Seven days makes one weak ...

Yes yes very bad .. Not very funny .. But it is seven days since the operation. It's been an experience, needless to say , with ups and downs, moments qof panic . Like yesterday I was so proud of myself for trying the radicchio and espresso. Thismorning I paid for it with gas pains and depressed that there was still pain. I'm worried about the redness around the stitches so I phone . The onco nurses advice is 'Read what we gave you"; and "dr Kupets isn't here today. If you are worried, go to you own doctor" "I took pictures with my iPhone of the stitches.. Can you tell me if I need to worry? "if you are worried call your own doctor". So that call went nowhere. I'm frustrated and want someone over here to give me a definitive answer. I sent pics to Jean and she said they looked okay and maybe only one little area looked "angry".. That's med talk for " maybe problematic". But of course, it all looks "angry" to me. Maybe I am the angry one. I feel my own temperature rising! Mom checks and it's just shy of 37 c.. Up a few lines from the last time we took my temp a day or so ago.
Nothing is sure. Doctors at the hospital say I'll be getting a call from Dr Ks receptionist for a followup appt in two to three weeks. Onco nurse says"no no four to five weeks. No pathology reports until then. In fact I'll book you in right now for October 26'" ihave my own private consult with my self and decide I'll call Dr Ks office directly.
Out of control is how I feel.
The other thing I am learning and trying to take to heart is "take the medication"' Rowena s
And jean both say it's crucial. Thank god for the two of them! They are an absolute blessing. You realize that once you are in the cancer stream, you are just one of the countless many who have it.. You are perforce a unit, a file, a case. They don't see "you" because it is all overwhelming in terms of numbers. You are just one of the bodies entering the revolving door in and out of the hospital.
When I call my own doctor to see if she will give me a scrip to top up the oxycodone just in case I run out before I see her Monday at 11:30, the message on the and machine ends with "if you are a patient of DrPs, please note that she had a very sick family member overseas and may have to leave the country at any moment and so we cannot book any appts for eg eg etc"'
I leave a message anywY now worried she won't be there on Monday for the removal of my stitches.. And feel bad for her too because she is as helpless against the cycle of life and death as I am.
And I take my medication and say my prayers, both religiously.

Fear of food ..and flying

Monday was a tough day for the most part because most of it was obsessed with wanting to have that crucial (yes Linda, is is!!!) first BM. The great unplugging! Which is where I became terrified of anything that went into my mouth lest it hamper or contract the flow of movement as it were. Plus I haven't got the rhythm of what to take when oxycondone (thank you Jesus) probably IS the best thing since sliced bread.. Actually much better than sb.. For pain then you need to take the "red pills" the stool softener and the Sennokot ( Rowena described them as the scrubbers) to counteract the oxy. My list from Sunnybrook had a whole chart of if this doesn't work try this with that and if that doesn't work try more of this with some of that and the this other think. I was down to Milk of Magnesia by 6 pm. Mom wasgood enough to go and get me some . After that were suppositories, a fleet enema and, last resort go to the hospital where they would have done what exactly? Plus all this compromised by about 10 inches of etches on the front of your backside. You do not want to force an issues, believe you me. But hallelujah, just before supper , my prayers were answered. I'm still afraid of food though and even though my nurse Althea said "no food restrictions" I've decded to have small portions of things, no coffee for now , no grapes (gas!)no radicchio(the vinegar) nothing that I think soupy set me in any way. And, of douse, no alcohol .

Now to the flying part. From my bed, I look out my window all day and night long I see jet planes flying up. At night, they Re bright lights silently flying heavenward. These are the prayers that have been launched on my behalf and taken flight. Every day I have felt their power. Yesterdays mail brought margie's card with the mem
Memorare...remember o most gracious Virgin Mary that never was it known that anyone who FLED to thy protection, implored thy help, and sought thy intercession was left unaided.
Amen to that .
And then my wonderful Sr Agnes Theresa (aka Sr Toni Sheehan) phoned to let me know she was prayin for me every day.. Did I mention she's 87 and still drivesherself. She's a marvel , a book really ,.. Anyway she said "this is what you do Lauretta , you take in a breath like this..and she demonstrates and you breath "Yaaaah". And you hold I and then you let it go anthe "Weeeh". And you see you've breathe " Yahweh", the name of god..and that will be a prayer and it will comfort you. " she was, of course, absolutely right. Like her, it was advice was simple, brilliant and true.

I forgot to mention the terrors of the night

Or the arrow that flies by day.. Like the psalmist says. After coming home to my folks last night, easing myself into my lands end long sleeved calf length(on an amazon - ball gown on me)nightgown, I thought I was in heaven. slept for 90 solid minutes. That hasn't happened again. I have been up every hour to be. Taken stool softeners. Still no sign of a BM. Andofyen startling myself awake because I feel I can't draw a breath. Must be the panic. Plus I am afraid of those nasty steel staples. I took a shot with my iPhone just for the record. No danger of making it my Fb profile pic any time soon.
As soon as the dawn breaks and lathes office opens I will call with Ursuline. It is amazing what little info they send you home with.

