Beset by new round of excruciating pain, I escape to Barrow, photograph surfers among whalers and start a new publication

It hurt so bad I could hardly speak, because to speak just aggravated the pain. I had almost stopped taking my painkillers altogether over the past several days, but now, while watching the Olympics, I took two painkillers just a little over four hours after having taken two previously.

In time, my eyelids grew so heavy I could keep them open no longer, so I let them close, but could not go to sleep because of the pain. Then, in what seemed to be the most logical transition in the world, I found myself in Barrow carrying my cameras on the bluff overlooking the Chukchi Sea.

It was sunny, the sky was a beautiful pastel blue, bowhead whales swam among huge waves as men in white parkas paddled umiaks after them.

Surfers also rode the waves, which peeled off in beautiful curls. The surfers zipped about among the whales and the whalers, neither disturbing the other, but somehow all merging in perfect harmony as if this was how it had always been.

I went to work with my cameras and got some fantastic pictures, but I had no place to publish them. I had no more Uiniq magazine. I picked up a copy of the Arctic Sounder, the weekly newspaper and paged through it, wondering if I should submit my photos there, but I knew I could never get the kind of display space the pictures merited.

So I decided to start a new publication, all my own. I would do it on a newsprint tabloid format like the Arctic Sounder but I would not concern myself with news. I would just wonder about the Arctic Slope doing stories and photo essays on people and their activities.

I grew very excited and decided to call a friend in Barrow who I thought might be able to help me figure out how to fund such a publication. I hated to think of advertising, but, it seemed to me that advertising would probably be the way to go and I thought with her help we could come up with a bunch of ads really fast and I could get the first issue out within a week or two.

I woke up and picked up my cell phone, ready to call her. Then I realized the Olympics were still on TV, I was still here in my house, recovering in pain from a surgery that may have been fundamentally sound but has since gone awry in so many ways.

I still wanted to call her, to tell her I was going to do this and to elicit her help, but the reality sunk in that it had just been a dream, that it was quite impossible anyway and I would never create such a publication. I set the phone back down.

I did have the CAT scan yesterday. The antibiotics are working, and I probably will not have to have the third surgery, but there is a possibility they may stick a needle into me and drain the larger of the two abscesses. This will not be decided for a few more days yet.

The doctor also examined my long, ugly, chasm-like widening incision, and then tightened up the stitching. In the process, he also tugged on the poker chip-like buttons atop my tummy that connect to the device implanted within by my original doctor, still on vacation, to prevent me from blowing everything out with another cough.

Somehow, this left me in excruciating pain, the very worst pain that I have felt at any time in this process except for those times I was coming out of surgery, the anesthesia was wearing off, and I was waiting for the morphine.

We had planned to stay in Anchorage for a little bit to do a few little things and to pick up Lynxton but the pain was so bad that all we could do was rush straight back to Wasilla where my Vicodin awaited.

The day was one of agony, broken only by a strange dream, and Olympic feats performed by healthy, young, people. Today, the pain remains significant, but I can talk and I see other signs that it may be beginning to subside a bit. Yesterday, I could not have written this at all.

It seems that whenever I appear to be making good progress, a new turn materializes in front of me. It was not supposed to be like this. I will get through it, and even if at the moment it seems to be an interminable process, it will soon be behind me. I will pick up my cameras and I will get back to work.

800 Sarah's Way, Wasilla, Alaska: For sale?! - I launch a new project in the hope I might save the memory, if not the place itself

No, my surgically-inflicted wounds did not suddenly heal enough and I

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Summer is passing and with it, all that I had hoped to do but can't; I must enjoy what I can

Sunday will mark one month since I underwent my first surgery, the planned one, the one when the doctor removed my right colon and the offending flat polyp that against medical expectations proved to be cancer free, but which they tell me would have eventually turned to cancer. I wanted to make a few observations on the one month mark, but I do not plan to post at all this weekend so I will make those observations now. Or at least those which come to mind. I have many, but I couldn't sleep last night, I feel a little strange in my head and so I have a feeling most of those observations will now elude me.

Before my original surgery, I asked Dr. O'Malley how long I could expect to be laid up and how long before I could venture back into the field to do some work - meaning the Arctic Slope, where the activities I would be involved in tend to be a little more rugged than those in most places. He said I could expect to be laid up for a week-and-a-half to two weeks and strong enough to go back into the field within three to four weeks.

Perhaps this would have proven true, had complications not arose, had I not had to undergo a second, emergency surgery, had I not subsequently been hospitalized for a third time with the abscesses now being treated with antibiotics. I am optimistic the antibiotcs will work but if they don't, then next week I will likely be back in the hospital for that third surgery.

