A Blue Sky in the Winter

My dear Shelley is resting this afternoon, and I find myself with a rare opportunity to sit here and write something. It's been a difficult few months and more months of challenge loom ahead. Nonetheless, we find delight every day.

Just this morning, I was looking out the window into the beautiful blue sky of winter and saw a black bird fly across the sky. It was just that fast, in the blink of an eye, the bird displaying its proficiency in flight, moving from treetop to treetop. I think I could tell that the bird was having fun flying. It didn't just streak through the sky, but fluttered up and down, like a young kid with the new bike going down the road. Such delight in an instance.

And so our life goes. We have such moments alone and together that bring happiness and delight. Every instance is not relished or cherished. But if we take a moment, and contemplate what happens thoroughly, I believe we can and often do find something to appreciate and find joy in. Of course, my perspective differs from Shelley's; I am not called upon to suffer so. But we do laugh together often. And cry.

Shelley has now undergone three chemotherapies. They have been hard on her, very hard. She has lost considerable weight and most of her hair, had persistent nausea, struggled with bouts of diarrhea and constipation, bled from her nose and down below and other places too, suffered shooting pains and cramps, terrible fatigue, etc. She still cannot breathe well; is supposed to be on oxygen 24/7. It is hard. There is, after all, still a plural effusion and clots in her lung, besides everything else. There are persistent appointments at the doctors' offices, prickings and pokes, probings and sticks. It is not possible for me to articulate all of her various troubles and trials. Yet, she still is able to find laughter and a smile and delight and happiness, more than you would expect.

Some days are better than others. Some moments are worse.

At times, I think I should catalog all of this better. I think sometimes I should tell the whole story, if that were somehow possible. It's not. First of all, it would all be just from my perspective, not hers. I miss a lot.

The type and the advancement of the cancer Shelley now has — peritoneal (related to ovarian cancer) — is chronic. It differs from the kind of cancer she had twenty-five — going on twenty-six — years ago. Then, her Hodgkin's lymphoma was curable, not chronic. The cancer she has now was first detected when doctors drew out fluid from her pleural cavity and tested it. It did not originate in the pleural cavity so it had traveled there from another location, which means it is metastatic. It is also diffuse.

The foreseeable plan includes her visiting with a specialist in her type of cancer in Salt Lake City this week. She will need to have an other CT scan, but she has difficulty drinking the prep fluids, in this case, barium, for such scans — she can hardly get the fluid down, and if she does, it usually comes right back up anyway.

Friends and relatives have been very sensitive and loving. They want to help and serve and, when we let them, they do. They're very supportive. It would be difficult to articulate here all of the get well wishes and cards, gifts and flowers and plants, letters and notes, visits and phone calls, meals and treats we have received. The cousin who came and gave Shelley shots when she needed them. People have come and taken Kiele out to eat or to a movie to help out, have made certain that she feels welcome at meetings, have called her to help her deal with all of this. The same is true of various healthcare providers, generally. They have been wonderful — caring, sensitive, comprehensive in their attentions.

We are, by nature and by choice, an independent couple. Since we married all those years ago and left our respective homes and immediate families to forge a new life together as husband and wife, we have never needed or sought much help from anybody; anything anyone ever did for us, we always tried to pay back, generously. I hope we have succeeded in that regard, although there are many people much more generous than we are who make it very difficult to do, and now, I'm afraid, we've fallen behind them will never catch up. In any event, over a lifetime we have grown quite self-sufficient — made it into a way of life. We like it that way and believe it's the way people should generally live, if they can. Plus, I think we like our privacy.

Anyway, we are grateful. People have prayed for us and blessed us. They continue to do so, perhaps in measures that we will never be able to fully appreciate or repay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

On Christmas Eve

Life has gotten the better of me lately. Hence, I haven't posted here. It's not that I've been lazy or anything — well, not more than usual — but circumstances have changed, and it has left me dry and tired.

