In this issue, you’ll find heroes among us and house of heroes, and our story of the publishing legacy.
August
Ideas, Please!
One of the most difficult things about living with cancer — if you’re one of the lucky ones who get to call themselves a survivor for a season — is getting comfortable with reaching out to people for help when the disease starts to take things from you. The sad fact that I have to carry around a tumor in my spine severely limits me from almost every physical activity that requires me to lift more than about 30 pounds. And, I’m beginning to come to grips with the realization that my range of motion has been profoundly impacted. I have weakness and touchiness in my core that turns what used to be easy tasks into productions requiring me devise new ways to bathe, dress and walk around that don’t make me bend over, squat down or do much physical work.
Jill and I live in Seale, Ala. and it takes us about 20 minutes to drive home from our offices in downtown Columbus. Our drive home is super quick and mostly four lanes to within less than a mile from our property. Despite the quickness and ease of getting her from anywhere in Columbus, we just can’t find the perfect someone we need to help us care for and maintain our home place.
We have a dependable person who cuts our lawn, edges, blows off hard surfaces and keeps our fence line clear and trimmed. I want very much to find someone who can do things like the following:
• Be dependable and deserving of our trust
• Keep leaves and debris off our roof
• Clean out gutters
• Keep flower beds weeded and freshly mulched with pine straw
(twice a year)
• Replace light bulbs on house and barn outside and inside
• Keep trees and shrubs trimmed and limbed up
• Spray for mosquitos two to three times during warm months
• Possibly do some bush hogging
• Keep firewood stocked and stacked
• Other gardening that we might need to have done
I have great power tools, a tractor, pickup truck and trailer, and ATV which I could make available for someone’s use. I’d love to find someone we could trust with executing our task list and charging us a fair price.
I know finding someone will be next to impossible, once the spring season arrives. Please share this post and keep us in mind if you hear of someone we might want to consider. I’ve made at least two other attempts to find someone who could fit our needs. I found that I wasn’t able to connect with anyone on a long-term basis.That was during a time in my life when I was attempting to do a good part of these jobs. The time for me to try to keep doing that is over.
We have to keep looking until we can find the right solution to this situation.
Thanks for listening, for your continued prayers and supplications on behalf of our family and a big thanks in advance to whomever is sitting there right now with the perfect solution for us. I am best reached at my email address: mike@columbusandthevalley.com. Thanks for helping us!
Christmas Update
My last blog post was April 13. I have tried every day since to gracefully accept the measure of health I can wrestle from a disease process that is for now being held at bay…by a pill a day. Those pills cost my insurance company over $500 a day. The math nearly brings me to my knees.
Thankfully, all my systems are within acceptable limits and the tumor in my spine is being kept stable by a daily 60mg dose of Cabometyx. When I run into friends I haven’t seen in a while, there’s a time warp to connect the sixty-five-old me to a fat profile that, when I last sported it, I was walking the halls of Hardaway High School. If you think that’s weird for you, you should feel it from this side.
Know this, Jill and I appreciate the constant love we feel from every channel of our lives. I never dreamed we’d still be at it ten years after my diagnosis. We are grateful for the gifts we’ve been given and for the legions of family and friends with whom we’ve shared our lives.
We had a perfect Christmas this year. The annual Christmas hayride happened for the first time in three years and I hope we made a few memories. Saturday, on the day of our hayride, a crisp, bluebird day was a perfect backdrop for our ride.
We got some good face time with all the boys and their significant others, our parents, siblings, some nieces and nephews and friends during the Christmas holiday. I think Jill and I had a personal best in the holiday decoration category. Unpacked it, put it up, took it down, packed it up. Back in the barn. Bam!
For the past couple of years, we got a unique perspective of the courtship of our son, Christopher, and his main squeeze, Kathryn Anderson, of the California Andersons. Some few months after they met, Kathryn joined our team at “Columbus and the Valley” and got to witness firsthand, a rare glimpse into what makes her tick that most “parents of the partner” would never get the chance to see.
We are thrilled that Kathryn and Christopher are engaged! Here’s what I’m more excited about: I’ve watched our son blossom with Kathryn at his side. She makes him happy and that makes me happy. She is compassionate about her causes, really smart, protective of her pack, competitive and so much fun to be around.
Having the great pleasure of working with Kathryn and getting to know her organically and we enter our new roles in each others’ lives. I could not be more excited about having Kathryn join our family.
