What’s important, anyway?

I started geocaching in October, 2004 and was pretty much hooked from the beginning. I enjoyed going to new places. I enjoyed the challenge of searching and finding. And, of course I liked seeing the log stats grow.

Milestones achieved
• 12/12/04 -- 100
• 01/20/05 -- 200
• 02/28/05 -- 300
• 04/03/05 -- 400
• 05/20/05 -- 500
• 06/27/05 -- 600

I had thoughts of reaching 1000 finds in my first year, although frankly that was very optimistic. I thought maybe I could accelerate my average finds per week, but was noticing at the beginning of July that the hot weather killed my cache hunting desire.

But on July 12, 2005 my universe changed. Karen, my co-pilot when we cache together, my best friend, my confidant, my partner in every way, my wife, was diagnosed with breast cancer. I am finding it difficult to accomplish anything, to maintain focus on anything, let alone get motivated to go geocaching. I expect as we go through the treatment (she gets the treatment--I just worry), some geocaching might be therapeutic for me. But not just yet.

Hmmm...

From The Fellowship of the Ring DVD...

Frodo: "I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened."

Gandalf: "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

I wish, oh, so much, that none of this had happened, as do all who face a cancer situation. But, what is now important is to decide what to do with the time that is now before us.

Status

Here’s our current status:

Aug. 2: surgery. Went well, but pathology later showed cancer in one (but only one) lymph node.

Recovery was good. While she was completely wiped out for 3 days or so, pain was not a big issue, and she managed it with over the counter tylenol.

Aug. 10: oncology. Chemotherapy is recommended. It will last 16 to 18 weeks and begin around the first of September. Looks like we won’t host the kids for big family get-togethers for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.

Therapy

Chemotherapy starts in 4 days. I took advantage of an open invitation from escooby to cache with him in Almaden Quicksilver. It was great to spend a day where the anxiety of the unpleasant unknown was not in the forefront of my thoughts.

Wow!

Karen is amazing. On the 23rd of this month she had a chemo treatment, and today we went hiking/caching at Red Hills (between Oakdale and Jamestown). One of the caches was .3 miles up a steep hill, and she made it nearly all the way. Of course, there have been some really bad, down days too, but lately the chemo hasn’t beeen affecting her as much.