The witching hour and other terrors

Prill used to call this the "witching hour".. Not sure where she got that from but only that it was that hour before the dawn where everything is a bit phantasmagorical. I vaguely remember " the hour of the wolf".. Same thing ? Ing ar

Ingmar Bergman? Hard to blog on an iPhone!

So..meanwhile back at the ranch...
Did I mention how totally relieved I was to be released from the hospital yesterday? I felt I had spent the last few days at the Marciat Di San Vit or maybe the Chinese market in hong kong.. Or thebazaar in Istanbul. Seriously. D6-ONC. Is one busy place. The nurses are scrambling. The alarms ringing everywhere . That's because it seems every time there's a kink in someone's Iv tube, the alarm rings.. And rings..and rings. Louder!
I felt like a real grouch and nag asking for them to come and turn it off. At one point there werethree going Off in my room at different intervals. A synchopated nightmare midday.
I am notsure why or how they schedule the nurses but I was there thurs to Sunday and never had the same nurse twice. And we more often than not had 3 different nurses for our room of three. apparently they work on a pool system so that the severity of the patients are née safe Alan Ed . Itdidnt feel that was to me. But I have to say there was not a bad nurse in the bunch. It wS also the UN of nursing experiences. I am pretty sure almost every continent was well represented.Saturday night was a beautiful Nigerian woman named Rita. I thought nothing of it when it suddenly hit me that it was Rita Leddy herself.. My dear friend and also a nurse. As Rita 2 flashed her brilliant smile, I could almost hear Rita 1 chuckling. The whimsy would have been just up her alley.

Night at the hospital ...I can only imagine e drugging that happens in a hospital this size . Constant movement, constant noise. My room is right next to the cursing sation so every sift change sounds like a party I haven't been invied to.. Chattering, laughing.. Themost annoying is the constant beeping of the intavenous machines goig off ..sometimes all three of them in the room at once. The 100 year old woman whofell. Xbnd broke her hip or l

G came back from surgery just howling . Felt so bad for her

Round midnight... Day three

Well I survived( so far) right now it's after midnight early sat am. I finally figured out how to get to my blog via iPhone. Thank you Apple. Thank you Steve Jobs.. And a hail Mary for you too.
And to Pier Giorgio You're right .. God doesn't play tricks.. But I have Proof positive of his sense of humor...my surgeons name is Rachel .. Tree of Jesse anyone? My doctors names were Luke and luau.. Luke the gospel writer ANd Physician And legendary painter of the fist icon of Mary. The luau whose name I thought at frat was lus or "light" but luau is also a Hawaiian pig roast isn't it? That was my dad praying and in honou of for Rino too. The coup de graces where the names of my nurses Angela Obviously) and Ivy (acc to legend, another name isWhere god walked). Well god is running circles around me here every day. Thank you Jesus!

Round midnight... Day three

Well I survived( so far) right now it's after midnight early sat am. I finally figured out how to get to my blog via iPhone. Thank you Apple. Thank you Steve Jobs.. And a hail Mary for you too.
And to Pier Giorgio You're right .. God doesn't play tricks.. But I have Proof positive of his sense of humor...my surgeons name is Rachel .. Tree of Jesse anyone? My doctors names were Luke and luau.. Luke the gospel writer ANd Physician And legendary painter of the fist icon of Mary. The luau whose name I thought at frat was lus or "light" but luau is also a Hawaiian pig roast isn't it? That was my dad praying and in honou of for Rino too. The coup de graces where the names of my nurses Angela Obviously) and Ivy (acc to legend, another name isWhere god walked). Well god is running circles around me here every day. Thank you Jesus!

First up...

As I write this, Prill is fussing around and getting ready to haul suitcases out to the car. What's in them: my duvet, the memory foam topper for the bed at my folks, my down pillows and my "log", my mother's pillows two turned into one..from her dowry. If anything happens, you might want to bury it with me.
And, not to be too melodramatic but maybe just alittle, words will never say what I feel for all of you, especially my family, mom, dad, Bruna, Paolo, all of my cousins. My closest and dearest friends, Prill, Raandi, Ron, MJ, Jack, Sandy, Jean, Rowena, Lee, Jenny...the list seems endless, is long and I am reciting all the names in my head as I write this because it's time to get in the car and go...Hear your name here..because I am saying it, even if not written her. I have been blessed by all of it.
And one thing I forgot in the rush of updating that Will, Bruna, take a chunk of change and have a big party.

And, if you please, a Hail Mary.

Signing off for now...Lauretta

Darnel and wheat... drinking clear fluids...and the Sea of Paradox

A flurry of phone calls back and forth, getting my LW&T updated FAST thanks to my amazing lawyer and drinking the PICO-SALAX (Blue - two sachets) to cleanse my system. So, last night I wandered around Metro looking fr clear fluids to drink, remembering my BIG mistake when I had my colonscopy a few years ago --I didn't mix it with anything. It was absolutely awful and I got violently sick trying to drink it all in the allotted time.
This is like being at a spa comparitively speaking so I chose clear fluids I'd never tried before. So that was fun.  I started with water, organic apple juice (500ml), Vitamin water with stevia (not doing that again) 591 ml, mom's brodo (350ml) and maybe in a few minutes two cups camomile with lemon. Then there's white cranberry juice (who knew?) and white grape juice. And a nap (didn't happen) And laundry. And start again....

