9/7/17 10:05 pm

Watsu.

So I’m a massage therapist, and I love all forms of therapeutic bodywork, but I have a special love for watsu. At no point in my life do I relax the way I do when I am receiving watsu. There is nothing like floating in warm water, its like my whole body unwinds. Our friend Elina Root of Aqua Care For Me

has been trying to convince Cyndi to integrate watsu into her rehab. For some reason, being in a pool is the only time Cyndi’s vertigo abates. She wouldn’t try it until she saw what it was like so I got spoiled today too. Elina has a warm salt pool and an incredible, intuitive touch that made the drive into the valley during rush hour totally worth it.  Cyndi actually got in the pool and had an entire session! It was a real gift for both of us. We are making plans for making this a regular deal.

I have issues with my back, we’re doing daily exercise and rehab but it never feels quite right. Tonight, after soaking and stretching and the yummy massage that is watsu I feel taller and decompressed.  There’s something about the warm water that soothes the nervous system, maybe it’s a memory of being in the womb. All I can say is I love it.

We are trying to convince her to teach workshops so more people can spread the wonder that is watsu. I’ll keep you updated. In the meantime:  Here’s a video of  Watsu with Elina

4/9/17 12:21pm

I’m sick again. I swear I didn’t even sniffle for the whole two years Cyndi was ill.  We were in and out of the hospital, eating crap from the cafeteria, exposed to all sorts of awfulness and not a sneeze. Lower my stress levels and suddenly I’m sick every few weeks. UGH. I’m about to start a full blown immune support campaign for myself. I’m so tired of feeling like crap. I guess it’s normal, other caregivers keep telling me it is. I just feel like it’s not fair that we have been through hell and now I get to feel like shit too. We should be able to celebrate.

Cyndi has been showing more signs of memory loss, it makes us both anxious. They just don’t tell you when you are making your decisions about treatment and care that it will be 6 years before you know how much damage is done. 6 years before the radiation will be done wreaking havoc on your system. We did the best we could with the information we had, I know that. We are better informed and equipped than a lot of people, honestly, and we still walk around second guessing ourselves. Is the cost of survival too high? Was there another option? At this point those thoughts are just crazy-making circles. We have to live with what we have and move forward.

3/7/17 9:37pm

Navigating life lately is full of new challenges and adventures. We’re stumbling through them together. I’m grateful for all the people who are there to listen to both of us process while we try to figure out what our new normal is. This week has been interesting in a lot of ways.

I’ve managed to update and upload a whole lot more content here. Within the next few days I’ll have some fun downloads and even more recipes to post. Pictures and detailed comments will follow shortly. I’m seriously enjoying the book review section.  There’s nothing I enjoy more than talking books with my friends.

I’m excited to report that my friend Koit (who has been an incredible help – sometime soon I’ll post pictures of the ramp he built for us when we were in

the hospital so that we could wheel cyn in and out of the house more easily) has been finishing the metal shelving for our kitchen so the 2 year project is taking a quantum leap forward. At one point, a few months into Cyndi being sick and me being a house-bound caregiver I got super stir crazy and ripped apart the

kitchen. Like tore down walls, took down cabinets and restructured everything stir crazy. Cyndi was sick enough that I could pretend to not hear her protests, much like the day I took my sawzall to the the wall that surrounded it because I was feeling claustrophobic and then she came

home while it was halfway done… (it’s a good thing she’s such a good sport). I needed to do something tangible to take my anxiety and frustration out on something and our kitchen was so tiny that two people couldn’t stand in it together and open the door, which is stupid since our loft is huge. We cook way too much for this to be functional. So here we are now and I’m looking forward to piecing together the last bits of the project since the rest of the pieces have been sitting in storage waiting for this to happen.

I’ll post more pictures but here’s the in process. Please excuse the mess, everything is pulled apart right now but we’re excited. Next step is cupboard doors and more painting. Bits and pieces and it will eventually be done.

3/3/17 10:03pm

Alright, it’s time for an update on the challenge we started in January. We’ve had mixed results so far, Cyndi is doing way better than I am. She’s been doing her daily routines with a dedication I admire, including really working on her vestibular exercises. She’s an inspiration to me daily. I on the other hand am reminded why I don’t pay for a gym membership, I’m the least dedicated gym rat in the world. The idea Cyndi had for incorporating exercise into our daily lives (like every time we go to the bathroom we have to do either push ups or dips off the counter and either squats or rear leg lifts – 5 for Cyn and 10 for me) is genius, I just don’t do it with enough consistency. Cyn, once again is inspiring to me daily. I’m working on it. It’s slow. I do feel better most days which says a lot. I’m glad we are doing it and will keep plugging away at it. More updates soon.

1/11/17 9:54pm

So this isn’t something I usually post about, but it’s something that seems to be a pretty common theme with care-givers and cancer survivors. We are super de-conditioned (our main activity for several years now has been, respectively, lying in bed sick on lots of muscle eating drugs or sitting in a chair staring at the person lying in bed being sick, also, crocheting. This has not only made us both weak but we have gained a lot of weight so we are uncomfortable in our bodies (even more uncomfortable than just being sick makes us).

