Columbus and the Valley

Circle of Life

The past couple of weeks have a circle of life kind of time out here in Seale, Ala. I spent quite a bit of time during the past few days working on a speech that I delivered to my Rotary club on Wednesday, I folded down the screen on my MacBook Pro Saturday morning and stepped out into a Chamber of Commerce kind of day. Breezy, cool, dry air filtered through a canopy of trees in fresh, full leaf against an impossibly blue sky. The grass needed to be mowed and I needed some solitary time with my thoughts to ponder the difficult task of telling the story of my five year tug of war with kidney cancer in just 20 minutes in the presence of 250 or 300 of my fellow Rotarians.

Izzy, our Golden, and I walked down to the barn for me to get the mower and for her to dance circles around me, snap her teeth and crowd my legs with her body, itching to get as many square inches of her bulk against as much of my legs as is geometrically possible. She’s a low tech, high touch creature. When she’s really happy, she leaps around and loudly clicks her upper and lower jaws together. I’ve never seen a dog do that. Her lips are curled back and her teeth are bared in what, to the casual observer would appear to be a bit of aggressive dog face. That look, only for a second, interrupts her usual open, wide-eyed,  grinning self.

I unlocked the door to the barn and took a right into my shop. There was a fertilizer spreader tipped against the mower and when I moved it out of the way there was a dark, still 4 and a half foot rat snake curled up in the shadow. He or she took a leisurely slide and eased its body into a small diamond-shaped hole in the metal tread of a ramp I use to roll heavy things into the bed of my pickup truck. The snake’s head was small enough to get her moving through the hole, but the mass of its body stopped moving forward when it became larger than the inner dimensions of the grate.

I gently picked up her tail and her underbelly, on my side of the grate, to see if I could pull her out. She was calm, but I could feel the rhythmic ripple of her muscles trying to propel her through the grate on the side where her head was. I laid her back on the concrete floor and as I reached up to remove my sunglasses, a rotten smell assaulted my nostrils as my hands passed. I left her, called up Izzy and we headed back to the house for me to wash my hands and to get a pair of work gloves out of the garage. I’ve been around a few snakes and I don’t remember them smelling bad. This one smelled like she had been rolling in road kill.

She could not have been happy about me pulling her backwards out of the hole, against the grain of her dark brown scales, but she let me pull her out. I could hear the scales clicking against the steel of the grate as she gave in to the sensation of being pulled. Although I’m skeeved out by snakes, I’m drawn to their elegance. Efficient, understated movement. Smooth, usually scent-free skin.

My plan was to catch her right behind her head just before she was completely free from the hole in the grate. It didn’t turn out that way, because once most of body was free, she back-peddled on her own and her head quickly joined her tail on my side of the grate. So, I had a hold of her just ahead of her midway point. She seemed to appreciate me pulling her free, tongue flicking and moving slow. We walked out of the barn and I gave Izzy the Sit/Stay command. Izzy dropped down onto her haunches and watched me walk with the snake until she lost sight of us around the corner of the barn. I left the snake  at the edge of the woods fifty yards south of where I found her and headed back to the barn, where Izzy still sat waiting for me to free her from her command to stay. What an awesome dog!

This past Saturday, I spent some much-needed time on my tractor bush hogging a field. The grass needed to be cut and I needed some thinking time with the muffled thrumming of the diesel engine coming through, diminished by 15 decibels by ear protection I wear when I’m on the tractor. On a westerly pass, a huge turtle moved out of the 10″ tall bahiagrass and into a mowed strip. Thankfully, I saw her and stopped the tractor, picked her up and took her back to the woods, safely out of the mowing zone.

Last night as we drove onto our property after an evening out with the McKnights, our headlights lit up a beautiful gray fox out under the pecan trees. What a cool thing to see.

On another note, I know it has been a while since I’ve posted about my cancer journey. I was the guest speaker at the Rotary Club of Columbus last week. Our son, Nicholas Riddle, was there and used my iPhone to video Marquette McKnight’s introduction and my speech. The video has been uploaded to my YouTube account page and is in two parts.

I continue to thrive after I stopped taking Votrient, at Dr. Pippas’ recommendation. My hair is returning to the color brown. I have gained back some of the 100 pounds I lost and I’m sleeping like a baby. Hallelujah!

 

 

 

 

I Pray With My Boots On

I have used this blog to chronicle, predominately, my life with cancer since I was diagnosed in May, 2009. There have been posts that didn’t refer to cancer, but as I look back, they were few. My story has been raw at times, spiritual at others, hopeful, desperate, angry, wistful and at others, downright sad.