Several months ago, maybe as much as a half a year a year ago, Shelley was walking the dog every day and most days if not every day exercising on the elliptical, also. Her routine, however, slowed over time, as some inner process apparently started to take malicious effect. She began losing her breath. After a time, it was too difficult to exercise and walk the dog both on the same day, so getting on the elliptical took a backseat to walking Asia, the greyhound. Then, even walking the dog became taxing. The hills would take Shelley's breath away and she would come home exhausted. About that time, I became ill, some sort of influenza manifested by shortness of breath, nausea without vomiting, diarrhea, a bad cough, a headache, and general achiness. Soon thereafter, Shelley manifested some of the very same symptoms. After a week or ten days, I began feeling better. After two weeks, Shelley didn't feel any better. She did with respect, perhaps, to the achiness, diarrhea and such, but not with respect to the shortness of breath. It was worse than ever; so was her cough.

We took her to the doctor. He checked her over, didn't find anything specific that he found of major concern, and made some general recommendations, particularly, because neither one of us — Shelley or I — have been much on doctors or getting regular checkups and shots and the like. So the general checks were overdue. You would think we would be better, especially Shelley, given her track record, but there you go, we are fallible human beings. One thing the doctor wanted to do, among other medical tests, was a chest x-ray. He planned on just having as yet the next word getting these particular tests done and then giving us a call about the results. However, after the x-ray was completed, Shelley knew something was wrong because of the technician's reaction: he called the doctor right away. The technician let Shelley know that the doctor wanted to see us before we left. So we rode the elevator back up to the doctor's office and learned from him that the x-ray showed Shelley had a pleural effusion. That is, she had a collection of fluid in the pleura, a sack like structure that envelops each lung. Her particular effusion was on the right side. It seemed to have collapsed up to three force of her lung on that side.

Shelley was sent to see a pulmonologist. We went to McKay-Dee to do that, and after visiting with the pulmonologist, we were told told to go to the radiology department to have the fluid drained from the pleura. After they completed the drain — they drained about a liter and a half of fluid —, they discovered pulmonary embolisms (blood clots) in Shelley's left lung and had her admitted to the hospital. She spent some five or six days there while they were trying to figure out what was going on. Meanwhile, the pulmonologist had the drained fluid analyzed. The analysis was inconclusive; however, it did show some abnormal cells and help rule out various things that could've caused both the effusion and the embolisms. The pulmonologist's best guess was that cancer was causing the problem. There were a host of other things that could have done it, however. The most hopeful was that there were some bacteria causing problem. That would've been easily treatable and eradicated.

In the hospital, they started Shelley on a regimen of medicine — Coumadin — to thin her blood to try to eradicate the blood clots in her lungs. Just before they discharged Shelley from the hospital, the pulmonologist conducted another fluid drain, again taking out just over one point five liters of fluid. He ordered more tests, this time more complete testing. Also, upon discharge, she was told to stay on oxygen 24/7 at two liters.

Shelley was sent to see a gastroenterologist. He told her he needed to conduct a colonoscopy and an endoscopy. Shelley was to prep and they gave her the kit to do so, but she had an impossible time with it: it made her throw up more than voiding out the other end. Hence, by the time the doctor wanted to conduct a colonoscopy, she was not ready. Since they do the two procedures in tandem, neither was completed, and she was told to go home and prep again. They gave her a different kind of prep kit, and we went home to try it. By this time, she was exhausted. She, however, successfully completed the prep. The doctor was able to proceed. However, the large: was twisted and kinked and because of her Coumadin level it was too dangerous to proceed. Therefore, the doctor was only able to check out about a third of the large colon. Everything he saw looked okay, but he wasn't satisfied that he had seen. Furthermore, relative to the endoscopy, the opening was too constricted, and for similar reasons — the level of her Coumadin — it was too dangerous to force his way through.

The doctor recommended that she have another procedure — since she had already prepped — and sent her to another facility to have a virtual colonoscopy. She was too weak and unable to complete that procedure, however.

Well, it's getting late, the story is a long one, convoluted and, perhaps, I will get it all down and perhaps not. But for tonight, that's enough said.

All I can say is that I am prayerful. Our family and friends have been very helpful and kind, very loving.

This is not the kind of Christmas Eve anybody wants to spend, worried about the person they love most in all the world.

Heart, In Abundance

The Clockwork Three by Matthew J. Kirby


My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Every boy or girl, no matter how old, should read this book. I'll try to tell you why.




