The following narrative does not represent me in anyway that is indicative of totality. It’s just one facet of my life. A life in totality, I have enjoyed immensely. This adventure (my walk through Spain) is also just another facet. But with this adventure I hope to accomplish something more than just my own enjoyment. Let’s walk together and see if we can have fun and do some good … read on.

During the first week of July 2012,  I was diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer. Needless to say, I was not expecting this, and was not happy to hear my doctor give me the news. I remember asking him, “What stage is that?” If you’ve ever been through the testing protocols, you know that there is a period of time between initial hypothesis and final confirmation of disease, when a person has waaayyyy too much time on his or her hands. Everyone I know of does what I did. You start searching the Internet for information. I had read just enough to be stupid. And scared. Like most people in this situation, I believed that if I had all the facts, we could manipulate the truth to be what I wanted it to be. My oncologist is an extremely intelligent and capable physician, and of course saw right through that. He got very still, looked at me for a couple of seconds, and said quietly, “Eric, metastatic is by definition, Stage 4. Your cancer is inoperable and non-curable” … Right.

I went home from his office in that mental fog mercifully reserved for people receiving life changing, terrible news. I was fully capable of communicating with and comforting my wife, talking to friends, and seemingly unaffected by what had just happened. The truth is, I spent the next couple of weeks getting my head around what was happening. That I survived those first few weeks is due entirely to the love and support of family and friends.  I will never forget, and be forever grateful to the owner of the company I worked for who stepped into my office and said, “You have a lot of problems right now, but I am not going to be one of them. You do what you need to do, come and go as you need to. And you will have a job for as long as you want it.” … Forever grateful.

Fortunately I didn’t have a lot of free time to spend in fear, because I had to get started on treatment right away. We chose what was (and still is) a very aggressive, and cytotoxic chemotherapy cocktail and I began a series of 48-hour treatments every other week for 24 weeks. I was told to expect severe side effects and was given all kinds of pills to combat them.  As it turned out, I tolerated the treatment well, and in January of this year it was determined that we had significantly reduced the size of the tumors in my pancreas, liver and abdominal lymph nodes. … Good news.

Once it was decided that everything to be gained, had been gained, treatment was suspended. My doctor told me at that time, “If there’s anything you really want to do, I’d  suggest you get on with it.” We both knew that this cancer was going to reappear at some future date, and the effectiveness of the next go-around of treatment had yet to be determined.

So here’s the thing. We all have those conversations about what we’d do if we only had a little while to live, (you know it’s part of the conversation about how we want to go, quick, or slow in order to spend time with our families and so forth) but as I started thinking about it, I was unable to come up with anything I really wanted to do. In fact what seemed most important to me was enjoying my home, my family, and my friends. A good buddy of mine, Jim, kept asking me when we’d circle up for coffee, “what are you going to do?”  I never had a good answer. I mentioned Ireland once, and just between us girls, I’m pretty sure he wants to chaperone me to Ireland for a little Guiness and Jameson tasting … I’m just sayin.

On a weekend in March, Nancy, my wife, was having her girls club over for their monthly meeting. It changes locations every month, and it was our, that is, her turn. This is really good, because that means goodies when I get home. Arriving about half way through the soirée, I grab some veggies and dip, olives, brownies, yata, yata, yata, and head to the basement. I had this movie in the Netflix cue about a guy hiking through Spain. No idea what it was really about, but thought, eh why not? It’s an Emilio Estevez film starring Martin Sheen, called The Way. The path he is walking on is called El Camino de Santiago, the Road to St. James. The open air, and open countryside, just took me to another time and place. I grew up out west where we had access to some incredible front range hiking. You could literally walk out your door, and be in the foothills of the Rockies in 25 minutes.  So the movie struck a chord. I did something the next night I very rarely, if ever do. I watched it again. This time I watched it with Nancy. I must have said something earlier in the day because she wouldn’t watch a movie I like, unless I have declared it not to be a “shoot em up”. So I’m pretty sure I told her about it. I liked it more the second time I saw it. When it was over I turned to Nancy and said, “you know I have to go do that, right?” She looked at me and said,”really? Well maybe you should.” A couple of days later I picked up a book at the public library titled “I’m Off Then” by Hape Kerkeling. The author is a cross between Jerry Seinfeld, and Bill Bryson. It was just a relaxing enjoyable tale of one guy’s walk. Made me more determined to make this trek. Originally, I was going to walk the same route they portray in the movie, about 800km or 500mi. But because I have just started my second protocol of chemotherapy, I have a smaller window of time I can be away. I’ll be walking about 253km, or 150mi, which I think will be a very good stretch of the legs one last time, and a really good time. On the linked website for the Camino above, there are many links to other sites about the Camino. Maps, information about Spain, all available. Just swim around and get wet.

Now, hold all of this on a back burner, I’m going to switch gears for a minute.

On December 31, 2008, the world got just a little dimmer for me and some friends, when our friend Mike Bryson succumbed to melanoma. Mike was one of those guys that you just liked the first time you met him. Actually I like to think that everybody in our circle of friends are that kind of people, but Mike…  he was something special. As he got sicker, and began to seriously unravel, a group of about five of us made sure that someone was at his house cleaning, cooking, and just available to his mom and dad at all times, while they took care of Mike. One of the people that came and went every day, was a nurse from hospice. To this day, I have no idea which hospice she came from. Doesn’t really matter. My recollection of her is that she was always cheerful without being insensitive to the situation. She spent time making sure Mike was comfortable, and spent time with Mike’s mom and dad to make sure they understood what was going on. The day Mike died, she was there almost immediately, and sat with Mike’s parents while they grieved. I remember being very impressed by what she did and thinking, someday I am going to give some time to this organization. It took five years, and my own fatal diagnosis to knock me off center and get me motivated to fulfill that vow. I’ve been a volunteer at the Carol Ann & Ralph V. Haile Jr., US Bank Foundation Hospice Center in Edgewood, KY (part of St. Elizabeth Healthcare) since shortly after the first of this year.

Let’s tie this together.

As I walk the Camino de Santiago, (the thing I really want to do) from Astorga to Santiago de Compostela I will be (as my childhood buddy, the Bobjuan tells me to say) “blogging when I feel like it.”  (He wants me to pay attention to all the things I need to pay attention to, like eating well, sleeping well, hydration, the walk etc). When I am able to write, (and I hope to write often) I intend not only to revisit my day, but hopefully bring to light a little information about hospice care. My intention is to raise awareness and money for this worthy organization. My efforts are dedicated to the hospice center at St. Elizabeth, Edgewood KY.

Whether you donate or not, I hope you’ll visit from time to time. It promises to be a beautiful walk.

Thank you for listening.