It was a beautiful day in the Cancer Club's Limbo Lounge

                   My friend and neighbor Cecelia Schefstrom led me on a challenging hike to find an old mine
                   yesterday, the day PK and I would have been en route to Ecuador had we not been derailed by
                   my evil melanoma diagnosis. I have a hard time writing or saying that word.
                   We did great, I think, for women in our early 70s. Cel is amazing. She can read the forest, the
                    ridges, and the old skid rows from early logging. She spots cougar scat, game trails and, like
                   her mother leans, into the slopes with love of the land and a deep sense of place.
                   She's never afraid of getting lost. I may be able to hike faster, but I follow blindly with gratitude.  

This old mine shaft was the object of our search. It was a lovely day, but everything takes on "meaning" when one is installed in the Cancer Club's Limbo Lounge. Am I headed toward the evil black hole symbolized by this old mine shaft? Not that I'm aware of.

If anyone in the medical world knows the pathological results of my January 19 melanoma surgery, they have not shared the information, consigning me to the Lounge, where "not knowing" casts a pall at unexpected moments throughout the day (and the night!!) and anxiety gnaws on the brain. I'm almost getting used to the lounge since l've been in it since the initial diagnosis Dec. 29, 2015, which took 19 days to get to me!

Added to that, I'm approaching two weeks out from surgery where lymph nodes were biopsied, for God's sake. Isn't that  too long to wait to to learn whether you'll hop right back into your merry little ordinary life, or if you'll spend the next year or two in and out of treatment and, undoubtedly, a lot more long days and nights in the Limbo Lounge having your brain devoured by fear monsters? Is this normal? Does all cancer (and other) patients stop the clock awaiting test results?

Do all poor suckers who get punched by cancer also have to suffer from inattention from medical people? I spent many years of my professional life writing about compassionate care on behalf of medical clients. Now that I'm a patient, and not seeing any hint of compassion regarding timely results, or even communication about when to expect them, I'm thinking I should have talked with patients who weren't hand picked. But then I'd be working for news organizations, not public relations departments.

An earlier post explains about the melanoma and my induction into the Cancer Club.

Over the past tortuous month, I've decided not to wait for life to happen, but to make it happen. Inertia and depression are real and oppressive, but who would choose sitting around feeling sad all the time. Not me. Thus the past few days have been filled with friends, hikes, and so on. I'm past, I hope, the most traumatic part of this new reality, and ready to move on. No matter what happens. Both my middle fingers are raised in the direction of disease, and "bring it on" is on my lips. I can't choose what already exists. But I can choose to make the most of every day.

I met my longtime friend Cecilia Schefstrom at her place a mile away near the top of our shared country road, for our hike.  Cel, as she's called, was born there and, except for a few brief vacations, has never left. She is rooted to her tiny homemade octagonal home surrounded by typical and pristine southern Oregon woodlands. She's been wanting for years to lead me to an old mine in the hills above us, and today was the day.

Trails don't exist and the slope is challenging.

We set out with our walking sticks and her two dogs  at 10:30 a.m. to bushwhack our way straight up steep slopes to locate the gold mine that had  been forged in the late 1800s, early 1900s. Our gulch has a rich mining history, and far easier hikes deliver the curious to old shafts and even a gravity mill. Our road is named after a miner who messed around here before relocating to Arizona.  Now residents along our road mine the soil for nutrients to grow marijuana, although many also have vegetable gardens and raise chickens and goats and horses. Why horses? Beats me.

Cel tells me that this once-grand wood cook stove alerts us that we are 

not too far from the elusive mine, which she's seen only twice before and has not

been able to reocate on subsequent hikes.

This old wrought iron piece will last far longer than any of us.

Me at the entrance to the hidden mine. I'm smiling, but I'm scared of that sucker. Cel entered the shaft, but for lack of light, she stopped a few feet in. I  was put off by the symbolism. Plus it's a 100+-year-old mine shaft. I'm not going in there. I'm not nearly as brave as Cel is. Plus I need to save my courage for what may be coming.