My Mastectomy and Other Amazing Things

I Have Gone Flat. This is the word used to describe someone who has a bilateral mastectomy and elects to not have reconstructive surgery.  

My new flat look! I love it!

At Dan's cabin

I have successfully navigated the months of May, June, July, and August since my last blog entry, and I wanted to get in touch and bring you up to date with all the amazing things that have befallen me.  

Cousin Shelly and I at Mt. Ashland

I admit to having had a remarkably good time, given the circumstances for my trip to the US this spring (the mastectomy) having gotten a chance to catch up with old friends and neighbors during visits to their houses and during potlucks at Diana’s. 

Diana, by the way, was my "cancer doula," providing lodging and taking care of me throughout this potentially traumatic experience, and making it, instead, an amazing and transforming adventure. 

My cancer doula, Diana

Other cool things happened, too. My cousin Shelly, who was traversing the Pacific Crest Trail, interrupted her journey to stop by Callahan's restaurant at Mt. Ashland for a cozy lunch with Diana and me. 

Daniel, my long-time friend and companion, generously provided a little car for me to use, which made life easier as I worked my way through all the appointments, meetings, and other things related to major surgery.  

Lunch with Libby (above) and
Anna (below). 

Friends creating Celtic Jam

There were lunches and dinners with friends, a visit to Daniel’s delightful mountain cabin on his 4-wheeler, an afternoon and evening of Celtic music, sewing with Diana in her workshop, as well as a cloth dyeing workshop and shopping for fabrics, a visit to the beautiful Jackson County Extension demonstration gardens, an estate sale, John’s art show in Medford, and taking delivery of shoes, shoes, shoes (well, only 6 pairs, but it’s a great start!) for teens to wear for gym class here in Benque. If kids can’t afford gym shoes, they sometimes drop out of school because they can’t go barefoot or wear street shoes in the gym.  Several people were able to find extra walking/hiking shoes in their closets, and we took them with us to Idaho to pack up and send to Belize.

Around the first of June, a couple of weeks after my mastectomy (which was on May 18, commemorating the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, which, if you look at it in a certain way, was similarly the occasion of the removal of a conical lump) I traveled by car with Diana and John from Oregon to David and Marcia’s place in Eagle Idaho, near Boise.  

David plays his Diddly Bo

After depositing me there and staying the night, Diana and John went on to a family reunion in Nebraska, while I stayed to enjoy the company of my sibs, including David and Marcia, my sister Elsie, who lives nearby, and other assorted relatives.  

While there, I rested a lot, drank beer and talked philosophy with David, played with the gorgeous “diddly bo” he had constructed, and we worked together several evenings to install all the programs I needed into the computer Daniel gave me while I was in Oregon.  My old computer here in Belize was starting to sputter and stall, but with the new computer I can return to working on my sketchbook journal compilations, and other projects. 

Marcia painting dragonflies
on a silk scarf

Marcia and I some lovely long chats, too, and I got to watch her producing one of her amazing painted silk scarves. 


My final task of the six-week trip was to pack the donated shoes (freshly laundered!) and items I couldn’t get into my luggage into three big poly tubs to ship to Belize.  David took them to the PO to mail to Texas, where they went on a container ship to Belize, then by truck to a nearby town here where I picked them up, finally, just last week.

Some of the donated shoes.

I recovered from the operation amazingly well and fast (my doctor was impressed), including the expected retention of fluids once the drains were removed. The fluid was drawn by the surgeon once in Oregon and once again by another surgeon in Boise (a simple office call each time).  And that was the last time I saw a doctor.  I feel great.

my tubs arrived

You can almost see the house

My flight home was on June 12, a little less than two months ago, and at this point, ten weeks after surgery, I feel close to completely healed.  I’m doing all the things I normally would do, lifting coke cases with (empty) bottles into the pickup, hanging out the wash, putting things onto top shelves, sweeping the floor, doing minor landscaping tasks, and sleeping comfortably in all positions without pain or stiffness. My friends and family were wonderful to visit, but It is lovely to be home.