I believe at some time every child, no matter who or where they are, feels at least once and maybe several times like a slave of sorts, even in the best of times and in the most favorable of conditions. I know I did, and most of the people I've talked to enough about it to know, did also. Even though I was raised in pleasant circumstances with everything I needed, I did. Nonetheless, I had red hair and freckles, and my skin burned like the dickens. Ginger hair and abundant freckles that multiplied like crazy when I stayed out too long in the sun didn't appeal to me, not at all. Neither did the painful blisters from my sunburns. And that is putting it mildly. I felt like my light complexion made me a slave to it. I knew that my red hair made me an object of ridicule and bullying, and there were times when I utterly hated it and thought almost no one else, except perhaps another redhead, could ever understand.




THE CLOCKWORK THREE is the title of Matthew J. Kirby's novel about three young people that every person can identify with who is in or has experienced similar circumstances of crises, big or small: Giuseppe, Hannah, and Frederick. It is set on the eastern seaboard in a bustling city of the United States around 1900. Those three young characters provide ample opportunity for every young reader to find a friend to identify with relative to feelings of enslavement to something, whether it's freckles and red hair or something else much more or less serious.




Take as a mentor either the orphaned Giuseppe, who must play his violin in the streets for money and turn over all the earnings from doing so to an evil master, or the lovely and tender Hannah, who must work her fingers to the bone with little opportunity or future as a maid in a high-class hotel in order to provide for her impoverished family, or the handsome and strong Frederick, the young apprentice to a clockmaker who can't remember what happened to him earlier in his life so that he lost his mother and ended up in an orphanage. Because, if you do, you'll find more than the magic in Giuseppe's green violin found as flotsam in the bay, or in the automaton Frederick has long dreamed of bringing to life, or in the treasure in the park Hannah hopes to find to deliver her family from poverty and worse. You will find the magic of friendship, of sacrificing yourself for someone else, and of loyalty to both people you love and to principles.




This is Matthew's debut novel and what a grand one it is. You will love his tight storylines that will carry you away into the world of the three children; you'll marvel in the way he weaves his prose together so flawlessly, and you'll find satisfaction in the ease with which he employs metaphors and other literary devices. And characters! Oh my, the characters. Awesomeness.




Steampunk, fantasy, history, it has it all, subtly. But most of all, it has heart, in abundance.






View all my reviews

SOME THOUGHTS ON CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

I suppose I should set forth a few of my basic beliefs relative to politics and social commerce. I don't know that I've ever done that in any substantive way, at least I have not since college, when the demands of a class might have required it. Of course, since that time my political views have changed dramatically.

Let's start today with crime and punishment.

I do believe people should be held responsible for the wrongs they do. I also believe that society needs to protect itself from those who break its laws. I also believe it is probably in the interests of our society for habitual criminals, particularly criminals who are involved in violent crime, to be put away for increasingly long periods of time.

Hate crimes seem especially egregious to me and merit enhanced penalties above and beyond that of the normal, run-of-the-mill crime. I believe children should be taught early and often — including in school — to have respect and honor for other people, even if they are different in looks or their personal religious beliefs or lack of belief.

I am opposed to the death penalty. I believe killing is evil. I personally believe killing is against what God wants any human being to do in any situation. I believe God has the power to deliver man from death and does so. I believe man rationalizes when he thinks that he is entitled to kill, even in situations where that has occurred in scripture, as in the case of Nephi and Laban, with an understanding that the Lord sanctioned it. We possess enough resources to protect ourselves from sociopaths, serial killers, and other truly evil individuals without resorting to killing them.

I lean toward legalizing recreational drugs, not because I have any intention of ever using them and not because I think they are anything less than evil in that context — recreational use, but because it would be a better avenue to getting a handle on the problem they have, in our era and place.

Where there is a tension between the "haves" and the "have-nots" as there most certainly is in the United States as is witnessed in the news today with reports of the growing gap between the rich and the poor, I am not for capping jury awards. There is no question but that rich and powerful people and corporations exploit the masses. In doing so, it isn't above those individuals who wield power and exercise it to cut corners inside or outside of corporations, to jeopardize, to exploit people. I believe they should be held accountable when they do so, and I believe that legitimate lawsuits should not have an upper limit.

