A Road Trip To Boise

I took a trip to Boise last week to hang out with my father during his first week of chemo. I didn’t really need to go but my father-in-law died shortly after his first round of chemo when the chemo shrunk a tumor they were not aware of growing on his intestine. This led to fecal matter flooding his abdomen causing peritonitis. They chemo had also killed his white blood cells so he had no ability to fight the infection which killed him ten days later.

Despite the circumstances we had a great time together. Throughout the entire trip I had the opportunity to notice a number of things that amazed me.

On the drive down I travel through central Idaho north to south. The scenery and wildlife are always magnificent but the little towns and villages are generally poor but decently maintained. One town is called McCall which had the mixed blessing of coming to the attention of the Hollywood celebrity crowd. A similar thing happened to Jackson Hole, WY and Sun Valley, ID which essentially ruins things for the natives.

I’ve been making the trip for years since before the boom. In recent years McCall has been filled with no value added glitterati to such an extent that I made it a point to avoid stopping. April is a bit early for the warm weather crowd but activity and crowds were noticeably diminished. The buildings, community art displays and other aspects of gentrification all looked a bit more tired and worn out than usual. On the outskirts of McCall to the south, a collection of small businesses had grown up to supply the shiny people with everything needed to ruin the appeal of the place that attracted them in the first place.

Many of the places were clearly now defunct and some were even gutted down to the frames of anything of value. For sale and lease signs abound and those look run down, tired and decidedly “local”. About eight to ten years ago I suddenly noticed that most of the properties that were for sale or lease were represented by Sotheby’s Real Estate all along the US95/ID55 corridor. I didn’t see a single Sotheby’s sign on the entire trip this time.

There was/is a resort near there called The Tamarack where El Bushbo Jr. stayed while president. That place is all but defunct and now catering to lowly proles like you and I. Most of the little places along my drive showed similar declines with Riggins being an exception. Riggins is a working mans town that thrives on wild outdoor recreation like white water rafting, jet boating, camping, hiking, hunting and fishing. The fishing is world class with Steelhead Trout and Chinook Salmon swimming over 500 river miles to reproduce even farther inland. Some make it to Montana. Riggins is just about the middle of paradise as far as I’m concerned, being centrally situated in some of the most remote and wild habitat left in the lower 48 states. But I digress.

Boise is still booming like 1999. The pace seems unrelenting. My brother has his own business doing everything from small additions to remodels and minor repairs. He’s swamped. Unbelievably, they are still building more restaurants down there. Houses, retail space, car lots, malls, you name it! Driving in the Boise area is really becoming intolerable now. My brother is making serious plans to get out of Boise. I would have already left!

I had dinner one evening with some of my brothers’ good friends. They raise Low-line Angus cattle as organically as the law will allow. I think I’ll buy my next steer from them. The lady of the house was telling me about several doctors she knows in the Boise Valley that no longer accept health insurance of any kind including Medicare and ObummerCare. Instead they offer health care via monthly subscription. Basically you pay a monthly fee whether you seek care or not and they take care of you. She didn’t have many details but said they make house calls and rent space in more traditional clinics to have access to modern medical amenities when needed. I recall reading about that here a few years back so it’s good to know the reports weren’t just BS. My brother is going to look into it.

My father is 73 and while sitting with him during his 3-4 hour treatments Wed.-Fri., he was the oldest person I saw receiving chemo. Based on my observation, cancer is far more prevalent among younger people. Most patients seemed to be somewhere in their twenties to fifties. Surprisingly though, very few looked to be suffering or miserable and they all looked relatively healthy. Very few were obese. I’ve been in cancer wards over the years and I don’t remember them being like this. These people looked alive and vibrant despite their illness.