But I want to share some lines here so that I don't lose the thoughts.  From Kelley, who wrote last night:

I don't have a poem or a quote, but I'll leave you with what I've been chewing on lately.  I've just been struck by how interwoven the darnel and wheat are, the now and the not yet, virtue and vice, mortal and immortal.  The true, the good, and the beautiful seem bound to truck with what is false, bad, and ugly.  Somehow, there is gift woven into everything we receive, since it is the Giver who allows us to receive it.

I don't pretend to understand this, but I certainly observe and experience it.



This is so much to chew on. I absolutely love knowing what darnel and wheat are and those metaphors being so familiar to me. It brought back visions of Israel, the countryside, seed on fallow ground, seed falling on rich soil..It occurred to me that we skate often unknowingly on the fine line between yin and yang, afraid to fall into either...It  made me realize we spend our lives floating on the Sea of Paradox Everything is true and not true at the same time. Yin and Yang. Black and White. Face to face.


And then Susie sent some marvelous poems which beg to be shared. Here's just one:

God Says Yes To Me

Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

+++

Isn't that just the best!  And in between all this, all this...the phone rang one more time. Marie from Sunnybrook with the time for my surgery. You need to be at the hospital at 6 am. Your surgery will be at 7:45. You're the first one up.

YES! YES! YES!

The darnel with the wheat, my last day and other abstraction...

This morning I lay in bed with a whorl of thoughts, images, similes and metaphors whirling around in my head. Today I am in the eye of that storm. I want to gather all the bits and pieces of information and connect them to the quiet I find myself in right now. Picture it like those images of hurricanes where they show the spiralling storm around that empty eye where there is, crazily enough, calm. Eerie calm, maybe, momentary calm, certainly, but calm nonetheless.

Anyway...so yesterday was my last day at work. What did I do?  Little things. Met with Judy to fill her in on last minute details of what had occupied my life for so many years..books, catalogues, Sunday Missals..and then a quick lunch and then working on an invitation for the 75th anniversary dinner of Novalis at the end of November. It might as well be next year. Slipping out of my new undecorated much smaller office, I bade farewell to the crazy twisted green tree/plant wedged in the corner. "It's been around longer than I have", I announced to anyone in earshot. That would be over 25 years. Grace said of course she'd water it.

And then off to what P calls "South Vietnam", the Lakeview nail parlour where Monica, of course not her real name, did my eyebrows and waxed my upper lip because, well...you know...you've gotta look good for the operation and whatever may follow (!).

And then home to find Blaine had  tested the paint colours in the hall way. Martha Stewart's Hemp is fine but the Cumulus just won't work.

To be continued....

The Web of Being and cheating Death

I went up to bed early and couldn't stop thinking of the phone conversation I had with Franca tonight...it seemed at first full of innocuous goodness...in that she wanted me to know she was thinking of me, good wishes, don't hesitate to call for anything you need...all this has been coming my way from my family these last few weeks...and then we talked about Friday's dinner with my other cousins and then all of a sudden it turned into something deeper...they were with me because what was happening to me was happening to them...because I was part of them and they were part of me...we were one..I felt my throat tightening and being almost unable to speak anymore. "If it happens to you, it's happening to us", Franca said. This palpable goodness, this unbreakable yet fragile connection we have to life through one another...this web of being.

And that is, I think how we cheat Death. Yes, I'm sick, well, guess what? , someone loves me...so take that, Death. I'm afraid and anxious and can't think straight, well, guess what?, the love of my friends and family  surrounds me, their care envelopes me, their words console me, so take that Death. It might not all work out for the best.  And, guess what, Death? - so what?  Your leering, swaggering, niggling, bullying, cruel taunting, circling and threatening darkness is quietly, unexpectedly shattered, broken, relieved, vanquished, by our frail, fragile, imperfect and insistent love. The fear of you is not the boss of me.

Counting down the days...

Today has gone quickly... up not so bright but early with nothing to eat because I wasn't sure if I was supposed to fast. Sleep was fitful. Prill came on the dot of 7 and we made our way to Sunnybrook through the city. To say I am deeply grateful for her love and care never quite covers it. And it was even too early for the valet parrking. Sunnybrook has a nice way of making you feel not so terrible about the $8 an hour fee..$23 a day max..they tell you how your parking dollars support this or that program or help treat this of that type of illness...Medical care really isn't free after all. But my,  my, my, we are blessed in this beautiful country, in our fair city.

