Feel your Boobies, and your Prostrate

This article originally appeared in the Methow Valley News, 25 October 2017

One week remains in breast cancer awareness month. The national discussion should be focused on cancer screenings for everyone, not just breast cancer. One in seven men will be diagnosed with prostrate cancer in their lifetimes. One in eight women will develop breast cancer. Of the two most common cancers, 90% of people who receive the diagnosis have no family history of the disease.

Consider this column a gentle reminder to schedule an annual physical and talk with your doctor to decide when to start testing, and how often. Write down the family history of cancer before you go. If there is a history of prostrate cancer in males, there is a higher risk of breast cancer in the female members of the family and vice versa.

I found a lump in my early 30s. After a mammogram followed by an ultrasound, the lump was determined to be a benign cyst. The mammogram provided a baseline for comparison in later years. Whether you feel a lump or not, ask your doctor to schedule a baseline mammogram if you’ve never had one before. For prostrate cancer, a simple blood test can catch the disease early.

Rebecca Meadows had her mammogram earlier this summer, finding an early diagnosis of breast cancer. After a full mastectomy, further treatments - such as chemotherapy and radiation - were not required. She feels very lucky, “the first thing I ask when I see a friend is, ‘when was your last mammogram?’”

The initial diagnosis, for Rebecca, felt like, “a whirlwind, a hurricane,”. Things moved so quickly after the mammogram, she did not have time to think about the big picture or long term. During the midst of it all, someone who has just been diagnosed is often able to only focus on the immediate and overwhelming tasks at hand. She suggests, “take a friend with you to all your appointments, so they can help remember what is being said, and what needs to be asked.” For friends, always offer to take someone to an appointment and sit in the room with them.

“Don’t be afraid to ask questions,” Rebecca suggested. She held up typewritten pages she had just used the day before at a follow up exam. “Do your homework, write it all down,” she suggested, “the American Cancer Society has a list of questions you can take with you to the doctor. Doing your homework makes it less scary!” Rebecca has offered to be a resource to anyone who has questions.

Most often, a cancer diagnosis can be treated. But in some instances, people receive a timeline of life expectancy. What to do then? I can’t tell you what it is like for everyone, but I can share with you my mother’s experience. She was given initially two months to live. My uncle gave me sage advice, “Your role is to help her through this. Let her know that it’s ok if she goes.” For adult kids, spouses, friends – I can tell you that person is more worried about you, than about dying. Let them know you are ok, and keep the focus on enjoying the time you have together.  

One of the last conversations I had with my mom was what she had learned. Her diagnosis, she said, was a gift that gave her time and space to just be.

Take the initiative to talk with your doctor about your own cancer screenings. The more you know, the more prepared you can be for when and if you ever receive a diagnosis. Cancer screenings are not scary, they are simply a fact of life for us all.

Tenacious Crossword

There is a valley character who I call "Crossword". He always has a stack of crossword puzzles that he's working on all over town: in Hank's deli, at the laundromat, at the garage, in the library, at the bakery...

While waiting for my snow tires to be put on, I walked over to the bakery and took up at my customary table by a window with full view of the sidewalk and people coming and going. Crossword was at the table next to me, pencil poised in mid air over a stack of puzzles freshly torn out from various newspapers. As I opened up my laptop, he leaned over conspiratorially,

Crossword: I was over at Hank's and I asked a woman for a hug.

Me: How'd that work out for ya?

Crossword: She said, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!" Hahahaha! (slapping his knee)

Me: Did you expect a different outcome?

Crossword: Are you kidding me? Hahahahaha!!

He continued to chuckle to himself, his head and shoulders shaking in laughter as he filled in the little squares of the puzzle. After a time, he slowly got up, put on his coat, and shuffled with great effort out the door. Still smiling and waving as he left. I watched through the window to make sure he got where he was going.

Most people passed him quickly, not giving the old bent man a second look as he shuffled along, carefully concentrating on each step. He paused at the curb, and reached out a hand - curled and gnarled by years of work - and placed it on a hood of a car to keep his balance as he shuffled a few steps forward.