That’s all I’ve got for now. That, and this big ol’ smile.
Sgt. Stubby Teaches Us About Love and Commitment
Call me crazy if you want to, but I see God in the eyes of my companion animals. I am a regular at our little St. Matthews in-the-Pines Episcopal Church and I like how going there makes me feel inside. I love my little church family and how we’re always there for each other in times of need, but there is something very spiritual that I get when Izzy or Bernie or Elvis or Garth or Joey (and a host of departed animal angels whose earthly remains are buried on our property) look me in the eye. I know they look to me to provide for them and to protect them and I am more than willing and capable of doing that.
I have too many stories I could tell about uncharacteristic things they’ve done during efforts to soothe or minister to me to think they were just random acts. Like the time one of our cats slept on my feet (when he’d never done it before) on the night one of our pack mates died and I was grieving so hard I didn’t think I’d see another day. I believe animals know when we’re hurting, or sad, or happy or in need of love. And, if you’ve shown them love and compassion, they’ll give it right back.
Then Stubby came along.
Jill and I were pressed into service about a year ago in our roles as ultimate cheerleaders for this town. A group of people from Ireland and maybe Paris (not sure where all they came from) were coming to Columbus to join some folks from Fun Academy Motion Pictures (Columbus’ own animation film company) and our job was to provide some local color to help them fall in love with this place that we already hold dear.
++++++SINCE ALL THE CONCERNED PARTIES AT FUN ACADEMY STUDIOS ARE BUSY LAUNCHING THEIR FIRST MOVIE, I AM WRITING THIS FROM MY MEMORIES OF THE CONVERSATIONS AND OBSERVATIONS DURING THE PAST YEAR. IT ISN’T PRACTICAL FOR ME TO ASK FOR INTERVIEWS AT THIS CRITICAL TIME IN THEIR FIRST PROJECT’S LIFE.++++++
I’ve had so many things I wanted to say about the Sgt. Stubby project, but with the exception of a ridiculous number of Facebook postings, I’ve held back until this day, because what I have to say and how moviegoers respond to #StubbyMovie will to a great degree depend on what happens in the film industry in Columbus, Georgia.
Here’s what I know:
From that very first time we met Richard Lanni, Laurent Rodon and the others they brought to Columbus in the early days of this project, I was hopeful that something really incredible was about to happen. There were discussions of the Technicolor company possibly having a presence here, of an international animation event happening one day in Columbus, of Fun Academy Studios hiring between 300-500 highly-paid animators (some might be trained at Columbus State University) and that they might be working in 25,000-30,000 square feet of downtown Columbus office space. At the time of these meetings, California was still the number one movie producing state in America. Now, things have changed. Now the #1-in-the-world Georgia film industry is a $10,000,000,000 juggernaut and there is a little statistic I want you to know about: Of the 25 highest grossing films of all time in every category, 21 of them have been animated films!
Animation doesn’t depend on the weather, the temperature or temperamental actors. I don’t know a lot of things, but a concoction of the things I do know about the potential of this industry being a new and extremely important addition to the Columbus region’s economic development activities really got my attention.
The planets will have to align to make that happen. BUT HERE IS THE NUT OF THIS ENTIRE BLOG POST: Nothing will happen unless everyone who has a voice raises it to support this Sgt. Stubby movie. The fact that I see this as a potential multi-million dollar industry in my town is the reason you’ve seen my very active Facebook Stubby posts. If I can influence people to buy movie tickets and tell their friends, I will have done my part to participate in what could be a huge contributor in the success of Columbus, Georgia going forward.
That brings us to a couple of weeks ago, when Jill and I joined a few people from here at Sgt. Stubby’s world premiere in Los Angeles. We got to watch children see the film. We got to hear their comments and we got to meet people who have the chops to weigh in on just how good the movie is, both on the content side and the creativity side. People LOVE Sgt. Stubby!
This is all exciting and thought provoking on so many levels. But for me, the clear facts that this rescued dog bonded with a human and braved things that no one should ever have to see to guard and protect his human and those whom his human loved almost instantly brings me to tears. There is something about my cancer situation and the closeness that I share with my companion animal pack that makes me deeply reverent of the bond that we have with our pets.
This film explores those human/animal bonds in such a cool way. And, in this 100th anniversary year of Fort Benning, the 100th anniversary of World War One and the deep convictions of animal shelters to rescue deserving animals, the Sgt. Stubby film has a shot to be a break out film.
