Dear Friends,
I'm back. Today I struggled with some nausea on and off for the day and had pretty low energy. The latter can also be caused by my ongoing low blood pressure (94/50 as taken by the nurse today). She gave me the hormone shot again, and, as I write, my freaky nails continue to grow. I just cut them four days ago and already I can hear then clicking against my keyboard. Perhaps I will let one grow just to see what it looks like by Halloween.
Yesterday, as we waited for chemo, we started reading Arthur Frank' book "At the Will of the Body" (thanks to Mary Louise for the suggestion). He is a sociology professor at the University of Calgary, who, at 39, had a heart attack, and at 40 was diagnosed with testicular cancer. The book is a very good meditation on illness and how to move productively in it and hopefully through it. I was struck by one of his passages on the importance of communicating about illness. As he writes, "To seize the opportunities offered by illness, we must live illness actively: we must think about it and talk about it, and some, like me, must write about it. Through thinking, talking, and writing we can begin, as individuals and as a society, to accept illness fully. Only then can we learn that it is nothing special. Being ill is just another way of living, but by the time we have lived through illness we are living differently. Because illness can lead us to live differently, accepting it is neither easy nor self-evident" (p. 3).
Thank you for letting me write about my illness through this blog. I didn't know when it began that it would become such an important outlet - it has become not only a place to let you know how I am, to feel connected to you all, but also, now, a place to write about what it means for me to be sick. It means more than you may know to me when you write back through this medium.
Off to bed,
Kip
hi kip,
ReplyDeletereading your post tonight i just wanted to say how important the blog is to me. checking it daily, just to see what's new, even if i rarely post right here. it is just so good to know what you and catherine are thinking and feeling on a daily basis.
here is a poem, somewhat related to your post today:
The Place Where We Are Right
From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the spring.
The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.
But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined
house once stood.
(Yehuda Amichai).
With love, Dorit.
LIving differently is what is significant. Opening our hearts to each other. Connections and community. Realisations and learning. Reaching out. Letting in. Acceptance with patience. When we can patiently accept everything that comes our way, there is joy in living, no matter what the external circumstances.
ReplyDeleteAn English translation of Shantideva says,
If something can be remedied
Why be unhappy about it?
And if there is no remedy for it,
There is still no point in being unhappy.
* * *
Whenever I experience hardship,
I should fight my delusions, such as anger;
And whenever I experience physical pain,
I should use wisdom to maintain a pure and peaceful mind.
* * *
Seeing this to be the case,
I should practice what is meritorious
Impelled by the wish that all living beings
Will develop love for one another.
Thank you, Kip, for providing us a place to learn from your kind and generous spirit. Whatever we are able to give back to you is tiny by comparison (but so happy to give you support).
Om Mani Paeme Hum
Love,
Roberta
To Kip and Catherine:
ReplyDelete....and, as promised, something from Edna St. Vincent Millay:
O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists, that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!
Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this:
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart,---Lord, I do fear
Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year,
My soul is all but out of me,---let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.
Happy Thanksgiving - you are being healed, dear Kip!
CLR xxoo
To all of you, thanks...
ReplyDelete