A young man took long quick strides for the bakery, passing Crossword. The young man put his hand on the bakery door, pushed it open, and then stopped short as a sudden look of awareness and concern furrowed his brow. He stepped away from the door and turned around, his back to me, and the door now shut. He greeted Crossword, generic words passed between two strangers and Crossword waved him off with one hand, his other sliding along the cold metal of a car hood.

The young man pulled his phone out of his pocket, and frowned down at it, standing on the sidewalk - bakery seemingly forgotten. As Crossword made slow progress, the young man kept discreetly glancing up from his phone. He took small steps that to passerby would look like a distracted movement, but he was keeping a mindful distance between himself and Crossword. As soon as Crossword reached his destination and was inside the next shop, the young man smiled, pocketed his phone, and rushed into the bakery - where he ordered lunch to go and rushed back out.

In a world of name-calling and frustration with everyone around us, it was a gift to see someone stop and carefully consider the level of assistance someone might need. From my vantage point, Crossword turned down help because he wants to stay mobile and independent as long as he has the ability to do so. The young man respectfully gave him space and a sense of privacy - while ensuring Crossword met his goal. Let's all be both of them - tenacious when we are older, and kind when we are younger.

Archaeology Project, MVIC

This article originally appeared in the Methow Valley News, 11 October 2017

Hozomeen Mountain cuts into the sky above the cold waters of Ross Lake. Jack Kerouac referenced this North Cascade National Park peak in The Dharma Bums, "Hozomeen, Hozomeen, the most mournful mountain I've ever seen". In another of his books, Desolation Angels, the author contemplates the questions of life while gazing to the summit, “Even Hozomeen will crack and fall apart, nothing lasts.”

Archeologist Bob Mierendorf studied quarries at Hozomeen Mountain for the past two decades, finding a 10,000 year long record of human activity etched and piled on the landscape. You can learn more about his findings in a youtube video produced by North Cascades National Park, “Hozomeen: A story about chert, identity, and landscape” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyqjLqJoTWo

Hozomeen chert, a flint like mineral found exclusively in the North Cascades, was used by First Peoples to make very distinctive stone tools. The name “Hozomeen” is an interior Salish word that means, “sharp, like a sharp knife”. Salish is a geographically broad language group in the Pacific Northwest made up from different dialects, including Methow. The placename, “Hozomeen”, is a constant attachment to the place and the resources found there – bringing together social, linquistic, and archeology history. Original placenames are often descriptive terms that connect people and history to a place.

A stone tool made of Hozomeen chert was found at a private residence on French Creek. The owner contacted Rich Davis, Archaeology Advisor for the Methow Valley Interpretive Center (MVIC) and Methow Field Institute (MFI), and generously agreed to allow Rich to study the stone tool as a research effort to document early history in the Methow Valley. The tool is impressive in size and detail. The age has been determined to be at least three to four thousand years old, based on the heavily patinated sheen on the surface of the tool.

Other found objects in the Methow Valley include projectile points that are of the same style found broken off in the thigh of Kennewick Man – the Cascade Willow Leaf style. Tool styles represent cultures that thrived within a specific period of time. Tool styles combined with radiocarbon dates of surrounding layers have dated some sites in the Methow Valley to be 9,000 years old.

In the lower Methow Valley, Rich has compared present day landscape with geological surveys and maps completed in the late 1800s. Using this record, Rich believes he has located “Ballou’s Crossing” on the Methow River that may intersect the Chiliwist Trail, a major trade route through the Cascade region used by the First Peoples. Along the Methow River near this intersection, Rich discovered fire cracked rock and debris left over from the production of chipped stone tools, indicating that section of the river bank was used as a ‘workshop’ to create tools eons ago.

Rich and MVIC and MFI have partnered with Aaron Neuman, archeologist for the History/Archaeology department of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation (CCT) to create a photo record of Native American artifacts found in the Methow Valley. All we have left is stone tools and oral history to recreate a record of the First People who once lived, thrived, and died here.

Owners of artifacts are encouraged to share valuable historic information by contacting Rich and allowing him to photograph and record found objects. Privacy is assured and no other obligation is necessary. Sensitive information will be kept confidential. 

Owners have the option to keep the objects, loan them for exhibit, or donate the found objects to either the MVIC, or the History/Archaeology department of CCT. Please contact Rich Davis: davisrich@hotmail.com, 509-997-2284