So I went into the hospital hopeful that even before July ended, I could be back in the field, working. I hoped to be there when Shell Oil arrived with their big offshore drilling rig and to get some pictures as they planted it in the Chukchi Sea, and to photograph and talk to a good number of Iñupiat to see what they think about it.

Readers who were with me on my original Wasilla blog will recall that two falls ago I journied to Cross Island near Prudhoe Bay to join the whalers from Nuiqsut on their fall bowhead hunt, but the season started early and happened fast and by the time I got there they had landed the last whale of the season. It was a good trip and I got some good pictures but I wanted to go back to get the full cycle. Shortly before I went into the hospital, the whaling captain who had invited me to the island before invited me to come back again.

I told him I would - barring any complications from this surgery.

Well, the Shell rigs and Shell itself have encountered a few problems and are running weeks behind schedule, but it is very clear to me that I am not going to be there to document this big moment in the history of Arctic Alaska. Depending on weather and ice, the hunters from Nuiqsuit are likely to leave in about one month, but given my current state, I think it most unlikely that I will be healed enough to join them in that rigorous life.

I came out of my surgery with a nicely-stapled up incision that looked like it would heal pretty quickly. Then, while I was still in the hospital, it got infected, the doctor removed a bunch of staples, leaving me with a hole in my belly that had to be packed and dressed every day. Then I coughed, dehisched, blew out a big hole in my tummy wall, underwent the second surgery, came out with everything stapled back together again but with a couple of drains in me to allow the fluids to escape, then five of those staples came out, leaving another big hole and then I went to the emergency room, the abscesses were found, the opening wound was partially sewn back together but not totally as that would have been too dangerous and could have trapped more infection and I was put on the antibiotics.

As of yesterday, perhaps because I got to eat solid food again, I began to feel much stronger, significantly better than I had felt at any moment since the second surgery - but, if you could see the hole that is still in my belly and if you are a normal person, you would be horrified.

Margie is horrified every time she changes my dressing. I have thought about posting a pic, but I don't think it would be a good idea as it would gross out too many readers.

It must be healing, slowly, but looking at it day to day I can see no change it, nor can Margie - except the some of the staples appear to be getting stretched close to their limit, which would make the hole bigger. I just hope this doesn't happen before Monday when I see the doctor again, because I do not want to have to go to the emergency room again.  

While I have not given up all hope all together, it is hard for me to imagine what I see now healing by the time the Nuiqsut whalers head for Cross Island.

But maybe.

There were other things I hoped I would heal quick enough to do, too, not only up there but down here, too. I wanted to camp, to canoe, to hike, to catch a fish. I wanted to get back on my bike.

Again, I have not altogether given up hope, but it certainly does not seem likely. Last night, Jacob, Lavina, Kalib and Jobe came out to pick up Lynxton. I did manage to stand on the back porch and shoot this picture with my iPhone.

Earlier in this very warm and pleasant day, I had gone out into the back yard just to sit and marvel at how wonderful the sun felt, how clear and blue the sky was, how green the leaves and how far up the stem the fireweed blossoms had bloomed. It is common knowledge here that when they bloom at the top, summer is over.

That top bloom is coming soon.

Of course, right now I have no money to travel anyway. No use to sulk and feel sorry. I enjoyed that sun yesterday. I enjoyed seeing my grandsons frolic in the back yard with their dad. I shot only these two iPhone frames, whereas if I could handle my real camera and move quickly about I would have shot a bunch.

Still, it was good.

Well, most of those observations will remain unwritten, unremembered, but what does it matter, anyway?

Also, I am very much aware that these pictures I am taking would technically look much better if I were using a "real" camera and not an iPhone, but I can't handle my big camera, a friend gave me a small camera that I can handle, but most of the time (although not today) I have been posting to this blog direct from my iPhone and the only way to do so is to use the iPhone camera. Even though there are many blurred and hazy pictures a certain look has been established and I think I should just keep that look going until this process is behind me and documented.

Come Monday, I hope to finally put up the post I had planned to put up this past Monday, the post about this place, 800 Sarah's Way, Wasilla, Alaska, where we have lived for 30 years but now face a huge challenge if we are to continue living here.

I lay awake most of the night, Margie sleeps in, cooks eggs and potatoes, after five days on clear liquid I eat solid food

I only wanted morning to come swiftly and to bring eggs and potatoes with it, but the night passed ever so slowly. A bit after midnight, to make it more bearable and hopefully to lull myself to sleep, I plugged my soft headphones into my phone, waged a short debate within as to whether to listen to Jimi Hendrix or Mozart and then settled on Hendrix - The Ultimate Experience.

