My Ongoing Tribute to Dancingtrout

Before you get the wrong idea, I’ll start by saying both of us are fine now. My wife Karen (Dancingtrout) and I are private people so today’s post isn’t something I thought I’d be writing. The short answer is we are back home and haven’t fished since June 26. We had to cancel our fly fishing road trip because Karen suffered two strokes in Ennis on June 29 and 30.

The stroke symptoms she experienced were balance and nausea. In retrospect, the first stroke on Monday minimally affected her balance. On Tuesday, balance was quite noticeable and extensive vomiting affected her most of the day. We didn’t associate these symptoms with stroke, but food poisoning. We spent a couple of nights at a campground just outside Ennis where the Madison flows into the lake. It was only a couple of days before we planned to stay for 10 days on the Madison.

Neither one of us wanted to get farther from medical facilities in case her symptoms worsened. We decided to seek medical attention on Wednesday, July 1 at the emergency room in Ennis where CT scan results showed she had suffered two cerebellar stokes. Ultimately, she was transported to Bozeman Health Deaconess Regional Medical Center where she spent two nights undergoing multiple tests in an attempt to determine why it happened in the first place and a treatment plan. She was released from the hospital on Friday and we drove to Kellogg, ID, spending the night and driving home the next day.

The next two weeks were full of additional tests and doctor visits. She has experienced no other symptoms and you’d never know she had strokes. She was very lucky.

Having said that, we’ve been cautious and remained home.

We were about to go back to the Metolius and the Akawa Butte fire began on July 16. In the last week, it has grown to over 26,000 acres and is quite close to Sisters. In fact, as I write this on July 23, everything north of highway 20 running through Sisters is classified as Level 1, ‘Be Ready’. Other areas close to town have been evacuated.

You might ask how she got the name ‘Dancingtrout’?

One of our first forays into lake fly fishing was Anton Ranch, a private location east of Mitchell many years ago with Rich and Kathy Youngers who owned Creekside Flyfishing in Salem, OR. It was one of our first experiences in float tubes and we weren’t quite ready to catch these large Rainbows. Karen would land a fish, hold it briefly for a picture and many of the exploded out of her hands. Some she ended up hugging because I was slow taking pictures.

To be fair, these were BIG triploid Rainbows at Anton Ranch back in 2007. It was very difficult to hold them briefly for a quick picture! Here is another fish…posed for the camera and then exploding.

I might have had the same issue over the years, but it still happens. You’ve probably noticed how she holds fish for a quick picture much better than I do.

We met at work and my life wasn’t the same after that. In fact, we celebrated our 37th wedding anniversary on the Upper Columbia fly fishing the Green Drake hatch.

She has been my equal fishing partner for all of those years. She fished before I knew her, but I taught her to fly fish and I’m eternally grateful she loves it as much as I love her.

Honestly, she changed my life. Without her, I wouldn’t have fished as much as I do. I wouldn’t have been on the fly fishing road we’ve been fortunate enough to take. And she’s the reason RiverKeeper Flies began.

I believe we make a great pair and the episode in Ennis has made me think about how lucky I’ve been all these years.

I’ll close with this. I’m a very pragmatic person in whatever comes my way. I calmly, at least on the outside, provided support to Karen and got us home for the additional care she needed. Perhaps thinking and writing about this is part of my own healing process.

Hope we’re fishing soon!