Christmas, Crystals and Chemo

Christmas feast with the Calgary kids. At my request Larry cooked rack of lamb.  Like everything he serves up, it was awesome!  

In some ways this Christmas was a challenge for me but mostly it was very easy. Taking all my paraphernalia on the road for three nights away from home wasn't as difficult as I expected. It was the Scammell's year to host it and they did it in style. They expected very little of me, and that's pretty much what they got. I opted to arbitrarily cancel the gingerbread house making extravaganza this year. As Avery said, "It's okay, Dad didn't make perogies last year but he did this this year!"  I spent a fair bit of time presiding from my position on the sofa right there next to Gramps ...

Christmas morning

The Christmas Eve traditional reading of our pop-up copy of The Night Before Christmas, purchased in 1975 

It was cold (-12ºC) and snowy outside but being good Canadians we went out in it anyway.

Avery making the required Snow Angel in her backyard

Avery is pulled on the Vintage Marshall Toboggan to the the toboggan hill, Gran and Gramps bring up the rear

The Scammell's community is filled with young families many of whom came out to toboggan on Christmas Eve day. I had a fold up chair and a perfect position from which to spectate the entire outing ...

Enjoy this short video 

  
We bid the family good bye on Boxing Day and promptly went to a crystal store. Long distance energy healer, Maggie, suggested I get some crystals. Nearby energy healer, Verna, suggested Earth Gems. We were completely blown away entering this lower level, expansive, treasure trove of crystals and gem stones ...

Just a small portion of Earth Gems on 17th Avenue in Calgary

Both Bill and I went a little nuts (how could you not?) buying mainly amethyst as it's touted as the Master Healing Crystal ... 

They're all mine, except the two pieces on the far left which are Bill's selections

We had settled up and cashed out when I suddenly was struck by the need to buy a Star of David. I immediately knew exactly which one of the two on offer that I wanted but I had no clue as to the properties of opal which my selection is graced with. I've since read here and realize that this was my most un-calculated, intuitive purchase. 

Why the Star of David? I was not raised a Jew but I do have Jewish ancestry which promptly concluded when my great grandfather married a Christian lady. Many of you know about the International Saltiel Family and their reunions every three years. We've been fortunate to attend three, Thessaloniki, Greece in 1997, Barcelona in 2000 and NYC in 2012. We're looking forward to attending the one in Madrid in 2018. Back to the star. Energy healer, Verna, with no previous knowledge of my Jewish heritage, suggested that I find a time with both our daughters, only, to have a group meditation. With Denise on my left and Laura on my right they sat on my hospital bed each taking one of my hands. From somewhere high above us, we were to invoke the light of the Star of David to shine down and encompass all three of us. The girls were to acknowledge and accept what was happening to their mother. I opened my eyes to sneak a peak at our daughter's faces and was profoundly moved. Their furrowed brows, deep in concentration, was one thing but the love pouring from their faces was divinely precious. The amulet I wear is a reminder of that time we shared.

Blue opal on the downward (toward the heart) facing triangle

December 27th was the last day a Home Care nurse came to change the incision dressing. With the great crevasse closed it was determined that it no longer needs bandaging and I'm now applying vitamin E oil to the scar. While my bladder continues to improve its natural output I must still self catheterize to fully void it. 

At The Tom Baker Cancer Centre (Calgary) I'm to receive a chemotherapy treatment every Thursday for eighteen weeks. December 29th, I went to my first treatment fearless and calm which I feel was reflected by my blood pressure reading of 123/80. During my hospital stay it was all over the map and often off the charts getting as high as 180+ over something as absurdly high. 

First through the IV was a saline flush then a dose of Benadryl which rendered me so groggy that I slept through most of the rest of treatment and all the way home on our 1.5 hour drive. The bonus was all that napping didn't interfere with my night sleep. Next came a bag of Carboplatin, a saline flush, then a bag of Paclitaxel and a final flush. It was over in less than the predicted time. 

The first and second treatments will be administered thus but I'm having a port installed January 6th (in my chest) for the rest

  
I was prescribed anti nausea medication prior to the treatment and have been given more to take for the two days following it. I'm most fortunate in not normally experiencing nausea and I don't have any now. As was reported by two other friends, who have been through this, the chemo drugs alleviated their joint pain and it seems to have reduced mine as well. This will be an absolute blessing for me as my left hip/leg has given me no end of grief since leaving off narcotics in hospital. The only little, negative effect I've noticed is a tenderness to the touch on the underside of the lower arm which took the IV.

