return from the rain forest

I have just returned from Costa Rica where I was on a week-long retreat for women high in the South Eastern rainforest.  Boy, was it wet!  The jungle is amazing, though, full of sound and power and life.  We were there to regenerate and get back in touch with our senses, and we had a few mishaps along the way.  First, our leader dislocated a toe, then another woman dislocated her shoulder in the water and several ladies had fever/diarrhea/vomiting.  Even though i am a doctor, we needed a doctor!  Luckily, we found several indigenous angels to help us get to the medical clinics we needed and all vomiters recovered with little assistance...thank goodness.  

Anyway, I was somewhat restricted in what I was allowed to participate in having just had radiation on my hip lesion, so I settled in to have a reflective, quiet week exploring the retreat center and working with my new camera.  It worked; I really felt renewed, especially when I wasn' t worrying about whether the group would survive until the next day.  The women who lead these retreats are gifted community builders and story tellers, and these retreats are usually very special times to spend time in community with other women supporting each other and expanding our personal stories.  I love that idea and am really looking forward to working on my story a great deal.  We all sensed a great power in the jungle.  In fact, i often felt that I was being watched during the night--not in a scary way at all, but in a benign, supportive way.  We really could have had a great deal of trouble with all our injuries, but we found help and healing at every turn, and the power of the group and the place was palpable.

I went with a cane and a limited ability to do anything because of my radiated hip, but I ended up being the healthy one and helping others.  Perhaps there is a lesson for me in this--perhaps my power comes from somewhere inside, and not only from my athletic ability.  This isn't something I've believed in strongly, but I opened up a bit in Costa Rica and allowed the idea that this is true to percolate my layers like the rain on the jungle.  Maybe something is beginning to bloom!

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Hi.  I'm living closely with cancer these days, and I thought I would start recording my thoughts, experiences, mistakes, and successes as this cancer and I live together for many more years, hopefully!  I was initially diagnosed in 1996 at 36, and I lived without evidence of disease for 10 years until I started having pain in my side and ribs.  I rolled over in bed and broke a rib, and I knew-- I had metastatic disease.  That was two years ago.  I've done well on hormonal treatment, but I have really had an education about living with the weight of this diagnosis and its psychologic effects--not just on me, but on everyone who loves me.  I think the whole experience has opened and is opening my eyes in so many ways, and it has raised so many questions for me.  These are the things I'd like to talk about in this blog.

Thelma, Louise, and Calamity Lynne hit the West

Yesterday, the three of us drove 970 miles across Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and finally up along side Nebraska and into South Dakota. We had a marvelous time. We headed out with Sioux City, Iowa as our probable stopping point, but we were having such fun and moving along so smoothly that we just kept going. The landscape was pretty monotonous--tan plains of dead crops, grazing horses and cows, but then the sun came out, the clouds disappeared and we saw wonderful wind farms through Iowa. Hey Lynne, what's that big lake over there? Yup, that "lake" was the mighty Mississippi, and we missed it! We paid a bit more attention and spotted the Missouri river as it winds into Omaha, except that it was getting dark.

Oh well, this morning, we had breakfast with Santa at the hotel. While we all had oatmeal, Santa had three biscuits and gravy and a blueberry muffin...guess he has to keep his weight up. We set out today to explore the badlands and see Devil's Tower in Sundance Wyoming. On our way to the badlands , we stopped to get gas at a defunct gas station that happened to be the home of the Minuteman missile national park outpost. We were met by ranger Butch Davis who explained how and why 150 missiles where siloed in western states during the cold war. Scary stuff, but incredibly interesting.


Very nearby, we had stopped to see a sod house (think My Antonia). Well, the house was built by a frontiersman who moved out west in 1906 and built the homestead. Boy, they didn't have fleece or space heaters. Life looked very hard, but a whole town of white prairie dogs greeted us...very cute.

Then to the badlands, and they were really incredible. All of a sudden, the landscape is thrown into what looks like mad sandcastles and canyons and then smooths out again. This "bad" land is remarkably weird and beautiful , and all caused by deposition and erosion, or so said the ranger who hadn't seen another human for who knows how long and was a bit odd.


