Soaring Again

We've been to Big Sur twice in the past two weeks. The fire damage is in full view as soon as you pass by Big Sur village. Whole mountain ranges to the east of Route 1 are ashen. On the west side of Route 1, toward the ocean, is untouched. Route 1 was the fire break.

The Condors must have been forced out of the hills and over to the beach. We saw about a dozen of them and they were flying low. They just stretched out their nine foot wingspan and soared with the updrafts of the sea cliffs. They didn't use any energy flapping those wings. They just stretched the large black and white feathers in every direction.

That's how I feel. I'm starting to stretch out in every direction. I have a huge pent up desire for everything...relationships, exercise, work, photography, painting, church, and politics. I've never felt so alive. My desire is greater than my energy, so I have to be careful. But it feels sooo good!

I'm still not able to work full time, but I'm continuing to make progress. I'm spending a couple of days a week, on the average, at Lawrence Livermore Labs. It looks like I'll do that for at least another year. I'm going back to the Orange County Unified School District to help them with the next strategic plan early next year. I finished a pilot with HP Software that went well and I'll probably do another engagement there before long. I also finished an engagement at Cisco. Every week I'm a little stronger. I work hard for a few days and then I exercise and rest for a few days.

Our move to Pacific Grove is a year old. It was a great move. We feel as though we fit in. The area is small compared to Silicon Valley and London. People are friendly. They reach out. We know enough people, now, that we run into friends wherever we go. The place is physically beautiful and constantly changing with the shifting weather. That was no surprise. What was a surprise was the social intimacy. We love it here! We're soaring!

The Rhythms of Life

For most of my life, I adopted the rhythm of four seasons. In New England, I was inspired by the first few weeks of each new season and ready for a change in the last few weeks of each season.

California seasons are subtle and there are no inspiring renewals. One month marches into another with no definition. One day I notice the hills are browned out with the dryness of summer and before long I notice we are rich with the green of the rainy season. I never know exactly when the changes happened and the changes have little impact.

So, it was natural to fall into the rhythm that cancer generates. I just had my third CT Scan, and the results were great. I'm very relieved. I am inspired. It's like Spring!

As much as I trust that I am cancer free following all the aggressive treatment last year, I need to verify my condition every six months. I am in a trust and verify rhythm. The two seasons of my life are July through December and January through June each year. This rhythm will go on for five years.

I can easily trust that I'm healthy now, but as I get close to the next scan in January my anxiety will grow. "What's that pain in my arm?" "Is that a lump in my thigh?" "Why am I feeling tired." "Have I lost weight?" In the six weeks before the last scan, I was fighting to stay focused on the positive. I was mostly successful, but it was like trying to stand upright at the shoreline with your face toward the sun while a dark, swirling undertow tries to throw you off balance underfoot.

Anyway, I've been scanned in great detail and I'm fine. There is still a pseudo-cyst on my pancreas that is a result of surgery. It's a potential problem, but they often go away on their own, and mine shrunk about 25% in the past six months. That's a good indication that it will continue to dissolve.

Beyond that, I've not lost any more weight. The other side effects like atrial fibrillation and pulmonary emboli are no longer present. My strength is improving and my energy level is good. I managed to walk 18 holes for the first time in July. My gym workouts are more rigorous.

The work that I am able to do is going well. I just finished an engagement at Cisco and another at HP. I managed a business trip to Australia with no ill effect. I'm focused on work with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

For ever thing there is a season....

The end of 'news' as we knew it...

I discovered journalism in college. I had two teachers. Mal Salter was my journalism teacher and the college's Public Relations Director. Mal hired me in my sophomore year to work part time in the PR office. When he left the college, Pete Durham replaced him. I continued to work for Pete, and he referred me to the Farmington Valley Herald where I became the editor after graduating from college. I served as editor for two years and did the job part time while I taught school.

Mal and Pete grew up at the Hartford Courant. The Hartford Courant is a serious newspaper and is the oldest newspaper in the United States.

I loved these guys. They were affectionate, family focused, patriotic, skeptical and had a 'bull shit' meter that they wore on their rolled-up sleeves. They worked hard to get the story. They were fair. They wrote good leads, good headlines and made you want to read the whole story. They had trusted sources and used there authenticity to put people at ease as they talked. They believed they were the fourth pillar of the American constitution just behind the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government. I absorbed that style like a sponge and it shaped all that I do today.

