hope renewing

Diane's redwood tree

2011-12-22T13:53:00.005-05:00

A five-foot redwood tree now grows at the foot of Diane's grave site. It's the little tree at the end of the path (originally a wagon track) in the left part of this first photo. My gift to Diane which I will watch over and water during the summer until it's established.

We still plan to have a headstone made, but it won't be in place until late winter, after Diane's estate is sorted out. Plus it takes a number of weeks to be carved. I'm happy to be the guide for anyone who wants to visit the site.

Wishing you a peaceful and joyous holiday season,

Stacey (sdennick@comcast.net)

Diane's family & friends scrapbooks online

2011-12-19T12:23:00.002-05:00

Diane's sister Jean Libby has put together two scrapbooks -

Family history

Diane's friends

Please enjoy viewing them and remembering our Diane at this time of year she loved so much.

Diane's Memorial Service

2011-10-29T23:43:00.007-04:00

After a beautiful service, Father Thomas and Lorna arranged for this lone bagpiper to play as we exited the church.

Here are memories from a few more of Diane's many friends, starting with what I read during the service. – Stacey

***

My Seestah Dianie

I first met Diane in 1963, on Ocean Front Walk in Venice California when we were both six years old. We immediately became best friends and remained as close as sisters, over 48 years of love, joy, competition, heartache, and laughter.

We attended Nightengale elementary school together for one wonderful year until I moved away.

In many ways Diane and I lived mirror opposite lives. She was born and raised in Los Angeles and yearned to travel. I moved frequently throughout my childhood, especially after my mother remarried to a diplomat who took my mother, sister and myself to West Africa. Writing letters gave Diane and I reflective perspective on our lives. I could always ask her advice, like when I was 13 and a boy I had no interest in slipped me a love note. Unfortunately, with mail service being as slow as it was, her answer came too late in that case.

Whenever my family was in California we would visit Diane at Venice beach and relive the good times dog paddling in the surf below the lifeguard towers. Neither of us could actually swim. She loved photography, horses, ballet and a guy from high school named Tim Sheppard.

During our teens Diane found the Episcopalian church and I found est seminar trainings and the New Age. We almost lost touch but luckily my mother intervened.

We were only in the same state for a couple of years before Diane became the “address book wrecker” who moved all the time. First on a six-month singing gig in Norway with a Lebanese cover band. Then to Virginia with a new boyfriend where she sang and played keyboard in a top 40 band called Snapshot.

In the early 1990’s Diane sold the apartment building she’d inherited from her beloved father and began her world travels with a seminal trip to the Findhorn foundation, a spiritual community located in northeast Scotland.

After she returned to the states Diane finally left LA for Sedona, Arizona. When I visited her there, she met me in Phoenix and flew us in a tiny plane to Sedona. The air currents bounced the air craft around, and Diane kept twisting around to look at me in the back seat and giggle, giddy to be in the air showing off her new pilot skills and sitting next to the handsome co-pilot, her flight instructor and current flame. Luckily for me I was too busy trying not to get air sick to worry about us crashing.

An adventurer, Diane went on to obtain her private pilot’s license and almost started a seaplane business in Scotland. Always looking for ways to live in the UK and for spiritual knowledge, she attended the University of St. Andrew’s in Scotland in 2002, and completed her undergraduate degree in San Francisco in 2004.

A few people have asked me why she never married. I assure you it wasn’t for a lack of offers. Diane suffered from deep emotional wounds inflicted in childhood by her unstable mother. The pursuit of physical and emotional healing were constants in Diane’s life, along with spiritual seeking, Jesus Christ, singing, and many friendships.

I will miss her humor, her playfulness and her affection, but I know that she isn’t truly gone, but lives on in non-corporeal form, as loving and feisty as ever.

– Stacey Dennick

***

Diane, Stacey and Alex in 2010

Dianie 

I can’t think about Diane without being transported 48 years back, when my eight-year-old self had just landed with my sister Stacey and our mother at our grandparents’ place on Venice Beach in California. After growing up in the Manhattan cityscape, we suddenly had a whole beach as our playground, and found the perfect playmate in Diane, a little girl who lived just down the street.

 Together, the three of us played in the dunes, the sand and the waves, caught moths on the flowers in front of the scary lady’s house, collected shells, beach glass and pretty stones. We were so captivated by these sparkly treasures, we founded the Shiny Stone Club, with Diane’s little brother as an honorary member.

 Dianie’s bicycle shed became our clubhouse, where we sang endless rounds of “Found a peanut,….” We let three-year-old neighbor Charlie Blair tag along with us, and his baby-talk names stayed with us for almost 50 years: Dianie, Fu-Fu (for Susie, as I was known) and Tay-Tay (for Stacey).

 As an adult, I think of Diane mostly as a musician, a talented keyboard player with a strong, full voice that rose unexpectedly from the petite frame of a girl I remembered as a very shy teenager. Diane's band played at my wedding in 1990.

 The last time I saw her was a year and a half ago when she came up to Sonoma while I was visiting Stacey with my then 19-year-old daughter. We toured a goat farm, pet the baby goats who nibbled on our clothes, and picnicked under the apple trees. Though I knew she had been very ill, Dianie looked the same to me—youthful, spontaneous, with a ready giggle.

 Shortly before, Dianie had told Stacey and me that we were the only people left on earth who had known her parents and her brother, reminding me that she knew my whole family as well: my long-departed grandparents and mother, my father, stepfather, aunts and uncles, cousins, significant others and children.

 Her premature passing has left me sad but grateful for the gift of such unique, longtime bonds of friendship and de facto kinship.

 – Alex Russell

***

I first met Diane when she and her mother moved into my area and she joined my high school. I remember her waist-long brunette tresses, tinged with just a hint of chestnut tones. (Sigh.) We were in dance together and we shared a love of ballet. We were also both in the music department, although in different choirs, and loved concert time … ah, to sing in front of an audience. It was also at this time that she began going to church with my family on Sundays … yes, it was an Episcopal church.