Me, post-op flat

A point of interest -- none of the doctors mentioned that the areas where Muriel and Janet (left and right breasts, respectively) had perched would be numb after the operation. If I’d thought about it, I might have guessed, but I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t really do much research at all on my condition before the operation. I decided that I would live one day at a time as well as possible, and not focus on what was to come – and the best way to do that was to not know too much about it. That approach served me well, keeping me upbeat and disgustingly cheerful throughout the whole thing. The numbness is just a cosmetic effect, and while it feels a bit peculiar, it has no bearing on how well or how healthy I feel. 

Full-moon dinner cruise with neighbors
on Laz's pontoon boat.  $10 each.

While I was in the US, my young friend José kept my house safe, and I returned to a clean, orderly, sweet-smelling home, compliments of Millie, who came in the day before I arrived to spiff things up to welcome me back.

Now I’m back to my usual tasks, providing cokes and chips for the construction crew; doing the footwork for our Belize Scholarships program for the local kiddies; joining in on community celebrations – most recently, a full-moon cruise on the lake with Laz on his pontoon boat; and tying up loose ends with the Lights for Students program. 

Laz pilots the pontoon boat

Thanks to so many of you who made donations to my Lights for Students gig, nearly all of the local families with kids now have lights at night, and the children are consequently able to do their homework after dark so that they don't fall behind the town kids in their studies.

sweet scholarship kids

So now I have turned my efforts to creating a Study Center in my spare room so the kids who come to use the internet after school will have a comfortable and warm place to study.  If the “warm” concept puzzles you, keep in mind that with the high humidity here, a week of cloudy, rainy weather can have us shivering in our boots sandals. I often loan kids jackets and sweaters to wear home after dark.

So to launch the Study Center, I’m now trying to get money together for a 6’ folding table (you know, those nice durable plastic ones), four chairs, and a printer.  My friend Jenny, who lives here at BIB, donated most of the cost for a computer for the kids, and we have that now, but a printer is essential.  

Freddy, my friend who is foreman on the construction crew, still owes me a couple of days work to pay off the cell phone I brought him from the US, so he’ll make me some shelves and help me wire the lights over the table.  

This katydid looks exactly like a leaf and twigs.

I think another $700 should do the trick, so if you are one of the people who asked me to tell you what is needed here, there ya go! Any amount is welcome, and any money left over (if we get extra) will be used to buy printer ink, paper, and school supplies! Jenny and I are headed to Spanish Lookout to buy the table and chairs next week, so if you're thinking of helping out, now is the time to do it. You can send donations via PayPal -- it's very easy. And hey, if a donation is not on your agenda, this paragraph wasn’t aimed at you. 😊

Moving right along.....The latest event in my MIcasa saga (my teeny jungle shack) was somewhere between hilarious and horrible.  After ten weeks of neglect, I finally made it to my little house in the big woods, only to be greeted by an ominous termite trail leading out of the forest, across the veranda, and under the front door.  

Termite wings everywhere!

Opening the door, I discovered that there had been a termite hatch inside, and the entire inside of the house was coated with discarded termite wings (termites ditch their wings after mating). Wings were on every surface and even clinging to all the walls. They are like tiny bits of cellophane, somewhat electrostatic, and elude clean-up efforts easily. But it wasn't only termites...

The entire interior space was swagged like a Halloween horror house with dusty gray spiderwebs, festooned from one end of the house to the other. My very first act was to get a long stick and wave it around in the air until it was swirled with webs and it was possible to walk cross the room without getting strands of silk stuck to my eyelids and lips.

