Another long one…skim if you wish.
First, let me tell you that my health is great. I am feeling very strong. There was a cold going around and it tried to catch me but I got away. I had threats of sore throat and was sneezy for a brief time but I brought such a fine herbal medicine chest with me that the bug left as quickly as it came. I have managed to keep up with my herbal formula while on this trip and I know that it continues to help me rebuild my immune system and strength. I have also been taking it easy and resting when I need to. Now on to the story….

Missing in Action? (Almost a month since my last entry.) Well, it’s been quite an experience here on the islands. I landed on the Hilo side of the island for my first week. Before I left Santa Cruz I was working on the Saso family calendar for 2005, a job that my brother Chris and I share. I was in charge of July thru December. With all of the busy-ness of the concert and getting ready for the trip to Hawaii, I didn’t finish my 6 months before I left. So I sat in the Oakland airport working on July, August, September etc. I figured that when I reached Hawaii, I would find an internet cafe somewhere with a high speed connection and ftp the files to Chris for printing.

Much to my surprise when I went to fire up my powerbook on the second day or so, alas! no power cord. I couldn’t believe it, or rather, I could believe that forces beyond my self had another plan for me. No technowitchery! Next I went to use my digital camera and to my second surprise, it just malfunctioned. I could trick it into taking a few pictures at first, but slowly but surely it lost all functionability. Let me take a short diversion here to show you one of the pictures that I did manage to take before it gave up completely.

Here you will see that my hair has started to grow back. I am loving running my fingers through my hair or is that–across my hair? Anyway, back to our story. By now I am figuring that Pele is having her way with me. I was relieved to find my second battery which had hidden from me at first. I had only 12% left on the first one and the computer wants to shut down at about 7%. The next step was to find a high speed connection.

I looked in the phone book and located one in Hilo. Lehua let me use her rental car and I had a very successful time getting lost in Hilo. I was completely disoriented. With 4 planets in cancer, I suffer from travel-disability and have a longing for home. I finally found the place and then it was a race against the clock. I knew I had only about an hour left on the battery. I won’t go into the details but it took every last ounce of my energy and the batteries power, not to mention all the cleverness I could conjure up. I finally succeeded in sending pdfs that Chris could open in Photoshop and add missing pictures.

Next I went back to the rental car, sat down a minute, then decided to leave the car there and go on another nearby errand. Got out of the car, locked it up, forgot my hat…oops! the key is in the car. LUCKILY, I had AAA and could call to get help. Which I did. Meanwhile I called my friend Shana who lives in Hilo and asked for her help in getting myself free of the Hilo maze I had wound myself into. She was such a calming influence, explained it well, and suggested I go to the park across the St. and check out the Banyan tree. As I was finishing my conversation with her the tow truck drove up. The guy got out and proceeded to do his thing as I searched for my AAA card which I just had inside the Internet Cafe but could now find nowhere. Lucky for me, when he finished he just said, “Thank you ma’am” and was on his way.

Tears rising to throat level, I headed back to the cafe in search of my card. As I turned the corner, the guy in the shop was coming my way with card in hand. I headed to the park to sit in the arms of that ancient majestic Banyan tree and have a good cry. It was just too challenging of a day not to.

I ended up finding my way back to Lehua’s only getting lost 2 or 3 more times. I surely felt that I was going thru a major Pele initiation.

The other thing that was happening from the 2nd day on, was my body’s experience with the new medication, Arimidex given to me by the oncologist. Because I tested hormone receptor positive, and am postmenopausal (thanks to chemo for finishing the job) I am candidate for hormone suppression since estrogen can “feed” cancer cells. (An over simplification, I am sure). What was happening was that I was having very bad stomach cramps, no energy and “bad dreams” accompanying poor sleep. It could have just been the trip, but after 3 days I called the nurse and decided to stop the meds. In fact, I have chosen not to continue while I am here and perhaps not until after surgery. I will also be looking for a natural alternative to this $9-a-day pill.

On Winter Solstice, Lehua and I headed over to Pepe and Shivani’s place in the small fishing village of Milolli–about an hour or so south of Kailua, Kona. That night we hiked into the nearby beach, Honamolino to spend the night. We did a Solstice Ritual on the beach and spent a lovely night there.

The next several days were filled with beach outings and some travel to the Northern tip of the island to Hawi with Anne, David and Amber. After returning to Milolli again, we took a trip to the beach next to the “City of Refuge,” called Honaunau. When we arrived at the beach we were informed that the dolphins were out there and we should put on our gear and head out. This was my first real time snorkeling and I followed Calli, who had much more experience. We swam way out there and I was a little freaked out with nothing to hold on to and concerned that I wouldn’t have the energy to maintain so far from shore. But it worked out fine, when I saw that I could use the fins to stay afloat without a lot of effort. My experience with the dolphins was somewhat or more… distracted by my inexperience with the gear and swallowing gulps of salt water. It was, however, so amazing to look down and see the dolphins far below. There were about 30-40 in the pod and they stayed in the bay quite a while despite the fact that they were being chased by lots of humans. They didn’t really seem to mind.