In our senior year it was Grad Night at Disneyland and it was the farthest from home Diane had ever been! My Dad had been Air Force and I had lived in different states and even in England, so the idea that Disneyland was a ‘far journey’ was hard for me to grasp. This inspired us to concoct a road trip ‘north’ - she had the car and I knew the road so off we went! When we were about 10 miles from Lake Tahoe, I told Diane that she should let me drive so we didn’t end up IN the lake. She resisted (of course), and I insisted. We both shared at least one personality trait … stubborn, hardheadedness. But I prevailed, we traded places and shortly afterwards it was, “Oooo’s” and, “Aaaahhhh’s”. She had never seen anything like Tahoe before and, later that evening, said she was glad I did the driving because she would have had us ‘off road’ and ‘in lake’. She was a great travel companion and we went north as far as Mt. Ranier. I think Diane had the love of travel in her all along … it just needed a first-time-out. She never lost that love of seeing new places, new people; never lost her sense of adventure. I treasure those memories more now than before. – Susan K Campbell

***

From Randall

While each of us have many intriguing tales to recount, I feel the important things to share about our dear Diane are her impressive spiritual fitness and her service to others still suffering.

I believe Diane to be a true exemplar of one who ultimately lived in The Light and did so despite many misadventures in her younger days. And guided as she was by The Light, Diane achieved spiritually valid relationships that provide clear testimony about her unique humanity and contributions. Put another way, Diane embraced a high-order of universal love that she skillfully shared with others. For this I am grateful and willing to honor her talents by paying it forward.

Our dear Diane also possessed a quirky sense of ironic humor, which she wielded with a fearless panache and often in a comic baritone voice. Sometimes we laughed so long and loud during our Skype Internet calls that the circuit would overload and drop the call; but we always redialed until the connection was reestablished And typically her quips favored spiritual insight or confessional truisms. Here, I can say without reservation that her humor, commitment to the ways of loving kindness and well honed wisdom gave comfort and encouragement to many she encountered. Even as she struggled with her lethal illness this past year our Diane maintained her wit and charm. So, I hope that as we go about attending to Diane's memory and her continuation (a Buddhist concept) we will also take council from Diane's lyrical and comic genius.

Too, we should take stock of Diane's spiritual presence and engaging openness. For example, when we met by chance at a mutual friend's college graduation in Vancouver, Washington some years ago it took little time to realize how special Diane is. After our casual introduction back then we became fast friends and natural confidants. Here I believe that Diane's unique ability to unconditionally connect with wounded souls such as mine and extend true friendship is a quality that distinguishes Diane and endures beyond her last breath.

Further, while this testimony of Diane's transcendent goodness may seem a bit ceremonious, I hope we will continue to appreciate her engaging use of insight and relational introspection. These skills allowed Diane to serve the cause of true spiritual love and to help many rise above their errors and hardships. Indeed, Diane and I often "co-confessed" our errors and misdeeds as young adults, especially during our alcoholic eras. And, from this we concluded that true repentance is won by unconditional service and love; both of which are best tempered by good grace and humor . In Diane's case I truly believe she had crested the "redemption mountain" by extending good council and transcendent love to all who accepted it. Thus, Diane leaves us as her true authentic self rather than as an artifact of social construction.

Finally, dear friends, I draw your attention to the photo-collage showing a phone booth and Diane's writing desk and laptop, both of which were situated in the Welsh countryside. These photos witnesses a definitive and still comically inspired aspect of our relationship. Namely, we engaged in unending efforts to carry off "phone dates" as Diane chased across the world on her many adventures and spiritual missions. To achieve these rendezvous, one of us would get up in the wee hours to initiate a transoceanic call; which was usually prompted by a 6th sense that support and laughter were needed. These calls produced what I call the OMG bookends; to wit our calls would start with her saying: "Oh my God, we're actually talking in real-time" and then after some hours of fascinating discourse I would exclaim, "Oh my God the sun is rising here an neither of us have slept a wink yet." And between those OMG bookends, there are volumes of bittersweet memories about all order of wants, needs, aspirations and the joy that we were the best of friends without the usual trade-offs. Here it is notable that I never harsh moment with Diane. And in our last minute-long phone call in late September, when she could not summon the breath to say a final farewell, she silently acknowledged that our spiritual bonds were secure and continuing.

Thank you dear Diane and please know your memory is well continued by all who truly understand and worship in The Light with you still.

And thank you, dear friends, for your presence and care in making this moment so meaningful. To me it not only affirms our shared loving kindness for Diane, but also guides us to a path of joy and true love in our hearts.

Lastly, may all who attended to Diane transition to The Light be well and free from suffering.

Yours in peace and hope.

– Randall

Order of Interbeing dharma name: True Companion of the Heart

Core Coordinator, River Sangha (Salem, Oregon, Est. in 1999)

A Buddhist practice and mindful community in the tradition of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh

***

Memories of Diane

by David Gordon

I first met Diane at Bob Baxter’s performance workshop in Reseda in September 1980. The first time she got up on stage to sing, her natural verve and energy jumped out at me like a flash of electricity – a captivating, outgoing California confidence in sharp contrast with my English reserve.

As the workshop progressed we became firm friends as we shared our love of performing music and we played support on each other’s sets in the final, end-of-workshop public concert.

I returned to England at the end of that year, but we remained in close contact, exchanging long letters about the progress of our lives in the days before email and visiting each other’s homes around the UK and the States.

But it was through one specific act of generosity and understanding that Diane changed the direction of my life and left herself forever with a special place in my thoughts. Diane’s path brought her to Scotland and the Findhorn Foundation and for some time she encouraged me to go there too.

I always had reasons not to be able to go – some of which (like being able to afford it) were valid and others of which were no more than excuses. But when, in 1995, Diane returned to the States after living in and around the Findhorn community for two or three years she left a cheque at the booking office to cover the cost of an Experience Week workshop. “I think going to Findhorn would be good for you,” she said. “Whenever you decide you want to go, all you have to do is call them up and tell them to use the cheque.”

Overwhelmed that someone could care enough about me to give me such an opportunity, I removed the remaining obstacles and set off for Findhorn that summer. I was at a very low point in my life but it was important for me to experience some of what had been so important to Diane and to see why she believed it could be something to help me out of my despair. The week was a marvellous, loving, reassuring experience beyond anything I could have imagined possible and it was made all the more poignant by the fact that it had been a gift from a friend who understood so well what I needed.

The Findhorn community has been a great support to me on many occasions since that first visit and it seems fitting that Findhorn was the last place that I physically saw Diane when our visits coincided a few years ago.

I will always be grateful to Diane for introducing me to Findhorn, but I will always picture her sparkling on that little stage in Reseda. Keep on singing, Diane.

– David Gordon

A few images from Diane's burial

2011-10-23T20:41:00.004-04:00

Family at Diane's burial: Judy Hibbard, Matthew Libby (age 8), Jean Libby, Thomas L. Libby, Ron Hibbard. Photograph by Timothy J. Libby.