Everything went smoothly, the ECG, the blood draw, the cheery meeting with the anesthesiologist,  the chest XRay. I didn't even have to go through hoops to get my insurance papers resigned because of the surgery date change. The doctor's office just said "Oh,jus go ahead and change it". Anything else would have entailed standing in line at medical records etc. And my newWasabi green LUG take-me-to-the-hospital bag (which by the way can double as a diaper bag complete with change pad--hopefully not for me!!). I got everything in there and could even pop in my Mac if I had too. Oh the small child-like thrill of the perfect accessory...

Coming home, I was wiped out. And this afternoon I slept for three hours.  And tonight I still am...tired but grateful, thankful, amazed at the kindness, goodness, sweetness of the care and concern that comes at me from everywhere. It dulls the now old anxiety that trembles under the surface of my unsteady calm.

Sunday morning, Robert Frost and me...

When Pier Giorgio wrote to me "God wouldn't bring you to the threshold of retirement to play a trick on you", I wrote back to him that it reminded me of a Robert Frost poem that I quoted from memory as :" Lord, forget my little joke on Thee and I'll forget Thy great big one one me."  I was trying to be clever. Seeking confirmation, I googled it to find that the actual poem was "Forgive, O Lord, my little joke on Thee, And I'll forgive thy great big one on me."  A subtle but VERY important difference. As if God and I have had an argument and, like Lucy, we both got some 'splaining" to do.  Well, maybe we both do. 


Right now, though, I am hearing God. And what I call God (okay, in my mind I still say "he'...who cares?!)  is coming every day through friends, family and phone calls. 


God came through the door this morning when Jack Costello came to give me Communion and blessed me with holy oil for the  healing of my mind and body.  We both agreed that, despite our obvious theological sophistication, et cetera, when it came to the basics we were "old school".  The sacraments matter. They "do" something. The old word for this sacrament used to be Extreme Unction - meaning, more or less, the blessing to be used at the end, the last resort. Also known as the "viaticum", the blessing to send you on your way...that way being through death, to eternity...


Well, I will get "there" eventually, hopefully later than sooner..but I am glad to have it now, for this week, for the time from here to Thursday the day of my surgery. I feel surrounded and protected. 
And buoyed by so much love.

I was going for deep but then Susie made me laugh....

Last night was a marvelous, serendipitous evening..no special plans and then a call from John and Sue for dinner and then Ivana and Rob saying they'd join us. So the six of us (incl Prill) made our way to the Brazen Head, the Irish pub in LIberty Village, and had a wonderful evening of pub food (not bad!) and conversation about so many things...it was incredibly warm and just good. To be surrounded by the love and quiet care of one's family is a deep blessing and consolation. Not so many words but just "being there".

This morning another beautiful note from my dear beloved cousin Peter in Australia. Even from so far away, the care and love reaches out. Amazing from Peter who struggles with his own MS every day. And counsels "hope" and sent me some healing scripture that help him every day. And they do and will.

And then marvelous Susie Whelehan who writes like and angel and knows how and when to laugh like one too.  If you are reading this blog, try reading this out loud.  It is so damn funny...could make you pee a little...

Take A Deep Breath

By Susan Whelehan

Healing methods you can choose ~

Wearing magnets in your shoes,

Reiki, Reflexology, Tarot, Iridology,

Cranial Sacral, Shiatsu,

Past Life: Meet the former you,

Naturo-Homeo-Osteopath, Castor oil, Epsom bath,

Meditation, Bible, Zen,

Chant your mantra. Chant again.

Deva, Shaman, Guru, Priest, Fasting or Organic feast,

Tofu, Wheat grass, Dairy-free, Echinacea, Herbal Tea,

Vinegar, Glucosamine,

Anything from the soybean,

Digestion problems? Oh, don’t fuss

Just take some Acidophilus

Anti-oxidants, Vitamin D

Honey and Cinnamon, Omega 3

Probiotics, Cut out salt,

Aromatherapy, Gestalt

Yoga, Aura, Chakra, Rolf,

Psychic Healing, Twelve-Step, Golf,

Findhorn, Lourdes, Ashram, EST,

Ganges, Dead Sea, Vision Quest,

Channelling, Astrology, Candling, Mythology,

Try Psychoanalysis, Be here NOW, Follow your BLISS,

Crystals, Colour-therapy, Count on Numerology,

Acupuncture - Get the point!

Feng-Shui will clean up the joint,

Garlic pills or garlic chewed,

Imaging can change your mood,

Cleanse, Pilates, Primal Scream,

Before you rise record your dream,

Journal writing - Face your fears,

Flower-essence, Rub your ears,

Biofeedback, Aqua-fit, Floating in a darkened pit,

Enneagram – Find your number,

Buckwheat pillow while you slumber,

St.John’s Wort, Mandala, Celtic Runes, Novena,

Tai Chi, Chi Gong, Angel pin,

Ginseng, (Or try just the Gin),

If you know your problem’s chronic – Hydrotherapy (Colonic).

Run. Jog. Walk. Rest.

Laughter has been called “the best”.

And don’t forget your gingko pill,

Or you may forget you’re ill.

A perfect prayer for me and Libya...

