Thanks for your patience. It's been over a month since the last blog.
Today, a milestone has been reached - 2 years since the original cancer diagnosis, and almost 8 months since the liver metastasis diagnosis. And I still get to be here, able to hike (3+miles today) and bike and go to yoga and do nice things for B and the kids, and.... Happy dance!! Celebrate!! Delight!!
It would have been fine if God had already taken me home ("To be absent in the body is to be present in the Lord".) AND YET, I am totally grateful to have had these 2 years on earth. 2 years to "walk by faith, not by sight, " To ride my mountain bike and hike and do yoga, enjoy the amazing crazy beautiful spring flowers and birds here - well, at least hypomanic beautiful. I got to be here for my son E, for his senior year of high school and first year of college. Now I get to relate to him adult to adult, and just enjoy his sense of humor, his caring heart, his singing, his continuing growth as a human. And to get to visit daughter L in Berlin, meet her friends and housemates there, see her growth as she finishes her master's degree, to pray for her, to enjoy great Skype conversations - turns out we get to talk a lot more, now that I am not working 800 hours per week. And daughter A, well, getting to spend time with her by phone and in person, enjoying her kindness, her quick wit, her amazing loyalty and love, her persistence in going to college while also working a very stressful nursing job at a prison....
And being able to live up here in Portland with B, after a year apart due to his job transfer and my need to continue to have health insurance. I stopped taking for granted being able to have him next to me at night. Even little things like doing dishes and folding laundry are no longer chores but rather opportunities to be kind to him.
Not to mention getting to bask in the love and support of my extended family and friends and former patients. So many calls, letters, emails, gifts, kind thoughts, prayers! It is humbling to be on the receiving side of such grace and caring and concern.
The final scheduled chemo cycle is June 15-29. No word yet on what happens after that, treatment-wise.
Every way I have come up with to say thank you to you all just doesn't express the depth of gratefulness I feel for you.
Hi Gus,
ReplyDeleteAccording to your last post, you must be in the home stretch of your chemo cycle. Hang in there and don't sweat the cognitive stuff -- I know from personal experience that most of us psychiatrists can function with half a brain!
Hang in there, and thinking of you.
What excellent news! I just saw Angel the other day and got an update on the update and am so very happy for you. One thing I use to hear in church was to try to enjoy the moment, stop trying to get past whatever chore is in front of you so you can get to the "good stuff." The point was that life is generally full of the other stuff and that's where we should keep our heads and the message was "when you are washing the dishes, wash the dishes!" It sounds like you have learned to wash the dishes.
ReplyDeleteLove and congratulations to you,
Rachel