Memories of Diane

2011-10-22T21:25:00.003-04:00

From: Cindy Essen, October 18, 2011

I don't know what to say other then I will miss Diane so very much. In Jan. of 2009 when my partner passed away suddenly Diane had only been home from the Hospital for a short time. She would check in with me almost daily to see if I was okay. Always reminding me that I am not alone. Diane's belief in the Lord was so strong that it was her that kept me from walking away from the Church and God. Whenever I needed the nudge I could and will hear her Voice in my head telling me to Keep praying and trusting in the Lord and it will be okay.

I had just sent Diane a message on Oct. 6 to let her know that I was coming to town. I should have known by the response that she had sent, "As the Lord wills I shall still be on the planet and able to give you a hug" that things had gotten worse.

– Cindy Essen

***

From: Lesley and Donald Holmes, 10/21/11

Diane's passing came as a shock, but not a total surprise of course, as we have followed her blog closely over the years, and received many letters with her unmistakeable sweetly decorated and calligraphed envelopes....and sweet is one of the first words her memory calls up. Another is Friend -she was one of the truest friends anyone could wish for - we felt as close to her after nine years of being separated by two continents as when we first used to hang out together at Findhorn so many (15? 20?) years ago....

She was also the most committed spiritual seeker imaginable - I keep thinking of the line from Brahms' aria How Lovely is Thy Dwelling Place, which goes something like "my soul and body crieth out...for the living God" along with other words about the soul yearning and seeking that make me think so much of Diane.....it seems to me that in these last years of struggle with her illnesses her soul had just simply outgrown her body.....Donald says that what stood out for him was the way she would always first look for - and usually find- the spiritual lesson inherent in her problems... another thing we both immediately thought of was how her very essence came through when she was singing, and we wanted to listen again to that lovely Owl recording Beacon in the Night, with the almost unbearably tender and poignant tone in her voice as she sang Banks of the Dee - Scotland indeed had a real pull on her spirit.....

There is so much more we could say; Diane was such a rare person, and so beloved to us - but this will suffice for now. We will sit and light a candle and listen to Diane singing at the same time as we imagine you will be committing her body to the ground.....and we will imagine her flying away over Loch Ness, where she once took Donald on a flight - only this time we will see her flying with angelic wings.

In Love and Light,

– Lesley and Donald Holmes, Normandy, France

***

From: John Shaver, 10/20/11

There have been times when my partner and I have tried to join a church, and it's not always easy. At St Paul's Diane was quick to assure me, "Don't worry, I have your back" Thanks Diane. I will miss her calm and assurance.

– John Shaver

She was an amazing light

2011-10-22T19:57:00.004-04:00

This is a photo taken by Diane on October 5th, of a spiritual candle. She had really wanted to post it on her blog, but the memory card from her camera had been lost. I found it today.

I do not know what she would have written here; I leave that for you to contemplate. It was probably the last photo she took.

Her light burned bright, and we will miss her immensely.

Diane's memorial service 10/29

2011-10-20T20:51:00.004-04:00

Diane G. Luboff’s Memorial Service will be held at 2PM on Saturday, October 29^th, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 1123 Court Street, San Rafael, CA 94901.

Fr. Thomas Brindley will officiate. St. Paul’s Choir, under the leadership of Michael Struck, will perform the music. The Flowers will be provided by St. Paul’s Altar Guild

Donations in remembrance of Diane may be sent to any of the following:

Society of St. Francis, Provence of the Americas, Inc. San Damiano Friary,

573 Dolores Street, San Francisco, CA 94110

Upward Call Ministries, Inc, Fr. Thomas Brindley,

704 Sutro Ave, Novato, CA 94947

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Choir Ministry,

1123 Court St., San Rafael , 94901

Samaritan's Purse - Turn on the Tap, P.O. Box 3000, Boone, NC, 28607

A reminder, the burial will be Friday, Oct. 21, 2PM, Sebastopol Memorial Lawn.

Tribute to Diane from Tom Montagne

2011-10-19T14:56:00.007-04:00

I am an ex boy friend and the American living in Berlin or better known as the Bubba to my beloved Bubette!

Diane and I were a couple back around 1989 to ?? 1991. I rented her apartment on Venice Beach when she made the decision to move to Sedona. There was a short period when we both lived together in that apartment which I remember with very fond memories. As a couple we were probably not the best match in the world, but as soul mates we were perfect – both alcoholics, both adventurers, both looking for something beyond the next cloud or mountain top. I admired her spirit so damn much and her dedication and perseverance. As an example, I was with her in Sedona the weekend that she first soled in an airplane. She took me to the airfield one Saturday morning just to show me flight school and the planes she had been training in. Her instructor was there and asked her if she had a little time free. Diane said yes and her instructor said, “Good because you’re going to solo this morning!” You could hear the gulp in Diane throat but she said, “IF you think I’m ready …OK!”. As her instructor and I stood on the end of the runway she said to me, “Don’t worry she knows what she’s doing.” And she did, making a perfect take off and return landing. We then went out for a celebratory breakfast. Nothing seemed impossible for her, as for example her deciding to move to Scotland and open a flying service. The business may never have gotten off the ground but it was not from and lack of effort on Diane’s part. Her spirit and drive was truly amazing.

Like you, I have thousands of memories of “Sweet Diane,” the vast majority are private and better left in our hearts. My last phone conversation with her was the day she was released from the UCSF hospital back in August. What I remember most from that conversation is that as we were saying good bye, I told her that I loved her and after a timely, no doubt surprised pause she repeated the same back to me. Funny how much I feel those words today.

One more thought that I want to express to you is that I knew how much she loved her father and especially her little brother, as well as the difficult relationship she had with her mother. I can only think that she is happy now having been re-united with the two (if not three) most important people in her life. You and I may be missing a “best friend” but she is with her family that no doubt loved her as much as she loved them.

– Tom Montagne

Collecting photos of Diane

2011-10-18T16:00:00.008-04:00

Diane's sister Jean (third from the left) is collecting photos, digital or printed.

Jpeg or tiff photos may be sent to Jean Libby - jalibby@pacbell.net. If you have printed photos email Jean for her snail mail address. She can scan them.

Peace,

Stacey

Diane’s memory book

2011-10-18T13:25:00.001-04:00

Dear friends of Diane’s,

Stacey Dennick here. A reminder that I'm collecting stories about Diane for a memory book. If you'd like to write something please send it to: sdennick@comcast.net (a Microsoft Word file is best for longer stories.) Let me know if it’s not okay to post your piece here, or to quote parts of it during the memorial service. Here are the first messages I've gathered.

