Blossoms

posted by Mary Lello, Thursday, May 14, 2009, 12:04 PM

I got home Monday after a wonderful 2 nights away to find Jim walking with a cane and sleeping upstairs in our own bed. BIG changes very quickly! Our oncologist, Tracy Weisburg, contributes this to the Avastin - that VEGF inhibitor that is literally starving this tumor of it's blood supply.

Wow. Wow, wow, wow!!!

To say I'm surprised at how quickly this is all working is an understatement. To say how delighted we are at how quickly this is working is also an understatement. Perhaps it's because Jim's a Capricorn that he gets frustrated that he can't do everything by himself RIGHT NOW. "I'm going for 100% recovery", he'll say to me. Sounds like a good enough mantra in my book! But that recovery has a path that we must go down and I have to keep reminding JIm that last week he had to be in a wheel chair, that last week we had only hoped that he could go upstairs to our bedroom, that last week he could barely string together a few words. Good reminders for both of us.

I was talking with a friend last night about how people keep telling us how cancer was such a gift to them and how through living with cancer they learned how to live. Man, this sounds so wonderful and Kathy said maybe this is a hindsight thing. Maybe she's right about this. I keep expecting to start seeing the gifts that cancer brings .... besides all of you and all the love we are surrounded by. OK, this is a HUGE gift but let me finish. The whole "seize the day" thing and living joyfully in each moment just hasn't hit us yet. Maybe it's because we have been just trying to keep our heads above water here. Dog paddling like mad to keep from sinking under the crush of prescription drugs, supplements, learning to walk again, being safe, trying to remember a word ... a sentence... a full thought. The frantic daily pace of taking care of someone 24/7 as well as trying to do all the other daily things that must be done is just so exhausting. Maybe if this gift were to hit me in the face I wouldn't even feel it .... everything just feels so numb sometimes.

But listen to me,

for one moment,

quit being sad.

Hear blessings dropping their blossoms

around you.

Rumi

And I am trying to listen. I am trying to hear the blossoms dropping. And I am so grateful for all the reconnections, the new connections, and the tremendous love that connects all of us. And I remind myself of where we were last week .... and I see Jim laughing at a joke someone cracks and realize he actually understood the joke! And I see him navigating the stairs and able to get out to the car with just a little help and I say .... 'blessings dropping all around you" .... yes. OK. I'm learning to listen more. And perhaps, in hindsight, I will understand how the ability to hear the blessings dropping and to be grateful for these blossoms IS the gift that cancer brought to us.

Loving you all back as you all truly are our most cherished blessings,

Mary