2017: Uncharted

I'm standing on a narrow bridge, looking down at the South Fork of the Flathead River in western Montana.  Fifty or a hundred feet below me, the small river funnels to a gushing choke point and rushes into the dark shade of a narrow gorge.  The August sun flashes an occasional rainbow in the spray below, and I look out over the river tumbling at me from the south.  The bridge is here for backpackers and pack trains moving into and out of the true wilderness.  The trail disappears over a hill to the southeast, but I'm not interested in the trail.  A minor feeling of vertigo makes me clench the grip of my flyrod even tighter as I gaze down at a swirling pool that I'm absolutely sure holds a few native westslope cutthroat trout.

How am I gonna get down there?

Normally, I have some difficulty motivating myself to explore new angling water.  I know why I came here, to a place I've never seen.  I wanted solitude and a chance to catch native cutthroats in unspoiled waters.  With no idea of what awaited me, I drove three hours on some of the most intimidating dirt roads I've ever seen.  I parked the truck, geared up, and started hiking.  What had I gotten myself into?  The only other part of the plan was for Mrs. Fading Angler to call the sheriff's office if I wasn't back by midnight.  Everything else was that delusional force that drives anglers of all types: hope.



I'm wandering into 2017 with an eerie sense that I'm looking down from that bridge.  I know how I got here, but not sure what comes next.   I've spent my life planning, predicting, forecasting, and dreaming.  I was the architect of my fate, an admiral commanding his fleet.  Well, life is what happens while your making other plans, as they say.  My metaphorical flagship has been taking on metaphorical water and has become not-so-metaphorically difficult to steer.  Thanks, Parkinson's Disease.

In the years since I was diagnosed with PD, I've always had plans.  Mrs. Fading Angler and I started planning our two-week RV trek for 2016 back in late 2015.  I've had plans for work that often encompassed the entire year and beyond.  So much to do, so little time!  I really had no idea.

I have only a few things planned for the year at this point.  Mrs. FA and I are flying out to Colorado this weekend for some R & R.  I'm tagging along with Howard to attend the Flyfishing Show in Denver.  I have a major work project "going live" in the middle of February, then my current consulting contract wraps up at the end of March.  Beyond that, there's a veil of uncertainty that pretty much renders moot any acts of planning.  In a novel way, I feel like I'm back on that bridge, in awe of the river before and below me, trying to design a path to the water.  I have to wait for a phone call, though.

I just had four medical evaluations in the days immediately before and after Christmas. I'm told that by the end of this week, a committee of experts will meet to discuss the results of those evaluations and decide whether or not they believe that I am a good candidate for Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) therapy.  I've arrived at this nexus because levodopa therapy is starting to cause problems for me.  In patients with PD, levodopa helps provide some of the dopamine that's gone missing because a deep part of the brain is dying off, cell by cell.  Levodopa has allowed me to live a normal life for most of the last four years, but now it's starting to cause involuntary movements that are troublesome and painful.  Yet, without levodopa, I'm in constant pain in my neck, shoulders, arms, hands, and other assorted muscle groups.

Deep Brain Stimulation is not a cure, but it has provided a lot of relief for a lot of people.  It sounds great, except that it involves something that's scarier than rocket science: brain surgery.  In fact, it would likely be two independent neurosurgical procedures, about a month apart, to push small wires from the outside of my skull down through the folds and circuits of my brain almost to the very bottom.   Seems like there's a lot that could go wrong here.  The uncertainty has tied me in knots several times, though I don't know if I even need worry yet.  Still, it's a challenge to see beyond the idea.  It's hard to make plans.

I don't have plans for 2017, but there are some wishes.  I want to make memories for my kids and be there to encourage them.  I want to be a good companion for my wife. I want to take some casting lessons from a few fly fishing experts I've come to admire.  I want to travel a little more.  I want to fish with my friends and make a few more friends.  And I want to write.

The bridge, the canyon, the Fading Angler, and
"the hope that a fish will rise..."

Back on the Flathead River, I was right about that swirling pool.  I brought a few little cutthroat trout to hand.  It was a bushwhacking ordeal to climb down into that canyon. My legs got cut up because I was wearing shorts.  I fell at one point and wondered for a few seconds if I was badly hurt.  The journey was intense and riskier than I'd planned.

But it was fueled by hope.