***

From: Stacey Dennick, October 16, 2011 8:30:06 AM PDT

To: Alison Sheriffs Brown, Ruth Whitfield

Subject: Diane flying over Scotland now

She just passed at 8:16am. Very peacefully with no struggle or pain

– Love, Stacey

Sent from my iPhone

***

From: Alison Sheriffs Brown

Subject: Re-Diane's flight, October 16, 2011 9:58:37 AM PDT

Hi Stacey,

Thank you so much for letting us know about Diane. We went for a walk on Findhorn Beach and when we were there we saw a dolphin and another amazing thing was a small set of joined kites were being flown and the child let go of it. These dancing shapes took off fast and instead of falling to the sea went on and on out to sea. The mother said she thought they were bound for Norway. We watched until we could see them no more bobbing in the air and said Diane must have flown them off with her. When we returned we found your email. How wonderful that her end was pain free and peaceful.

– love Ali and Tony xx

***

From: Jennie Curtis, October 17, 2011 11:06:45 AM PDT

I was blessed to serve as Diane's spiritual companion for nearly 6 years when she was in the bay area. Her gentle spirit, deep faith and extraordinary presence will be a life long legacy and gift to those of us who were blessed to call her friend. Peace beyond measure for her spirit and to all of us here on earth who have been graced by her presence

–Jennie K. Curtis

Sent from my iPhone

***

From: Chris Kagan, October 17, 2011 7:05:09 PM PDT

I've known Diane since she was in her early 20’s and I was in my mid to late 20’s. We met at a music shop (McCabes) in Los Angeles where she was singing and I was playing mandolin or banjo. Our friendship lasted until now with many phases including dating each other, being lifelong pen pals, philosophical partners, and student teacher relationships with my teaching her stock trading so she could give up having a standard job, and her teaching me musical techniques.

She was always very clever with cards, and her last birthday card to me was signed “hugs, blessings and love” which is a great summary of how she treated me and so many others. We used to have a playful competition regarding who could create the card with the best twists of phrase, and it was fun. We introduced our friends to each other, had dinners, recently went to an owl evening, the birds, not her singing group of the same name. That singing group was very good. She was the star vocalist. Her half Jewish, half Christian background always had a special appeal to me, a sort of hybrid intellectual and spiritual vigor. She showed a lot of courage, and enjoyed nature, music, friends, ideas, and was naturally artful. Sue, my wife, liked her and she liked Sue. We will both miss her.

– Chris Kagan

***

From: John Worthington, October 18, 2011 6:06:16 AM

An ode to a flying swan

In days past I was a flying instructor with the Moray Flying Club in Scotland and this was where I first met Diane. She had achieved her flying ticket in the USA and I had the pleasure of teaching her the whys and wherefores of flying in the UK. We spoke a whole lot of different gobbledegook over the airwaves here. Diane was quick to learn and soon after that teaching period we embarked on innumerable hours of pleasure flying together. Behind that intense façade there was a twinkle in the eye that revealed a yearning for a something a little less mundane.

We flew all types of contraptions from modern touring aircraft to home built machines to a Second World War biplane and we would clatter into the skies with frivolous abandon. We flew high, we flew low, we flew fast, we flew slow, we performed aerobatics and occasionally came to earth with a bump – we were in mutual agreement that no matter how hard the bump if you could walk away from the landing it wasn’t such a bad one after all. Those times are long past and I miss the fun we had. The memories are mine to cherish. Alas I no longer fly but Diane you are now soaring with the angels. Take care and God bless.

–John Worthington

Green burial for Diane Friday, Oct. 21

2011-10-18T12:48:00.005-04:00

Dear loved ones,

Diane’s burial will be held this Friday, 10/21, 2 pm at Sebastopol Memorial Lawn, 7951 Bodega Ave., Sebastopol, CA 95472; Phone (707) 823-7434.

Fr. Thomas Brindley and Br. Jude Hill will officiate. We will also plant a redwood tree at her site.

Since Diane loved embedded links so much, I offer you info about green burials.

There will be a memorial service at the end of the month, check back here for details as they’re confirmed.

Peace,

Stacey

A true friend passes away

2011-10-17T13:29:00.003-04:00

Diane passed peacefully, surrounded by loving friends, yesterday morning.

A memorial service will be held sometime around the end of the month, date and time TBD.

Stacey Dennick is collecting stories about Diane, some of which may be included in the memorial service, and all will be printed and added to a memory book. If you'd like to write something, the more specific the better, please send it to: sdennick@comcast.net (a Microsoft Word file is best.)

Update from Diane's Friends

2011-10-16T12:22:00.002-04:00

Hello to everyone who reads Diane’s blog. We are Ruth, Ali and Tony - the Scottish friends who visited Diane last month and had a very wonderful holiday with her.

We wanted to let you know that Diane was taken into hospital (UCSF) last weekend after having stomach flu and a UTI. She was in a lot of pain and very weak. Thankfully the medical staff were able give her sedatives and she’s now much more comfortable.

Diane was desperate to return home and at the end of this week, her wonderful friends organised ‘around the clock’ care. The hospital would only discharge her on condition she had 24/7 care, so a rota was quickly and efficiently created.

Thankfully Diane was able to return home by ambulance yesterday (Friday). The ‘Hospice on the Bay’ offered training to those who are taking care of her. There is a hospital bed in her living room as she can’t lie flat due to difficulty breathing. It’s situated by the two windows and she’s surrounded by flowers.

Her friend Laura wrote the following on Saturday, 15 Oct:

Diane is resting at home, in her last days. She was SOOOOO happy to get back. She is very medicated now and not so lucid much of the time, but she has moments of clarity. Getting home was just one of those clear moments, and it was just 'heaven' for her. I was there, and also two other friends and a Hospice social worker when she got home. When she was settled in her bed, she wanted ice cream, and so we all ate vanilla ice cream together. It was lovely.

We cannot list everyone who has helped to make her final days comfortable, truly loved and cared for spiritually as well as physically and emotionally. We’d be sure to miss someone out.

Her friend Maggie asked if she needed anything and her response was, "your prayers."

Chris in Seattle was able to upload this posting - thank you so very much to everyone. It means a lot to us being so far away to know that our dear friend Diane is being cherished in her final days.

a few little extras

2011-09-28T20:26:00.005-04:00

I've always loved "outtakes" the best... the snippets from movies that just weren't quite splash enough to make the big marquee. I'm a show-off. I have been given wondrous gifts and as well simplicities that I wish to share before moving on to next musings.

