Well,
I missed a week of blogging… and a week of my life. I know I had been going down just a little over
the last three weeks, requiring oxygen to lie flat, but everyone said my lungs
sounded clear and dry. Then I guess I
got a little squirrely—confused speech, heavy breathing, that kind of thing. All I remember is the hospice nurse, hubby Chip,
and the oncologist talking on the phone, someone rubbing my chest hard (ouch),
and getting into the cutest little wheelchair then into the cutest little ambulance and going to
the cancer center.
Two
procedures later by the radiologists, and I was short almost a gallon of fluid
in my lungs, and I was breathing like a champ. Again, this is a common problem in metastatic
disease, what were we all thinking?
Anyway, a few days later, the hospital was no longer any place I wanted
to be, having learned everything about my neighbor I possibly could (and
usually at 4am), having had blood transfused until 3am, being told not to go to
the bathroom until after the blood transfusion, and having an “old lady
accident” on the floor, no less. Oh, the
horrors of it all.
But
it wasn’t just horrors for me. My little
family had to make choices –hospice house (palliate) or hospital
(diagnose/treat the first time). My kids
had to see me really confused, and they had to deal with the uncertainty yet
again of whether this was going to be the beginning of the end, or just another
in a long set of unknowns. These ups and
downs are clearly taking a toll on everyone.
Even the dog has diarrhea. But we
are all seeing our own counselors and finding that incredibly helpful. I highly recommend this if kids are old
enough.
We
are planning on going back to the shore on Saturday, but slowly and
surely. I will have enough oxygen just
in case I need some, I will sleep on first floor, I will just take it very
easy, and we will enjoy every second there with lots of support from here.
How
about some poetry (and thank you to all the wonderful people sending me books
and poems! I couldn’t do it without you
and who knew we were all kindred spirits!!)?
Walking Home from Oak-Head (Mary Oliver)
There
is something
about the snow-laden sky
in winter
in late
afternoon
that
brings to the heart elation
and the lovely meaninglessness
of time.
Whenever I
get home—whenever—
somebody
loves me there.
Meanwhile
I stand in the same dark
peace
As
any pine tree,
or
wander on slowly
like the still unhurried wind,
waiting,
as for a
gift,
for
the snow to begin
which it does
at first casually,
then irrepressibly.
Wherever
else I live—
in music, in words,
in the fires of the
heart,
I abide just
as deeply
in
this nameless, indivisible place,
this world,
which is falling apart
now,
which is
white and wild,
which
is faithful beyond all our expressions of faith,
our deepest prayers.
Don’t worry, sooner of
later I’ll be home.
Red-cheecked
from the rouse wind,
I’ll
stand in the doorway
Stamping my boots and slapping my
hands,
my shoulders
covered with
stars.
Saint Francis And The Sow (Galway Kinnell)
The
bud
stands
for all things,
even
for those tings that don’t flower,
for
everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though
sometimes it is necessary
to
reteach a thing its loveliness,
to
put a hand on the bow
of
the flower
and
retell it in words and in touch
it
is lovely
until
if flowers again from within of self-blessing;
as
Saint Francis
put
his hand on the creased forehead
o
the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings
of the earth on the sow, and the sow
began
remembering all down her thick length,
from
the earthen snout all the way
through
the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from
the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down
through the great broken heart
to
the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from
the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking
and
blowing beneath them:
the
long, perfect loveliness of sow.
Cheers to all, and everyone have a great week,
Lissa