I grew up with the assumption that the press wouldn't change. Over the past 20 years, I've watched in horror as the fourth estate disintegrated. The last bastion of the that estate was Tim Russert. I hardly ever missed an episode of "Meet the Press" . Tim was Mal Salter and Pete Durham on steroids. He had all the same qualities...just larger than life.

As the American audience developed a giant case of attention deficit disorder, TV news went to entertainment and finally split into left and right wing info-tainment outlets. All the prinicpals of journalism are gone. Pretty faces read garbage....over and over again. Newspapers are shrinking and giving way to blogs which have no value for the principals of journalism.

Tim Russert was the last journalist standing...and, now he is gone. He can't be replaced. There was no succession plan. Tom Brokaw will come back for a few months to let us down genltly. Then, Tom will fade out.

When Tom fades out, there should be a funeral for journalism.

It's a new day!

There is something about the Clinton's that made me queasy. I wanted to like them. After all, they are liberal democrats. Bill presided over the country during some great years. But I always felt that he was recklessly ambitious and that Hilary was right there with him. I didn't trust them. Yes, I was happy the Republicans weren't in office, but I had to hold my nose for those eight years. I felt that they were a big bubble...just like the housing bubble. I couldn't understand what power inflated that bubble.


And then came Bush. He was so bad that he made the Clinton's look good.

We watched Barrack Obama speak at Kerry's Democratic convention and thought, "Wow! he'll be a player before long." I never thought for a moment it would be this soon.

Then we read " The Audacity of Hope" and we were really hooked. When Obama decided to run this year, I thought it would be a dry run. Then, the Clinton's made me remember why I wanted to hold my nose. I think it was when Hillary said that she though John McCain would be a better President than Barrack Obama. Good lord, talk about recklessly ambitious!

I began to wish for a miracle. I've never been right about politics in America. I thought Bill Clinton would lose both elections. I thought George Bush would lose both elections. So, I stopped predicting. I'm too out of touch with mainstream America. I can't believe that more than half of the country refuses to believe in evolution. I can't imagine that the 99 channels on cable TV actually have an audience.

Even early this past week I thought the Clinton's would do something slick and postpone a conclusion. I felt the same way the last time the Red Sox won the World Series. I was so used to them losing that I expected them to lose in spite of the evidence. Yesterday, the bubble burst.

Well, here we are. We have a black Presidential nominee. It's also clear that the country is ready for a female Presidential nominee even though Hillary lost this opportunity. And, now, despite all the evidence, I won't predict that Obama will win. John McCain is an interesting guy. I don't think he would be as bad as he is promising to be, but it's time for the next generation to jump into leadership roles. This is a new day. The country needs to make a break with big money vested interests. I don't know if it will happen. I'll can only hope!

Surgery plus 1 year!

Wow! I went in for surgery a year ago today! It feels like a natural time to do a status report.

I just got back from doing two consulting assignments and spent a long weekend visiting my in laws in Massachusetts. Sharon has been there for three weeks to help her parents after her father suffered a stroke. He is now recovering very well.

Despite about 10 days of travel and work, I arrived back in Pacific Grove last night feeling fine. I'm looking forward to the long weekend to rest and recover. I am able to eat virtually anything. I need to be careful not to eat too much. I don't feel full when I'm eating, but about half an hour after eating I know that I've eaten the right amount or too much. If I eat too much, I am very uncomfortable for about an hour. I'm still experimenting with various foods and amounts. I have to be careful when I'm with clients or with friends that I don't overeat and end up unable to work or visit afterwards.

I'm going for at least one more endoscopy and dilation of the esophagus in a month. I don't feel like I need it, but I'll do it to be on the safe side. It feels like the scar tissue growth has subsided and my esophagus is clear. I'll also have another CT scan in a month or so to make sure that this cancer hasn't spread and started growing somewhere.

My energy level is almost back to normal. I can't work as much as I would like because I still have to spend a lot of time with doctors, tests, exercising and physical therapy. I've added physical therapy to try to get my upper back in shape. I lost so much muscle from the surgery and recover time that my back muscles atrophied and I have a tendency to stoop. It's actually hard to stand up straight and bring my shoulders back. The therapy is really helping, but I have long way to go.