This popped up on the US LWC site today.  I almost always read the prayer. Some are just brilliantly on..like those newspaper  horoscopes that pin you and your day exactly.

This was probably selected months or years ago for today. And this week, Libya has been much in the news and Cyprian was from Carthage...was that Dido and Aeneas?  Wasn't there a fall there some 2000 or more years ago. Is it actually in Tunisia...I need to check..

But what doesn't need checking is how  appropriate it is for me personally - today!  A  Micro and macro prayer, almost 2000 years old:

Living with Christ Morning Prayer

Friday September 16, 2011

Let us pray to the Lord without duplicity, 

in tune with one another, 

entreating God with sighs and tears, 

as befits people in our position- 

placed as we are between the many, 

lamenting that they have fallen way, 

and the faithful remnant 

that fears it may do the same; 

between the weak, 

laid low in large numbers, 

and the few still standing firm.  

Let us pray that peace 

may very soon be restored to us, 

help reach us in our dangers, 

draw us from our dark retreats, 

and may God's gracious promises 

find fulfillment. 

May we see after the rain, fair weather, 

after the darkness, light, 

after these storms and tempests, 

a gentle calm. Amen. 

- St. Cyprian of Carthage

What a difference a day makes...even when flying below the radar..

This morning I was going to write about a thought that came to me about how I so often have lived my life...flying below the radar. Yesterday I was packing up my office at work because the Novalis team is moving two floors down. I found that Willian James quote that is my mantra..probably a little too long for a real mantra..but I love it at any rate:
I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success. and I am for those tiny invisible molecular  moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which, if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man's pride."

I have never read the rest of the book (Varieties of Religious Experience) which I have somewhere in the house. Maybe in recovery, I will! But more on why I think I've done that some other time.

 Last night, when Patti B phoned saying she dreamt of me and I was in an icon (is that good?..doesn't that mean I'm dead? .made me nervous) and then again that I was a sclupture madly wrestling with an angel. (Well, maybe she dreamt that because I had looked at Lynne's "Jacob Wrestling With an Angel" at the office and mused that maybe it should be my memorial card (yes, let the dark thoughts of death be tamed by practical concerns). At first it alarmed me until I remembered that when Jacob wrestled with the Angel, he didn't die...he survived the fight and would not let the Angel go until it blessed him. (I just remembered that last bit right this minute!). So...maybe good dream, Patti!

And then yesterday too, Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, the beautiful priest/poet whose wonderful book we published a few years ago, responded to my news of retirement and cancer with this:
someone said to me, God wouldnot have made me a priest to take me off the planet too soon. I think similarly God wouldn't bring you to the threshold of retirement to play a trick on you.
 you have my prayers, dear.


That gave me a real kick ..up! It cheered me. 


Buoyed by all this love, prayer and concern, today Fr. Ron and I went to my folks for lunch only to come home to a message from Dr. Kupet's office to inform me that, guess what, we've been able to move up your surgery  to Sept 22.  Yikes, that's next Thursday!...So calls to Prill and Mom, while dealing with Andy who came to day to fix stuff on the furnace and bleed all the rads (now in good shape for the winter!) and Manuela's visit with custard tarts and a travelogue of Portugal. Another place to go!


And a calm busy evening e-mails and Facebooks messages to my peeps while watching a charming happy little movie .."Secondhand Lions" with Robert Duvall, Michael Caine and that kid from Sixth sense with three names who reminded me a bit of Paolo.  And again alway always amazed by the goodness of my world and the embrace of the Communion of Saints.

Another tick to be tocked...

Yesterday was an odd day. I had to fill out disability forms for work which meant going up to my own doctor for a form to be filled out by her. It was the first tiime we'd met since April..so long ago...pre-polypectomy, pre-pathology, pre-cancer.
She hadn't received Dr. Shime's repport nor did she know about my surgery. One would think our system should be more integrated somehow, that doctors who refere patients to other doctors  would get filled in on what happened etc. Apparently it will all show up on a computer eventually. At any rate, she was sad to hear that the news "wasn't good" s she put it. And offered no false hopes except to say that "low grade" usually meant it was contained, etc. But she was great about filling out the ofrms even after saying insurance companies can take up to 3 months to put them through - even though my surgery is next week, basically...

Allto say that it left me a bit dispirited and "not feeling very well"...so when I met with Prill for lunch at City Hall to get a ride back to work, I decided to give in and just get a ride home.  that's when I got the call from Christine, Dr. Kupets receptionist, about my pre-op appt - Monday morning, Sept 19 ,  8 am at Sunnybrook.

One more thing to check off the "to do" list. Just occurred to me...I don't have a bucket list but I'm gonna start one today: Things to do before I die?  1. Survive this cancer!

Saying the beads, counting the days...

Waiting is the hard part, I think (I hope!)..and yet the wait is not so long and that too is stressful. Never having had any major surgery, I am anxious about managing the aftermath. Everybody has a story about someone else who has had it...even people who have had a hysterectomy themselves...all encouraging, all hopeful, all reassuring, all supportive...and yet...and yet. They all know, I suppose, that things could go wrong. They all hope and pray, like me, and for me, that they won't.

