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Welcome!
This
is the beginning of a new section to our website.
Our Alaska pages will stay, as will all the other pages
on our site, but this section will chronicle our new adventures
in Oregon, and other places that are more accessible to us now.
We
moved to Oregon in late December 2003.
Late December is not a time I would recommend moving,
especially from Interior Alaska! Jim was outside trying to figure out how to connect lighting
to the trailer we would be pulling, at 45 degrees below zero.
Wire is not bendable at those temperatures, and because
there is very little daylight at that time of year, he was doing
it in the dark, also.
Then
we drove more than 2500 miles down the Alaska Highway in our
Ford Windstar mini-van, pulling a trailer full, and a van full,
of belongings, with our cat Missy riding atop everything in
back, most of the way, except when she cowered beneath our feet
either trying to keep warm or stay out of sight of something
that frightened her.
We
found that in winter there were not many places open in which to
stay; you had a choice of staying somewhere approximately every
three hundred, or six hundred miles.
Since I had just finished the most rigorous of chemo
treatments, and was not feeling well at all, we did not try to
do more than 300 miles per day, so the trip took us ten days.
We
had made an offer, and had it accepted, on a home sight-unseen,
and waited in a motel for most of a
week on arrival, waiting for renters to vacate it.
They were late, and it needed a whole lot of cleaning
when we were able to get into it, so we did not have much time
to unpack and get settled before we had company.
Nicole, Jim’s daughter, and her family arrived to spend
a week with us at Christmas.
We had not seen them for two years, since they had left
Alaska and moved to Arizona, so we had a wonderful time visiting
with them, and they were a lot of help that was greatly
appreciated.
After
they left, Jim and David, my youngest son, drove up to Seattle
to pick up our truck and another trailer that we’d had
shipped, and that were waiting at a friend’s house there.
Somewhere along the way Jim picked up a terrible flu that
was going around, and brought it home to share with me, which
delayed a trip we’d planned to make right after his return.
My mother, living in southern California, had a stroke in
November, and had been kind of going downhill ever since, and we
were anxious to see her, but had to wait until we were no longer
contagious. With
the severity of the flu, that took almost a month, and it was
early February before we could travel.
We
were still not unpacked, but left things as they were, and were
very glad we did. On
our arrival down there we were shocked at the change in my
mother, who was little more than a skeleton with skin stretched
over, and almost unresponsive.
Relatives, concerned about my condition, had not been
telling us everything. She
was severely dehydrated, malnourished, and in extremely poor
condition, suffering from pneumonia, and unable to eat any solid
food.
I
guess all the attention after our arrival, which brought out
other relatives to see her, helped, and we soon had her eating
solid food and improving somewhat.
We extended our trip to stay two weeks there, before
returning home to take care of some pressing matters.
I
had not seen a doctor since before leaving Alaska, and the flu
left me with a nagging cough that we were concerned about.
Because our health insurance was lost when Jim retired, I
had to change over to Medicare and a supplemental Medigap
policy, and get in to see a doctor to see just what my condition
was.
After
we left, my mother had to go back into the hospital within a few
days, and was unable to return home. We were home about 2-1/2 weeks when they needed to do some
tests, and during these tests she died, the day before my
doctor’s appt.
Although
not entirely unexpected, you can never be prepared for something
like that, and although we waited through my appt. the next day,
on the following day we left for southern California again.
My mother had wanted me to be executrix of her estate
(such as it was), and since she wanted no services there was not
the hurry that there would have been if services were needed.
We
spent another week down there, going through all her papers (which
were considerable), settling things, and dispersing her
belongings according to her wishes.
On
our return home, although we were saddened by her death it was
tempered by the fact we knew she had hated the way she was
having to live, and had been ready to have it ended.
Fortunately, we had a lot to do, which helped; we got busy
unpacking, and getting things settled in our “new” home.
We
really like it here. It
is decidedly rural, although we are not far from a bustling
town, and our home sits on one wooded acre.
This gives us some privacy, especially in the way it is
situated on the lot, and we like the home a lot.
It is much larger than our places in Alaska were, and we
have a lot more room for guests.
We also have a family room that looks out on the forest
with two outer walls that are almost all windows.
Many
more days here are bright and sunny, even when the air is cool,
and that is very pleasing to me.
I found that the absence of sun in Alaska had a big
effect on me, and made it harder to fight illness.
