1. Into the Wild

The Journey Begins

Photo by Rick Lamplugh

On the summer solstice and our wedding anniversary, Mary and I were hiking with our friend Fred. While climbing a steep hillside in a National Forest, we stopped to catch our breath and watch some female elk and their young watch us. The young had lost their spotted coats, but their mothers had not lost their protective nature. We kept our distance and shared the joy of this wild moment. Thankful, we resumed walking through knee-high grass dotted with colorful wildflowers. 

Until the ringing of my cell phone shattered the wild silence.

I usually kill the phone when I hike, but I was awaiting a call from my urologist with the results of a prostate biopsy. I glanced at the phone’s screen; it was him. I felt relief and dread. I would finally know the results and they might be bad.  

“I have to take this call,” I said. Mary jerked her head toward me, concern obvious. She knew about the call. I gave her a nod. As I turned away, Mary and Fred silently looked at each other and found a seat on a couch-sized boulder left by a melting glacier at the end of the last ice age. I walked a few paces, took a deep breath, and put the phone on speaker. Nerves tingling, I managed a little small talk. 

The urologist quickly moved to the heart of the matter: “Unfortunately, we did find cancer…” 

My shoulders sagged, and my stomach tightened as he described how the biopsy revealed prostate cancer cells with varied degrees of aggressiveness. One set of cells was not very aggressive. One was medium aggressive. But a very aggressive third set concerned him. And that concerned me. 

He recommended a nuclear bone scan to see if the cancer had spread to my bones. Spread to my bones? I didn’t like the sound of that. I agreed to the scan, and we clicked off. 

I looked at my hiking partners. Mary made eye contact. I shook my head from side to side. Her face registered shock and sadness. Then, her head sank. I walked over and stood silent, struggling to deliver news I didn’t want to believe, let alone repeat. Finally, I said, “The biopsy found cancer in my prostate.”

Fred said softly with sad eyes, “Rick, I’m so sorry to hear that.” 

Without a word, Mary moved to me. We hugged, and I found solace in the warmth of her neck, the softness of her shoulder-length hair, and the rustle from the wings of a raven flying overhead. 

The three of us stood speechless on that hillside under a big blue Montana sky speckled with clouds. Trying to distract myself, I looked for the elk, but they had moved on. Instead, I studied a nearby line of snow-streaked crags in Yellowstone National Park and felt the discord of receiving ugly news in a beautiful place. We returned to the car. That hike was over; a new journey had begun.

Mary told me later that she had heard the doctor describe the very aggressive cancer. With tears in her blue-gray eyes, she said, “I don’t want to lose you, Rick. I don’t want to find out what it means to live without you.”  

I held her and trembled as I felt my deep love and longing for her. I told her I didn’t want my time with her to end either. We had been friends for fifty years, partners for twenty-four, and married for nineteen.  

It wasn’t just Mary I wanted more time with. I longed to see the lives of our two kids and their partners unfold as they approached midlife. I hoped to see our granddaughter finish school and continue exploring her talents. And I wanted more years with friends experiencing wild moments in wild lands. 

While ten or twenty more years didn’t seem like a lot, I feared that might not happen.

To be continued…

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For stories of moments Mary and I have shared in wild lands and with wildlife, check out my previous books. In the Temple of Wolves is the bestseller with more than 500 five-star reviews on Amazon. Deep into Yellowstone is the sequel and won a Gold Medal in the Independent Publisher Book Awards. The Wilds of Aging, the prequel and winner of a National Indie Excellence Award, takes you on a journey with me into wild lands and aging. Click on a title for a signed copy, or visit Amazon for unsigned paperback copies, ebooks, and audio CDs.

Disclaimer

I’m a writer, not a doctor. I’m very qualified to write stories about my journey into the wilds of cancer. I’m not qualified to give—nor am I giving—medical advice. As these stories show, Mary and I came up with many approaches to deal with my cancer. We always ran our ideas by our medical team to see how the approaches fit medically. Everybody’s body is different. What worked for me may not work for someone else. If something in these stories generates an idea of an approach that you or someone you know might use, first consult with the medical team.