Morgan Bolt's Blog, page 10

June 21st, 2016

Waiting. It might be a more appropriate topic for Advent, but it plays a significant part in my life right now, so that's what I'm going to talk about tonight. Christina and I do a lot of waiting these days. Tomorrow we will wait an hour or two for my chemo to start, and then another hour or so before it ends. We are also waiting for my next scans in about a month so that we can start waiting for those results. We decided to wait for the next scan results before we find at least part-time jobs and start working again, since it strikes us as irresponsible to make any work commitments that might easily get broken right away, should we have to go back to NYC for more treatment. Basically, we're waiting. A lot.
To combat all the waiting, we're making a concerted effort not to put life experiences on hold. Going to a Stanley Cup Finals game in Pittsburgh, a Formula One race in Montreal, multiple theme parks, and camping all in just the past couple weeks certainly furthers that goal, as does catching up with old friends and visiting with relatives, which we have been doing and will continue to do throughout the summer. We're staying very busy and making great memories, but at the end of the day that really only goes so far. To those whose hectic lives make them wish for more free time, I have two pieces of advice (which as always, feel free to ignore). First, go out of your way to make that extra time to enjoy enriching experiences and make memories that matter. Second, don't forget to appreciate your health and ability to have a busy schedule, to have work to do.
I'm reaching the point now where I feel a visceral need to be productive, to do something with my time that helps others and makes a difference in the world. Really were it not for this blog and the books I'm writing, I'd be well past that point already. Writing has helped me in many ways get through my cancer treatments over the last year and a half (and counting). Currently it gives me something to work on that feels productive, something to do that, I hope, might make a difference in the world. Who knows; maybe someday someone somewhere will read something I wrote, and a new way of viewing the world, of experiencing God's love, of thinking about life will occur to them. It's that kind of thought that keeps me reflecting, listening, and writing.
It's hard though when every week I get more rejections from agents regarding my next book. That's something else I'm waiting for by the way; an agent for the fantasy series I'm writing. (book one is done, and I'm looking for an agent....anyone? Anyone? Bueller?) I know it takes time to find an agent, and then more time for them to find a publisher, and I'm really fine with that. The process is simply slow and a bit ridiculous, and that's alright I suppose. What makes it difficult is that I don't--in all likelihood--have ten years to build a readership. I'm not trying to be morbid, but those are the facts. It's hard to be patient in such a situation, but I'm getting pretty good at waiting.

June 6th, 2016

First off, it seems that I'm moving my weekly blog posts to Monday. No real reason, other than Monday is when they seem to happen. So from now on, check back here on Monday evening, if you want to read my blog in the future. Since you are right now, I'll assume you do!

Chemotherapy is scheduled to start Wednesday. It was supposed to start last week Tuesday, but one of the chemo drugs takes a while for insurance companies to approve, and that wasn't ready in time. So we went to Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey, because I've wanted to go there since 2005 when they built what was at the time the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world (still tallest, no longer fastest). Very glad we found a deal on season passes to all Six Flags parks for the same price as a one-day ticket when we were in California last march. The main point here is that I did not start the next round of chemo last week, so we went to a theme park instead. Sometimes people say cancer treatment is like a roller coaster, but I much prefer the real deal to the simile. 

Now the insurance approval went through, and everything looks to be lined up pretty well. As always, "everyone handles it differently" so we can't be sure exactly what to expect, but it's supposed to be fairly easy. Not much nausea or anything. Hopefully that holds true, since my dad and I are meeting up with an uncle in Montreal this weekend for the Formula One Grand Prix. Should be a good guys' weekend of car racing (and roller coasters--more on that in a second). If you didn't know, I started following F1 last year since I needed a sports-related distraction and football and hockey seasons don't cover July and August. While we're in Montreal I'm also planning on at least briefly going to the Six Flags park there. Not sure if I mentioned it yet but I really like roller coasters. I'll be bringing all my anti-nausea drugs, just in case the chemo makes everything weird. It does that sometimes.

