I need to do a little follow up from the “Badger Hole”.

First of all thank you to everyone who sends kind words, thoughts and prayers.

It was so comforting to both of us to have so many nice responses.

I’m not sure why I felt the need to write about it, just felt the need to get it off my chest and from all the great responses from true friends I’m glad I did as it really inspired us.

We have been vacationing at the Bozeman Deaconess  hospital since Saturday night.  Tammy got a couple of infections so we are taking care of that.

I am in awe of how great the people that work in the health care industry are.  We have been dealing with them so much in the last two months and it is just amazing what these dedicated people do.

I have been watching and learning to try to see how I can make myself better on the livestock side of healthcare and improve my BQA skills.

I watched an ultrasound of Tammy’s heart yesterday.  It was a moment of awe at the miracle of our body and how it all functions. You should take better care of your body (as should I).

Tammy has a great young doctor in Bozeman that was recommended by her brother-in-law Pete Petersen.  We had a visit yesterday and told him about using the livestock wormer.  He was a little set back at first but then because of Tammy’s enthusiasm he got interested.  She sent him some info.

It is so hard to know what to do.  Tammy is very good at researching and making decisions, and not just taking the easy way and doing what everyone else does.

She is using the parts of modern medicine that she feels will help, naturalistic things to support her body and immune system and livestock wormer.

Talk about “Art Of The Cowgirl “, that’s pretty ranchy  if you ask me.

The challenge has been her kidney function.  As soon as we can get those suckers back to normal, then our life will get back on track and we can have a fair fight.

So, I did not write for sympathy or asking for anything, just wanted to get it off my chest and let people know.  We had know idea of the response and the offering of prayer and support we would receive.  Amazing.

It’s fun to see how much Tammy means to folks.  I used to do Women’s Ranch Horse Clinics at the Home Ranch, a guest ranch in Colorado.  I made the decision to focus more on the beef production side of stockmanship so Tammy took over doing clinics at the Home Ranch.

When I was doing clinics women would cry sometimes in the middle of the clinic because they were frustrated.  Women cried at the end of Tammy’s clinics because it was over and they didn’t want it to end.  There was crying at both, just a little different types.

I feel I’ve been more of an animal person, but Tammy is both, but mostly a people person.  It is really evident that people really care about her just as she really cares about people.

You should see how she is in the resort(hospital)She is always saying she’s sorry to the nurses and doesn’t want to bother anyone.  No matter how much they poke and  prod her she stays positive.  I was  amazed how tough she was when she was having our children and I am amazed at how she is handling this.

So again thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

This is a site about Stockmanship and not about our personal life.  I am not going to make this a place to talk about this.  I just wanted you to know and to share how important it is to think and plan  ahead whether you are trotting through the tall grass or living life.  You can’t always see the badger holes but you can be prepared just in case.

Tammy brought this quote to my attention on our way home from Seattle.  It fits our situation

https://youtu.be/38OnTFICP3U

Many years ago I was long trotting in real tall grass.  Some cattle I was taking care of had gotten into a pasture they were not supposed to be in (CRP for those of you that know that program)and I was going to them.

All of a sudden my horses front end disappeared.  I kicked out of my stirrups, lifted my reins and leaned back.  As my horse continued to “endo”, my position in my saddle sent me forward and I lit on my feet out of my horses way and holding my rein.

My horse had stuck both front feet in a badger hole and went over.  He wasn’t hurt and either was I.  I just stepped back on and went and got my cattle.  This was back in the day of no cell phones.  We were on a pretty big place and no one knew where I was, and if I had been hurt they would of had a hard time finding me.

A fellow by the name of Greg Elio had told me several months before how you should react if your horse endos.  He said you needed to prepare for it in your mind so when it happened you would react as you have no time to decide what to do.

I had prepared myself mentally and had the physical ability to do it.  When it happened it was just like time slowed down and I was aware of everything that was happening and did the right thing instead of panicking and not following my plan of action.

Fast forward fifteen years or so and I was in a whole different world.  I was still horseback, but instead of big country with cattle, horses and dogs I was surrounded by asphalt and concrete and lots of interesting people.  I was in North Carolina and really enjoyed visiting with a real successful guy that liked the cowboy world.  Gary had lost a son in a car accident not to long before.  He told me that something in the future would completely change my life, and I should prepare myself for it.

Well, that change has come.  Beautiful wife Tammy has some health challenges.  We were trotting along in the perfect tall grass in life and all of a sudden we hit a badger hole.

We never dreamed this would happen to “us”.  It hit us hard but without really knowing it we were prepared.  We have been married for more than thirty years and it seemed through all the ups and downs we were in a perfect married state of mind to ride through the wreck together.

We have both been very concerned about our health and have tried to take care of our body’s in a way that we could enjoy our lifestyle as long as possible.

Tammy is very strong mentally and physically.

We have really tried to not have debt on things that don’t add to our future financial security.  We are not rich, but we don’t have to worry about making payments.  If we had a lot of em it would really make our life much more stressful right now.

We both have strong faith.  We go about it a little different ways from ourselves and other people, but we believe.

We hardly ever follow the crowd.  We try to do things that we feel best fit us.  Tammy will not do things because everyone else is or someone says we should.

She figure things out and does it her own way.  Doctors beware!

Tammy has a way of making people feel good.  I have seen her lifting folks up and making them feel good about life for the last thirty years.  From Peruvian sheep herders missing their families to wealthy folks that have everything, Tammy has a special way of bringing folks to a better place in their life.

She has created such a strong support base for us. You can’t believe how many people are praying for her.  I’ve seen grown men cry when they found out, and people offering whatever they have to help us.  You can’t imagine how good and confident this makes us feel.

As I look back we have always been in a long trot, sometimes at a lope, and have been on a dead runaway at times.  We’ve covered more country than we could have ever imagined, stumbled a few times but have never stepped into a badger hole.

Because we are prepared we can lean back and ride through the wreck and we believe we will come out the other side on our feet with our reins in our hands.

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To tell a little more of the story cancer is the badger hole.  Tammy has been researching lots of ways to go about this.  From her research she feels the best chance at the quality of life is not conventional way of chemotherapy, as the doctors have told us that with this cancer there is no cure, you just slow it down.

The interesting thing is that the animal pharmaceutical company’s that have provided much of our living for so many years seem to have the cure for her .

Fenbendazole  (animal wormer)seems to be working with great success at curing and stopping cancer.

We are so thankful for the great care she has gotten from modern medicine,

and I believe everyone is doing the best they can, but sometimes you have to step up and go for it, and I’m so proud of and in awe of Tammy’s ability to go through this with so much courage and try.