Mouse nest under pot

Then I noticed a chewed towel, and jute twine trailing across the room, and discovered, under an upturned pot in the dish drainer (my final cleaning act of the previous visit) a well-stuffed mouse nest made of bits of towel and jute twine, and – oh NO! – heavy white string that could only have come from my hammock, which was hanging from a nail over by the door…..Aughhhhh!   

my mouse-chewed hammock

You can imagine how the next few hours were spent. Since the hammock is where I relax after doing scrubbing or carpentering tasks, mending the hammock was high on my to-do list. The mice had chewed off most of the support strings on both ends, and gnawed seven gaping holes in the body of the hammock.  Fortunately, I had a roll of nylon string used for carpentry jobs, and after only six hours of labor, my hammock was reassembled. 

Every string had to be tied off, and the end support strings had to be replaced, but by the time I was exhausted from cleaning and scrubbing and dusting (and mending!), I had a hammock to rest in again.  But like I said, it was really kind of humorous, with no major harm done (except to the hammock) and it makes a great story.  

Heliconia plant

However, I’ll try not to let ten weeks pass between visits again – the wildlife had every right to think I’d abandoned the place.

 Millie and I have been working on my landscaping here at Casa de la Tierra (yeah, yeah, I know, that sounds horribly pretentious, but in Spanish-speaking countries people name their houses). Right now it looks really pretty, with the wet season well begun and greenery flourishing. Here's one of my heliconia plants.

Crayola Katydid

And of course, there is the usual parade of amazing insects – I’d never seen one of these Crayola Katydids until José spotted this one on a tree just off the veranda, then went down and caught it for me to sketch (nope, haven’t sketched it yet, but I took lots of photos and I PLAN to sketch it).  

Wow! My very own
bananas!

And LO! my banana tree is producing fruit!  I asked Millie when to harvest the bunch (called “a hand of bananas”) and she said when all the leaves die, you chop off the hand of bananas with a machete, then chop the tree down (O horrors!). A new sprout at the base of the chopped-down tree will rise up to become a new tree in short order (well, okay).

All righty, enough blathering.  I hope you have enjoyed this little tour of recent happenings in my life.  But if you didn’t, why on earth did you read this far?!

Big hugs for you, my friend! 
Renie

Nature Journaling in Belize 2

The jungle is a fascinating place if you keep your eyes open and don't jump at every crackle or strange noise. This lovely passionflower was glowing right beside the trail on one of my forays.

But there were lots of crackles and strange noises, most of which could be attributed to birds, squirrels or just the breeze rustling the fronds of a papery palm leaf. There were probably eyes watching me at all times, ones I had no idea of, but hey, that's part of what makes people watch horror movies ~ that desire to be living on the edge of excitement. So I welcomed in all of the strange things (well, not the ticks!) and had a great time.

Ron warned me about ticks. Only one other guest, he said, had ever gotten ticks, and that was because they were crawling about in the greenery looking for insects. Hmmm..... "But," he said, "while they do itch, they don't carry Lyme Disease."

So since I planned to be poking around in the shrubbery, I decided to take my chances. I got a few, but they were teensy things and easily plucked off. I get ticks all the time around my house in Oregon, anyway, so it was no big deal, and worth the adventures.

I mean, look at that curious mantis staring (guiltily?) back over its shoulder at me. It looks like someone "caught in the act," doesn't it? I met that little fellow off-trail.

And I was totally entranced with this amazing Clearwing Butterfly. You can see right through its wings. Butterflies are normally not my forte, but Belizean butterflies seemed to be tamer and less likely to fly than most butterflies I've tried to photograph before, and this picture was taken from about two inches away.

I fell in love with the Macal River, which flows past the end of the trail from the lodge. Cattle egrets swooped in every night to roost in these trees, spangling the darkening riverbank with sparkles of white. Kingfishers clacked up and down its length, diving for the small silvery fish that flashed in its shallows.

I spent a lot of time down there sketching, and actually spotted a crocodile species which hadn't been known to spend any time in the immediate vicinity. That was a Morelet's Crocodile, a small, docile creature which has, on occasion, dined on a cat or other small creature, but wouldn't THINK of bothering big folk like me. Or you.

And look at this colorful king vulture that landed in a big tree just across the river from me. Imagine a vulture being so winsome as that.

Well, as you can see, I was having the time of my life.

