I am retired. I like to write. I like to read. I live in Hood River, OR. I am married (47 years!) and have two grown sons, Noah and Isaac.
Recently, the nursing staff at the infusatorium, where I receive treatment, took it upon themselves to start a cancer support group. At the first meeting I attended, some expressed shock at disappointing prognoses. As a hardy veteran of the cancer wars, I understand how the initial diagnosis upsets the routines of living we carefully construct. To discern … More The Final Four
San Francisco is my hometown. My brother Tom and his wife Karen, still live there above Golden Gate Park. Their house perches against the slope of Mount Sutro Forest. Wild animals of this urban wilderness cruise through their backyard. Parrots, skunks, opossum, and a coyote or two make their home in the dense woods. The … More Simber, Fruit Loops, and Frankie
Yesterday morning, before the wind rose and fanned the fires smoldering in the Northwest’s back country, I strolled the waterfront along the Columbia River. The silent water laid flat and grey, tinted with the smoke that shrouded the hills and diffused the sunlight that strained to pierce the cottony haze. A lone fisherman sat on a bench tying flies, too intent … More Still Life on the Columbia
In the mid-summer of 2015 when all of Oregon seemed to be on fire, the view from our home of the mountains was to the north in Washington, beyond the border of the rolling Columbia River. There, above the peaks of the barren foothills, a plume of smoke from a wildfire in the Indian Heaven … More Wildfire
We were late before we started. The pecking of my wife’s hiking poles on gravel tick-tocked away the time in Silver Falls State Park. We’d chosen to rent a cabin there for a mid-summer’s getaway. Our creaky bodies appreciate day hikes as opposed to backpacking, an activity for which our future is behind us. So, … More Silver Falls
On July 27th, I began a new treatment regimen for my cancer, multiple myeloma. You can read all about it in The Drill. I am compelled to comment on a series of books I was prompted to read by my oldest son. He lives in Oakland, CA and works as an attorney for the EPA … More A Potpourri of Things
“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” Lao Tzu I have multiple myeloma, a blood cancer of plasma cells. I’ve managed things well but the jinx of my chirpy posts about good cancer fortune had heard enough. Recently, the myeloma aimed its rheumy stinkeye my way … then blinked. My … More Riverwalk
I Am With You is the title of a book of cancer essays, edited by Nancy Novak and Barbara K. Richardson. The collected authors are all veterans of cancer. Most live with it directly, while a few caregivers found eloquence within their experience. The editors chose a version of one of my blog posts, Where … More I Am With You
The winter’s weather is muted, like my cancer. You expect its harshness, you prepare for it, but sometimes it doesn’t assert itself. In mid-November, a cold snap blistered the orchard and deciduous trees in the Hood River Valley. Many had yet to lose their leaves. The cold’s sudden arrival plunged deep into the autumn soil … More The Relenting Winter
I have a cancer, multiple myeloma, that effects the plasma cells in my blood. This December marks seven years since diagnosis. Somehow, a single plasma cell, which is a type of white blood cell, mutates and starts to multiply. The bone marrow acts as the blood cell factory and warehouse. When it gets crowded, the balance … More Seven Years
Good Blood, Bad Blood 