My desire for the film industry being a success here is driving my passion to share this story. I hope you will join me, raise your voices and help us get people to pay to see this film.
Will you join me?
Decisions Get Tougher
Outside the window an agitated crow is taunting me on this rainy Sunday afternoon. He’s telling me to sit down and write. I just left a Norman Rockwell painting in that other bedroom. There in a comfortable chair, connected to wifi, within earshot of an occasional hiss of tires over the wet county road just to the north, Garth and Bernie are both sleeping, one snoring, on the bed behind me. With the only window in that room at the head of the bed and covered by blinds and curtains, my words seem to be begging for the open spaces outside and better visiblity from another part of our home. So I made my way over to our old bedroom on the warm end of the house and sat down at a desk with a diminished view of our recently-trimmed and freshened up front yard through one of several failed, repurposed windows we used during our renovation over 20 years ago.
Looking through that hazed glass, except for that crow and the occasional car out on the road, everything is rainy Sunday afternoon quiet. This Sunday was not a typical one. I preached at church this morning.
And yes, the walls are still standing.
I volunteered for lay reading duty today and rather than sticking with just my preferred Rite One version of Morning Prayer from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, I like to steal a sermon (with attribution, of course), usually from Sermons That Work, and tweak it to suit the lessons of the day and our little parish’s world view and deliver it along with Morning Prayer.
A few days ago, Jill sent me a sermon for Epiphany VI (today in the Episcopal Church) by priest and family friend, Dean Taylor, who is interim rector of Church of Our Savior Episcopal Church in Jacksonville, Fla. I hope Dean will approve of my using his work at St. Matthew in-the-Pines Episcopal Church this morning. I can’t speak for our little band of faithful parishioners, but I left our church this morning feeling pretty good about what Dean called my “seat on the Ferris Wheel.”
Basically, if you’re lucky enough to live a long life, you’re going to spend some of your days at the top of the Ferris Wheel and some at the bottom. Some days you’ll be rising from the bottom, you’ll peak and then take another turn to the downside on the way to the bottom, only to rise again another day. That, folks, is inevitable. The challenge in Dean’s sermon came when he encouraged us to keep our humanity as our fortunes change — to be faithful to our core values both in times of prosperity and in times of great loss. It is important to me, important enough to warrant a significant amount of my time and energy, to try to be an accessible, loving, compassionate, engaged, enthusiastic, grounded man, in spite of the increasing list of physical and emotional limitations with which I have to live.
If you know anything at all about me, sometimes you have to listen to a story to get at some information you’re looking to get. Everywhere I go people encourage me to keep documenting my experiences with cancer. I can’t write as frequently as I once did for some reason. So, when I can coax myself to sit down and lay down some words I have a few things to say. If you’re put off by my verbosity, I get it, but I can’t help it.
I guess every patient has his way of dealing with cancer. I have to know where I’m going and if my path isn’t clear I’ve found that it affects me on almost every level. I have trouble concentrating when I’m untethered to a plan. I am in a dream book club, attended by a loyal cadre of people who I admire for their wit, intelligence and commitment to this region’s well-being. I haven’t been able to read a book for enjoyment in over three years. The right thing to do would be to start going to book club and I expect being around those friends would be good medicine. constant fear and turmoil is unsettling and makes formerly easy tasks more challenging.
There are still unanswered questions left over from our last trip out to M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. I have been researching pieces of information I received in a meeting with Dr. Eric Jonasch and had hoped to have more answers before I wrote this. There will be more information coming as I discover answers. I didn’t ask enough questions in our meeting. Maybe it was because my curious companion, Jill, wasn’t there. I still have access to Dr. Jonasch and have sent him an email that includes the questions I should have asked while I was in his presence last week.
I am thankful that my disease appears to be stable. The tumor in my spine doesn’t appear to be growing and that alone is something to celebrate. This trip was intended to open discussions that will identify and quantify our options in the event that the tumor becomes active again. On our last month’s trip out to Houston to meet with neurosurgeon Dr. Larry Rhines, we heard about a surgical procedure called an en bloc spondylectomy. It is a massive, potentially debilitating surgery and honest to God, hearing that as a possible destination along this trip from hell scared me silent. It marries some of everyone’s most potent fears: pain, temporary mobility issues and possible long-term physical limitations like being able to walk, perform simple bodily functions and the risk of sharply negative changes to lifestyle.
