Our trip to Japan

For the last couple of years Carol and I have been talking about taking a trip to Japan, I lived there for 5 ½ years while serving in the Army.

I started studying Judo after I returned to the United States and wanted to return to Japan, to pay my respects to Jigoro Kano at the Kodokan, the birthplace of judo.

We would have returned this week.

We booked passage from Vancouver on one of those luxury cruise ships. We would have left Vancouver on the 7^th of September. There would be a stop in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. We might see whales and icebergs calving and Russia for sure. Our final destination was Otaku, in the northern island of Hokkaido.

We would spend 2 days exploring the island prefecture of Hokkaido. We found a couple of interesting accommodations in the guide book. Hokkaido is known for its natural beauty and is the site of several National Parks.

We would travel by local trains through the rural north of the big island of Honshu stopping off to enjoy the typical tourist traps.

Next was Tokyo for a week. Planned were several visits to the Kodokan. Shopping for a nice/new judo gi. Shopping for new yukata. Shopping in a brush store. Taking some lessons in shodo, Japanese calligraphy. Visiting temples and historic areas and museums. And of course many of our destinations were about the food. We had rented a VRBO in Kawasaki.

Next was Osaka, it was going to be more of a central hub for us to explore the Japanese communities accessible by train, so a lot of area, temples, castles, gardens, shopping for kitchen items and of course restaurants.

“Sukiya Living”, is a magazine about Japanese residential gardens, how to build them, and how to maintain them. They sponsor two 10 day garden tours in Kyoto. We signed up for the fall tour. It is truly an experience of excess, you get to see some of the best examples of Japanese Gardens, the food is over the top, there is tea ceremony and other cultural activities.

I was studying Japanese 2 hours a day, hoping to have some interesting conversations.

Damn, it was going to be an awesome trip!

Mixed bag!

After chemo last week, no. 5, Carol and I took off on a road trip to New Mexico. We were to meet her sisters, the McGuire sisters, in Santa Fe for 4 days over the balloon festival. We picked a beautiful time of the year to travel, the leaves were changing color and the colors were so rich.

We discovered that by driving down the eastern side of Colorado we could miss the traffic of the Fort Collins, Denver and Colorado Springs corridor. We drove down highway 71 and saw maybe one car per mile. Much nicer than all that traffic!!! Although, there was a constant fight with the GPS lady, she must be paid by the Interstate system, as she was constantly trying to redirect us to the Interstate. But we managed to fight her off.

On our arrival in Albuquerque we had drinks with Linda and Andrew Yianakkis. Carol was a good sport and listened while we talked mostly about martial arts history and culture. It must have been a good discussion as 2 ½ hours went by in the blink of an eye. Great seeing you guys again.

The next morning I woke up with a very upset stomach. I wasn't supposed to get nausea from the Pemitrexid! I spent Thursday in bed, Friday and Saturday also. The girls had a great time eating out at all of their favorite places (El Pinto, La Fonda, Tomacita's), shopping and seeing the sights. Saturday morning they got up early and went out and watched the balloon festival, I relocated to the couch and watched the balloons on TV.

Sunday I felt better, but also felt like I had caught a cold. I had been so ill, that I had a hard time sorting out the symptoms, beyond upset stomach. I was coughing a lot in the morning and having a hard time catching my breath after taking a shower. Carol was constantly checking my temperature, it was above normal, but did not meet the requirements to head to the emergency room.

We checked out of the condo on Sunday morning and headed for Colorado, our goal was to look at some mining and railroad history. We stopped in Chama for lunch, Carol had some Mexican food, said it was the best of the trip. I had a hamburger. We spent the night in Durango.

I was up most of the night coughing so was not interested in taking a train ride the next morning, “the Durango-Silverton Railroad” has an all day trip through the mountains – been on my bucket list for many years. The front at the hotel told us not to wear white as you will come back gray from smoke... good thing we didn't make it to “all aboard”, my lungs wouldn't have made it.

We hung around for a while and toured the train museum and then decided to head for Cripple Creek another mining town and the site of the Molly Kathleen Mine. On the way we got caught in a snowstorm, there was about 4 inches of snow. As we came through the pass we came across tractor trailers jack knifed in the road, cars in the ditch, a horse trailer on it's side, it was a mess. We had a lane through the mess, the road way was slippery, everyone was going 5 miles an hour when they were moving, it took us the better part of two hours to move 5 miles.

