Sandy Beardsley
Living with a Brain Tumor
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October 2006
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10/10/06
Golden Trees and Ashes
Filed under: General
Posted by: Dan @ 9:43 pm

Today is a one year anniversary. October 10.

Sandy had been getting an MRI every six months since 1999 to monitor any change in her brain tumor. For six years, following radiation treatments, there had been no change. Every six months we would drive 200 miles to get her MRI at a Spokane hospital. With a mix of fear and hope, these MRI’s almost became routine, but of course the fear and stress of any change was always there. For six years the news was always good — no change.

But on October 10, 2005, our world changed. The MRI showed a dramatic change — the tumor was growing. What we had been told would happen someday, had happened. The radiation had bought time, but the type of tumor Sandy had always came back, and came back worse. Her doctor advised us to go to Stanford for her surgery. Soon after is when we started this blog… a year ago… seems like a lifetime with everything that has happened.

Sandy told me shortly after the MRI that Lance Armstrong’s day is 10/2 — October 2, 1996 is when he was diagnosed with cancer — and her day would be 10/10. She also reminded me that 10/14 (04) was the day I got hit by a truck while riding my bike. We joked that early October was a dangerous time, best to stay at home.

So today, to honor this anniversary and keep from crying all day, I left home… drove more than an hour up a dirt road and hiked a few miles (injured leg getting my attention the whole time) to one of our favorite remote places in the mountains — a high route in an area of endless peaks in all directions, beautiful alpine meadows turned golden brown by frost and Larch trees turned into a vibrant golden color by the October cold. It was a perfect fall day and Sandy’s spirit was with me everywhere. She loved this place — it was our first overnight hiking trip together in 1989, and we did it at this same magical time of year.Today, from the meadows and the peaks, I played my Native American flute for her… and remembered, feeling our connection to this place.

I returned home at dusk and realized that today, with the anniversary and the trip to the high mountains, would be the perfect day…

As the light softened and the quiet of evening deepened, I scattered Sandy’s ashes in the grove of trees that I planted on our land 16 years ago. This is where Sandy wanted her ashes to be — in “Daniel’s Woods” as she called them. As I slowly walked the trail through the aspen, pine and fir trees scattering her ashes, tears streaming down my face, I came to one of the Larch trees I had planted, once a seedling and now 20-feet tall. The needles were just starting to turn an intense golden color just like all the subalpine Larch I had seen today high in the mountains… and then I truly understood why today happened the way it did… in the golden October light. The light that Sandy loved so much… and the warm golden light that she will always be…


Sandy by a Larch tree in “Daniel’s Woods”
on October 16, 2005

Good night,
Dan

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