As time went on, we were joined by more friends in Milolli. Other musicians came and we jammed and sang–food for my soul and melodies on the lanai. A highlight.

Back over to Puna, the wet side, for New Year’s Eve– a mellow evening with toasts to the new year. Next day was one of the most fun things of the trip. We went to the warm ponds where some of the group went swimming. The road that led there was the most beautiful road I have been on for the whole trip. It was so lush and hanging with the kind of vines that make you want to play Tarzan and Jane. At least, that’s what it made me feel like and I said so as we headed down the road leaving the place. TJ was kind enough to offer to pull over and I said I could pass in consideration of time since we were late to where we were going. He insisted we had time and pulled over. I jumped out and grabbed ahold of one of the floor-length hanging vines. He cautioned that I should give it a yank to test the strength–which I did. I then proceeded to have a good swing. I move to another vine, gave it a yank, then gave it a swing and much to my surprise it gave way and I landed on the ground. It was the fun and funniest thing to happen to me in a long time and Calli, TJ and I had a great belly laugh that went on and on.

Meanwhile, I heard that Michael Franti was playing on Maui in a small club and I started dreaming of how I could escape the commune life, hop over to Maui, rent a car, and see the show. Then, low and behold, all things fell into place and I have been at Raven and Caryle’s place in Haiku since the 9th. I saw Michael perform with a couple of local musicians at Happas in Keihi last night (Jan 7th). I almost ended up on stage again as he pointed to me when he asked for a dancer, but another woman jumped up before I could go. I was actually relieved as he asked her to do an interpretive dance to the song he was playing and that would never have come close to the experience of dancing with Michael himself on the stage as I did in SF. However, after the show, I did talk to him, telling him about my webstory but more importantly, about the song I wrote that’s just begging to be performed by him. He gave me his email address and said to write to him about it. I am thinking that perhaps one of these days I will meet him in SF where he lives so I can sing it for him. Or maybe it will be back in Garberville where he occasionally comes to perform.

Tomorrow I fly back to the big island in the small 9 seater prop plane. On the way over, I realized how much I love to fly. Even in such a small aircraft I wasn’t afraid and found the experience exhilarating. A couple more days and then it’s back to home on Jan. 11th. We’ll see what the last couple of days bring.

With tentative surgery scheduled for January 18, I shall have more to report soon.

Happy new to every one of you
love
Copperwoman

January 15 • Surgery date confirmed

I felt very prepared for this day. I awoke around 5:30 so I could finish eating by 6:00 for the anesthesia. I had lots of time to do last minute things before surgery. Vivian came shortly before 10:30 and we headed to UCSF, Mt. Zion hospital on Divisidero for my Sacred Surgery #2. In the car, I took my last sips of water by noon, wondering how I was going to make it the next several hours without any liquid as my habit for a long time has been to drink lots of water. Turned out, it wasn’t that bad and with all the distraction to come, I was able to take my mind off of thirst.

After arriving, our first stop was to visit to the beautiful meditation room at Mt. Zion. We had some silence and then some toning, and more grounding and centering, praying and preparing. Next a visit upstairs to see EJ, a receptionist in the breast care center who made such a personal connection with me during my visits there. She always knew my name and was very helpful with appointments etc.

Then it was off to the hospital side of the building thru the secret corridor that connects the clinic side to the hospital side. We checked in shortly before 1:00, the time they had told me to come. We sat there for about 30 minutes and I wondered if they told me to come so early in case I was late–as they hadn’t called for me yet. I got the feeling to turn my cell phone back on and a few minutes later, it played it’s song for me and on the other end was one of the hospital staff wondering where I was since I was expected at 1:00. I told them I had checked in before 1:00 and shortly a nurse came in and called my name. A slight miscommunication from one department to another, but luckily I turned my cell phone back on so they could find that I had been sitting just down the hall the whole time they had been waiting for me.

I was then led to the pre-op room, given a bag for my clothes and handed a hospital gown to put on. Two nurses came in, took my vital signs, and asked various questions. At this point my mom called and wished me well. She was my last touch with the outside world before surgery. One of the nurses attempted to put in an IV, but the type was new to her and it turned out that it didn’t quite sink in to the vein as desired. She pulled it out and the other nurse did it later. What I’ve noticed with the IV’s is that if the person has good confidence about doing it, they hit it right the first time. If not, it is not uncommon that they miss the vein. And thus it was.

We found out that we would be in this room until surgery, with a short visit up to nuclear medicine for an injection of the radioactive substance I mentioned in a previous journal entry. After getting this info, Vivian began to set up the altar. We pulled out the magic wand and passed it around so the nurses could check it out. It turned out that the magic wand was quite a passport on our amazing journey at the hospital. I carried it with me to “nuke med” and both of the doctors there checked it out–not to mention the folks at the nurses station as we passed by and others we met along the way and in the elevator. Someone remarked that it looked like a sling shot and I replied that one of the “nick names” it had been given was my “spiritual slingshot.”

This would be a good place to insert a picture of said magic wand. We had no camera at the hospital so these pictures show some of the altar items–but were taken afterward. I am including the magic wand from each side.