On Thursday there were four women and three men including myself sitting in an alcove of the ward. Two guys were Vietnam veterans. Two women were in their sixties and the other two in their fifties. The topic of conversation turned to wars when the older lady said she was worried that the govt would send her grandkids (all boys) to war when the world falls apart in a few years. That caught my attention but then everyone else agreed with her except my father who was asleep. I started to explain how most wars are banker wars and the other Vietnam vet agreed.

The conversation wandered quite a bit along the lines of many TBP topics but when we got to the subject of guns the volume increased noticeably with the women being the most vocal. They were daring anyone to come and get their guns but to do so at their own peril. I made a mental note not to fuck with any Idahoan wimmens, especially the ones in a cancer ward! The other vet patted the location of his gun at his side and two of the women patted their purse revealing they were packing. I was too but didn’t tip my hand.

Among my brother’s circle of friends most seem well aware of the bullshit going on around us but they’re not sure of the cause or their role in it all. They seem like sheep on the verge of taking the red pill. Most are tRump supporters.

Due to my fathers illness I interacted with far more people than I usually do and I’d have to say I’m encouraged that people are waking up. They seem to have moved on from oblivious sheep and are at that stage where their ears are perked up, and focused on a sensed but unknown and unseen danger.

My father is doing better than the docs expected and not suffering any side effects of chemo yet. He said that receiving a two month prognosis was like getting sucker punched. The one word that best sums up his reaction to it all is “grace”. Apart from a few colds and the flu he’s never been sick in his entire life which is very uncommon. The level of care and the professionalism in its delivery are nothing short of amazing.

The only weakness in professionalism was a dietician they sent over to talk to my dad. I assume this young woman was college educated but did not ask. She asked about both his eating and voiding habits and the importance of maintaining his weight during chemo. She had a paper in her hand which listed his weight in pounds on the day of diagnosis (207) and his weight that day (89kg). Why one was listed in kg is beyond my level of comprehension but that’s what it said. Anyway she asked if he had lost any weight and he correctly recalled that it was 207 then she interjected that it was currently 89kg and volunteered that she needed a calculator to do the conversion. I said it’s just 89 x 2.2 so x 2 would be 178 + .2 x 90 doing the rough math out loud. She says “yeah, it’s the .2 part I can’t do in my head just as my dad and I both said 196. It then took her several seconds to figure it was an 11 pound loss.

While in the waiting room on Friday, a very attractive woman walked by in stockings, heels and an above the knee skirt………not trashy but very good looking! My father locked onto her like a missile and as she went out of sight he said, “If that’s the cure then I definitely want the disease!” Being a very decent man, I’ve never heard him talk like that so it caught me off guard. It brought to mind the title of the Comedy Central special for Richard Pryor called “I Ain’t Dead Yet, Motherfucker!”

According to blood tests on Friday, everything is going better than the Dr. expected and with no signs of side effects at all. The cancer releases some kind of enzyme that causes his body to excrete salt which leads to confusion, inability to concentrate and a general malaise. That’s why he went to the hospital in the first place. They built his salt levels back up and prescribed a salt pill but the pharmacy wanted $22 for it. Being a cheap bastard like me he refused to pay that much for “salt” and did not fill the script. A few days later he landed back in the ER with critically low salt levels and an alert doc ordered some extra tests after taking his history and discovered the cancer.

His is the most aggressive form of lung cancer you can get and is rarely discovered until it has spread to other organs. His doctors believe they found his cancer very early and believe that they can get him 2-6 years beyond the original two month prognosis. Despite his state of confusion at the time, he got philosophical and told me that he always felt like he’s led a charmed life and explained that if he had filled that script for the salt pills he never would have landed in the ER that second time when that alert doc was on duty and found his cancer early. I related how I had recently made a comment here on TBP about leading a charmed life myself. Life is funny.

I think we are both at peace with his impending end. My brothers are having a tough time with it though. I always expected to be much more unnerved at the thought of losing him but knowing that he has led a good long, happy life and is at peace with it helps a lot. He’s always been my role model and it looks like that will continue right up to the end……whenever that is.