Looking back on those early days, the information I got from my research said fairly emphatically that I wouldn’t be here now. My funeral would have been set, planned, executed and I’d be lying peacefully returning to the dust of a Seale, Ala. cemetery. These last almost three years have been life-affirming, instead of life-ending.

My story has been followed by thousands. People on at least five continents have accessed and read my blog posts. More important to me and to my family have been the local readers who have not only touched their mobile devices, keyboards or touch screens, but who have also reached out and touched me, hugged me, prayed for me, encouraged me, fed me, preached to me, cared for me and loved me.

I know I have pulled on your heart strings, made you laugh and made you cry. You’ve railed against fate with me. You’ve wondered, like we have wondered why it happened to me, all the while being glad it wasn’t you. Don’t lie — I know you know this is true.

You have looked at me with sadness in your eyes. Pity, even. How do you look at someone who has been given a death sentence?

Back in the early days, after cancer, I read longingly about that smaller percentage who could beat this tricky, deadly cancer. I have worn out my knees praying that I would be included in that percentage of death-defying survivors.

If I am to be, I’m on my way to paying the price of admission. Thirteen incisions, cinched up by many stitches and much surgical glue criss cross my torso, front and back. Countless sleepless nights with a vomit bucket within reach. A hospital bed, two different walkers, spare recliners moved from room to room trying to find a place I could be with my family and still be able to find a way to sit. Indescribable pain, hundreds of needle sticks, bags of fluids and radiation — oh my God, the radiation. Hundreds of hours of reading, studying this cancer and trying to hold up my responsibilities as part of my medical team. These are the tickets one has to punch to get into the show. I’m praying all the seats are not full when I get to the head of the line.

Update:

Dr. Mac Molnar met with us on Thursday of this week. He described the epic left lobe of my multi-noduled, benign, big ass thyroid goiter. It is gone, the path report was clear, my latest incision is healing well and my voice is beginning to get stronger. This is all good!

On this day, this beautiful Saturday, I torched my garden spot making ready for some tomato plants. I spent some time in my Ranger ATV looking at longleaf pines beginning to stretch their cactus-like arms toward the sky.

On this beautiful Saturday, I drove to the back part of our property out in the woods, turned off the vehicle, stripped buck naked, except for my socks, hat, sunglasses and boots and stretched my arms to the sky and thanked my God for healing me. For sustaining me through these dark days and nights and for giving me the first real seed of hope I’ve had in almost three years.

Here’s what I found out: I like praying naked in the woods and I’m going to do more of it. But first, I’ve got to get that drum circle started.

ICE CREAM MAN! ICE CREAM MAN!

I was out in the garden yesterday afternoon. Weeding. Hating it. Jill was puttering around in the Ranger ATV dumping some branches she had picked up around the yard. She rolled up next to our garden and said, “What do you want from the ice cream man? I hear him coming up the road.” [Read more…]

A Very Special Arbor Day

This day has been a gift. One of those full circle days. I got to wake up next to a great woman, kiss her goodbye and head off to do something for the greater good. I hit Ruth Ann’s for breakfast and stopped by the office to pick up a camera. Dozens of us gathered at Dinglewood Park across the street from Will Barnes’ fabulous office to plant trees in the spaces left vacant by a tornado that went through this part of town a couple of years ago.

Girl Scouts, Rotarians, Trees Columbus staffers and some folks from the Columbus Scholars program planted a Yoshino cherry, some weeping willows, Shumard oaks, loblolly pines and a couple of other species I don’t remember. The crowd gathered up toward the back of a pickup truck and Dorothy and Ashley from Tree Columbus and Chris from the Georgia Forestry Commission took turns standing on the tailgate preaching to the “green” assembly.

Everyone pitched in and we got all the trees in the ground. It was quite an event and I think everyone left there with a great sense of accomplishment. It was a beautiful day. Many of the people who left the Dinglewood Park planting project headed on over to Lakebottom for the city’s official Arbor Day event. I hooked up with Jeff Hudson and after we collected a few trees, we left for Uptown for lunch. Today is Jeff’s birthday. If you know him, make sure you Facebook him a birthday greeting.

I planted all five of the trees I took home and did a few more chores around the house. It felt good to do some manual labor today to be around so many people I like. I’m still smiling.

Happy Easter!

Saturday was a busy, good day. I didn’t get to bed until 3 a.m. because I went to Atlanta Friday afternoon to see a Midlake concert at the Variety Playhouse with two of my sons, a friend and the friend’s daughter. [Read more…]