To all who continue to shower both of us with love, well wishes, food and flowers, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. I really didn't expect that something like this could open up so much love and generosity. 

Pleased with how I am healing, I enter 2017 with this mantra - Perfect Health Please - and I wish the same for all of you. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The Undesired Adventure

November 29th, 2016, after a grueling two weeks at Foothills Hospital, Bill takes me home

Posting further about The Friendship Tour and any summer/autumn art adventures have been pre-empted by major surgery. Three weeks ago yesterday I had a tumour, along with the part of the colon it was in, removed along with a radical hysterectomy. Oh and they took my appendix as well.

In mid July my bowel movements became abnormal. Blood in my stool prompted the colonoscopy on September 19th. The scope couldn't get past the mass in my Sigmoid colon. A CT scan (October 6th) revealed a 4cm probable malignant growth. The pathology report was a month in coming back. Although the growth was in my colon its cells were from somewhere in my reproductive system. On October 25th, at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre (Foothills Hospital, Calgary) we met with an amazing team of women at gynaecology oncology - everyone but my surgeon. 

October 28th I was given November 15th as my surgery date - a date which is my mother's and my brother's birthday (both deceased). I met my surgeon, Dr. Glaze, ten minutes before my operation. In the OR she asked "Would you like a hand to hold?" I fell in love right there. She held my hand until i went to sleep. At the time of surgery my colon was so inflamed it couldn't be reattached to my rectum so I awoke with a stoma and an ostomy bag. This is temporary and will be surgically reversed in at a later date.

As if the surgery, with a general anesthetic, wasn't tough enough there were countless complications. I contracted pneumonia. My breathing was difficult and shallow so I was put on oxygen for a few days and was given two units of blood.   

A chest x-ray revealed a small clot in a lung. For that, and for six months, I'm daily self injecting Tinzaparin, a blood thinner.  

Fluids built up under the incision. Day five, most of the staples had to be removed to drain the fluid. There was no infection and the sutured fascia deep down in the wound was clean and intact. After that the incision, a great crevasse some 3" long x 1" across and 1" deep was dressed (unpacked and repacked) daily. I was most impressed that both Denise and Laura (Bill took a peek as well) witnessed hospital dressing changes without gaging, flinching or fainting. Since being home a home care nurse comes in daily to change the dressing. The wound will slowly heal from the inside out. 

Taking narcotics for a week gave me nightmares so I discontinued them and took only Tylenol extra strength as needed. During my hospital stay I had a total of three foley catheters. The last one was a constant irritant. As a result of the surgery my traumatized bladder (nerve end damage) rarely voids urine of its own volition. I have to self catheterize to fully drain it. This is called and in-and-out catheter. Although it may take a while I'm counting on my bladder returning to full function. 

When I'd been in hospital for nine nights Laura, with the nursing 14-month-old Everett, flew in from Manila for five days. That was the very best tonic, I really started to improve once I held our baby in my arms.

   

November 24th, Laura and Everett arrived from Manila

Bill and Denise visited every day. Larry and Avery came often. Hospital food is so abysmal that the family made and brought me delicious soups, breakfasts and suppers.

  

Most of my crazy kids at the end of my bed.  Missing are Adam and Amira

The final complication was a lump in my esophagus. The first throat scope couldn't get past this. I was given antibiotics and, for three days, was put on a clear fluid diet while the lump reduced. A smaller scope was used the second time. They were able to reach down into my stomach. The problem is simple but annoying - acid reflux. I've never had that before. I’m on a proton pump inhibitor to keep stomach acid from erupting up into my esophagus.  

We were told I'd be hospitalized for 5-7 nights but I spent a full two weeks in hospital. Once all the complications were under control I was ready to go home. The night before being discharged my surgeon came and sat on the side of my bed to deliver the pathology report to me and Bill. The cells of the tumour came from an ovary. Dr. Glaze said that she had got all the cancer out of me. I made her tell me that three times, she said it's “Gone, gone, gone.”  Even so she has recommended a round of chemo to prevent it from returning. This won’t commence until after Christmas.  

Without trying I lost ten pounds from June to surgery and a further seven in hospital. My energy levels are low and I tire easily but my appetite is good, I am eating larger meals which will no doubt fatten me up. For the first couple of days I confess to not caring if I lived or died but after enduring those I wasn't going to cave in. My relentless spirit was back and I'm committed to being completely healed.
  

