Mending and more mending

Wow! It's been a month since my last blog post! Where has the summer gone and what have we been doing? A couple of you have asked where we've gone to and I'm way over due to write something. Anything.

After my "trip" into the water on July 15 and floating a short distance doing a vigorous backstroke for my life, my arm froze up and forced me to visit a local doctor. I was OK for about 3 days and then Yammo! my arm did not want to be a part of any command my brain tried to send it. It hurt like nothing I'd ever felt and after checking the Internet for a diagnosis, quickly got into a local doctor. (When we've needed to see a doctor while on the road it's always such a good experience! More on that later for those of you with trepidation about traveling and needing medical help.) I saw the doctor the next morning and she thought it was rotator cuff! Oh my! Not what I wanted to hear. Withing minutes I had x-rays that came back normal (yipeee!) and within the hour I was in physical therapy! Unbelievable medical service in such a small town! Love it and wish "they" could be my primary physician care all the time. Oh well, back to the physical therapist who worked her magic on my shoulder that wouldn't move. Pain scale of 1-10 and I kept thinking 20! What a pain it was! I went home to the motorhome and did my homework exercises and when I returned a couple days later I was doing a little better. I completed 2 weeks of physical therapy and I think I'm about 95% back to normal. Oh yeah = thank goodness it was my left shoulder so I could continue to cautiously cast my fly rod. I did my exercises on the river with our long handled fish net and reached and stretched and hopefully the tiny bit of lingering tenderness will go away.

When you cast a fly with a fly rod you want a natural drift so the fish see your presentation as a real bug floating downstream. When you throw your line out there on the river, with all the currents wanting to pull it here and there, you need to "mend" the line upriver so the fly doesn't start water skiing. So while I was mending my shoulder, I was also mending my fly line and catching fish during my healing. What a great way to re-cooperate.

Thanks to those of you who sent emails and messages asking about us during our silence. I'm hoping to get back into the routine of blogging in between fishing and enjoying life.

Ocean-to-Ocean Bicycle Ride

Our new acquaintance, Todd Larsen, has started off on his cross country, ocean to ocean, 60 day, 4,400 mile, bicycle ride. This is going to be a journey to follow! Todd is riding his bicycle from Oregon to Virginia to show support for Jared, his 21 year old nephew. Jared has been living with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy for 16 years and his courage and determination has inspired Todd to make this journey of a lifetime.

You can read about Jared's life and Todd's trek at http://jaredsmiles.org/. From there you can find a link to the daily ride blog or go here http://jaredsmiles.blogspot.com/.  Be sure to bookmark these links or add them to your Google Reader. You can also easily become a Follower on his blog and post comments. Todd has posted about a half dozen times to the blog so it's easy to catch up on his preparations and his first few days in Oregon. Todd's descriptive and creative writing style has already got me looking forward to his next day. We wish him much luck and safe travels as he makes his way through 11 states.

The ride will be tough going for Todd, but I'm sure not as tough a time as Jared has had through his life-journey. Todd is hoping to raise awareness of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. In addition, he is hoping to raise money for Jared's medical expenses and the Muscular Dystrophy Association. No donations will go toward the bike ride. It's an interesting blog, an adventurous undertaking, a touching look into someone else's life, and a heartwarming glimpse at the love of an uncle for his nephew. Stay safe Todd, stay strong Jared.

Doctor re-visit

When I get on my PSA soapbox Rick makes the sound of an alarm, sort of like a police car in England. Eeee-Oooo, Eeee-Oooo, Eeee-Oooo. This PSA or public service announcement is because of our recent doctor visit/re-visit. This is about facing facts.

You are probably like us, sometimes putting on the sunscreen, sometimes wearing the wide-brimmed hat, sometimes wearing the long sleeve shirt. Sometimes letting the sun tan us to what we thinking is a healthy looking golden glow.

As teenagers and young adults, having grown up in southern California, both of us spent lots of time at the beach and outdoors. There was surfing, swimming, sports, fishing, boating = all done outdoors in the glare of the sun. As a young child, our parents make sure we have sun screen or sun block on our sensitive skin. As teenagers and young adults we think we are invincible, strong, unbreakable, indestructible. And we think it will never happen to us. And we think we'll live forever.

As we grown older we come to the realization that we won't live forever. We do break and we sometimes are not as strong as we thought. And the healthy glow of the sun is not always healthy.

Rick had a suspicious looking spot on his wrist, what he thought was a thorn from a lemon tree, possibly aggravated by dirt, that wasn't healing as expected. He picked at it and opened up the wound, put on antibiotic ointment and bandaged it. After 2 weeks it didn't heal, but got bigger and sore, and coincidentally we had our bi-annual dermatologist appointment. The doctor could have opened it up and looked for the thorn or she could cut the area off and send it for biopsy, which is what she (& we) wanted. The lab results showed Squamish cell carcinoma and the doctor wanted to remove more to be sure she got it all. So the re-visit. And my 40 questions.

Being involved with a family member's diagnosis of brain cancer in the recent past, I had a very long list of questions. After each question, the doctor would say "That's a good question" and you could tell she didn't mind answering and explaining everything. She said if you had to have a skin cancer, this is not a terribly bad one. It's keratoacanthoma and the doctor confirmed that it can be brought on by trauma, such as a thorn. It also has to do with over exposure and sun-damaged skin, but the trauma caused those crazy cancer cells to erupt. The lab diagnosis confirmed how it presented and we were surprised to learn that it is very quick growing and after a while can "go away", sometimes taking many months. Thing is, it doesn't really go away. And if left untreated, it can destroy and "eat away" the surrounding skin such as your nose or ear. And it can metastasize to the lymph nodes and other organs.

My point to all this is that you should not be out there in the sun without a really good sunscreen. Although we use sun block everyday while fishing, we should be wearing it more often. You should take precaution and wear a long sleeve shirt if you're going to be without shade. We just bought a few 40+ UV protection fishing shirts from Sam’s Club and they will become our everyday shirt. And you should wear a wide brimmed hat to protect your face, ears, and nose. No more ball cap. And be proactive. You should visit a dermatologist who will perform a thorough exam. Please take care of yourself. We are not invincible.