Caring

Will I be part of the bag community?  Hell I didn’t even know there was a bag community until the cancer.  I have visited ostomy web sites where experiences, stories, pleas and blessings are put out there.  An entire community within the human community with bags talking about intimacy, sex with a bag, bag accidents; all the good, bad and what some would consider ugly.  Not me though, now I understand.  Would that I could have had such sensitivity as a young man but at least I have it now. 

For a cancer patient I have had too much fun this summer.  Dave Matthews and Santana with Stevie Winwood and priority parking, baseball at Victory field, concerts at Conner Prairie, dinners and lunches, my little brother, my big brother, my sister, Aunt Shirley, Chicago and full time work.  The gym a lot, walks, grand dog and golfing 3 times for the first times in my life.  You wouldn’t know I had a tumor to look at me.  Greater than all of that is discovering and rediscovering all the caring and loving people in my life.  I am blessed into supreme humbleness at the thought. 

Sharing Brings Support

Starting Monday with an inspiring note through Facebook from a sweet soul I last had a conversation with on or about 1975. She had read parts of this that I have published on the blog. I am a little uncomfortable with all this writing about myself yet I find so many who care about me I am humbled and driven to go on with it.
Hi Mike,
Hope you'll remember me. (W)
I just read a couple of your recent blogs at J's request.
I can not imagine the horrific treatments you are undergoing. It conjures up random barbaric torture scenes from who knows where in my mind. Of course, I wish I had something to offer. I know Vanessa would gladly take the treatments for you if it were possible. From what I understand there are a LOT of people who think you are phenomenal and are standing with you.
Impressive, your acute observations in that precarious space you carry out your days. That new keenness has got to be pivotal to some aspect of a lovelier life. (Along with the treatments doing their job, you may border on perfect when you're done).
I wanted you to know that I was thinking about you. That this horrible thing you go through in private matters to more people than you know.
God bless you through this.
W
Thank you W, and of course how could I forget? It is great to reconnect. The journal, written at the time, I think leaves a darker impression than reality for me. If I were not so stubborn and boneheaded a lot of my discomfort may have been averted. In any event having never been sick I plead ignorance. You are correct about perspectives. The story gets better. I started in July posting the first page. I was starting on a book when diagnosed and just kept going with a different subject, being narcissistically me. At present I am back at work and Van's honey do list, which impressively fills two pages of a legal pad. Great to be well again.
As I have learned there are many blessings, your care and concern certainly being one of them. Also, do to my mobility issues I have a handicap placard, placing me at the gate entrance at Verizon and other venues. Nice.
I was not sure about sharing my journal, but I have learned that my life is filled with caring people who really do want to know all the details, even though they don't. Soon my postings will be current. We are having a good summer, and I hope you are as well.
Random barbaric scenes eh? Somehow I always knew.
Lovingly yurs,
Mike

Angels And Other Friends

The one who has shown her metal here is Vanessa aka Inger the Swedish masseuse. She has kept her suffering from me, been my advocate, manager and secretary. She has coached, guided, loved, attended, cared for, fed, clothed, hauled, stood by, stayed up with, hovered over, waited for, waited on, cleaned up after me. She mentioned last night taking another shot at the weedeater this weekend as she fearlessly prepares for taking over major portions of property management. Our neighbor Dale, who mowed the property when she was too exhausted to, asked if he could mow yesterday but pride and stubbornness inbred in her spirit led her to decline. ‘We don’t have to go as many places right now so I can do it’ she declared. I proudly told Phil I was cleared for the hedge trimmer and thanked him for doing them. I was amazed at the job he did, down to moving clippings to the compost pile.
I am not sure how to thank Dale and Bob for all their help on the property, or Jim, Dan and the rest for their offers and support. For a bunch of neighbors who wave and smile but hardly ever talk there sure is a lot of love around here of the Christian variety. We forget it is the neighborhoods that are the beginning of everything for every child, the heart of democracy.