Visiting out of the Lilliputian double room 

It was mid afternoon when we left the hospital under a clear blue Alberta sky when the mercury was at a happy plus 7º celsius. I wanted to get a hit of Christmas, to enjoy the decorations at Market Mall. On the short drive to the mall, like a dog with is head out the passenger window, I sucked in the fresh air. At the mall the big girls had borrowed a scooter so I could get around with ease.   

The mall wasn't busy and we enjoyed just touring the aisles, doing a little shopping

I'm not sure who enjoyed this more, me or Everett

Something I really wanted was to have the family photographed, not with Santa, but at his court ...

Look at all those happy faces

We've been home a week now which has made me and Bill feel so much better. Even though winter has struck with snow and frigid temperatures (yesterday's low was minus 27º celsius) we get out walking most days. Although my energy levels are low I can feel my strength returning; every day is better that the last.

The love and energy pouring in from everywhere can literally be felt. To everyone who paid hospital visits, sent healing vibes and prayers, cards and emails of support, gifts, flowers, and mountains of food we are incredibly grateful. Special thanks to the friends who sent in the amazing energy healer, Verna. She's coming to see me at home tomorrow. 

Onwards and upwards. I just know the next adventure will be a great deal more fun than this one!   

  

The Friendship Tour - part one

Ontario and Quebec May 18th to June 12th, 2016  

The purpose of The Friendship Tour to reconnect with friends and family we hadn't seen in a number of years was its own reward. We flew from Calgary to London, Ontario where we were met by Lori McCluskey, with whom we have a precious, long history. In Hamilton, Bill attended high school with her husband, Ed, who departed this world much too early, eleven years ago. We enjoyed Lori's hospitality, plus her son and his wife made us most welcome at both their Turkey Point cottage and their home. Bill is Eric's Godfather.

Lori, at Eric's and Roseanne's Thames River side home, May 23rd

The McCluskeys were who saw us off at Tobermory when we permanently left Ontario for Alberta, August 31, 1972

Lori has been west a number of times, with and after Ed's death, but it had been years since we'd visited her home. What a thrill it was for me to be reacquainted with several antiquated Saltiel paintings, none of which I had a photographic record of ...

Tug Boat Sunset 1971 oil on canvas 18" x 24"

Miniature oils 4" x 5" - Mount Rundle 1973, Cascade Mountain 1974, The Three Sisters 1973

Cougar 1972 pencil drawing 9" x 12"

Lynx 1972 pencil drawing 10" x 8"

A few short months after we were settled in Banff, the McCluskeys came west and spent Christmas with us - actually two Christmases in a row. Upon seeing and being gifted the two drawings above, it was Ed who suggested we make prints of my Rocky Mountain wildlife. In 1973 we started, and gradually enlarged our successful business of reproducing my art.

Leaning Shed 1976 watercolour 8" x 10"

Our next stop was Grimsby, Ontario to spend a couple of days with our Best Man, Bob, and his wife Christine. Bill and Bob went to high school together, also with Ed. At the time of our wedding Bob had not yet met Christine.

 The East Chapel, Timothy Eaton Memorial Church, Toronto, September 13th, 1969

May 19th, at Christine and Bob's exquisite home and delightful yard

Niagara Falls with Christine and Bob, May 20th

The Matoteks indulged us and honoured my request to visit nearby Niagara Falls and Niagara on the Lake. Bob and Christine didn't have a painting of mine but I rectified that on this trip with a thank you gift ...

Psychedelic Iris 2010 acrylic 14" x11

 To be continued ...

Central Technical School, 50 years Later

Richard Wessell, Mark Thurman, and me with Dustin Garnet, May 27th, 2016

Flash back to June 1963.  Barbara Tenny, Mark Thurman and me

Dr. Dustin Garnet wrote his thesis on the art education at Central Technical School, he has also been an art instructor there for the past decade. It was a supreme honour for me to be one of the ten people he interviewed for his thesis. My post on our interview is here. Just prior to meeting Dustin at the school this spring, I was delighted to receive a hard copy of STUDIES in ART Education, which includes his article Alice's Story: Insights to the Artistic Community of Central Technical School in the 1960s. 

Below is the building where we had our academic studies, reduced as they were to english, economics, science and physical education (in our final year) to accommodate our heavily weighted art subjects which included anatomy, history of art, commercial art, design, life drawing and painting, still life, illustration, lettering, research and museum. Yes museum, because the Royal Ontario Museum is a short walk from Central Tech. We had a half day painting at the ROM, once a week.