Other than that I'm spending a lot of time reading and writing. Mostly writing. Recently I found out there's a writing mentorship program for patients at MSKCC so I joined that. It will be great to get more feedback on the books I'm writing. I recently finished another round of editing for my next book, and it's as done as I can get it, for now at least. I'm sure an editor at a publisher could find things they want to change, but that's down the road a little. For now I'm focusing on sending a ton of query letters to agents (because you can't send books straight to publishers anymore). Some agents won't even accept manuscripts without a referral. It all feels like a broken/patchwork system going through some intense growing pains. But it's the system in place right now, so I'll keep sending query letters. Fingers crossed.

May 23rd, 2016

Radiation, complete! This second stint of radiation therapy has been far easier than the first. I'm preemptively avoiding acidic foods to stave off heartburn, but that has been very mild. The only other side-effects have been a slight crinkling in my lower left lung from a little fluid around the lung, and a tightness in my chest on occasion. It could be heartburn, or a minor irritation of the heart itself. I suspect the latter. At any rate, nothing like the debilitating stomach irritation from my first radiation treatment has shown up, nor should it. Everything has been, all things considered, calm and manageable, and the minor side effects I am experiencing go unnoticed most of the time and should resolve themselves in a few weeks.

Next up comes a pretty low-dose, maintenance type of chemotherapy. I can't exactly say I'm looking forward to it, but it should be pretty straightforward and simple. We plan on doing that here in Corning, since it is only one day each week of infusions. Once we see how the first round goes we'll be able to figure out what comes next for us. If all proceeds as smoothly as expected, the next step for us is probably to find work here in Corning. Of course there's always a chance my books will start selling more, or I'll find a publisher for the series I'm working on currently, but for now working at least part time seems like the most likely candidate. We also have relatives across the continent we want to visit, and, in an ideal world, more national parks to visit as well (I've somehow never been to Glacier or Denali, for example). There's no shortage of options. For now though, I have the week off before I start chemo on the 31st, which works out great because, somehow, in two days it will be our 3rd anniversary.
That's three years of marriage and over a year and a half since my diagnosis. It's weird that I've had cancer for over half our marriage now. In some ways it seems like only a day or two ago we sat eating Domino's pizza in a Super 8 in New Jersey the evening before my first meeting with the team at MSKCC. It just does not feel like over half our marriage has involved hospitals, surgery, chemo, and more. I suppose partly that's because we knew each other for several years before we got married. But when I look back on the last year and a half the recollections that come most readily to my mind are not the sickness of chemo and radiation, the pain of recovering from surgery, the side effects of treatment and the side effects of the drugs to reduce the first side effects.
Rather, I remember more the fun we've had. The football, baseball, and most especially the hockey games, the Bronx Zoo, the Lion King on Broadway, and general exploring of NYC are all great memories, but even more I remember the quiet, more normal moments; sitting and reading in our favorite spot in Central Park, watching Parks and Recreation, figuring out how these newfangled things called 'videogames' work, writing a blog post or chapter in my next book while Christina journals, roasting marshmallows around a campfire surrounded by snowy mountains in Sequoia National Park (alright, maybe that isn't 'normal,' but it should be!). I guess, to make a long story short, it doesn't seem like cancer has taken up over half our marriage because quite simply it hasn't. We haven't let it. While it's certainly messed up a lot of things for us, it has also given us way more time together than we would have had otherwise. For that I am immensely grateful.
P.S. since I know you read this, Happy Anniversary Christina!

May 15th, 2016

I'm halfway done with radiation! Only five more days to go. So far so good, with no real side effects to speak of. Heartburn, etc. should start next week sometime. So we'll figure that out when we get to it. For now we've been having fun taking advantage of what NYC has to offer. In the last week we went to our first Yankees game, the World Trade Center memorial, Battery Park, High Line Park, Chelsea Market, Central Park, The Met, and probably other things I can't remember. My sister visited, I met up with a childhood friend I hadn't seen in way too long, and now another friend is visiting for the weekend. It's been a busy, good week, all things considered.