My Professional Team

As I have often said of this excursion, God hides in every bit of turmoil a blessing. My work team and Employer certainly fall in this category. With my change in routine the result will be a stronger Company with more security for all I hope. Nothing illustrates this more than this e mail exchange between me and Bruce, our Team Service Coordinator.
-From: Mike Courtney
…..Let me know what else you need as I am deskbound and happy to fill my day with whatever you throw at me.
Thanks so much for your help. I am so sorry I cannot contribute more, I know this has impacted your work load and so appreciate your support and help. On the other hand I am bound to keep calling and looking for stuff which will only pile more on you. But then, you have big, if not sore, shoulders.
Bruce to Mike:
Good Morning:
Glad that you are making the calls
The extra work load just means that it's hussle time, and that is good for all of us.
I will send this imformation on to Brad
Have a GREAT WEEKEND and PLEASE call if Debbie or myself can do anything for you.
Got ot go spraying for WEEDS
BRUCE
Piling on Bruce really doesn’t work out well and I suspect causes distress in my absence. He is a man of routines and does not like to get out of them. Yet my core function for the past 37 years has been to produce opportunities for billable hours, mostly for other people. I take pride in my ability to sell services that not only are vital to the Customer but produce meaningful, safe and good work for the coworkers I serve. I feel very close to all of them and very responsible for them. They have demonstrated through their outreach and offerings that they feel the same for me. With the support of my Employer and my team I am so far ahead of this game it isn’t funny.

Rambling Through the Second Week of May and My Special Gift of Bob

Monday and I am back to work, but only 6 hours due to the drugs mostly. Foot pain has transformed to something of a lesser grade as I am able to walk with only a stick and no longer need crutches.. It took me all day to work up a couple of contractor submittals. Need to get back into call mode ASAP. Shop is busy so I am told.
Dinner was Vans chili. A most flavorful excursion for sure and I ate my fill. Bob my neighbor showed up at six or so. He had an urgency about him, no time to sit and chat, he had to get my lawn mowed because it is going to rain an inch or more tomorrow. There was no stopping him and his desire to help with my situation. I think since he keeps me high on his church prayer list he needs to do something material for me to ease his conscious having worked himself into feeling guilty because we haven’t asked for anything and he hasn’t jumped in. Bob is pure of heart with a humor that is much like mine but a vastly different family situation with lots more kids all grown now. He is a Grandpa many times over and I thanked him. He assured me I had a lot of people praying for me. And so he was off and mowed my yard. It seems nothing I could do in return could possibly be worthy in the face of his gift, a gift greater than any money can buy. A gift of love for someone he knows only through occasional over the fence talk through the years. Wow.
It’s Friday and the week is nearly over. Tuesday I had chemo and was way out of sorts pretty much until yesterday afternoon. I cannot walk yet, as the pain in the bottom of my feet, while now manageable, prevents me from taking more than baby steps. Physical therapy Wednesday included an hour on the Flexitouch machine, an automatic massage device that runs 8 grand and of course is not covered by my insurance. My left leg is something of a water balloon, increasingly sensitive to touch. Van worked me over yesterday and I now where those sporty bike shorts with the padded seat as a girdle along with the wraps on both legs. My walking is excruciating at times, with a burning pain across the bottom of both feet. Therefore I walk in very short steps on a pair of rental crutches, setting feet flat with each step. Foot pain is inescapable. On the other hand clearly I am getting better. The girls want to start something called ‘Piss On Bladder Cancer’.
In a couple of weeks I will have completed a full treatment cycle. I still have my hair. I will get a CT scan and x ray to see what is going on with the cancer. For me it is not exactly a win win. If the chemo is not working, of course, that is not good for my long term prognosis, and I will join my Parents and all those dogs at a relatively young age. On the other hand I cannot help but remember that if the chemo is successful I will face horrendous surgery, being gutted like a fish. I will be left without the ability to have a sexual relationship with my Wife and without my bladder living with some sort of diversion or drain for the rest of my life. The cancer gives me no quarter in this regard, it is ‘part of it’. Oh well, we have the weekend to look forward to.
It’s 1:30 on Saturday, AM, took a nice walk down to the stop sign, about six hundred feet round trip, took a little while and Tucker drug me back, apparently she has four hollow legs. I find it so sad as I gaze across my lawn in the twilight with a brilliant clear sky filled with stars bright and twinkling. The air is clean and cool as I walk. Why shouldn’t we all as a species work to prevent our ultimate demise. Obviously we have to stop the families with 10 kids. Continued population means we will need another planet. Ah the Lortab, and I ramble.