"The Main Building" as we called it is most impressive.  May 2016

Before the art building was completed art classes where held in six studios up in the very top of the tower.  Today they are mathematics classrooms. 

Climbing the steps to the tower studios, May 2016

The foyer of the old building is grand ...

It's hard to fathom that we graduated this amazing facility, 50 years ago. An impeccably timed highlight of Bill's and my Friendship Tour, to Ontario and Quebec in May/June (a story for another day) was having Dustin tour us, and two of my classmates, through all of the studios of what is now called the The Art Centre as well as the old, stone school which opened in 1915.

The Art Centre with its amazing north facing windows, May 2016

The foyer inside the front doors of the The Art Centre, May 2016

Dustin began the tour on the top floor of The Art Centre which was, in or time, Virginia Luz's class. We moved along into Dawson Kennedy's then Kathleen Kennedy's studio. In the last top floor studio, which I recall as being shared by Bob Ross and Doris McCarthy, life drawing is still instructed.

Life drawing studio

Here are some of my classmates back in April of 1966 ...

Barry Corston behind John Williamson (RIP) Sandra Ko, Ula Ahonen and Cynthia Jakubowski

 

There were times when models didn't show up and when this happened one of us students would pose. Here you have three former students hamming it up as models ...

Mark, myself and Richard

Me and Mark, life drawing April 1966 - oh how young we were!

Sculpture and print making was not a part of our curriculum. These studios were used by the special art students who studied only art. To enter the special art program, in the 1960s, students had to have previously achieved grade ten in a regular high school program. I did work in the sculpture studio but not until after graduation and as a night school student. 

Clay sculptures in the sculpture studio

The print making studio is a fully equipped masterpiece

Dustin's class back in January 1966.  Lisa Shallhase and Sally Simone working on a lettering project, Richard Wessell looks on

Dustin's studio/classroom today

From the very onset the tour took on a most surreal quality. As we made our way through the studios and halls all sorts of rich memories came flooding in making it difficult to be in the present. After a work week, in abnormally high temperatures without air conditioning (which hadn't been turned on yet) Dustin begged off joining Bill, Mark, Richard and me for a pub supper. I can't speak for the others, but I couldn't shake the sensation of travelling through time until I'd slept that night. 

What a wonderful gift you gave us, Dustin. Many thanks for a treasured opportunity to visit our alma mater with you.   

You may enjoy delving into Central Tech further. Here is the original blog post I wrote and some of the art I created while there. Here you'll see art by my classmates.

The Roses

THE ROSES (Three Angels Surrounded by Love)   oil on panel   12" x 16"

During our stay in Victoria this past winter, as I was about to settle into a painting session at a friend's studio, I spied Marcela's version of THE ROSES. I asked her if she'd mind my trying to emulate it. Her answer was not only "Please do", she happily described the process, she'd learned in a workshop, loaned me the amazing transparent reds to achieve the look and sent me away with her reference photo so that I could finish it at home.

March 19th, 2016, in Marcela Strasdas's studio with Sharlene Stushnov-Lee  

THE ROSES at the end of our time in Marcela's studio

When I began the painting I had no plan for its destiny but once home, as we were planing The Friendship Tour to conclude with a 25th wedding anniversary celebration, I decided that it would make the perfect gift. My cousin Claudine and her husband Marc have two sons and a daughter. It came to me that the white roses symbolized the three kids and the red roses were the surrounding love which the parents have always shown and continue to bestow upon their children. With this love and support Adam, Nick and Ericka have thrived and blossomed to become the incredibly creative adults they are.

Finishing THE ROSES in my backyard playhouse, May 4th, 2016 

Presenting THE ROSES, June 2, 2016

The Friendship Tour took us on an amazing journey, we stopped at many places in southern Ontario and Quebec - but that's a story for another day. Toward the end of the tour we spent several days with Claudine, Marc and family enjoying the comforts and warm hospitality of their home in Longueuil (south shore Montreal).

  

Yours truly with my Aunt Loretta, Claudine, Bill, Marc and Ericka, June 7th, 2016 

On June 7th, we bid the family farewell, pretending that this was the last they'd see of us on our trip, only to return a few days later to attend their surprise party but I don't think we fooled either of them. Still it was an honour to be a part of the grand event where family and friends came together to honour Claudine and Marc ...

Ericka, Virginie (Adam's fiancee), Nick, Marc, Claudine, Adam and Claudine's mom, Loretta (my mother's sister) June 11th, 2016