When I look back on the whole experience, I am amazed at my good fortune. The detection couldn't have been earlier, the doctors were great, the recovery was about as good as it gets, and I feel very good at this stage. It's been a year and a half since I was first diagnosed. When I was diagnosed, the statistics said that I would have a 20% chance of living two years. Because of the early detection, my chances were actually much better than the average, but the numbers only go up to 50% chance of living two years. I'm confident that I'll do much better than the numbers suggest. I don't really feel vulnerable to this cancer any more. I feel, and evidently am, cancer free. Only time will tell for sure.

Wow!

Photo Workshop

I just finished a week of co-teaching a workshop here at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove. Guy Magallanes http://www.guymagallanes.com/ and I did our second annual Watercolor/Photography workshop. It runs for five intensive days and evenings and covers the whole workflow from seeing an image... to recording it with a camera ...to painting it... to recording the painting... and, publishing the painting. Whew!

Guy and I were exhausted by the end of the week, but the participants were very happy with what they learned and produced. This year we added the challenge of creating a self-published coffee table book of images from each member of the workshop, with poetry, by the end of of the week. They did it! No one was more surprised than the participants.

I really like this work! It seemed as if there wasn't a minute that I wasn't working with a group or individual who wanted coaching. Daniel Dixon came by on Monday evening and told the story of growing up with his famous artist parents...one, Dorothea Lange, the photographer and the other, Maynard Dixon, the painter. Daniel is a writer, story-teller and musician. He is a smart and giving person whom everyone came to adore.

Kevin Woodson also stopped by Monday and did a demonstration of his watercolor method. He held the crowd in absolute rapture as he talked and painted at the same time. He completed a painting of a very complex bouquet of poppies in about 45 minutes and never stopped talking the whole time.

Jack Wasserbach, a Carmel photographer, came in on Wednesday to show his work from Big Sur. He also divulged that he is slowly losing his eyesight because of problems with detached retina. He is slowly going blind, but he is so experienced with a camera that he can still work and plans to go on even if he loses his sight. He was very moving and inspirational.

Dixie Dixon was in the workshop as a participant, but she switched roles on Thursday night and brought some of her rock band musicians along for an impromptu concert by the fire. She did some country swing, some jazz, and some rock. It was a cool clear evening, but we had a roaring fire in the fire pit and watch the sunset over the Pacific as we sang along. Dixie has a CD which will be released this Thursday. I have an advanced copy and it's wonderful!

It was a special workshop and it took me four days to recover from the effort. I'd do it again in a flash!

Major Gains

I'm getting into deeper and more challenging consulting engagements. In the last few months, I've worked with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, HP, Cisco, BT and Emulex. As I get healthier I am available to get into more complex issues. The issues are absorbing and the challenges of balancing work with health care and family life are greater.

I'm happy to have those challenges to wrestle with. A year ago, I was focused on getting well enough to undergo major surgery that was loaded with risks. It's taken a year to feel like I'm getting back to normal.

I still have to be careful. Eating is getting easier. I know better what I can eat and what I can't. Each person is unique and has to learn from experience. I have at least two more dilation procedures scheduled. Getting at least four dilation procedures following this surgery seems about standard from what I read on other patient blogs.

We have figured out that I can't wait for scar tissue to close the esophagus passage before I schedule a procedure. I need to anticipate and schedule the procedure before it gets closed off. You would think that someone in the medical profession would explain about the fact that scar tissue is going to cause problems following Ivor Lewis surgery. An intern said something about "opening up the passage if it became clogged". It would have been much better if a surgeon had said, prior to and after surgery, that scar tissue would very likely form and need to be dilated several times before it stopped growing in a year or two. The procedure consumes a day and is not painful or uncomfortable in any way. That expectation would have saved me months of discomfort.

I'm getting steadily stronger week by week. I can really feel the gains on the golf course and in the gym. I climbed three flights of stairs fairly quickly with a client yesterday and was not out of breath as I would have been three months ago. I walked nine holes a week ago for the first time and felt fine afterward.

I'm getting there!