| Report September 2007 |
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The Valley of the Shadow of Death September 7, 2007 Was grace that brought us here thus far. And grace will lead us on. . . Everything so far, the bone repairs, the two rounds of chemo, the stem cell collection, all have led to this.  On Sunday I received what would once be considered a lethal dose of a different kind of chemo from the five I have been getting. If the past was Round Up and DDT, this is more like radioactive dusting of the fields to kill everything. The day after the chemo I received my stem cells back to seed the now empty field of my bone marrow. The week began with another stress fracture repair and nerve blocking shots on Thursday, a bone marrow draw, on Friday, the chemo on Sunday and the stem cells Monday. While I could hardly walk from the car to my room before this round started, (I felt like an overweight, out of condition, injured boxer who came into the ring after being in bed for a year and whose only job is to get back up each time I am knocked down) our neighbor, a few days ahead in this rotation played a round of golf with Patrick just before starting his chemo. Tuesday, he went into the Emergency room and for the next week it didn’t look like he was going to make it.. Soon the man downstairs went into intensive care with his life hanging by a thread. Another man died of kidney failure.  Someone emailed me a month or so ago and spoke of her resistance during her cancer therapy. I had to examine for myself what this means. Thus far in this life, I have usually plunged headlong into whatever was showing up. But after the stem cell collection I found myself resisting this last step. I found that to resist I had to first make a picture of the future and then become afraid and repulsed. Anger became passive aggressive. What a gift. So many people have spoken to me of resistance and while I knew it structurally, I never really knew what they were experiencing. Grace is always teaching.Now, I am afraid. I am afraid of infection. Since the chemo destroyed the immune system along with the blood cells, I am susceptible to a wide variety of infections from many different sources. Wednesday two people got staff in their ports. (We each have a port implanted in our chest for chemo and drug delivery and the daily blood draws) My fear however, is not strong enough to get me to wear the protective mask if I don’t feel it necessary! Laughter is everywhere. The compassion of this community for each other is very beautiful. People are here from all over the world with the same incurable diagnosis. We support each other in many different ways. Our caretakers must push our wheelchairs, clean up our vomit and diarrhea, be a companion and be available all night and day to serve us. A man from Vermont learned my name and asked about me and encouraged me when my body hit lows and I was wrapped in blankets in the Arkansas summer. I never learned his name. One day he was gone. That is a tiny taste of what happens here daily between strangers.  The nursing staff here is amazing. Their capacity to treat so many deathly ill people every day, all day, day in and day out is mind blowing to me. They are polite, helpful, kind, competent and often funny. They are mostly local people, men and women, evenly mixed racially, some with hill billy accents I can’t understand,. They support each other in supporting us. When I got a blood transfusion that originated in Oklahoma, they said I was going to start loving Merle Haggard. They are a community of service and they are uniformly kind. When I asked for the best person to draw my blood one day, Billy Bob did it and let me know as he did, that he learned it from watching General Hospital. When I told them of my love of Sim’s BarBQue, Vernelle, a nurse, turned us on to an even funkier local place. When we went there ( between the first rounds) a nurse from the chemo room was there and she came over and warmly hugged me.As one group disperses over time a new group begins to filter in. Always some in crisis, some very sick, some tripping on the dex, a speedy steroid chemo. Some healthy and recovered, others in full remission. All are treated with kindness and respect. I cry a lot. I find so much heart of natural goodness in the patients, the staff and the care-takers. It is not a community I would have chosen but it is a beautiful one. Republicans, red necks, uppers class Italians, poor local African Americans, Boston lawyers, real back-woods Appalachians, Korean Christians, wealthy Mexicans, an Armenian couple, and so many more. Mein doctor is German, Sarah Waheed, his intern who examines me is from Pakistan, Elias, the doc who checks my daily labs and intervenes as necessary, is a Lebanonese Maronite. He found me on the web and was excited to read Sudden Awakening. Sarah, the Advanced Nurse, under Elias, who sees us daily and oversees my daily care is local and delighted to discover tamari almonds, which we brought her one day. Eren, my surgeon is from Turkey and also found me on the web and wants to take me for dinner to talk, and the new intern doc in the room with me today is from Syria. And we show up as a couple from Oregon and his strange and wonderful helpers.  It is the grace of the Beloved, that I have been blessed with such beautiful help. Terry just got in his van and drove down from Pennsylvania when he first got the news. I first met Terry at Esalen in the eighties and he was in the group on Maui when I first returned from India. Chris, a local Little Rock man has made himself available for anything. He has given me healing massages and ferried people to the airport. He was always available for more. Mimma and Lisa, two dear loving hearts, offered themselves in service just when it was needed. They drove and cooked and cleaned and took care of me in every way. Before Mimma, who was a former nun from Rome arrived, my rabbi from Israel came. He first appeared last fall at just the right time. And here he was again at just the right time. I was not yet sick at the start of the first round and I received a holy transmission from him. Every Friday he calls and sings Good Shabos to me. Patrick has been with me since my first vertoplasty in Ashland while Gangaji was in Europe. He cheers up the nurses, keeps track of my meds, drives me and cooks and cleans and washes the clothes and irons my shirts, all while trying to run his business by cell phone back to Oakland. And so much more that can’t be spoken. Whenever Gangaji was needed elsewhere Patrick was here. He has also been here while Gangaji is here, to support her and train new helpers.I can hardly speak of Gangaji my goddess of love. Each sentence I write is too limiting and I erase it. We are here together in the deepest sense. And still love deepens even more. The sweet tenderness is a holy healing nectar. We are all supported by the love of you, our true sangha. I am profoundly grateful for your love. It has come in so many ways and different forms. From emails and prayers and poems. From the ethereal to the practical and material. The gratitude is forever. It is now two intense weeks later and I feel much better. My white cells are recovering and while still anemic I am able to start walking around. The lambda light readings went down but not yet in remission. This weekend we will be flying back to Ashland for a break before the next round in October. I would love to see you when I am in Ashland. Let’s see how it unfolds. |