Because of this we have agreed to join in on an experiment, we are doing a 120 day challenge, it started two days ago, on 1/9/17, which felt a little arbitrary but we are doing it with a large group of people and groups can be arbitrary.  This means clean food, less cookies, lots of water, and more than anything, forcing ourselves to move more every single day. I’ll add a more extensive breakdown of how it all works out in the Hippie Test Projects section. I’ll just say here that tackling new recipes is always fun and I’m already starting to get sore. We want to make a major shift in our lives, we are ready to try to really live again, and this seemed like a good way to start that this year. Not so much a resolution as a lifestyle shift. I’ll keep you updated, wish us luck. I’m off to bust out the Wii and hula hoop on it for a while before bed.

 

1/2/17 5:53pm

One of the things that has become increasingly important to me over the past 3 years is supporting other people walking the journey of caregiver or cancer fighter. It is a surreal experience and there are times that only someone who has also set up all night at the bedside of a loved one, someone who has also become an unwilling authority on all the medications, treatments and interactions of all the things, someone who knows the horror of unexpected side effects and changing lives, there are times when only the ears of that person can hear all the unsaid things and not judge you for your angers and fears. Facing death brings out unexpected sides to everyone in your life and it has been an immense comfort to me to have so many wonderful people who have walked this walk ahead of us, make themselves available to listen and support us. It is my honor to do the same for others. Part of what this means is that there will definitely be a wellness/cancer survivor aspect of this page. Understand that I know the bone deep exhaustion of care-giving and will never judge how you or I cope. This is all well intentioned and a lot of it is the outpouring of my best days, the days with sun and energy and hope. There’s enough grief and darkness out there already, but please know that we know it too and send you all the hope we have to share.

12/26/16 12:59am

It’s been a long year, which is an understatement for most of us. Its been a while since I’ve spent time on this page.  Things have been increasingly busier, which is good and challenging at the same time. Our lives are shaped very differently than they were before 2014. Cancer cuts a wide swath through your life, wreaking havoc and redefining what is truly important to us with what is at times a crystalline clarity that filters out surprising things and highlights others. We are surviving it and rebuilding our lives and our expectation of normal in drips, drops and sudden stumbling steps. Normal is constantly being redefined. In all of it, we are gifted with the extraordinary gift of deep seated love and the ability to laugh together daily.

We are mapping out our plans, hopes, and goals for 2017, one of those goals is to share with you here many things, my thoughts, our recipes, our garden, chickens, and our ongoing efforts to eat well and from scratch as much as possible, grow our own food and flowers, while attempting to  spread more joy in a world that seems to be as sorely in need of it as we are.

7/8/15 1:05am

Seems I get all introspective in the wee hours of the night. Perhaps insomnia really is my muses partner. Only they truly know.

What I can say for sure is in this tenuous life I am unbearably aware of each breath and the staggering gift it is. Lately I have felt stunned by our last year. Walking around like I’m in a daydream, or have been, suddenly startled awake into the confusion of a new world with changes priorities, pared down survival rules and a pace that is hectic in its snails pace. I find myself reaching for things or starting to do something and forgetting what to do, so caught up in, “my god, we get more time.” Every single breath is a gift.

6/13/15 12:44am

4/4/15 2:11am

So I’ve recently started deleting apps off my phone. I want to do things that I used to, mind and soul enriching things. I’ve been kind of passively tracking what I do with my time and realized how much of it is spent staring at my phone. I used to talk for hours, tying up our landline, hungry for the connection and inflection of the words carried on the wires. I can’t remember the last time I did that.

So I’ve been clearing out time killers and picking up books, my knitting, to do lists and scrolling through my contacts list. It’s a weird itch to pick up my phone and do something with it, reflexive and obsessive. It’s alarming how constant it is. And in seeing that I want to cut the cord. I want control of my life and brain again. I want to lower the level of noise in my head and to try to recapture the fiery coals of driven creativity that used to push me to to paint all night, to build and sculpt and coax beauty out of chaos. I miss my muses voice, it’s been too busy in my head to hear her clearly so I’m making room for her again. Who knows what will happen, but that’s the joy of it isn’t it? The not knowing?

3/29/15 1:08pm

I’ve been thinking about connection. How air exists outside of us but is a part of us. How the air we breathe is a part of the people around us and how ultimately, on an energetic and cellular level we are all tied together in a dance of interdependence that leaves me dizzy when I try to absorb it. How connected and separate we all are is amazing to me.

3/29/15 12:35am

It’s hard to get the truth of it all in words and pictures on a screen. Life, people are so multi-faceted. Every side of a story holds a grain of truth and every perspective is real to the person standing in that place.

The Internet is a lot like the 50’s. We dress up in crinolines and pearls so the neighbors think we’re happy and wash down our psych meds with martinis.

Every image  is that, a moment, it tells a story but it takes so much more to really know someone. I appreciate so much about how connected we are, that I can find childhood friends and connect with people who are around the world.

I have to say, I miss the rawness of sitting somewhere, a coffee house or cafe, and knowing that if I don’t risk talking to someone I may never see them again. I miss the eye contact that is circumvented by our smart phones and computers. I miss the heart skipping awareness of everyone in the room and the vibrating potential of how they could change your life with a few words. Maybe I just miss that golden window of time, that part of my life before things went to shit for so many of us. We were so passionate in our joys and anger, our hearts were only cracked, not yet broken, we hadn’t yet drunk down the bitterness of settling for less than we’d hoped and there was still limitless possibility just within reach.

Is it adulthood that mellows us? Is it accepting limits or learning lessons? Or is it simply discovering that the golden shine rubs off until your fingertips are smudged and what you are holding is soft and dented but it fits you like an old coat, worn in just the right way. It may not be what you thought it would be but its not necessarily bad. If you’re lucky, it fits well and keeps you warm.