Valentine's Day Update

Hello Dear Friends,

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here, so I thought I’d give you a health update.

To begin with, this being the month of February and with Valentine’s Day this past week, we wanted to wish you love and happiness EVERY day of the year! This photo was taken pretty much at the time when our own love affair started. In fact, this has to be our very first selfie!

In the personal news department, we've had an exciting start to the year. Low immunities allowed Shingles to afflict me. Then, when I went to the local Urgent Care for medication, I contracted COVID-19, courtesy of another patient who was coughing and hacking in the waiting room! And since we share everything, Jim came down with it before we even knew that I had it. And that's despite us having every vaccine available. (Except for kennel cough, rabies, and distemper...and the vet is all set to give us those when we take Marlo in for his next visit.)

Happily, after five days of Paxlovid anti-virals, we're both on the mend. I still have pain from the Shingles, but I’m toughing my way through it.

On other news of my cancer, the last scans did show problems with my kidney stent, but we couldn’t do anything about it because of low immunities. The good news is that once I started feeling better, all the appointments were back on the calendar. I’ll be seeing my oncologist next week to go over the rest of the results of my scans, and I’m already scheduled for a stent replacement the first week in March.

As William Arthur Ward once said, “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”

One day at a time. One foot in front of the other. I’m grateful, grateful, grateful.  As always, thank you for your ongoing kindness and love and support. Your messages and cards are always a joy for us both. You ARE the best!

The Linen Skirt is Back

Do you have a piece of clothing in your closet that is over a decade old? Maybe two decades? Did you contemplate donating it but at the last minute the sentimental value had you bury it deeper in there? Even though it no longer fit. Or the color was faded. Or the fabric was just a little frayed along the edges.

For me, this precious piece of clothing is a long linen skirt that I bought back in 2002. Moved across the country, washed so many times, packed and repacked and pushed to the darkest corner of the closet, this was the skirt that I wore to thirty sessions of radiation while I was going through treatment for my first bout with breast cancer. The skirt was my good luck charm, my happy skirt, my I’m going-to-surface-on the-other side-okay garment.

So, guess what I was doing this morning at 6:00 am, deep in my closet? Looking for that linen skirt. And I found it. And I wore it. And it fit! After a thirty-pound weight loss over the past four months, a lot of clothes now fit.

This morning, I wore it to my first ‘official’ chemo treatment.

Many of you have either been through it yourself, or you have family or friends who have gone or are going through cancer treatment, so let’s not talk about the side effects (though some of them appear to be instant and affecting me right now). Instead, let’s talk about the kindness and compassion of nurses and doctors who work in oncology and how I truly believe these people are angels on earth.

They get your name right. They have a sense of humor and make you laugh. Before walking into the treatment room, they read about you and then they ask about books and grandchildren and weekend plans. They treat you like a friend and not only a patient. At our request, they even take the time to bring in Marilou (the oncology pharmacist) so I can meet her and thank her in person.

And, of course, they say, “What a cool skirt. Where did you buy it?”

Then Jim and I come home and see all the messages and contributions and love that you have sent us during these few hours that we were gone. Here, today, we are blessed with so many more angels. Every one of you.

Thank you, friends. I’m a writer, but right now I’m a little short on words to express my gratitude for everything that you’re doing for us.

All I can say is that I’m looking forward to the day when I can fold up that skirt and tuck it away until the next battle.

Take a mental survey of your closet and tell me what’s the oldest piece in there. I’ll bet there’s sentimental value attached.

 A friend has been kind enough to set up a GoFundMe fundraiser.

Here is the link to that page.

Thank you!

Community and Gratitude

Jim and I have known each other since I was nineteen and he was twenty-three. We came from the opposite ends of the world, and the universe brought us together. Perhaps it was fated...because we were two halves of the same whole, souls united, hearts entwined, both of us storytellers at heart. Or maybe we met and fell in love because we had the same outlook on life and community and who we were and what responsibility we had, not only to ourselves and family, but the community around us. I know I am getting philosophical here. Yes, there were physical attractions too. ;-)

Through the years, we’ve moved many times, lived many places. Each time, it didn’t take months but days before we became part of the community. This post isn’t a list of everything we did and didn’t do. It’s not about our record of volunteering. It’s about how the people we’ve met have influenced our lives. Here is a couple of them:  

·      A volunteer hospice visit in Goshen, Connecticut. An elderly woman, confined in a wheelchair and living alone, surrounded with piles of dirty dishes and laundry, asking me not to bother with that stuff, but “Sit with me. Hold my hand and talk to me.” She wanted me to see her and be company with her, as no one saw her anymore.  

·      Stonington, Connecticut. Our elderly landlord telling us (when we were two young newlyweds): “Every day, give more than you get.”

Yesterday, you our friends, saw the two of us. You gave more to us than it’s ever possible for us to give. You are lifting our spirits and warming our hearts and making us feel loved. We’re grateful. We’re humbled.

We’re also stronger and ready to fight harder because of you. 

Thank you. And we love you.

A friend has been kind enough to set up a GoFundMe fundraiser.

Here is the link to that page.

Thank you!