For those dear friends not from California, my friends here are standing in front of one of the redwoods at Muir Woods here in Marin County. These are REALLY tall trees!

So here's that fun "extras" Gallery: CLICK, my friends!

The soirée was of course a great success; their stay at the villa was mostly wondrous; and we got around the local area, even while I whined about my puffy cheeks (down now every so slightly with the reduced Dex!).

We managed to feast at the three local restaurants I'd eyed, BOCA in Ignacio being one of them. I need to point out that dining out in Scotland is not normally a pleasant occasion. The food is expensive and less than ideal quality... unless you make it to the likes of Boath House out which is, oh, heaven. Trust me. Go there. You'll NEVER forget it. Otherwise, even the likes of the Ramnee in Forres is sorta like a local fish-'n-chip shop with strong pints at the bar. But I gotta tell you - they make some extremely luscious fish-'n-chips!

So we BOCA'd... and we made it to a wholly ordinary Mexican Taqueria on Grant Street here in Novato. We're Californians; we're locals. We do Mexican. NEVER had they before. I think more energy and bug eyes went into the size of the portions than anything else, and with enough homemade guacamole and other various salsas (including a side of molé sauce), we feasted. The two others were a surprise luncheon at the Buckeye Roadhouse in Mill Valley and our last meal at the Harmony Dim Sum in Strawberry. What can I say? YUM!

One of the most delightful excursions was having being given a personalized Garden Tour by Nanette Londeree, my kind landlady Master Gardener. SHE was born gifted. She even brings me vases of cut roses as I'm on her healing path radar - bless her. However, Tony & Ali & Ruthie are no slouches in their respective gardens... but wow. Nanette normally saves her tours for 150-200 people.

We were then treated to delectable cut farmer's market fruit and bubbly pear juice on their patio. What a blessed morning!

"So whatcha up to tomorrow?" piped in her husband Bill. Both retired after decades and now into their various heart paths, Tony responded, "Not sure. Think we'll just explore the area."

"I can take you all up Mt. Tam and then to Muir Woods if you like," he quipped. Now Bill is not only a bit on the shy side but VERY busy. While Nanette's eyes widened slightly with surprise, Tony said, "That would be GREAT!"

And so it was. You can see some of the photos here in the little Gallery. It was AMAZING.

There was also an open-top City bus tour while I had a rest day. I'd loaded 'em up with AAA maps, the Ferry Schedule and my blessings.

I cried and laughed every day with delight to have had my friends come all this way to spend an entire week with me. I give such great thanks to God.

But what's this little black kitten face at the end of the Gallery? You'll have to wait and see, won't you?

looking a little more deeply

2011-09-21T19:48:00.011-04:00

This glorious variegated rose belongs to my gifted Marin Master Gardener Landlady Nanette, also a Master Rosarian (U.S.). It symbolizes yesterday's hospital visit of Tuesday, September 20th... with intricacy, complexity and ultimately beauty.

I had not a small amount of anxiety for this particular visit. One, it had been a month since my prior checkup jaunt, which I now have learned is not all that unusual. As my blessed friends from Scotland were here in Marin County for a WEEK of joys (woo!), I had not the slightest intention to commit any of that time to getting my blood drawn and having the other oncologist give me the once over before shoo'ing me off. "You seem to be doing well. See you in a few weeks or a month..."

This time I saw Dr. Wolf. Hot shot in the joint, a zillion years of experience. This is the man who had walked into my ICU room in July and given me my "terminal" diagnosis. He's not a wretch - he simply had demonstrated a bedside manner that I would not have chosen. "There, there now" - how many oncologists do YOU know who have that in their back pocket? He and I had gotten off on a really rough footing back in July and he was on my "you keep your distance, buster" list. In fact, since having been sprung on August 3rd, I had not seen him. He had been out walking the forests of Laos. ("I work hard and I play hard."). Dr. Olin - the other oncologist - was a dear. I like dears.

So my anxiety levels were up a bit. I was asking and begging for prayer. I was RECEIVING prayer! And I had asked a friend's mother, a retired cardiac nurse, to accompany me as advocate. Two sets of listening ears in that tiny office were better than one.

The drive in was interminable. Note to self: No more appointments after 8am or much before Noon. I had a page-full of questions. I KNEW he'd be kicking my butt - that was his job, wasn't it? There she is, the little "I won't do chemo this time" refusenik. In spite of prayer, my own and others, my friend the brain was having a field day with me.

Surprise: It was a great visit. Here are the three chunks of good news delivered by Dr. Wolf in a surprisingly warm manner:

1. The Dexamethasone HAS shrunk the main tumor slightly. This brutish oral steroid that has been sending me through a tilt-a-whirl carnival ride every morning since late July has in fact had an effect on the little monsters in my lung/chest area.

2. The fluid in my lungs - both the left working and right "non-working" one - has lessened as noted on a recent CT scan of Sept 2nd.

3. The best news of all for me personally - Dr. Wolf and I are going to experiment with me taking LESS DEX. I almost cried when I heard this news. I had almost begged, frankly. I've been shattered on this steroid, from hand shakes to all-morning disorientation to my bulbous face. We're going from 20mg to 12mg/day. (In the hospital I was on 40/mg day). Twelve!

This morning I cried as I pulled out THREE 4mg/pills rather than my five. Placebo effect or no, I can already feel a difference.

I do not live my life between hospital visits, of course. I pray for the discerning grace to integrate levels of guided wholesomeness. This Friday, for example, after weeks of fiddling with getting an actual prescription for the priviledge, I will meet privately with a licensed physical therapist at the Osher Marin JCC for an evaluation for their hydrotherapy program. No, it ain't free or part of my membership costs! However it'll help get my somewhat resistant heinie back to the gym for gentle and even FUN use. Woo! In the meantime I take walks.

My priest Fr. Thomas is a source of great Godly wisdom. I am reminded to stay "...bigger than my vital statistics," as any fixation on them can rob me of the present which is where CHRIST MY GOD lives. "The present is jam packed with myriad of clouds of witnesses... who are never separate, no matter what the facts are... CHRIST IS THE LAST WORD."

I go back to UCSF on October 18th. In the meantime, I am given the grace to say to my True Great Physician, "Lord, here I am."

Your prayers have blessed me!

