm one happy dude.
My count down calendar for removing the catheter says 6 days 20 hours 19 minutes and 5 seconds. Christo

Back at the Ranch

After a nice nap in my own bed, a tasty meal which included a quiche made with duck eggs and now I just finished walking down to the gate - sure beats walking around the hospital corridors. It's so nice to be home. Thanks to all for the well wishes, very inspiring. I won't know the pathology for a day or two and I'm thinking that the removal of the catheter will be a major event (July 5). A couple of big hurdles but hey one day at time and tomorrow is supposed to be sunny!

Chicken noodle soup

Christopher has been enjoying his ice chips, but was able to order up some dinner at 7:30 PM. He picked chicken soup and bread. I took him some Jelly Bellies and dark Chocolate, but they may wait until tomorrow. He is feeling better than he thought he would be and will be able to get up and walk in the morning. He wanted me to make sure and thank everyone for their kind words and good wishes.
All in all, a pretty good day in the prostate removal department and we are still hoping he'll be able to come home to the GHR & C tomorrow afternoon.

So far, so good

We headed to the hospital bright and early at 4:45 AM, and after a lot of paperwork and prep, Christopher's surgery started at 7:37 AM. According to my brief post surgery consult with Dr. O'Keefe, everything went smoothly. Now at a bit after 2  PM, Christopher is recovering in his hospital room and still working off the effects of the anesthetic. He requested a Jelly Belly, but the nurse said only ice chips for 8 hours. There may be a chance that Christopher can come home tomorrow afternoon. I'll keep you posted on that.

More later, Alison

The "C" Word Has Entered Our Lives at the GHR&C

Our aloof Rhodesian Ridgeback, Walter, died of a hemorrhaging mass earlier this year. Now, Cubby, the three legged wonder dog has some similar issues with his spleen. He's not eating much these days, some days not at all, and he is likely to have an event where internal bleeding will weaken him totally. Surgical removal of the spleen is an option but may only buy him so much time as "seeding" of the cancer cells may have already occurred. Not a cheerful prognosis.

In between Walter and Cubby's issues,  I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The bottom line is that I am going to have it removed - Radical Prostatectomy - on Monday June 25. I'll spare everyone with all the details surrounding how I came to that decision but it was not taken lightly.

What is so surreal is that here I am writing about major surgery and I am feeling so healthy. I just finished a week of heavy lifting building a patio in Florida. I had a few sessions of fantastic body surfing just to cool off. Alison and I had a great run up the hill behind the cabin for a good cardio workout yesterday and I'm going to be racing around here for the next two days moving some downed trees from the trails and mowing everything I possibly can.

My goal is to be out of the hospital in two days not three. I'm the first surgery in the morning so that should help. We've decided to leave my cell phone at home since I'm going to be pretty out of it while there. I've been practicing counting to ten so I can tell the nurses the level of pain I'm experiencing so they can give me the juice!

Alison will post an update here after surgery.  We don't get cellphone coverage at the cabin so I can be reached, hopefully on Wednesday, at 360-599-2587.

Till we meet again in some form or another,
Christopher

Ducks

The exciting news from here at the Golden Hour Ranch and Circus is regarding the ducks. The ducks have a purpose: They eat slugs. Slugs eat young sprouts and just about anything that grows. Nobody but ducks eat slugs and the slugs can destroy a garden in a night. Without the ducks the only way to grow a garden is to create a nasty chemical defensive barrier and a lot of diligence. The GHR&C is slug haven.

The ducks also lay a lot of eggs that are considered a gourmet item and people pay me good money for them or I barter with them. I also make a lot of egg noodles with them too. So my three ducks are valuable items. 

Ducks periodically lose their feathers and grow new ones, called molting. My ducks recently did that and discovered that they could fly so yesterday we clipped one of their wings. I always clip the right so I can have only left wing ducks on the ranch. Clipping the flight feathers doesn't cause the ducks any pain but there is always a bit of drama around getting a hold on them to do it. 

Well yesterday after we had clipped them I heard a flapping of wings and a ruckass so I went to find out what was going on. I couldn't see the ducks right away but what I did see was a lone bald eagle low to the ground right above where the ducks we last seen. Now there's a big bird. Anyway it didn't have duck but we could only find two of the three. Abdul was missing. We named the duck Abdul because it was the biggest but he turned out to be a she too. 

We figured that there must have been a pair of eagles and the other one had already taken off with Abdul. We thought about looking in some of the big trees to see if we could find him but then we figured it would be too late and who really wants to see their pet duck get ripped to shreds and not be able to do anything about it. You get a one way ticket to jail if you shoot an eagle. So we locked up the other two - Custer and Elli and wrote Abdul off. 

On the way back to the cabin I noticed something crouched underneath the stairs and low and behold there quaked Abdul. He must have fought off the attack and escaped. This time.