So...this is one of those days where the repeated reading of the Gospels comes in handy...those little aphorisms, hidden prayers, that spring to mind because we've read or heard them before so many times. They're background music. How brilliant the stories are in  echoing our trials, tribulations,pain and sorrows,  fears and sadness, our need for salvation at every turn, on every level.

So..practical faith...in this case in the miracle of modern medicine..like that poor old doubting Thomas - who doesn't identify with him? - I say, "Lord, doctors, I believe...help my unbelief".

The detritus of daily life...or 'Why did I keep all this stuff?'

Yesterday I spent part of the day trying to get rid of "stuff", not clothes and things like that, but bits and pieces of paper, cards, buttons (don't ask), badges from trades shows, stuff I forgot I bought (like those super strong magnets from Lee Valley...God, I love Lee Valley), all in bags that I move seasonally from one room to another and then throw in one closet or the other too make room when people show up, or the table by the front window (theoretically a dining room table - which is but only used as such at Christmas or other special occasions).  All this running through my mind in the pre-dawn. I ended up throwing out - in recycle mind you - at least two or three bigs bags of mostly paper...old brochures, Hort newsletters dating back a few years, ...The stuff that's the hardest to deal with is personal "stuff"- cards, letters, little notes, little doodads people have given me, same as I do them, that I am afraid to part with..they are imbued, for me, with some totemic power, almost animistic...this thing is them and it contains their spirit...
here lies, I think, the conception of what becomes religion...this connecting of things to us, to meaning...
and then...rushing through like thoughts do...who was is that said "the need to have becomes the need not to have"...darn, sure it was B but it was some '20's, '30's French/Russian thinker..was it Evdokimov or ..God what was that guys name...did it start with a B...B B B B ..was it Pilgrim of the Absolute? Who wrote that anyway.  I finally got up and googled  just that and, low and behold..it's Leon Bloy.  Did he say "the need to have becomes the need not to have "...which by the way I think is something that comes to you as you get older, and you know time is fleeting, and that what is it that really matters anyway? Freed - at least for the moment - from the shackles or animism (I have to make sure that's what it is) where inaniminate objects possess spiritual power (okay, I still have my 'heart"  rocks).. I look it up...again on google. And a strem of referenced quotes show up...Lots of them attributed to B - Catherine Doherty herself - maybe she said it after all and maybe, after all these years, planted in my soul,  like one of those slow germinating seeds , it's finally growing in me.

Getting it all out...why even a little means a lot

Yesterday I meant to start "clearing the deck" and getting certain things out where I or someone else could see them...no not all the stuff around the house but stuff  for family, friends, etc. Like a cheque for the window installer in case the windows get done while I'm in the hospital or at mom and dad's for the first week of recovery.

In between wonderful encouraging, thinking of you e-mails and phone calls from Moose, Susan B., Pete A and others,  I wandered down to the basement and found some powdery efflorescence on the floor. It looked like fluff or mold or something like that. I hooked up the shop vac and phfft -Gone. And then stuffed some old rags etc and took them out to the garbage. And then I cleaned the corner that had been piled with things from various shifting of "stuff". Then I got the Mr. Kelly's old armoire ready to be moved by Blair and Blaine. They'd volunteered to bring it down from my bedroom- third floor! " to the porch where it is awaiting a pickup by Joan and Bruno. Maybe. That meant taking it out the kitchen door, down the stairs through Mary FRan's. The guys are my heros. Then we had a dinner of some fabulous cheese from Bourgougne (Burgundy), dad's salami, vine and beefsteak tomatoes.
I also cleared the porch and put out  the chest that was full of junk, old hangers..and dragged it, the "nipple" lamp in the bamnt, a deflated exercise ball, Prill's old laundry hamper basket all out to the curb. The basket  went first, the light fixture net and then the chest.

I love that it's all gone, that my room is emptier now and am hepped up to get rid of more. Gabe came over for a visit tonight and I hauled out some "treasures" to give to her and Rowena. I have two weeks to whittle down.
Last night, I had a startling realization which I don't know what to do with. Its stayed with me all day. It came while the boys and I were talking about surgery and being knocked out - anaesthesia. About how, when we went under, we could remember nothing of the surgery and then we would wake up. And it struck me that if something does wrong, I won't even know and that would be that. It made me gasp mentally.

The date is now set... what to do between now and then?