April 25th, 2016

I got three new tattoos today. Three more dots to help line me up precisely for my next round of radiation. They were able to use three old tattoos from my previous radiation in October, so that saved some time in the initial preparations for radiation. Which is how, unexpectedly, I am back in Corning already. We flew in this morning expecting to stay for maybe a few days, until the radiology team at MSKCC could see me for the scan, and tattoo setup appointment. Perhaps, I thought, I'd just stay in NYC for a few weeks, through all of my radiation treatment. I brought a suitcase, backpack, and tote bag full of everything I'd need for an extended stay. But they somehow had an opening in their schedule just an hour after we saw my main radiation doctor! And, just as incredibly, there were two open seats on the flight back that afternoon! The corporate angel flight program has been absolutely wonderful for us, and we are so grateful to have that option for transportation. Other than hauling around a bunch of unnecessary luggage, today went as smoothly as could be reasonably imagined.
Meeting with the head radiology doctor is always encouraging. Her optimism, knowledge, and confidence are certainly reassuring. Interestingly, I was told that they rarely got "this far" until recently, meaning that getting the abdomen clear in cases like mine was, not long ago, very difficult and uncommon. Now, she said, they see many more cases where the abdomen gets cleared of all cancer, but some spots show up in the chest. Everyone seems pretty confident though that, with the surgery to remove the spots in my chest done, and with radiation coming up soon to zap where those nodes were in case anything got left behind, I have a pretty good chance of having my chest all clear. We'll keep working, praying, and hoping for the best, while embracing the reality of this tremendously lethal and tenacious disease. For now, we keep going one day at a time, remembering to make the most of it while we can.

April 18th, 2016

I write this from a room on the pediatric inpatient floor of MSKCC where I await the removal of my chest tube. It's the only thing keeping me from leaving the hospital at this point, but it has to stop draining fluid before they take it out. Makes sense. The amount it has been draining has been "slowing a little bit" for a couple days now. Which I have to say is better than speeding up! It could always be worse, or at least, more complicated. As for the biopsy itself, the procedure went fine and they removed as many possibly suspicious nodes as they could find. The one they sent for a quick test showed tumor activity, but until the full pathology report comes back at the end of the week we won't know much more. Likely, the future plan of action includes radiation to my chest and probably chemo as well. 
All the other aspects of recovery from my biopsy/surgery Thursday have been smooth as can be, and other than a stiffness in my left side which I only notice when I move a lot or am asked about it, I feel completely fine and normal. This is no doubt due, at least in part, to the hydromorphone I am on. A very low dose, but still enough that my brain is often just a little bit foggy, which makes it hard to write or do simple arithmetic with numbers above 20. Christina and I played ticket to ride yesterday, and I was, suffice to say, not quite on top of my game when it came to moving the points marker up and adding the destination ticket points at the end. There's really not much else to say. My mind is too foggy to come up with anything super interesting, but I just wanted to update how it's going. In short, uneventful, which is a lot better than hectic and unexpectedly complicated or busy.

April 13th, 2016

Our Campsite at Joshua Tree A Joshua TreeIt's well past time to finish up the vacation reflections, and to get back in the habit of posting here weekly. I'll put some pictures here of the trip, but if you want to see more I posted a lot to my Instagram (my username is @MorganBolt_Author). Let's start with Joshua Tree.
A truly unique area, Joshua Tree features an array of cacti, large granite boulders, and of course, Joshua Trees! What is perhaps most interesting about the Joshua Trees themselves is that they are closely related to yucca plants, and in fact start out looking much the same as a typical yucca, until they grow tall enough to split and branch off. We enjoyed the best campsite of our entire vacation there, and were able to hike a good bit on some of the dirt roads, as you can take dogs there. It was great to enjoy the relative solitude the park afforded. Overall a quiet, beautiful, and utterly unique place.



We stopped for a night in Las Vegas, only because the campsite where we planned on staying in the nearby mountains was completely full. On the whole it seemed rather small, though I guess I might be comparing it to New York City, which isn’t entirely fair. It also seemed to be, like any place, populated with entirely normal people living exceptionally normal lives; a good reminder that, no matter where people live, they’re all merely people.


Death ValleyNext came the heat and shockingly large crowds of Death Valley. The wildflowers had begun to decline since their peak a few days before we made it there, but there were still plenty of flowers around. Without them, I can only imagine how truly desolate the place must be. It got prettier—and the heat subsided—as the sun set, which helped. During the heat of the afternoon though it was easy to see how the park earned its name. It's the sort of place I am glad to have visited, but do not particularly need to visit again.