We decided to give the highway department some time to clean the roads, we stopped in Salida for the night.

The following morning we woke up to chilly, bright sunshiny day. We continued our trip to Cripple Creek. We stopped first at the Molly Kathleen Mine and rode the skip 1,000 feet down into the mine and spent an hour walking through the mine with a guide. Fascinating slice of history! We were surprised when the guide told us that the mine was the number 3 attraction in Colorado. Then we looked around the Heritage Center and got another big slice of history from the area.

From there we drove to Leadville for some more history. We stayed in an old hotel, recently refurbished, in the down town area. Lot of antiques. The museum that we wanted to see was closed. It was getting late in the season and a lot of places were closed. As I was still feeling a bit under the weather we decided to call it quits and head for home. We angled for our new favorite highway, #71, through Colorado and by late evening we were home.

Home, sweet, home.

Chemo #3

I didn't sleep well on Sunday night, Monday morning. I know it was the anticipation of another round of chemo. I slept fitfully. I didn't dwell on the chemo itself, I thought of judo all night long.

We got on the road about 9:00 am for the trip into Rapid City. I had a bottle of Mocha Smoothie Barium something or another that I was supposed to drink at 9:40 am for a CT scan at 10:40 am. I had previously tried the vanilla flavored one, which was awful, the Mocha was better but only marginally so. It took me about 10 minutes to swallow about a pint of the thick liquid. We got to the hospital, got checked in, and escorted to the Imagining Waiting Room, and shortly thereafter shunted into the CT. They got the line installed in one wrist, laid down and the scan began, it takes only about 20 minutes for the entire procedure.

Then we had some time before a blood draw was to be taken so we went out in the parking lot and checked out the solar eclipse with a pair of paper plates with a pin hole in one... it was about 10;15 and there was about 25% of the sun in eclipse. We drove to lunch at Arby's and after that did some shopping at the drugstore. As we were coming out of the store a nice SUV pulled up, window down, a young woman, mid 30s was waving a pair of solar glasses, saying, “Have you seen the eclipse? Do you have a pair of glasses? You don't, then you really need to see the eclipse through these glasses.” So we borrowed her glasses and looked at the sun, then I showed her my two plates and she was pretty impressed. It was a short, pleasant meeting in the parking lot with a complete stranger.

We returned to the hospital parking lot, it was about 11:30 am and there were a lot of people milling around in the parking lot, obviously enjoyed the spectacle of the eclipse. Our 97% eclipse was due at 11:50 am. As I was standing outside the car with my paper plates we were approached by a couple of guys and they struck up a conversation. They were taken with the paper plate method of viewing the eclipse. Then a guy came over with a welding helmet that he shared with everyone in our small group. Then a women came by with a pair of glasses that she gleefully passed around the now small group of people standing there. It was so nice to see that everyone was exited about the science of celestial movements.

The eclipse came and slowly started its decline. We were drawn back into the Cancer Center for laboratory work, a visit with the doctor and my third infusion.

The doctor's visit went well. The laboratory tests were good. The CT scan showed that my tumor had either remained the same size or was shrinking slightly, anyway both of those were good news. After today's infusion there will be one more infusion with the Carbo Platin drug and then after that I will be receiving only one chemotherapy drug, Prematrexid as a maintenance drug, again every 21 days for the next 2 to 3 years.

After the first infusion I got pretty sick on the 3^rd and 4^th days. It really feels like a bad hangover, except that I missed the fun part the night before. I got out of bed but didn't get off the couch all day. They had given me a schedule for taking an anti-nausea drug, two a day for 6 days. The pharmacist advised me when I picked up the drug to “stay ahead of it.” We drove on the 5^th day to Pierre, SD and spent the night, if I felt better on Thursday we would drive to Fargo for my 50^th year class reunion... we made it to the class reunion.

For the 2^nd infusion the doctor modified the anti-nausea drug regime to 4 pills a day and I felt much better, not 100% but maybe 90%, I was able to read a book and felt like getting up and moving around. The “hangover” is still there but it is a lighter one. The hangover, with pills or not, starts tapering off after a couple of days and lasts about a week. Then I feel pretty good for about two weeks.

Third infusion was nothing different than the previous two.