This is all interesting, how it works.  Jean had suggested a couple of questions to ask my nurse 1)Will pain medication have been ordered so it would be immediately available after surgery 2) Is my doctor actually going to be the one doing all the surgery and suturing. You want the answer to both of those questions to be YES. The date of the surgery had me worried because of the delay in the diagnostic process..basically from the date of my sonohystogram Dec 22, 2010 to the Polypectomy/D&C on Aug 16 with the pathology report Aug 25 saying it was a low grade, stage 2 cancer. Now, the truth is it might be at that stage for a while but the good news is that I'll be having the surgery less than four weeks after meeting with the doctor. Which makes me feel good even though now I am, of course, scared about the surgery! One freak out at a time, right. Inside only of course. On the face of it, calm, sanguine, relaxed, matter-of-fact. Inside, 'What if I die during the surgery?", then of course, if I survive that, "What is I have a blod clot and it goes right to my heart and I die the?', After that "What if the stitches come undone, or what if I hemorrhage?' And after that, and after that..just a torrent of things to go wrong. All my free-floating anxiety is now stuck to every molecule, every cell of this cancer and it will be, I know, for a long time.  So, for the moment, it is, in its own crazy way, my free-floating anxiety is anchored to something real. I suppose there's something to be said for that.

In the meantime, I am clearing the decks around my house getting ready for convalescence and putting all my ducks in a row...making little piles with my will, financial reports, etc etc should they be needed. It sounds a little morbid, I know, but it's also soothing and calming, this "getting ready for any eventuality." Like taking little baby steps to the idea, if not the inevitability and undeniable certainty of my own death.

Intimations of mortality...(with apologies to Wordsworth)

That's it, isn't it..all this cancer business brings our own possible suffering (not so so scary) and death (scarier) into sharper focus. It shortens the distance between now and then. At least, we think it does. But you can't even hold the fear. It is so amorphous, changeable. What's that word that means "keeps changing shape"..I'll loook it up later. It pops up all day long in those thoughts that constantly stream through one's mind...the blah, blah blah of our poor brain's conversations with itself. Stream of consciousness is a perfect word after all.  And then in our dreams. Like last night when I woke up after dreaming my aunt had fallen from a balcony and was folded over below, deflated,  like a rag doll. And I started shouting , 'Oh, no, oh no, call 911,  ' torn between running down to her and finding a phone. But I knew it was too late.

That and reading on my walk yesterday with Prill to a new cafe in Parkdale. In that Free Paper (No Dollars, no Sense (sic). The front page shouted 'YOUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE AND YOU ONLY GET TO SAVE ONE THING'. That set me off for a bit...

I love Parkdale. It's becoming even more fabulously eclectic. We found stores that had been there for five years..new to us. Like the "general store" with everything from second-hand videos and political little buttons to organic almond cashew  butter and organic biblically cited cereal. And it looked like building were getting sand-blsted and even some of the hideous wires cleaned up along Queen Street. All the Tibetan shops and cafes, as great new art gallery in an old hardware store showing contemporary art...and me hoping I wouldn't be missing all this...that I'd  be here to see it all keep changing and keep rejoicing in it as I was then and there.

Let me see this, let me see this...I want to be here to see this.

Susie W. has put me on her distribution list for great poems by Mary Oliver, Hafiz (?) and Wendell Berry among others. Most of us on that list are dealing with some sort of illness. Most, yea ALL,  are new to me. Every poem has at least one line that can keep you going for the day, like those mystics said to survive only on the Eucharist (peace be to you, Catherine Emmerich!)

Yesterday, mine was the line from Wendell Berry at the end of his poem:  'Practice resurrection."

This Labour Day, I met the Wounded Healer...

One of the reasons I am writing this blog is to find something everyday that is new to me..again. I want to look at things again,  to come to things again and see something that was there but not obvious, or maybe hidden.  Today was one of those days. Watching the annual Labour Day parada as it made its way down Dufferin throught the Gates to the CNE, I saw all the unioized workers who serve us..and there was something that struck me and made me tear up unexpectedly...The UFCW was marching by..(I had to ask who they were..Union of Food and Commercial Workers) aka as those who pick our fruits and vegetables... there were so many of them..and I looked at their faces...they were almost to a person "people of colour"..Jamaicans,West Indians, Mexicans, Central Americans, South Asians..More important I realized they were probably the most poorly paid and least secure, the ones most in need of unions..and I also knew that 50 years ago ..even less, those people would have been my parents, Italians, Polish, Slovenians, all those who came to Canada after the war and worked in the mines,  the factories And it made me think of family, of my own growing up.

Then, out of the crowd, came my Wounded Healer, my dear friend Miguel. His wife Trish had phoned me last night when she heard my cancer news and we had a long beautiful conversation.  Miguel is a union leader with the Hospitality workers..the chambermaids, the cleaners in hotels and all the buildings, jobs that old Canadians don't like to do anymore.  Miguel came to Canada as a political  refugee to escape the death squads in Guatemala. Today he has a kind of inoperable lung cancer that needs a miracle. We had already talked about this these last few weeks. He came over to Prill, Lorna and me and hugged me and said, "Don't forget, Lauretta, we are fighting today, fighting for our lives And we won't give up.  Don't give up. We keep going every day.." I can't remember every word...I just remember Miguel and the intensity with which he embraced me and came to give me courage and hope about our now common situation even though he knews his own state is  more precarious. And as he left to rejoin his marching union brothers and sisters,  it was the second time I cried this Labour day.

