Wednesday, August 17th, 2022 – 2:30 PM

Just got back from the hospital for the first infusion of carfilzomib for the second cycle of this protocol. It went well, but as usual, I’m dexed out. Given this was my second cycle I didn’t have to stay after my infusion for an hour of observation. I had to go to the lab yesterday for bloodwork and the results were available today for us via MyHealth. Things seem to be going moderately well from the looks of my bloodwork. I have some reduction in my paraproteins (not that you should know what that means) which is good news but my kappa free light chains are going up. That’s not good.

However, we did a fair bit of reading about carfilzomib and one of the nasty side effects of that drug is renal toxicity. Given that I have only one kidney, that’s not great news. We just have to hope for the best.

As I said, I had to go to the lab yesterday for tests. What I didn’t say is that we spent the last three days at Buttle Lake in Strathcona Park for a bit of camping with the family. Yesterday, we had to race back to Courtenay to get on the lab waitlist. Around noon I started out at 29th on the list as we came into Campbell River but when we got to the hospital in Comox an hour later, I was down to 10th place which is quite acceptable. I didn’t have to wait too long to get my blood extracted.

Sunday, August 14th, 2022 –

We packed up yesterday and this morning. We were in four vehicles. I rode shotgun in the truck. It hauled most of the food, the banana boats and me. I won’t identify individual family members here. Suffice to say that there were enough of us to pilot four vehicles along with some passengers. We’ve been camping at Ralph River campground on Buttle Lake for upwards of thirty years. We’ve had some wonderful times on that lake, and particularly at that campground. It was such a pleasure getting back there. Frankly, I doubted that would ever happen.

I already posted this photo on this site, but I decided to post it again because it tells a story of how we had such great fun improvising and adapting the canoe with outriggers, a sail and electric motor. We’ve had the canoe for over forty years. We’ve had such great times with this canoe for decades! This boat didn’t come with us on this trip. I’m not ruling out the possibility that it will again feel the waters of this lake on its keel. Chances aren’t great, but we’ll see.

When the picture above was taken, so was the picture below.

You can see that these stumps are a predominant feature in the landscape. Who knows why the loggers left them (probably no need or profit in removing them) but they did and I took the opportunity to draw and paint them*. I can’t remember exactly when I drew them, maybe it was 2014, but that doesn’t matter.

You can see the water surrounding the stumps. They are maybe a half a kilometre from the campground and there are connecting pathways. Below is a photo of one of those pathways, the one they built for the movie See with Jason Momoa. That pathway and surrounding terrain used to be clear from the campground down to the stumps with a gravel base and not a lot of vegetation as you get closer to the lake. Now, as you can see, it’s flooded and there’s lots of vegetation, but the rocks that define it are still clearly visible.

The lake must be at least three metres above what it was when I took the above picture in 2019. The stumps are nowhere to be seen. They are all underwater. What a dramatic change! What a metaphor for life! Things can change so quickly and dramatically.

Monday, August 15th, 2022 – 6:55 AM

I was awake for some time before 6:55, but that’s when I got up. The sky was pure blue. The previous evening it was overcast and spit a little rain. This morning was beautiful. Our campsite was open to the lake but the path to the lake was impassably muddy and crawling with Western toadlets to boot. We really had to go around to Jason’s pathway to get to the lake. I set up a chair in our campsite (called a gravity chair)facing the lake. For some time I watched the sun hit Mount Philips across the lake. Eventually, the shadow cast by the mountains behind us on Mount Philips reached the lake, but by then I was busy doing other things and I got distracted by this as I pushed myself vertical in my chair:

I actually took this picture later in the day after the sky had clouded over. I stared at this sight for a long time. There is an odd quasi-symmetry to the branches and needles. I contemplated drawing this, but I just couldn’t garner enough energy to do it. Instead, I took pictures and stared. I found looking at these boughs soothing. My pain dissolved. I relaxed completely. Such a great feeling…at least for a time!

I can’t thank my family enough for making it possible for me to get back to this lake and this campground. I’m an old man now. Many of the things we did for years like camping and messing around in boats are just not possible for me anymore. Maybe if it were only a question of age, but it’s not. Myeloma and chemo complicate matters immeasurably. Still, when I was at the lake I could much more easily recall so many pleasant experiences we had there. I love that place. It’s so much better to feel love for this place and for my family than to dwell on my health or lack of it.

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*See my art blog for images of the Buttle Lake stumps in ink and pencil: https://rogeralbert.blogspot.com/p/drawings.html