I am still dealing with the new normal... coughing, especially when talking, laughing, getting excited or changing positions, like from sitting to laying. I am short of breath, walking 5 miles seems like a distant dream, I can barely walk up the hill from the underside of the deck. I did go rock climbing but had to hang on the rope after 20 feet of climbing to catch my breath and again at the top of the rock. New normal sucks but not much I can do about it.

We bought a used riding lawnmower so Carol can mow the lawn easily. It is too dusty for me to cut the grass and I have to wear a mask if I am going to do any gardening.

But not going to complain too much, the alternative is much worse.

All you all take care of yourselves.

Love,

Van

Topless

written Sunday, 27 August 2017

We drove back from Dickinson this morning, put the top down in Sturgis and drove down US 385 to Custer, through Deadwood... and caught the end of Cool Deadwood Nights car show. Great fun pulling up next to a great looking hotrod. The day was perfect for being topless, partly cloudy sky and perfect temperature. We really enjoyed the wind through our hair.

We were in Dickinson for a judo seminar, a promotion exam and party.

I think about judo most of the time when I am not engaged in something else and every night before I go to sleep. This seminar gave me an opportunity to stretch my judo legs a bit and see if what I had been thinking about was anchored in reality or drifting in fantasy. And to test my physical condition.

My recent judo research has been about the Gokyo no Waza (a matrix of judo techniques) as a teaching syllabus. I learned of this from Steven Cunningham sensei initially and continued to develop it in the class room/mat at NDSU/Red River Judo (for about 20 years). With the retirement of Steven Cunningham from judo I am one of only a couple of people in the world who is researching/using the Gokyo no Waza as a training syllabus.

So this weekend I had an opportunity to present some of what I have been thinking about. We did 14 techniques (of 40) in 2 ½ hours, which as it turned out, was not rushing things nor being slow either. The students varied in experience, from green belts with a year of experience to black belts with 20 plus years of experience. It was a very satisfying seminar, the beginners were challenged and successful, at the same time appealing to the curiosity of the most advanced students.

Jeff Ficek, one of the head sensei for the Dickinson, Roughrider Judo Club was taking direction from my wife Carol sitting on the sidelines, trying her best to make sure I wasn't getting too tired. This was my first judo outing since surgery, radiation and chemotherapy and Carol didn't want me to over do it. I pushed a little bit, but the schedule and with my wife's vigilance, the pace was just perfect. I got a bit of a sweat and my leg muscles were plenty sore the next morning – I felt like I got a great workout. Carol said I was in my element.

We did a promotion exam in the morning which required me to sit down for 30 minutes. In the afternoon I taught 5 techniques, then we did another part of the promotion exam, and then I taught four more techniques.

Congratulations to “Pineapple” Dave on promotion to nikyu (2^nd brown belt), Steve on promotion to ikkyu (1^st brown belt) and Ryan on promotion to shodan (1^st degree black belt).

Special thanks to uke (the person who gets thrown) Jeremy Magelky for taking hundreds of falls, you make me look great, man!!!! It was great practicing with you again! Also great to see David, Erik, Jeremy, Clint and Vini from the Fargo Dojo, and Steve from the Bismark Dojo. What a wonderful day.

The social was at Jeff and Ruth Ficek's home. Great food as always, handmade by loving hands. Great company. The hospitality was fabulous. Feeling much love. Many thanks to all who made the day possible, you are the best. Thanks Mark Larson sensei for the glass of sake through David Scott.

Love to all,

Van

Opps! I meant to do that.

One of my martial arts friends posted a picture of him practicing with a katana, a Japanese sword, in his living room. Reminded me of the many times I did the same.

Training! To learn you must practice and when there was no place else I would move the furniture and practice in the living room - I did this at least a hundred times... with a wood sword, with a practice swords and at times with real steel.

I tried to be careful, that is the goal of discipline but at times my enthusiasm got the best of me and something got hit. I put a couple of dents in the ceiling and wall. Cut into a lamp shade once with a real sword... opps, I wasn't married at the time so didn't have to admit that to anyone.

There are two great stories about swords in the living room, the first was in the early 1980s. It was mid summer, a Saturday, a warm day, all the windows were open and the light drapes floated in the breeze. I was wearing a light cotton yukata with shorts, summer wear in Japan. I had just purchased a real Japanese sword, a gunto, a sword manufactured in the 1940s for use by officers during World War II just a few days previous. I had the sword on a low coffee table and had sword books spread across the table. I had a notebook with notes about the length of the various components and the various features.