SequoiaSequoia, my new favorite national park, was our next stop, and I could go on and on about it, but I’ll resist that temptation. It rained the evening we arrived, which meant it snowed higher up (where the sequoias grow). We were grateful to have all-wheel drive, which meant they didn’t require us to have chains to travel the winding mountain road up to the sequoia groves. The pictures I took speak for themselves, so I won’t ramble about the impressive, almost unbelievable size of the trees, or the splendid palette of white, red, and green that the snow and sequoias teamed up to create. We enjoyed a wonderful ranger-led snowshoe tour, and had a splendid time exploring the forests and meadows there. Needless to say this is one park we hope to visit again.


Mother and Baby Sea OtterSan Francisco was our next stop, and there we picked up Christina’s sister who flew out to meet us on her spring break from teaching. We got Chinese food (I’m not sure what exactly, but it tasted amazing!) and ate with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. We made sure to drive Lombard Street too. Then we left to drive down the coast, stopping at the incredible Monterrey Bay Aquarium, where we saw sea lions and sea otters, including a mother and her pup. In the wild, from the observation deck at the aquarium! They had sea otters in the aquarium too, which are used as foster mothers for orphan pups, but seeing them in the wild was truly extraordinary. The wildlife viewing there alone is enough of a draw, even without the wonderful aquarium inside.



Elephant SealsAs we drove along the coastal highway, we kept an eye out for whales, as gray whales were supposed to be migrating north along the coast. Sure enough, not long after we started to look for them, I spotted a whale spout a few hundred feet out in the water. As we were perched well above the water on the edge of the mountains, we had a pretty good view, and throughout the day saw several mother and calf grey whales as well as a small pod of humpbacks, a couple dolphins, more sea otters, and a beach full of northern elephant seals. The spectacular scenery and abundance of wildlife were definitely a highlight of the trip, and the Big Sur area ranks among the neatest places I’ve been.




San AntonioA couple stops at Six Flags parks along the way back (outside LA and in San Antonio) brought us to New Orleans, where we stopped briefly for beignets at Café du Monde, and finally on to Tallahassee, where we visited Christina’s parents briefly for Easter. Then a final long day of driving brought us back to Corning. In all, I drove over 9,000 miles, each one filled with memories we will cherish forever.
Faced with less-than ideal scan results, we decided to spend make an adventure out of last weekend, and went skiing and snowboarding (I do both) at Jay Peak in Vermont and Whiteface Mountain in the Adirondacks (New York). Both are mountains I have wanted to visit since I first heard of them, and they did not disappoint.


As I write this, I’m sitting in the Ronald McDonald House in New York, and will have surgery tomorrow to remove/biopsy some suspicious spots in my chest. We have no idea what the results of that surgery will be, or what comes next. It could be a week before we get the results and have an idea what comes next. For us, the unknown and uncertain nature of the future cannot be ignored. The only thing to do is really the only thing any of us can do in light of our mortality; live life to the fullest while we can, and not worry too much about tomorrow.

Open Letter to Donald Trump

Dear Mr. Trump,

I love you. I find those words—to my shame—difficult to say to you. Yet they are perhaps the most important statement I can make to you. As one who strives to follow the teaching and example of Jesus, loving others comes, for me, second only to loving God. So, I love you, and I pray for you. As a human being who bears the image of God, you deserve my love and respect for your humanity. That said, I cannot sit idly by while every day you move a little closer to possibly leading perhaps the most influential country on this planet.

Nor will I rant here about the troubling rhetoric you have used on the campaign trail. Enough animosity has already spewed forth from all sides with regards to your comments, and it saddens me as much to see people say loathsome things about you and your followers as it does to see you and your supporters espouse animosity towards others. Looking at your campaign—and, sadly, at many who react against you—I see a glut of hatred, insecurity, fear, and ignorance. Such qualities define the conversation around you. Hatred laces your words, and comes flying back at you from all sides in a vicious cycle, leaving no room for grace or constructive dialogue. Enough is enough.

While I find your ideas repellent, and while the sexist, racist, xenophobic, and generally abhorrent language you have used offends me deeply, I will as best I can resist the temptation to stoop to the depths of hatred where most conversations about you lurk. Instead, I want only to share with you a simple example provided by your home town, New York City. I have seen the best of humanity this last year as I slogged through grueling cancer treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. I ask that, next time you find yourself in NYC, you go to the pediatric ward at MSKCC, where I spent much of the past year.