I hoped it would put me to sleep, but had a feeling it wouldn't. If not, then I would listen to Mozart afterward.

First, an amazing Hendrix intro and short guitar riff and then his beautiful voice, "There must be some kind of way out of way out of here, said the joker to the thief. There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief."

In an instant, I was completely absorbed in the music. Many times during this recovery process I have gone to bed absorbed in the music and then hours later have woken up to complete silence, my headphones still on my ears, never having reached the end of the album in a conscious state.

This time, I remained absorbed as Hendrix moved through song after song until finally he landed on number 20, "Hey Joe, where you going with that gun in your hand?" and ended it there.

I then switched to Mozart, Requiem in D Minor. Entranced, I listened. I pondered how much Hendrix and Mozart held in common - both geniuses blessed or perhaps cursed with gifts possessed by no one else. Both lived hard and reckless, died young and are now listened to by multitudes 24 hours a day.

At one particular moment, a black and white picture appeared in my mind. It is one I took long ago in the Bakersfield, California, house of my sister Mary Ann. It shows my late, paralyzed, brother Ron, sitting in his wheelchair, a rapturous look upon his face as Mary Ann plays classical piano for him. A chill passed over me, as if the spirit of my dead brother had suddenly swept by. He loved Mozart. In fact... no, I will hold this fact for the book. I cannot amply explain it here.

Requiem ended with me still awake. I now had less than two hours until my alarm would ring and it would be time to take my 4:00 AM antibiotics pill.

I switched from music to the morning BBC news but it was all pre-Olympics pablum, so I turned it off and decided just to lay there in quiet. I thought about all my incomplete books and felt desperate to complete them. I kept thinking about morning, when I could get up, hobble out to the living room and eat some potatoes and eggs.

Then, suddenly, I awoke to my alarm and took my 4:00 AM pill. It felt like I had been asleep for just minutes, but who knows? It could have been minutes. It could have been an hour.

I then lay there, waiting for my next alarm alert to go off at 8:00 so I could take a different antibiotics pill. I kept thinking about the eggs and potatoes. I hoped that Margie would be up when that alarm went off, because she planned to cook the breakfast and I wanted my first solid food to be eggs, the way she cooks them.

And then, once again, my alarm woke me. Again, I did not know if I had been asleep for minutes or maybe a couple of hours. I took my 8:00 AM pill, went through the painful, but not as painful as it was not so long ago, process of getting out of bed and stepped out into the hallway.

Except for the click of Jim's claws on the bamboo floor of the hallway, all was quiet. I peeked into the master bedroom and saw Margie and Lynxton sleeping side by side on the king-size bed, Lynx's cradle board lying empty a short distance from them. This meant Lynx had woken up during the wee hours and had demanded Margie's attention before he would go back to sleep again. It could be quite awhile yet before Margie would be up to fix breakfast.

I figured the best way to endure the wait would be to sleep, and so went back to bed. It didn't work. I got back up and went into the kitchen to make coffee, but could find no filters.

I thought about cooking the eggs and potatoes myself - I figured I was strong enough to do it - but for all these days I have been imagining myself eating scrambled eggs the way Margie cooks them, not the way I do.

And then... I heard Lynxton cry. He was awake! I went into the bedroom and found them both lying on the bed. Lynxton was happy now. Soon, they got up. Margie sat Lynxton in his makeshift laundry basket-play pen, where he quickly settled down into contented happiness.

Margie cooked eggs and potatoes for all three of us. I took my first bite of solid food in five days. It was exquisite! I knew I had to be careful, so I ate only about balf of what you see on the plate, plus a few spoonfuls of yogurt, a few sips of coffee and a small glass of apple juice.

Jim walks the hall with me

As I have noted, I am under doctor's orders to walk. Walking is the thing that will best help my intestines return to their normal function. I take one or two walks outside a day, now, and several small walks in the house.

I do laps in which I walk down the hall, turn around, walk back up the hall, walk into the front room, then pass through the living room, and then I go through the kitchen back into the hall.

As I walk the hall, I hear the soft click of claws tapping against the bamboo floor. It is Jim. He walks with me. When I reach the end of the hall and turn around he turns around.

I can do 10 laps, or 15, sometimes even 20. And there is Jim, with me through every lap. Sometimes he diverts a little to the side, this way or that, sometimes he is coming straight at me, sometimes he is behind me, sometimes he is in front of. but he sticks with me.

My good buddy, Jim.