Tag: cancer

“Heart of mine, why art thou dreaming!
Dreaming through the weary day,
While life’s precious hours are wasting,
Fast, and unimproved, away?” ~ Mary Ann H. Dodd

Life is filled with precious hours, slowly ticking time off, yet how often we spend them dreaming away the time. Next year, I will conquer this thing. Next month, I hope to do that thing. Next week? Tomorrow? Tomorrow! There are always dreams. There is always time. Until there isn’t.

Cancer is a beast. A beast that has touched my life again and again. My uncle. My aunt. My father. Neighbors and friends. My husband’s aunt. My husband.

One evening in May, 2023, my husband went out for his typical post-work bike ride. The following morning, he urinated straight blood. Was it a one-off experience, brought on by strenuous biking, or something more sinister? Thankfully, alarmed, he called his family doctor before even exiting the bathroom. Thankfully, he kept that doctor appointment scheduled for just a few days later, even though there was no more visible blood in his urine. An in-office urine collection was filled with microscopic amounts of blood. Thankfully, the doctor, suspecting a kidney stone, sent him right away for a CT scan of his abdomen. Thankfully, everything moved so fast – a month from the first symptom to the first surgery. Alas. The beast, cancer, had touched our lives once again. This time, up close and personal. Bladder cancer. The same cancer my father had been diagnosed with just a few years earlier. My father – a male, a life-long smoker and fire fighter – was in three high risk categories for bladder cancer. My husband? His only risk factor was being male. Yet here it was. That beast.

The first year after diagnosis is always a blur, or so we have been told. Surgeries. Treatment plans. Endless doctor appointments. “This is so surreal,” I must have uttered a dozen times a day, trying to make it make sense. He is always the healthy one, I would tell everyone. Never sick. Never a broken bone. Never a surgery or hospital stay. How do you answer that common greeting, “How are you doing?” How is he doing? How am I doing? How are we doing? To quote The Beatles, “I get by with a little help from my friends.”

Year One rolls in to Year Two and the numbness starts to wear off. No more surgeries. Just treatments, biopsies, scans and more doctor appointments. Year Two, my father died of cancer, though not of his original bladder cancer. Merkel cell carcinoma. Another beast had entered our lives. We are now in Year Three of my husband’s battle with this beast. Bladder cancer is highly recurrent. A lifetime of scans and monitoring. In the words of his urology oncologist: As long as you are biking and fighting, we are monitoring and treating. We get by with a little help from our friends. My husband’s biking community has been outstanding. Their love and support, we feel it. It warms our hearts in ways we could never fully convey.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do 
with your one wild and precious life?” ~ Mary Oliver

Last year, my husband set a biking goal for 2026: To compete in the 24 Hours In The Canyon biking event at Palo Duro Canyon State Park. This year, the 20th anniversary, the event was held over the last weekend of May – from noon on Saturday to noon on Sunday. The ride supports The Cancer Survivorship Center, which serves adult cancer patients in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandle and let me tell you – It was an emotional weekend! Nearly 50 of the riders, my husband included, are cancer warriors. To see and talk with others that have been touched by the beast named Cancer, to see the community of road and mountain bikers come together to support one another while also supporting a wonderful cancer support organization, to know that so many people changed their dreams into plans to put in the training and dedication it takes to ride for 24 hours, to know that so many gave of their time and energy and volunteered to support this event… We all get by with a little help from our friends.

Now I know this is primarily a gardening blog and this begs the question: Does this have anything to do with gardening? Yes, though perhaps indirectly. You see, my husband has been so blessed to be part of a local biking community, and I have been blessed to belong to a wonderful gardening community.

In an article from 2023, Amy Doneen wrote, “A sense of belonging in a group can significantly impact a person’s mental health, reducing anxiety, stress and loneliness. Humans have traditionally lived communally, looking out for one another, supporting one another and sharing in the joys and challenges of life. It is a beautiful fact that our lives are more fruitful and rewarding when we share them with others.” This past weekend, at Palo Duro Canyon State Park, we felt that sense of belonging, sharing in the joys and the challenges of life. My husband biked 194 miles over 24 hours, in challenging conditions, to come in first place for his age bracket. His trophy sums it up: “Cancer doesn’t sleep, why should we?”

Cancer is now our ever present. That uninvited guest that showed up at suppertime and stayed the night and the next day and the next week. Life’s precious hours are wasting away. It is up to each of us to make the best of our time here on earth. What will we do with our one precious and wild life?

“The man who has planted a garden feels that he has done something for the good of the world…. It is a pleasure to eat of the fruit of one’s toil. To dig in the mellow soil… is a great thing. One gets strength out of the ground…. There is life in the ground; it goes into the seeds; and it also, when it is stirred up, goes into the man who stirs it. The hot sun on his back as he bends to shovel and hoe, or contemplatively rakes the warm and fragrant loam, is better than much medicine.” ~ Charles Dudley Warner

My husband bikes and I garden. He flies down the road on two thin bicycle tires while I stay grounded at home, tending my garden. I loved spending the weekend at Palo Duro Canyon, camping under the full moon, waking to the birds singing. I loved seeing where my husband’s training, planning and hard work took him. I also loved returning home, rushing out to my garden and harvesting what grew in the few days we were away. I loved making supper tonight with the fruits of my toil – zucchini, peppers, onions, garlic and green beans – knowing that fresh organic homegrown produce nourishes our body and soul. May we all be blessed with a passion that enables us to turn our dreams into plans, that gives us a sense of purpose in life, that leads us to our tribe, our community.

Keep calm and garden on. Sow some seeds of kindness today.

Photographs taken June 1st, 2026. I live and garden in zone 8b, southern Denton County, Texas.