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We wandered around and took a short hike through the park and never saw another human. Oh yeah, it is the last day of November and freezing! Fun, though. Then back in the car and heading to Wyoming . The Landscape changed slot in Wyoming. It became more rugged and forbidding and vertical, and beautiful still. Then it began finally to rain and then snow. But on we trooped. A few hours later , there was the turn off to Devil's Tower, the nation's first national park. This is a single tower of rock that looks like bear claws have raked it's sides. The geology is a bit unclear, and there are several theories. This was also a sacred site for the Sioux Indians as well, and they have myths about it's creation as well--something about girls being chased by a bear and asking buffalo to save them. The buffalo did, and the rock sprang up getting the girls away from the bear, but he clawed the columns into the tower.



It looks like this:



Cool. We then drove on to Gillette, Wyoming through a nice little snow storm. We found a great restaurant to plan our Montana extravaganza for tomorrow, and my two compatriots are already asleep. We're looking forward to some big sky action! We'll let you know.

DAY 3
Leaving Gillette at mile number 1525 and on our way out of Wyoming and into the glorious state of Montana. Truthfully , we had a tough night at the Day's Inn....kind of dreary and lumpy so we're hoping for better things in Montana.
Ok, this Northern Wyoming landscape looks like .....desolation with a dusting of snow. Truly, there is nothing anywhere around us except snowy sagebrush poking through jagged hills of tan grass...forever in all directions. Just crossed over the Crazy Woman Creek...and we think we know why she's crazy......!!!




After a few hours, the scenery began to change:



And then we were in Montana! We stopped at a town called Livingston just before Bozeman. Here we admired the historic little town at the gateway to Yellowstone National Park. We found a little museum in a renovated school house called the Yellowstone Trail Museum. The Yellowstone trail was the first transcontinental freeway ( not railway), and the pictures and props were wondful. Here we learned several cool fun facts. First of all, we learned again now devastating the polio epidemic could be in isolated small towns. Livingston was one of the first pilot sites for the Salk vaccine. In addition, Teddy Roosevelt came to visit, and relearned all about his campaign to get every amarican to contribute a dime to help eradicate polio---this became the March of Dimes campaign! And shortly after Mr. Roosevelt died, his face was out on the dime...cool facts!

We then learned that the song we knew as "Mares eat oats and does eat oats..." was really written ad nonsense verse like this, "Marsey dotes and dosey dotes...". Who knew?

Speaking of fun facts, we've been trying to convince ourselves that we understand how the Earth spins on her axis and how this plus our rotation around the sun explain why it is almost dark at 4pm way the heck out here. Unfortunately, most of us have needed a bit of a science refresher, but Louise had it mostly right, as usual...

Ok, then on the recommendation of the lady at the Yellowstone Trail museum, we had lunch at Pinky's. We had great sandwiches and soups, and we didn't think much about the name after we learned that the owners' names were Pinky and Frank. Imagine my surprise when I went into the bathroom:




Yup, Pinky was everywhere. Here's the view from the front of Pinky's:




So on we went for a long drive through Montana--through Bozeman, Butte, and finally Missoula. As we were cruising along, we whizzed past a small sign announcing the Continental Divide....Way cool.



We going to stop in Missoula, as we knew the drive would begin to get dicier as we approached the Rockies, but the sky was blue and the sun was shining, and it was only about 3 pm, so on we went. Now, the 115miles from Missoula to the Idaho border are pretty much up and down and quite hairy as you wind between ranges And then begin to climb up them. The drive is a bit hair-raising in the sunshine, and by the time we began to climb, there was NO LIGHT ANYWHERE!! We had a white-fingered drive and only hit a little bit of snow and ice, but we were very happy to see the signs for Wallace, Idaho!!

Wallace is the richest silver mining area on the earth, or so they say, and the town is adorable, pop 980. thanks to Jimmy Buffet's old masseuse, we found the famous BBQ place, and we watched Lynne down a 3/4 rack of ribs. Way to go, Calamity! We also had some fine local brew, and we were very happy. We also learned earlier in the day that Calamity Jane could put the liquor away, so we're watching Lynne carefully. Here's a pic of the bar and the mural behind it. We must return!



So, Louise and Calamity have hit the sack at the local hour of 8:30pm while I write, as we have a long day through Idaho and all of Washington to accomplish tomorrow. Stay tuned for more adventure, and good night!