Feasting in God's Love

2011-09-13T00:10:00.005-04:00

These two photos are from the early evening soirée which had bubbled up from one of my 4am musings. YES! - my precious friends from Scotland are HERE and have been so since Wednesday, Sept. 7th! I will share a snippet of the incomparable JOYS in which I have reveled since their blessed arrival only days ago. There is often a slightly more fleshed out Gallery for you to muse over... via which if you're somewhat clever, you'll find a way to see even more photos, many taken by wonderful Stacey and her lovely artistic eye.

I sip tea. My heart murmurs and sighs. There had been a few coattail tuggings around my friends' presence here... to which I'd initially responded by clasping my territorial arms to my chest and saying as politely as possible, "Well, they flew 5000 miles to see me (me me me!)... and we're going to BE together as much as time and my funkomatic energy levels can manage." However that 4am musing Whom I call The Holy Spirit added, "Hey. You can loosen up a bit here. Find a very few ... ask Tony, Ali & Ruthie, would YOU enjoy a small gathering?" Yes. That is part of our depth of intimacy over the years; we ask, we "attune," I pray, we seek Godly agreement. I didn't want a raucous party of fifty. Small, quiet, intimate... some very close friends from St. Paul's and my Sunday Night Oikos Home Church. Our feasting danced far beyond the sumptuous delectables that adorned tables and laps.

The Moroccan-themed vacation home - my friends' holiday villa right on the lagoon - was bursting with Godly love. I didn't "do" this party. Jesus did. I had given it to Him from the start. With a sheer blessedness that defies my own controlling when I Let Go, The Lord's Grace arose and did so mightily!

Saturday, Sept. 10th... a celebration banquet amongst beloveds. At 4pm the first friends arrived, toting exotic IPAs and scrumptious food. Ruthie, Ali & Tony had set it all up and out "English Style" while I napped in the Master Bedroom. They worked; I recharged my energies. Whole Foods Novato had been giddily raided for the finest imported sheep milk cheeses, olives, fresh baguettes, Icelandic butter, organic Mexican chorizo, crudités with Toby's feta dip... and of course the homemade yums from our guests, from Kari's quiche to Stacey's fat & luscious farm stand strawberries. The dessert table winked with Dilettante truffles from Seattle (Chris & Alice!), double duty Oreos, Two-bite brownies, fresh organic fruit. Bevvies galore.

I mourn my bloated steroid face. Cheekbones Luboff has always been a source of Slavic pride for me. I don't look like myself today. I cried last night about that. And as the E-Ticket bliss of this heavenly visit slowly shifts to the awareness of their (sob!) departure on Wednesday, I look ahead to more doctors' appointments with more questions piling up. There are places between awakening each morning and saying, "O LORD! You have given me a new day!" with the left-brain need to know what in the billy blue blazes is going on. The earth and Heaven "balancing act" if you will shall continue without fear. I rebuke that dark side in the Name of Christ. And yes, it slithers in... sometimes so subtly I am caught off guard. I remember; this "life" of mine is not mine - it is GOD's. I am His. I breathe in that knowingness as often as my one strong lung can inhale His Grace.

Each day of this week is a Gift from God beyond compare, and to Him I give thanks and praise for the love that cascades all around me.

For the first time in eight years...

2011-09-03T00:44:00.005-04:00

... I went to my fave hairstylist in the world, plopped down into our chair for a two-hour posh spa event, and said, "Charlene, do me. Let's play."

"Well," you might muse. So? People with leedul teeny smidges of control issues don't tend to talk like that. Charlene responded with, "Do you want me to tell you what I'm going to do or do you want me to surprise you?"

Surprise me.

And so it began... as one of the most pampered, luxuriating treats I have given to myself EVER.

Charlene Stratton (the ArtBeat Salon owner) and Genevieve Palogan (a superb master stylist) have been cutting my hair all this time. But NO color! No messin' wid dat! I think my ego was amusing itself seeing how little gray would come in, and frankly I liked my dark ash locks. I kept it all pretty simple.

I gave myself an utterly pampered spa day. It was not a hospital day. You can see my steroid face - puffy as all get out even with my post-hospital weight loss (10 lbs that!). "That makes the lines on your face less visible, you know," said Charlene simply. I love you! You are nice to me and always have been.

After the amazing coloring excursion, Charlene shaped 'n gracefully blow-dried... then said, "And now I have two presents for you. One, I would like to have Rachelle trim and gently tint your brows. Would you like that?"

I have never tweezed nor touched my brows in my life. "Yes, please!" I said. Rachelle is a Master Esthetician from whom I have received THE most AMAZING and healing facials EVER. (Do I sound like a Valley Girl or what?). We went back into the healing room and... I emerged... with lovely brows. And hugs. And peace.

It was now almost 5pm. Three hours of glorious pampering!

The other gift echo'd a series of "girl giggles" many of us had shared that day with new folk being semi-auditioned at the salon. Cute guys. My eyes still wander. In a simple paper bag, Charlene handed me...a dark chocolate butt. Yes - buttocks, bahunkus (made up semi-Yiddish word), gluteous yummulous! Earlier snorts about "skinny black butt jeans" took on another realm.

I show up for my medical appointments, too. I take the pills I have agreed to take, over which I often remember to pray. The Dex still kicks my butt every single morning with shakes and disorientation. Today's gallop through UCSF based on a CT scan I'd asked for was fairly exhausting on many levels, with the added edge that for the very first time I drove there myself. Normally I've made a big game of it being dropped off and even - praise be to God - chauffeured. Today's maiden solo flight took a few notches out of my fairly limited stores of "whatcha got in Felix the Cat's magic bag, girl?" Parking was hell. Trying to find "11Long" (in the 505 Building) baffled me, but when I handed over my old wig and one scarf in a gift bag at the Nurses Station and said, "This cost $250 and has about 6 good months left on it - please find it a good home," my heart danced a lighter step. The CT scan took 5 minutes although getting my own CD copy will include the Post Office since the Film Library didn't have it together. I picked up a paper prescription for A Controlled Substance that sometimes helps my lung to ease and nighttime brain to chill. One 5mg. tablet seems to do it. Beats the IV-Dilaudid I was getting in ICU! (Of course I had 3 tubes in me then, so "need" was not a nebulous concept).

I go back on the 20th to meet with the other oncologist, Jeff Wolf. I will ask a friend to accompany me for that, as what few words this doctor dishes out err on the side of not so pleasant.

And this coming Wednesday the 7th, some of God's BEST healing medicine of all will arrive from Scotland- Tony, Ali and Ruthie! Love and fellowship... and best friends. I'll stock up their Moroccan Villa the day before. And we will take each blessed day as we are given that week. Oh I breathe happiness just writing this!

