Thyroid cancer, broccoli and cauliflower

My doctor told me I had thyroid cancer the day before my post on June 16, 2015. 

"If you had to pick a kind of cancer to have, this is the one you'd ask for."

I heard some variation of these words almost every time my diagnosis was mentioned, and I know the words were intended to comfort. But most often, I felt patronized and dismissed by them. Because I had "the easy cancer," I didn't feel allowed to be afraid or sad or worried.

Treatable and easy are different things. Thyroid cancer doesn't ever go into "remission." It's monitored on a yearly basis and treated when necessary. Two of the four types of thyroid cancer have a highly effective treatment. I was diagnosed with a mashup of the two treatable kinds - papillary and follicular.

It was a very difficult time for me and my family. There's nothing easy about fighting cancer when it's in your own body.

Our family and friends were extravagantly supportive.  They brought meals, supported my husband, kept our kids, washed my clothes and dishes... the list goes on and on.

I had a two partial thyroidectomies, one on August 10 (the right side), the other on August 24 (the left side).

The second surgery paralyzed one of my vocal cords. Talking required a lot of effort, breathing and swallowing were challenging, and I was unable to sing or even raise my voice for four months.  Four months doesn't seem so long now, but we had no idea when or if my vocal cord would ever wake up again. The doctors could only say that the paralysis had a good chance of resolving within 6-12 months; any paralysis lasting longer than that was likely to be permanent. It was an indefinite, heart-wrenching waiting game. My voice was hoarse, muted and unpredictable.

I didn't plant anything for such a long time. The things I'd planted before the diagnosis had to basically fend for themselves.  I didn't have the energy to do anything with them.

At some point in September, I walked around to sort through the weeds and evaluate the neglected beds. With no small amount of joy and amazement, I pulled up tiny onions and wads of carrots from the stair step beds.

My onions are on the right. Tiny, but wonderful.

Inspired by this unexpected harvest, I tromped over to Lowe's and bought a bunch of broccoli and cauliflower starts. Planting calendars be hanged, I just really wanted to plant something. I said that I was gambling on a mild winter. But I would have planted regardless. It was wonderful to nurture life in the soil again.

I had also grabbed a few marigolds, some brussel sprouts (one eventually died and the other turned out to be a cabbage). The one pitiful Petit Gris de Rennes melon vine that had survived the summer against all odds, I carefully arranged on the trellis. Months later it bore a solitary, creamy fruit. I carefully saved its seed and a new generation of these melons is coming to fruition as I type. 

I took a dose of radioactive iodine in October and spent a week in isolation. My aunt and uncle gave me a beautiful place to stay. It was an incredibly peaceful week.

The winter was mild. Just cold enough to keep the bugs away.

Around Christmas, my speaking voice started to sound more normal. At one point in late December, I called upstairs to the kids to come eat or something. My husband looked at me wide-eyed and I realized that I'd raised my voice without it breaking or straining. And then I was able to sing again.

We harvested delicious broccoli and cauliflower all through the spring. Not a bug or a blemish on a single piece. That particular harvest will always hold a special place in my memory. Life returned to whatever normal is.

Thursday, June 23, my whole body scan and blood work led to a wonderful report. The cancer in my body has been effectively eradicated with surgery and radioactive iodine. My blood tumor marker is 0.

It's wonderful to write it all out like this, to see the Cancer Chapter from beginning to "end" and to truly feel we're living a new chapter.

Hailstorm

All of my battered plants are wrapped in freeze blankets or covered in buckets for the next few days. Our bewilderingly early spring finally gave way to an onslaught of damaging weather. It seemed to come out of nowhere.

I expect weather and other miscellaneous factors to threaten my garden, and I work with them as best I can. Sleet, ice and snow. Torrential, drown-every-seed-in-sight-for-days-on-end rain. Blazing heat. Bugs of all stripes. Birds (that sing so beautifully in the morning I forgive their occasional berry theft). Exuberant kids that only occasionally forget to watch where they're stepping.

But the onslaught of hail that came down not once, but TWICE in a span of four hours was a first for me. I've never seen hail like this. It mercilessly butchered all of the beauty I've so carefully cultivated, much of it beyond recovery.

My first concern is always the asparagus. It's been such a labor of love and patience to wait for this year's harvest, and the thought of losing it all is unbearable. The harvestable stalks were beheaded and broken, but I'm counting on the crowns themselves being undamaged and continuing to produce.

                                                                       

My grow bags of onions looked like ice buckets. I gathered up the broken stems and mourned the damage. But I'm hopeful the onions will also survive.

I began planning last year for a grape arbor, and this year finally ordered two grapevines. Hope and Gratitude. I planted them reverently, praying for the covering of hope and gratitude at our gates, for these blessings to root deeply and spread wide in us.

I almost panicked when I saw this. 

They're only plants, I know. I can and will replant where I need to. But losses are still losses, and I've invested heavily here. 

Potatoes before

Potatoes after

I successfully grew all of my peppers from seed this year, four different heirloom varieties. Savagely pummeled and sitting in an ice box, they're a total loss, along with the quinoa. Next year I'll know to start back-up sets a few weeks after the first.