There you will find families from across the globe whose dress, language, and religion brings a wondrous bouquet of diversity to a tremendously bleak situation. All of the families you will find there stand united in a single desire; to have their children happy and healthy again. If you forget, as it seems you may have, that we are all simply people, all of us very much the same where it really matters, then please, go back to your home town, and remember that this country, and all of humanity, is made stronger by diversity. I pray that you come to see with horror that the discord you have stirred up on the campaign trail stands in stark contrast to the peace and unity of humanity at its best. Please remember, if ever you once knew, the most important lesson a place like New York City can teach.

All the best,

 - Morgan Bolt

March 29th, 2016

After a long delay, I'm going to start journaling our road trip of the past month! I plan to split it all into a handful of entries over the next week or two, since we went a lot of places and this would become a very long blog post if I were to catalog all our travels in one go.Since the last update, when we were in Lincoln, NE, we stopped in...


Amarillo, Texas. We decided not to go to the tourist trap that is the restaurant serving 72oz steaks. I only really mention Amarillo because it is in Texas, and it helps illustrate how ridiculously large Texas is, and how often we went back and forth between New Mexico and Texas. Also, we had Texas-shaped waffles there. Texas-Shaped Waffles


Carlsbad Caverns National Park (New Mexico). A truly impressive cavern, and by far the biggest either of us has ever seen. The elevator was out of order, so we made the pleasant hike down to the main chamber, which is richly decorated with every imaginable variety of cave formation. We had the entire campsite to ourselves and enjoyed spectacular sunsets over the Guadalupe Mountains from a short hike out of our campsite. On the whole a very relaxed, quiet time, without many other people around.
The Entrance to the Cave Chandelier Formation, Carlsbad Caverns

Guadalupe Mountains National Park (Texas again). We just waved at it as we drove past/through, and didn’t bother to stop for a picture with the sign. It made for a beautiful drive though!

White Sands National Monument (New Mexico again). A unique spot, with white gypsum salt sand dunes in a valley surrounded by mountains, some tipped with recent spring snows. The sand is surprisingly cool to the touch, and we hiked barefoot, as that apparently is one of the things to do there. Sledding is the other, but we passed on that. This was, if I remember rightly, the first truly hot day of our trip.
White Sands, New Mexico

El Paso, Texas (again). We enjoyed the absolute best Mexican food we have ever been privileged to encounter ever here, at a place called Maribu’s. We love border states/towns.
Rock Hound State Park (New Mexico, again!) A wonderfully friendly campground host who found a space for us in an already-overfilled campground started off our time here on the right note, and the brilliant night sky and surprisingly pretty lights of the small town on the plains below kept the pleasant feel going. We enjoyed nothing but positive experiences with camp ground hosts this vacation, and serving as campground hosts is now our current retirement plan. In the morning we hunted for interesting rocks and kept a few, since you’re allowed/encouraged to.


Pheonix, Arizona (and Tucson, Sedona, Flagstaff, Jerome, and Prescott, AZ as well). After stopping briefly at Saguaro National Park in Tucson, a surprisingly lush piece of desert, we visited my brother Erik and his girlfriend Dalyss, spending time at a rodeo (surprisingly interesting) and hiking on “South Mountain” (there’s a South Mountain by Messiah College too, and probably several other places). We then headed up to the Sedona area, where the landscape transforms dramatically from the heat and desert of Pheonix. Sedona lies surrounded by spectacular red rock cliffs and buttes, forested with pine. Further north, we ate supper in Flagstaff, which felt to me a lot like a Colorado Ski town, which it basically is. Snowy mountains, people with skis strapped to their car roofs, and great places to walk around and eat. We also visited some long-abandoned pueblo sites, called Montezuma's Castle and Montezuma's Well (apparently the Spanish conquistadors, whose place names we use today, thought Montezuma was pretty important). Having only been to far Northern Arizona (think Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest), we really enjoyed getting to see pretty much the whole entire rest of the state! Saguaro National Park Sedona

Montezuma's Castle


I'll pick up with Joshua Tree next time!

March 27th, 2016

Happy Easter!


Sorry for the huge delay in posting here. I have not had the internet/time/time while I have internet to update blog posts. We'll be back in Corning Tuesday, and I'll post a couple long updates along with pictures of our travels the last month.

Again, Happy Easter!