Every night, Ron and Al cooked delicious dinners, and we chatted afterward by the light of kerosene lamps. I really enjoyed those evenings. The lodge has electricity, but only kerosene lamps are used for lighting in the thatch-roofed open-air restaurant, which gives meals a charming intimate air.

There was always hot coffee and toast ready for me at breakfast time (I eat a small breakfast ~ I think Ron was distressed at my deficient appetite because he delights in creating delicious breakfast fare and toast doesn't quite cut the mustard). When other guests were there Ron spent this time helping them figure out how to spend their day, how to get to interesting places, and connecting them up with their tour guides if they were off to see the sights.

I was having such fun (and I was on a limited budget, too) so I only did one outside tour during my stay, a visit to Caracol, an ancient Mayan ruin, for about $85. This ruin complex measures 12 miles across and once had a population of more than 140,000 people. We just visited a tiny part of it, but it was amazing.

There are still a lot of undiscovered or unexcavated ruins in Central America, and many of them just look like hills. You can see from this partially excavated ruin at Caracol how you might mistake the tree-covered hump of a ruin for a hill! Henri took me to see some ruins near the Jungle Lodge, which are totally unexcavated, and if I hadn't been told they were ruins, I'd never have guessed.

Once they're excavated and restored, however, they can be MOST imposing. Here's the main (so far) ruin uncovered at Caracol. It is much bigger than it looks here (there are people in that photo).

The Mayan people still live all around this area. Both of the young men on the Macaw Bank Jungle Lodge staff, Henri and Angel, have Mayan roots.

I'm still learning how to do scenery, so sketching the ruin was a real challenge for me. I wanted to show some of the glyphs, too, so I did a detail to show them up close, then an arrow points to where they were on the ruin. You may have to squint at it to get the full effect of the glyph!

Some people go out every day on a new sight-seeing tour, but I was glad I had set my sights on Seeing One Little Part Of The Jungle Well.

I had daily adventures just a few feet from my door ~ watching a "hand" of bananas mature over the deck of my cabana, for instance. Discovering several colonies of brilliant red mushrooms. Finding trees covered with huge thorns.
EVERY time I went out, I discovered wonders that left me saying "Wow! and "OMG!" ("Omg" is really hard to say, y'know! Try it! )

Anyway, more wonders tomorrow!
See you then!

My Swamp Book Cover ~ TimeOut!

Yesterday I was on a roll, so I thought I'd better not stop to blog about Costa Rica.

And WOOHOO! I FINISHED the pen-and-ink and watercolor pencil painting for the cover of The Southern Swamp Explorer. Or rather, I finished it as far as I planned to. Because I was under a heavy deadline and daunted by the water on the cover, I decided to do the water in Photoshop. That water cost me at least a month of procrastination ~ by now I didn't even have a choice.

So I painted everything EXCEPT the water, as in the graphic on the right. Click on these cover renderings to see them close-up.

To create the water, I copied the upper half of the painting (all the background), flipped it vertical in a new layer, then adjusted like crazy to hook each reflection up to its image and make it look right. It took hours, and in the picture at left it's only partially finished.

Since swamp water is full of tannins and the color of tea, it needed to be darker, so I darkened that layer until it had the right look. Then since my swamp didn't look spooky enough, I used the Burn Tool to darken shadowy areas in the background forestand other helpful tweaks. You can probably find any number of things I altered. Here is my relatively finished painting at right.

This morning I worked on the title, and while I have gotten that applied, the whole cover is still open to some tweaking. Here's the "finished" book cover as it might appear on the book, at left. Since the picture "bleeds" off the edges of the page, the outer 1/8" all around will be trimmed off. Also, the colors faded and dimmed a bit when I had to change from RGB to CMYK ~ it always does this, and is the bane of designers. The web colors ALWAYS look nicer than print colors. But printers require CMYK to print, so there you are.