This was also my first year for strawberries, following two seasons of dreaming and planning. I planted them all over the place - under a tree, in front of the asparagus bed, beside the blackberries. I even planted some in my neighbor's yard, built a makeshift strawberry tower, and finally gave away handfuls of plants that I simply couldn't house. 

The ones I planted under the tree seemed to be saying "What happened to all of you?!" 

By some miracle, the vast majority of the strawberry plants seem to be pulling through. I think it was in one of Gayla Trail's books that I came across the encouragement that plants want to grow. Over and over again, I see how true that is.

I noticed this tulip a few minutes ago on my way to check on the strawberries,
and it took my breath away. 

So I've decide to embrace hope and gratitude again. Hail is one more setback I'll have learned to weather. Gardening has many lessons to teach, and I've been focused on Patience for many seasons. I hadn't considered Resilience and her close friend Determination until now, and I suppose it's about time I did.

In memory of the beautiful things I grew once and will grow again...

After I published this post, I realized that I'd made no mention of my tomatoes. I think it was a subconscious denial about their loss... I love growing tomatoes from seed. Tomatoes are the one plant I've successfully grown every year since I began gardening. Because I've always had so many tomatoes left over, I started fewer this year and was very selective about the ones I planted. Quality over quantity. Which means I had much more to lose and did. I'm still debating if I'm going to nurse the few broken survivors, or kiss them goodbye and replant with store-bought plants. I'll probably choose a little of both in the end.

How does my garden grow

We're having a whacky winter in Texas. It feels more like spring. My asparagus needs to go brown and dormant, so I'm crossing my fingers for consistent cold temperatures in the coming month.

I threw together some row covers last week for my broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts and garlic.

Supplies needed:

• thin-walled, flexible PVC
• PVC cutting tool (my husband had one handy and I have no idea what it's actually called)
• 2 ft rebar
• frost covers
• old t-shirts 
• rudimentary sewing skills

I found 8-foot, flexible PVC in the plumbing section at Lowe's and cut it into 4-foot lengths. The PVC fits perfectly over the rebar stakes, shoved halfway into the ground. The resulting arches are surprisingly sturdy.

I cut 20 strips out of old t-shirts, and sewed 2 rows of 5 parallel loops into each frost cover.

I'm not sure how many seasons these will last... If I'd given this whole project more than 15 minutes of thought, I'd have made the strips out of an old shower-curtain instead of t-shirts. 

It's difficult to describe the peace that envelopes me when I step outdoors to be in my garden. I love to walk slowly in it. To be carefully observant. To allow myself to enter into this quiet world as a steward. It is in me to be a tyrant. But gardening has taught me over and over again that I am not in control.

I wanted this post to be about something else... but I'm a bit too overwhelmed for details today. Instead I'll post some recent glimpses.

A baby watermelon

My asparagus forest

A currant tomato somehow self-seeded from last year's crop
has demanded a place among the onions and carrots (and weeds).
I'm both baffled and amused as I watch it grow.

I'm thrilled that the pumpkin plant I've given up for lost several times seems determined to grow.

a not-so-dormant garden

[dor·mant (dôrmənt): as if in a deep sleep; alive but not actively growing]

My chronic case of gardening fever sets in again in late December, and I start itching to order seeds. I buy a fresh 1-subject notebook and start sketching spring gardening plans. I devour seed catalogues as they come in the mail, occasionally flying across the house to grab a gardening book (or five) to aid in my planning. When I get impatient with dreaming and planning, I walk outside with an errant thought to stir up a little patch of ground and plant something early... but after a minute of FREEZING my butt off, I huff back into the house. 

This year though, I have a handful of edibles that have grown quietly throughout the fall and winter. They inspire me with their simple beauty and fill me with hope for the season to come. 

Lovely lettuces and a random bit of cilantro

My side garden doesn't look like much passing by. But it houses my dormant berries and a smattering of greens that are very much awake.

Arugula. My favorite green.

I think this is tatsoi...

But it might be spinach.

More cilantro. (When did I even plant all of this?)

That's what harvest is for

I've been discouraged about my garden lately. It's hot. Coming back from vacation, it's just hard to get back into the swing of working in the yard and garden. At this point, it's going to be an uphill climb out there. I've barely stayed on top of watering (mostly thanks to my new hose timers), cursed at my borer-eaten squash plants that looked so promising, looked the other way with the weeds, and feared another snake in my berries. I'm tired. And did I mention that it's hot?

Then this morning, the kids yanked up a monstrous carrot. Seeing it was a thrill. And the harvest was on.

The truth is my garden hasn't actually gone to pot. Or seed. My sweet potato is practically exploding out of its bag. Some of my squash is hanging on, and I have new seedlings to replace what was lost. I have learned how to build sturdy, presentable, affordable trellises that will last for years. I have another season of tomato growing under my belt, and I finally succeeded in growing big ones this year. I had begun to doubt that was possible. The list goes on.

Growth has continued, and I have a counter-full of fresh, homegrown produce to feed my family. 

An assortment of basil

Paris Market carrots, Red Malabar spinach,  Nyagous and Currant Sweet Pea tomatoes, Sheepnose Pimento and Aurora peppers and lots of basil. Yum.