While I recognize that the Supreme Court has indicated that there is an absolute right of individuals to own and use weapons, I'm opposed to it. I aspire to be a pacifist in all I do and say. I see no need for those who love their neighbors as themselves to own or use a weapon. I see a place for them in society in law enforcement, but above and beyond that I don't.

Some Final Plotting

So now I've got Alejandro on the run with Migra after him. He went up over the ridge and anticipates that Migra will utilize all of their resources to come after him. He's seen the turkey vulture flying through the sky, and given adequate warning to his father and to José. They have heeded his warning and turned back. Alejandro has lots of experience laying low but little experience fleeing through a harsh desert. Now he must do his best to get away.


I anticipate him getting caught. There's no way he can get away. So after he gets caught — and that has to only be after I have fully exploited the chase — there has to be a mechanism that allows him to go home to the Playhouse. What I've anticipated all along is him being able to exploit the "born on the border" question. Although, all along he has been told by his parents and family that he was born on the Mexican side of the border, what's to say he really was? How did they know? Did they cross the fence like the one I have posited in my exposition so far? It could be that he was really born on the American side.

Anyway, I anticipate the next section will be the chase and the capture. So that's what I need to work on and formulate.

THE CLOCKWORK THREE

So my friend Matt Kirby's first novel comes out on October 1 of this year, in a few days. Everyone ought to read it. The title of the book is The Clockwork Three. Of course, I along with my other fellow critiquers are particularly invested in its success, because to some degree or another we all had input in Matt's book, even if it was only to suggest the rearrangement of a sentence or the incompatibility of some particular construction. Not only us in the critiquing group, but also other confidants helped Matt along the way, but mostly the credit goes to Matt and his fine ability to tell a compelling story and to string words together in a most magical way.

The book is targeted at youth. There are essentially three protagonists: Giuseppe, an enslaved street musician, Hannah, a maid at a hotel, and Frederick, the apprentice of a clockmaker. I won't bother here to tell about them any further or about the book, because the reviews that are out there already are more than adequate to compel you to read it. Check out Goodreads and Amazon, and you'll see. Then go buy the book.

The House in Star Valley Ranch

Earlier this summer we purchased a house in Star Valley Ranch, Wyoming, a little town not far from Thayne, Wyoming, another little town on Highway 89, about twenty miles north of Afton, Wyoming. Star Valley Ranch is about fifty miles south of Jackson, Wyoming. More people will be acquainted with Jackson. It is the big jumping off place for the Tetons, Teton National Park, etc. It has substantial celebrity.

The house is on an acre of ground, most of which is simply grassland. It is substantively flat with little or no elevation. The soil is quite rocky. Perhaps, there is a gentle slope toward the west, since the lot is on the east side of the valley and everything slopes downward toward the center of the valley. There are no houses or developments to the west of us.

It isn't that large of a house, although it is more than adequate for the three of us. It has two bedrooms and two bathrooms on the ground floor and two more bedrooms and a bathroom in the basement. There is a nice kitchen, a dining nook, and the living area. The living area has a fireplace, and to the south, another nook with bookshelves and a place for a desk. It is fully finished. The floors are hardwood, tile, and carpet. The hardwood runs throughout the living space: the hallway, the open living area, the dining nook, the kitchen and down the hall to the bedrooms and the bathroom.

The aspect of the house I like best is its opened, airy, and light living area. This is the area you come into from the east side of the house through the front door. It has a vaulted ceiling, and there are big windows to the east, looking out to the West. To the right, is the kitchen, and the dining area. To the east of the dining area there is a door that goes out onto a wraparound Trex deck and porch.

The house is above elevation enough so that the windows in the basement are at least partially exposed, except for one that is underneath the wraparound deck and porch. A yard has been put in around the house, approximately the size of a quarter acre lot. It is in grass and lightly landscaped. We had a contractor come in and put in a log fence with green wire mesh.

There is an attached two-car garage that is a nice size. It is bigger than the one I have in Layton.