And there comes a knock, knock, knock, on the screen door.

I get up and walk barefoot to the door, there standing a young man, well dressed with a brief case. He says he is an insurance salesman. I try to dismiss him, but he is persistent so I give in and invite him in. I invite him to sit down on the sofa and I walk over on the other side of the coffee table and kneel down Japanese style, which I sit in quite normally. The young salesman begins his canned lecture about the different kinds of accident insurance that he had for sale: there was a silver, gold and platinum plan. As he talked he was simultaneously looking over the sword, the books, the notes, my clothing and was getting more anxious by the second. He asked, “is that a real sword?” with a wavering voice.  I replied, “yes”. “Do you know how to use that sword?” I replied, “yes”. He was tittering, not sure what he was saying, repeating himself, laughing strangely. He really looked like he wanted to leave. I thanked him for his time, he looked relieved to be dismissed, I showed him to the door. I think he peed on the gate post or left some other message because I didn't get another salesman at my door for decades.

But the best story happened one evening during the fall when Brittany was 16 or 17 years of age. Her mother and I were divorced and she was at her mother's house this day. I was practicing with a mugito, a zinc practice sword, looks for all like a real sword, it is dangerous but not dangerous,  not sharp, like a real sword. There is a groove along both sides of the blade that makes a most satisfying swoosh when it is swung in a proper manner.

I had moved the furniture and had been practicing for the better part of an hour, hundreds of cuts, my t-shirt was soaked with sweat and I am breathing hard. I hear the front door open and am aware of my daughter, she has seen me train many times and knows that I will acknowledge her as I complete the current drill. So I continued to focus on the drill set I was working on... from a kneeling position, draw, overhead cut with a satisfying swoosh, chiburi (ceremoniously remove the blood), rise to standing, and re-sheath the blade.... I turn around and face my daughter, she is with another girl and two boys, standing there deathly quiet, pretty much holding their breath, you could just see the amazement in their eyes. I know that went around school... kind of like meeting the daughter's date with a shotgun! Priceless.

Uncle Roger

20 March 2017

While driving across Wyoming this morning, I got a telephone call from my Uncle Roger.
Roger, my mother's bother, is eight years my senior so he was more like an older brother than an uncle.

One day, when I was 12, Roger and I were going back out to the field, don't remember what he was doing, but I remember well when he shifted the 1949 International KB2 pickup into “super low”, opened the door, slid across the seat and stood on the running board, pulling me across the seat with him, into the driver's position. I had to look through the steering wheel to see over the dashboard. Roger instructed me to use only the gas pedal and drive around the field, he closed the door and stepped off the running board... the pickup was idling in super low, it had to be going all of 2 miles an hour. I stepped on the gas and the truck would lurch forward, which would throw me back in the seat, and my foot would come off the accelerator, and the truck would lurch back to 2 miles an hour, only seconds later I would be recoiled forward by the seat's rusty, bare springs, mashing down on the gas pedal as the truck lurched forward, only to be thrown back into the seat again and repeat, over and over again. Adding to my poor control of the accelerator, the field was quite bumpy and had a dead furrow running down the middle. The lurching motion would get so bad that I would have to take my foot off the accelerator for fear of being thrown through the windshield. Kind of like shaking a marble in a tin can. Only to try again and again. I drove around the field for an hour before I figured out how to control my foot on the accelerator. It had to be hilarious to watch.

After that Roger taught me, over the years, how to operate the tractor, how to use a plow, disc, field cultivator, how to lay a land (you start plowing in the middle of the field so you have to eyeball a straight line to the opposite side of the field, typically a half mile, it was high art and if you did it well you were well respected by other farmers.) I learned how to cut hay, rake hay, operate a baler (I wasn't much good at stacking bales, most were heavier than I was), and use a Farmall stacker (one of my favorite jobs). I learned how to tell when the wheat was ready to swath and how to roll the swath with a side delivery rake when it was too wet to combine. I learned how to operate a combine and haul grain. It was a tremendous education and Roger was a patient teacher. I still love farming and have tremendous respect for those who turn the soil.

I learned a strong work ethic from Roger. He was (is) an outstanding individual, always looking for the brighter side of any situation. He always stood up for his fellow man and never had a harsh word. He has the greatest sense of humor and always had a joke. I was truly lucky to spend so many summers with my Uncle. When I got in the Army I needed the moral sense that Roger taught me.
So Roger calling me today really made my day, thanks Roger Hill you are the best! Glad I can share what you taught me with others.