Now I need to prepare these graphics and the text of the book to send to the printer. Tommorow I'll be sorting through the files with the specs to make sure everything is in exactly the right format. I'm hoping to send everything off by Friday, either by uploading to the printer's FTP site or, if the files are too big, by burning a CD and sending it off to arrive there by Monday.

My blog, alas, has had to take a back seat to business for a bit....

Tomorrow I hope to blog July 11 in Costa Rica. See you then/there!

Here's a pretty picture of a banana tree and tree fern along the Ridge Trail to help keep us focused.


===============
Ah, the magic of blogs, here it is tomorrow, and I'm still blogging on yesterday...... I'm glad I reserved the right to improve the cover ~ here's the improvement: I wet the alligators, I brightened the cypress knees, and created a better contrast on the otter's head. I SHOULD brighten those red buckeye flowers, but I may not get to it because I'm trying to stack it all together to send off to the printer.

This first printing I'm only going to do about 500 copies, so that by the time I sell them, if I have gotten any nice reviews from the Big Guys I can redo the back cover with those reviews on it. So I'm not concerned if it isn't totally over the top of what's expected. Really, really good will suffice .

Costa Rica Sketch Journal ~ July 5&6, 2008

I've been trying to get my journal scanned in, but yesterday I ran out of time and got ahead of myself with the photos. So step back a day into my sketch journal.

JULY 5. I had some time in San José to do a bit of sketching and watercolor pencil painting as Dan puzzled out the news from a San José newspaper (in Spanish, of course), which kept him busy for quite some time. At the bar I did a modified contour drawing (in which you don't lift the pen point while drawing) of my margarita. Sketching and journaling in the bar were easy because the light was soft but decent and CLASSICAL music played in the background! I complimented the hotelier on the choice of music. I would recommend this hotel without hesitation.

I worked on my page with the "black cow" and the fig leaf that night in bed, but then realized I would need to plan page designs better ~ these last two pages have almost identical format. I do love how mess-free the watercolor pencils and waterbrush make the process.

But all was not mess-free. When I pulled out my glue to stick the fig leaf on, I found that it had expanded during the plane flight and the ziplock bag containing it (and my toothbrush, sunscreen, etc.) was muy sticky inside. I was very glad to discover that the glue was water soluble, but I was in and out of bed for awhile, cleaning up the gluey mess.

The Nature Air ticket was so pretty I wanted to make the back of it visible, too (plus save room on journal pages) so I accordian pleated it and just glued in one end of it. The graphic here shows it unfolded ~ there were a lot of Photoshop steps required between scanning it in and making the ticket look 3-dimensional. Just having fun. [There -- that catches me up on the journal pages.]

JULY 6. After arriving at El Remanso from Puerto Jimenez, we got settled in our cabina and had breakfast with Adri and Danni, who run the lodge. Then we headed down to the beach ~ Dan'l's favorite place. He simmered in the wonderful tidepools for ages, but I got cooked before he did so I beachcombed and enjoyed the soft tropical air while collecting treasures from the sand.

That afternoon I painted the lavender vine flower while Dan read in the hammock. The more I use these watercolor pencils, the better I like them. I sincerely doubt you could tell these sketches were colored with watercolor pencils rather than straight watercolors.

Sitting on the terraza (Spanish for terrace) was wonderfully peaceful yet exciting at the same time. There always seemed to be something happening right before our eyes. Every afternoon at about 3:30, for instance, a coati bounded up out of the ravine and across our lawn, barely six feet from our bare toes. A heliconia flower daily lowered a petal, revealing flower parts feasted on by little black furry bees. Rains came some afternoons, and we reveled in the lightning and thunder as the storm rushed up the ravine, huge raindrops tapping on wide, rubbery heliconia leaves, the forest canopy, then finally on our clay roof tiles ~ to then cascade off the eaves in silvery waterfalls. It was mesmerizing. This photo shows the terraza view with a storm coming up from the beach.

That first evening on our terraza, I journaled the wonderful night sounds I was hearing with words and color. Those are what I miss most since my return ~ the dawn and dusk choruses.

More tomorrow.