So, we left the last trip with plans to meet with Dr. Jonasch and have him define possible other avenues of treatment in case we have to go down another few miles of active disease dirt road. This was the trip where we had hoped to hear that after a five-year layoff, radiation might be available as a less-invasive, potentially less scary option to beat down active disease. According to Dr. Jonasch and his discussions with top M. D. Anderson radiation oncologists, additional radiation isn’t advisable in my case.
On the surface, that leaves other drug therapies and surgery as my first lines of defense. Bone metastases respond slowly, if at all, to drugs and surgery, as I’ve already explained, is especially frightening and risky. Dr. Jonasch mentioned that we could add immunotherapy as a potential multiplier to my seemingly successful current drug therapy, Cabometyx. That cocktail is what I’m yet to fully understand. I don’t know if we’re talking about a clinical trial or an existing therapy. I don’t know if that treatment is one I could access here or if I’d have to travel to get the therapy. If Jill had been with me, all those questions and likely many more would have been asked and I might know more than I know today.
Being unsure about medical consequences that could so greatly change the outcome of the rest of my days is sobering. It is hard to know how to talk about things that loom so large. This seems like one of the times to just lay it out there and show the immense weight of some of the decisions you have to make when you’re classed as a terminal, stage IV cancer patient. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I’ve always been the kind of guy that needs answers — to feel like I’m on the right track. This disease unfortunately doesn’t play that way. Sometimes the fear of the unknown, or even a worse fear of making a costly mistake can mire you in minutiae and rob you of life momentum.
Bringing your best self to bear on that fear and doing what you can to keep moving forward becomes a full time job. It is job that doesn’t make you a dime and costs you real money, discarded organs and flesh. Talk about skin in the game!
There is something about being 65 years old and living almost nine years with a life threatening illness that crystallizes what you’re willing to fight for. I got a couple of clear examples of that on this trip to Houston. Houston is America’s fourth highest populated city. On our recent trips, we’ve seen ugly, car-swollen highways and inviting, interesting city streets that seem to beckon you to stop and explore. Some parts of town seem to have completely gone over to vehicle dependency. Those areas are congested, seemingly soulless and you’re greatest impulse is to get out of there as quickly as possible. Other areas, like the Rice Village neighborhood, move a little more slowly, but provide respite for the eyes and soul. There are many reasons to stop your car, get out, explore and spend money.
There is an important deliberation coming up at Columbus, Georgia City Council this week. I think Will Burgin did a great job in his op-ed piece in today’s Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make a decision that shows great restraint and wisdom over a half-mile stretch of 13th Street that bridges the important MidTown and Downtown neighborhoods of our city. We are the only country in the world to have jumped with both feet into an experimental decentralization of our population by moving toward less dense living in the suburbs and away from more dense, pedestrian and alternative transportation friendly living closer to our city centers. It is an experiment that is not mathematically or economically sustainable.
Will does a nice job of explaining this important Tuesday vote. I hope you’ll click on the link in the paragraph above, read Will’s op-ed, and go to MidTown’s blog post about the proposed road diet and make your own determination about the project. Then MOST IMPORTANTLY, get in touch with your city councilor and let them hear from you! Here’s how you can reach your local lawmakers. Don’t sit on the sidelines for such a huge free opportunity from the Georgia Department of Transportation.
I had the completely unexpected pleasure of being seated next to Hardaway High School classmate, Joanie Leech Roberts, last night at the Muscogee County Library Foundation Gala. Joanie and her family moved to Columbus from Rome, Ga. midway of our junior year at Hardaway, when her father’s job with Southern Bell Telephone Company moved them here. The conversation we had as we caught up with what we’ve both been up to since we graduated high school in 1971 made me even more committed to fight for every possible thing that will make this place a more civil, inclusive, prosperous place to live. Author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon’s proclamation from the podium last night that women filling important special operations combat roles has been ignored by ninety-nine percent of our country, makes me wish I had the power to make people get interested in things that are important to our way of life.
In no small way, whether or not we look this GDOT gift horse in the mouth, will make a loud statement about the kind of place in which we want to live. I want to go on record here as saying I want this road diet to happen. I don’t live in Columbus, but we have a business and pay taxes here, and I will be contacting ALL of the city councilors between now and Tuesday morning to let them hear my voice on this important subject. Please join me.
Sorry for the length of this post. I’ll try to do a better job of communicating, but damn, this is getting tough.