Lord God, You are so good to me. Let me share the bounty of Your heaven each day as You direct me. When things are tough or tiring, please give me faith and deeper trust in You. And thank You for hugging me with my new hair, gracious Lord.

he doesn't know he can't do that

2011-08-26T20:28:00.002-04:00

I have been given permission by my cherished friend "Matchy" in Scotland to quote from one of the handfuls of beautiful cards he has sent me for weeks now and written in a nearly medieval calligraphic script. Matchy has no computer or email. "I have my fountain pen!" he blurts with glee. He is a gifted gardener, a Scottish Episcopal Church Deacon, a former Franciscan Brother. I shall quote my friend here:

"Dear Diane:

Greetings. Here's a Bumble Bee who, according to aero dynamics should not be able to fly. Think our Creator has other ideals.

I just love to see them visiting fox gloves and getting stuck in the flower. They waggle their bums, buzz with fury as they back out then go humming on to other flowers. They're part of the wildlife orchestra which serenade one in the garden. Especially soothing sound as we work our way through the weeds.

Drove to Grantown yesterday and saw the soft purple haze of the heather on the moors. Just such a wonderful sight. Spent a while beside Lochindorb especially gentle waves made me think of the Sea of Galilee. There's so much to be thankful about.

You continue in my thoughts and prayers.

Much love,

Matchy."

My friend has his own health challenges and yet sends love, prayers and three-dimensional cards... the kind you have to buy, find stamps for, take to the Post Office. (Royal Mail in Great Britain). There's something to be said for not having "a magic machine" as he whimsically calls it. There's something to be said for reaching out beyond one's own sources of abundance. The Abundance of the Risen Lord and the impossibility of the bumble bee.

I have had a markedly eventful week on multiple levels. Monday's medical appt. at UCSF turned into one of those science experiments where you mix things that bubble up and boil over. Hey! What's this mess!? Oh it's not a mess it's.... something else. (No it's not. It's a mess). When I finally asked for copies of the bloodwork, something I had stopped doing when all this got into another realm, I got pushed up against one of my old walls. "Platelets from Aug. 10th were 66; that morning they were 33. Oh shit. I don't like this." So I paced the tiny office waiting for Dr. Olin, repeating both The Jesus Prayer and Hail Mary's. I LOVE the Blessed Theotokos, the Mother of God!" I paced and prayed. The nurse practitioner Bethany came in 15 minutes later. "I apologize," she sighed. We mixed up your labs. Here are yours..."

Platelets 85. Robust. Good. My friend the brain had its time with me even while I prayed and paced. Screw the numbers!

"You do need a blood transfusion," she added matter-of-factly. Your Hematocrit is low." I paused. My ride that morning was waiting and this was a 4-hour affair. "May I come back in a day or so?" I asked. "It would make it less complicated."

"Of course," said Bethany. We made the appt. for Wednesday.

I have had dozens of blood and platelet transfusions over the past three years. They're not that hard. Granted, most have been while I've been INpatient, hooked up in my hospital bed, ready for another needle. This one in the Infusion Clinic was the worst experience of my life. It hurt. All. The. Time. I was freezing in the room. Even the warmed blankets brought by the nurses only eased the angst for 15 minutes at a time. Before the 2nd unit was even one-quarter done, I said, "I can't take another minute. Unhook me please. I am calling my 5pm ride and going home now." They totally got it. Precious Maria picked me up in front of the 400 Parnassus building and scurried me away.

On Tuesday I had thought, "I want to see my new biological dentist now.... the one I interviewed seven other dentists to find and feel so darn right about". All the work of researching (pre-C-bomb) attending to years of oral unwellness had of course been set aside. The wretchedness wreaked by the oral steroids left my mouth feeling so ecch that I had the simple, soft thought, "Ok. Maybe not the Whole Hollywood Pepsodent Smile plan I've waited years to implement, but... SOMETHING."

On Thursday I spent two hours in the dentist chair having not one but TWO broken and decayed rear crowns removed. Dr. Larry and I had already done numerous prep earlier in the year. This was the work. Nitrous flowing, a tiny iPod playing bird sounds or Classical music... and I was teary-eyed in gratitude. I knew that poison was being removed from my mouth. Was it arduous? Of course! Did I stagger over to the frozen yogurt shop in Mill Valley afterwards for my there-there-now reward? Yeah!

Am I being led somewhere with this? Maybe. I brush aside the negativity that hisses, "So why do you even bother to have this done?" I nod at another thought that said, "Hey! Fix! Heal! Cure!" Hello, expectation. Today I breathe and pray and take another healing step.

I see Dr. Larry again on Monday.

Coming up .... a CT scan on Friday, Sept. 2nd (so what ARE these steroids doing??)... working with my now-renewed health club to enter their therapeutic hydrotherapy program (they need an Rx from an MD, fancy that)... and amazing visits with beloveds coming up in the next few WEEKS! Not only Tony, Ali & Ruthie from Scotland.... but my high school chum Cynthia this coming Wednesday to Friday. We haven't seen one another in 20 years as she and her family live in Guatemala. I'm clearing the decks and keeping my dance cards close to the Lord and my heart, one day at a time.

I sip my late afternoon Earl Gray tea. I thank God for another breath, another day.

how it goes today

2011-08-16T11:47:00.006-04:00

I have been home over 2 weeks from those rollicking, tempestuous and healing 10 days at UCSF Medical Center.

I am breathing God's natural air with my one favorably functional left lung. I take no supplemental oxygen, to which I had been home- and car-tethered in the weeks prior to the July 25th ambulance ride over the Golden Gate Bridge. In ICU at one point I was on 20 liters/minute. They weaned me to two and today I have none but God's!

Over three weeks of severe lower leg edema, attended to in ICU with a massaging compression device I dubbed the "Vibrating Storm Trooper GoGo Boots," has completely healed. My Sunday Night Oikos Group were all over me for that one! Sausage legs found her skinny ankles again. I'm walkin'!

I am slowly learning how to sleep through the night again, often with a little 2am nudge of 10mg. Oxycodone. It helps. I am letting God show me how to artfully rest and not have a personal agenda about what's "good" for me. I'm praying my way through this.

I am taking strong oral steroids in the morning: Dexamethasone. I agreed to this in the hospital as a prayerful investigative protocol. Basically they hijack my mornings with heart palpitations and disorientation. They are purportedly shrinking the tumors. I pray over them and hang on tight. By Noonish I start to feel slightly normal again.