I just feel better when it is sunny. There are
nearly 300 sunny days a year here.
Missy,
our cat, really likes it here, also.
There are a lot more birds, and big, bushy tailed
squirrels to watch all day long.
She is getting anxious to get outdoors, but that has to
wait until we get the backyard fully fenced, so she knows what
her boundaries are. There
aren’t many loose dogs here, but there are a lot of cats
wandering around, and we understand there is a healthy coyote
population, so we don’t want her to wander.
Most
of all, however, we like the fact that we are within the reach
of all our children and grandchildren, and can visit with them
more often.
I
brought home a considerable number of photographs; some had come
from my grandmother, and the rest had belonged to my mother.
We are fortunate to have a lot of family photos, going
back to my grandmother’s grandmother, and I have been working
to divide them up between different family branches.
Each
time I visited my grandmother as a child, we would sit down in
the evening before going to bed, and she would pull out an old,
small metal suitcase in which she kept all the old family
photos, and we would go through them.
In later years, when I visited my mother, we would go
through many shoeboxes in which she had old family photos.
I am sure that is how I inherited such a strong sense of
family.
I
feel that the things that they have left to us are their legacy,
and it is up to us to be good custodians, and see that they are
used to help the other family members to retain a sense of
family even if they are no longer as physically near one
another, as they used to be.
I
will be expanding some of the photo pages on the website with
some of the oldest of these photos as I have time to get them
up.
The
genealogy pages I have put on the website have generated a lot
of interest in those who visit the website, and I get many
questions and inquiries. Due
to the cancer I have been fighting for almost two years now, I
had to suspend my research, but I hope to get back to it very
soon. It is
something I enjoy a great deal.
Jim
and I are both looking forward to this summer, and getting out
to have some fun. We
want to do some traveling for fun, camping, and gold
prospecting. All
that has been put on hold for quite some time now, and we are
more than ready to take some time for it all. We still
have a lot we want to do at our home here, but plan to leave
quite a bit of it, where practical, for next winter. We
are centrally located, and can visit the mountains, the deserts,
the beautiful Oregon coast, and a number of gold prospecting
areas, within a day’s drive.
We are getting a camping trailer in a few weeks, and hope
to make good use of it this summer.
As
you can see from the photos on this page, the scenery in central
Oregon spans a wide variety of topography. The photo at
the top of the page is of the Three Sisters peaks, part of the
Cascade Mountain Range of Oregon. The page also features
one of the hundreds of mountain lakes, rivers and streams that
are almost at our doorstep and are purported to be teeming with
fish. The third photo is of Smith Rock, a noted local
landmark at the edge of the eastern deserts of Oregon.
Jim
took the last two days off to do some metal detecting, but found
that the problem he is having with his feet have made climbing
up and down steep mountainsides virtually impossible.
He has hardly been able to move since arriving home late
last night.
I
had another doctor’s visit just two days ago.
On my first one, the doctor confirmed that my tumor was
gone, but lung cancer has a habit of coming back, or of moving
(metastasizing) to another part of the body.
For that reason he did a test to see if I would be able
to take a new medication that just came out a year ago, called
Iressa. It is a
tablet that has few side effects, and it “interrupts” the
cancer cells from feeding and growing.
So, if there are a few live cancer cells there, it can
kill them, and it can keep the cancer from coming back.
My
potassium was very low on my first visit, so the doctor
increased my dosage of that, and wanted me back quickly to check
on it. It is now better, and that has helped some with my energy
level. The cough
that was left from the flu was due to the fact that the
radiation I had, shrinks the bronchial tubes, and he gave me an
inhaler to help with that.
It has been a big help, so things are going better.
I don’t know if my energy level will ever reach the
point where I am happy with it, but I keep trying to push it a
bit, day after day. That
seems to work best… try not to overdo too much, but keep
continually pushing it along.
I can do much more than I could a month ago, and at times
I need to stop and take stock of how much I have improved, so
that what I cannot yet do, does not get me down.
All
in all we are very thankful for our many blessings, and try to
remember to thank the Lord for them all, many times a day.
Things could be much worse, and we are both very grateful
for every day we can wake up and work throughout the day.
Thank you to all of you who have been so supportive, the
power of prayer is awesome, and I hope you will keep it up.
April
10, 2004
Oregon
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