NOTE:  this was written on the 20th of March,  2017.  That day I was driving to Denver to have an operation to remove my right lung.  Carol and our daughter Kristen were driving in another car.  So the call really picked up my spirits.

Love, Van

the New Normal

26 July 2017

I went rock climbing with dear friend Mark Strege this morning in Chopping Block, a climbing area behind Mount Rushmore.  This is the first time I have been climbing in about a year.  Last year in August I tore a rotator cuff in my shoulder and had to take a break for it to heal and then in January got slapped by cancer.  Finally decided it had been too long.

I got to the Wrinkled Rock Climbing Area early and a young man from Wisconsin stopped by and asked if I was a local and I said yes.  He and some friends had been on a two week long climbing trip that included Devil's Tower, Ten Sleep and the Big Horns.  He wanted to know if there were some frictiony, slabby 5.11s in the area.  I told him I was sure that there were some but 5.11 was out of my range but that my friend Mark climbed in that range and would be able to help him and his friends.  I told him to come back when Mark had arrived.

Mark arrived a few minutes later and the young man came back and Mark gave him some good beta on half a dozen great climbs in the 5.11 range of difficulty.

Then Mark and I strapped on our packs and made our way across the highway and up the path to a rock called North Park.  I should mention for those who are not familiar, that this climbing area is right behind  Mount Rushmore, we are about a mile away from the faces.

Mark was walking slowly, turning around to visit every few feet and I was coughing up a storm and breathing hard.  Last year this would have been a walk in the park, I have lost a lot of conditioning, I am guessing that I am about 25% of what I was a year ago.  Truth to be told, it sucks, but as my dear wife Carol reminds me, it is the NEW NORMAL.  Thank goodness it was a short hike and we were at our destination in about 5 minutes and I was breathing like a steam locomotive.

Happy to not have to hike another step I took off my pack, and still breathing hard, started to sort through the pack for the essentials: harness, chalk bag and shoes.  It took me 10 minutes to catch my breath.

Mark lead the first climb, Beyond Beauty, a 5.6 degree of difficulty.  This degree of difficulty is where we start beginners.  So it was a nice and easy climb, still pretty much vertical <grin> but easy.  Mark got easily to the top, I belayed from the bottom, and Mark came down on a single rope rapel.   This left the quick draws hanging from the bolts, so it was my job, climbing second to remove the quick draws and carry them to the top of the climb.

I got my shoes on and the rope tied to my harness and Mark got the other end of the rope attached to his belay device, which was attached to his harness.  Mark said, "on belay" and I said, "climbing" and I was off on another mad adventure on the rock.  I had lead this climb many times so it wasn't particularly difficult, except for the noticeable lack of "wind", I was breathing heavy after only a few feet... that "new normal" again.  By the time I made it to the top of the rock I was breathing hard and fast, completely out of breath but happy once again to be back on the rock.

I came down on a two rope rapel and we set up an adjacent climb that uses the same anchors at the top of the rock.  This climb, "Balls and Braun", is a 5.7, just a bit more difficult than the previous climb and it was unbolted, so it has been climbed much less, and best of all, I had not ever climbed it before.  As it was unbolted, we would have to climb it using a technique called "top rope", where the rope runs up to the anchors, it is also the safest way to climb rock.  There is an interesting bulge about midway up the rock, I suppose about 30 feet off the ground, that we have to go over.  Of course, Mark makes it look easy.

Then it was my turn, I put my climbing shoes back on and got tied in, Mark and I said the appropriate words, "on belay" and "climbing" and I was off on another mad adventure up the rock.  This section of rock was a bit more vertical and in my face but the hand holds and footwork were good.  By the time I got to the bulge I was breathing like a steam locomotive again so I hung on the rope for a few minutes to catch my breath.  When you have the bulge in front of you, you are pushed backwards over your feet, it is an odd feeling, but there are a couple of good holds in the rock, one in a large crack and the other, up and to the left is a big knob.  I moved my feet up and pushed my body away from the rock with my left foot, giving me enough room to place my right foot on the rock at hip height, then a pull of the hands and my body rotated around my right foot and up I went.  From there the climb was much easier and in a few minutes I was at the anchors at the top of the rock.

It was a great morning!!!!  Thanks Mark Strege.