Something's happening...but not sure what

Last night I was reading my cancer book: Cancer is a Word Not a Sentence..and I was somewhat calmed by the news that "low grade" means slow growing and that most cancer's are in fact slow-growing and that the diagnosis doesn't mean I'll be dead next week..so, that terror at not getting the surgery date asap (but I do hope it will be!) was alleviated temporarily. But then I heard strange noises outside my window..chirpy, whimpery noises like a scared bird..I walked over to see eyes peering..at first I thought "Wow..an owl" ut no..it was three racoons on the peak of the roof outside my window, one big mamma (maybe) and two smaller one..they somehow got on there and were peering over the edge of the peak of the roof...somehow they got down there and it looked like they couldn't figure out how they would ever get off...as Craig Ferguson likes to say, "Remind you of anyone?"...now that I think of it, yes!

Saturday at the Movies...

Last night I heard the beep beep beep of my answering machine and there was a message there from Althea, my cancer nurse. I had a few questions. One of the one's Jean said I should ask is to make sure the pain medication is ordered for me so there will be no waiting after the surgery. Because there will be pain. I am trying to imagine it. I hate the idea of gas and constipation. I remember  Jean, my dad and my poor uncle Iles in a lot of pain after their surgeries. It's the aenesthetic that often causes it. These days what runs through my head is..what's the cancer doing today..did it decide to go into my ovaries while I wait? And I count my daily beads of worry..what's that twinge?...a lymph node?..an ovary going bad?..it  feels "funny"...and on and on...

My surgeon was in the Globe and Mail....did I mention that already...part of a research project that uses viruses to target certain types of tumours.  I am hoping I won't need to be part of any of that research.

Ah yes and Prill and I went to see The Help...the REALLY early show..it was very  very good...yes, it's a picture of black maids in the South during the early 60's but more than anything its about looking at the life of "the other", the one who serves you, the chambermaid, the waitress, and all those we take for granted and perhaps just don't take into account because they are there to serve us. Lots to say about the film. But, of course, I was struck by the fact that the writer Skeeter's mother had cancer...wearing wigs, etc. I wonder if that will be me in a few months...

Went to COSTCO today..no one there knows I have cancer...

I'm being silly. The truth is, I was surprised that I got so tired so fast. I am trying to sleep a decent number of hours - let's say 8 for the sake of argument. But it's not all restful. My folks want me to go there after the surgery and I was surprised. It never occurred to me. I thought/think that I'd like my own stuff around me.

Next week I am going to start clearing out my bedroom. Time to say goodbye to the piles of clothes and books and just STUFF that gathers there...including the unhung art stacked in the corner. I offered Joan Mr. Kelly's old armoire. I've always wanted a cell like room - with a queen bed, mind you and that nice memory foam topper. But the inner me and the outer me don't always mesh - inside, I'm a minimalist. I wear Isseye Miyaki. Outside, bring it all on and in.

Wow..the perfect prayer for the day from LWC in the US and Thomas Aquinas!

Come, Holy Spirit, divine Creator, 

true source of light and fountain of wisdom! 

Pour forth your brilliance 

upon my dense intellect, 

dissipate the darkness which covers me, 

that of sin and of ignorance. 

Grant me a penetrating mind to understand, 

a retentive memory, 

method and ease in learning, 

the lucidity to comprehend, 

and abundant grace in expressing myself. 

Guide the beginning of my work, 

direct its progress, 

and bring it to successful completion. 

This I ask through Jesus Christ, 

truly divine and truly human, 

living and reigning with you 

and the Father, forever and ever. Amen.

- St. Thomas Aquinas

The incessant inaudible white noise of worry that surrounds me

So..a week and a day since the news. I just wrote a note to a friend saying "I am trying to keep calm and as sanguine as possible. But in my head, there are squirrels running amok."  that's about it really.

But the day/s have been full. the phones been ringing off the hook. E-mails, FB messages, all so supportive. Joan dropped by last night and we had a really wonderful evening talking about the cancer, all the fear, death, kids, life, you name it.  even dragged her through my "oeuvre" from my experimental watercolour course. I am inordinately pleased with bits of it and people are inevitably kind about it. I am so glad I did it. Maybe I should do one a day while I wait for the surgery date.

She gave me a book called Cancer is a Word, Not A Sentence by Doctore Robert Buckman. "I've been carrying this book around for 3 years..don't know why ...so here it is.."The first sentence is: "If you're reading this book, you're probably reeling". Very accurate. I tried to read a bit last night but couldn't keep my eyes open.

That's one think I've noticed. I am psychically tired. I think that's a blessing. I just stop thinking. The squirrels need their rest.

But I am so very very touched by people's goodness, kindness and concern, offers to help, to drive me anywhere (apparently I can't drive for 6 weeks after the surgery). Rosie and Liisa came over with a gorgeous bouquet of roses. Caroline McL called to say she loved me. Her husband Doug, Prill's brother, had been through his own ordeal with cancer a few years ago. Good advice to take things on and become one's own advocate if necessary, etc. I have to remember to call the nurse again.

All of this, all of this...time is taking it's own peculiar shape...