I'll Fly Away

Quick trip to the beach in January

Hi, y'all, it's been a long time.

This blog has been lying dormant for years, but it seems like the right place to post about my new cancer journey. Let me start from the beginning to get everyone up to speed. 

I started having mild abdominal pain in November. It was getting worse, more consistent by December, but between work and doctoral classes, I didn't have time to think much about it. I saw a doctor in early January. She thought it was probably just an upper GI issue that would resolve itself. I returned a month later for a physical and bloodwork. The pain was still there, and I could feel a mass in my abdomen. The doctor suspected my gall bladder was inflamed. The bloodwork came back showing elevated liver enzyme levels. This confirmed the doctor's suspicions about the gall bladder, but she wanted to rule out any liver issues, so she ordered an ultrasound. 

The doctor called Tuesday morning to say the ultrasound showed masses on my liver. The next day, I had an MRI, and by the afternoon, a cancer diagnosis. The cancer I have is cholangiocarcinoma, a rare cancer of the bile ducts. Because the tumor is already so massive and is covering a lymph node and blood vessels, it cannot be removed. A liver transplant is also not an option. I have an appointment with an oncologist week after next, but the purpose for chemotherapy will only be to shrink the tumor to hopefully create greater comfort and quality of life. There is no cure, and the cancer is known to be very lethal. My next steps are to seek a second opinion at MD Anderson in Houston and explore the options for possible clinical trials. 

I know this is very heavy news, but please know that I don't need a single thing other than lots of love, healing energy, and prayers. I'll keep posting updates here. Lots of love.

Machu Picchu

I've been reading up on my Incan history ever since we visited the great Incan mountaintop city of Machu Picchu yesterday. I've learned that the Incas valued work. If one didn't work, one didn't live. Because everyone worked their share, they were able to share their income and resources. There were no slaves.

They also valued education, both intellectual and physical. To graduate from school at the age of 16, students had to pass a series of mental and physical tests that would leave some dead. That was okay, though, because the Incas were also fierce warriors, and if someone couldn't live through an end-of-course exam, how would they ever live through a battle?

The ruins at Machu Picchu and other places also show that the Incas were good farmers. They built terraces on the mountainside and experimented with crop genetics and different growing methods. In a place called Moray, there are ruins of terraced concentric circles. This allowed the Incas to test which plants grew best at which altitudes and with what amount of sunlight.

The Inca people also apparently had some pretty fantastic ways of cutting and carrying stone. The stonework at Machu Picchu, especially on the the king's house and the temples, is amazing. No one knows how they did it. The town itself is located atop a natural quarry, so that helped, but it is still amazing to think of how they managed such well-done construction so long ago.

While the stone construction done by the Incas at Machu Picchu is incredible, maybe I was more impressed by the natural mountain formations. I can see why the Incas chose to build Machu Picchu were they did. It is a location that feels special, spiritual. I could have stared off into the mountains all day. Except that I was getting sunburned.

The Incas worshipped the sun and the moon, not as gods but as idols. The women studied the moon. The men studied the sun.The ruins sit between four mountains. A sun dial at the highest level was positioned to be aligned with these four peaks as well as the four cardinal directions. They used moon mirrors -- small circular bowls of water built into the floor -- to see the reflections of solar and lunar eclipses. Sun shining through windows built into the Temple of the Sun marks the summer and winter solstices.

American Hiram Bingham first discovered Machu Picchu in 1911. He was looking for the lost city of the Inca, called Vilcabamba. As he was traveling around Peru, he stopped in a village and asked if he could spend the night. The next day the villagers offered to take him to their other homes at the top of the mountain. They took him to the remains of Machu Picchu. Can you imagine his reaction? He thought he had found the lost city, but it turns out that it was discovered later somewhere else.

Today, as many as 2,500 people from around the world visit Machu Picchu every day via a winding dirt road that leaves from the relatively new town of Aguas Calientes. Yesterday I was one of those visitors, and here are the photos I took:

My dad and me:

Remains of walls:

Stairway, obviously:

Sun dial used to read Incan calendar:

Sun dial

These structures originally had thatched roofs:

Sun dial

Terraces built for growing food:

Natural rock quarry:

The lower portion of Machu Picchu:

Nearby mountain that has more Incan buildings atop it.

Roof construction:

Unbelievable stonework:

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Paracas

These photos are a few days old now. They are from the boat ride to the Ballestas Isands off the coast of Paracas in southern Peru. We tooled around the rocky islands to see birds and such, all of which are endangered or nearly endangered. The birds have found a good home there, though, and they live there amongst the sea lions and penguins, all in perfect harmony. It seems they have been there forever and will be there forever.

The birds poop a lot and all over the place. The rocks are covered in poop. The guide told us that the poop, technically called guano, was harvested in 2004 and again last year. In those seven years, the guano piled up to four feet high in some places. Locals live on the island for a few months during harvesting time to shovel up the guano and ship it away to be used as fertilizer.

The iPhone camera didn't capture very well just how many birds (and bird poop) there were, but you can see the amazing rock formations and evidence of erosion over many, many years.

 

 

 

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From Cusco to Urubamba

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Ollantaytambo

Today we visited an archeological site in the town of Ollantaytambo, about 11 miles from our hotel in Urubamba. The site consists of a stone fortress that climbs up the side of a steep mountainside. It was built by an Incan emporer in the mid-15th century. The same emporer also led the construction of terraces near the town, which was home to lncan nobility. Later, around 1536, the site was used as a fortress again the Spanish Conquistadors.

There exists also a legend that explains the connection between the town and the Incan Empire. The legend says that a beggar walked into the town of Ollantaytambo before the time of the Incas. The chief of the town was kind to the old man, so the old man repaid the chief by offering him his walking stick. Later, when the chief's son was born, the walking stick turned to gold. When the boy grew up, he took the golden stick and left Ollantaytambo saying that wherever the walking stick sank into the ground would be the location of the Incan Empire. And that, the legend concludes, is how the Incan Empire began.

There are little canals running all through the base of the ruins as well as through the cobblestone streets of the town. The water comes from melted snow atop the high mountains surrounding the area.

Here are a ton of photos I took as Dad and I crept up and back down the ruins.

 

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