I indulge. One of the hooks (hospitals can sure shrink a gal's consciousness) in being moved from UCSF ICU to "11Long" was being told, "You'll get ice cream". I have been health nut girl for most of my adult life. I got home and didn't tiptoe through the Whole Foods frozen section for organic agave-sweetened num nums. I went straight for the Dryers from the local drug store. Bring on that wheat and dairy! I flopped into a gooey bog of yaaaa sensory gratification. "You can't eat sugar! It feeds cancer cells!" Well. Eff that. Lately easing up because my body is starting to nudge in a more wholesome direction, I loved caving in.... Oh, and don't get me going on DAIRY after 2-1/2 years. Sorry, China Study and casein implications.... Yogurt, cultured cottage cheese, Manchego, Feta salad dressings.... hmmmmmmmm!

An afternoon nap is a glorious God gift.

I continue in clarity about boundaries and unfettered communications. Many beloveds continue to view me as what I call the pre-hospital Diane.... oxygen-deprived, unable to climb stairs, gasping going into the next room. I was given glorious assistance and needed it. Post-UCSF Diane welcomes friends with whom to do things, not so much to do things for me. It's a pretty significant difference. I praise GOD for this! Simply being able to take real showers for the 1st time in five weeks is heavenly.

I'll have my 2nd follow-up appointment this coming Monday back at UCSF, driven in by a friend from St. Paul's. The visiting nurses and other medical personnel from "Sutter VNA and Hospice" come by periodically, as well. I am one of their low-maintenance peeps. I love this.

I give thanks to the LORD. Thank You, o Holy One.

Jesus Lives

2011-08-16T11:04:00.004-04:00

He lives and reigns and calls!

Top to bottom, that's Ruthie Whitfield with Alison Sheriffs-Brown; the photo below is of Ali and her husband Tony Brown. Most of you reading this know that these are three of my best friends in the entire world who live in the Scottish Highlands. For 20 years I've come and gone, tried to emigrate, lived for bits of time. Their arms have always been open, their hearts, their kitchens. The kettle is always on.

They are flying out in early September to spend a week with me here in northern Marin County. It will be Tony & Ali's first trip to America and Ruthie's 2nd, which featured (sic) a night at a "Y" in the Tenderloin in 1990. "You are NOT staying in the Tenderloin this time," I said.

This journey dream prayer began while I was at UCSF, from emails and mobile phone calls and "this is what's UP with my life now, beloveds..." to "I want to see you again." As Tony said to me on the phone just yesterday, it is all coming together with grace. And after they'd bought their tickets at the local "Beaver Travel" agency in Forres, Ali spied Jesus. "Look!" she whooped. It's the Lord's deep Pockets bringing us all together.

As my sweet Novato red house does not boast a guest suite, I discovered that for the very same price as a rack rate Best Western right off the Hwy. 101 corridor, there were lusciously compelling Vacation Rentals!

Here is where my beloved friends will stay in early September. What do you think? A boxy hotel room or a Moroccan-themed villa right on the lagoon with a hot tub and gourmet kitchen?

As well I've eyed three restaurants so far to which I MUST take us: (1) Boca (Argentinian) here in southern Novato, (2) Harmony Restaurant in Mill Valley, (3) and Bubba's Diner in San Anselmo.

Here are a few photos from over the years. {LINK-o-mat!}

Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow!

where Light blooms

2011-08-07T19:14:00.005-04:00

I shall Recap: After several years of vague quirky health symptoms and slowly sinking blood counts, roughly between 2003-2007, I was diagnosed with MDS (myelodysplastic syndrome) in November 2007 following my 1st bone marrow biopsy. Almost a year later I landed in the leukemia ward in the Alta Bates Hospital system here in California with an AML diagnosis: Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Nasty-assed one that is. Two harrowing rounds of IV-chemo in 25-day stints, $500K billed to insurance, and salivating oncologists eager to line me up for more more more. At that time, following an uneasy feeling inside of me, I stepped away from conventional cytotoxic cancer care (sic). The blast count had been shot down. I was "in remission". I took that, my faith in Christ Jesus and His Will for my life and a growing commitment to alternative healing protocols for the following 2-1/2 years. I decided against a bone marrow transplant. I wanted quality of life, not a scary tango with graft-versus-host-disease. I wanted GOD's cure, not Big Pharma's cure.

I had for the most part a fantastic 2 years. Yes, the counts slagged along the ground, but as far as I could tell, I was challenged by the chronic MDS and not a relapse of the AML. Carrot juices, green power smoothies, beaucoup dollars worth of custom-chosen supplements each day, week and month, eating with relative purity, praying my heart out, exercising.... living. Living! The beginning of 2011 introduced more see-sawing in my healing path.... some things were not tracking properly. I was beginning to struggle more.

After leaving for a healing road trip in early June, feeling fantastic after 8 days with the Mt. Rainier Clinic up in Gig Harbor, WA, I ambled my way back to California via the Mt. Angel Abbey in Oregon's Willamette Valley.

On June 20th, I lost the ability to take a proper breath.

It has been Mr. Toad's Wild Ride ever since then... and the adventure continues.

I will cut to the chase. Today I have not one but two cancers: A return of the AML in my marrow, and a new T-cell lymphoma (a rare Non-Hodgkins). There is a tumor behind my breastbone that is malignant and has turned my abilities to breathe inside out. The suddenness with which this came on still baffles me. As I have written, I had spent a shrinking 5-6 weeks with piss-poor pseudo-medical care scattered throughout the local environs until Sunday, July 24th when I landed on the floor of my living room crying out to God and phoning dear friends from my Sunday night Home Church group. I got them out of bed at 6:30am. The local Novato Community Hospital took me in, ruffled my feathers and then said, "You are not dying on our clock. What you have is serious. No one in Marin County can help you. We're transporting you to UCSF Medical Center NOW."

I believe that this intervention and God's Holy Grace have saved my life.

I was in an ICU bed with wires attached to both sides of me. I could not rise without nursing assistance. Teams of physicians trooped the halls... the ICU team, the Cardiology team, the oncology team with their ever-present black clouds around them. Each focused on the varying parts of me, with the cancer chasers at the core. When the oncology team shuffled into my ICU room and splurted out my dire straights, they said, "We can begin chemo tonight. We can put you back into Induction Chemotherapy for the AML, which will not cure you but buy you some time. We can treat the lymphoma differently and concurrently. What is your choice? It's this or hospice."

I stared at the doom bringers. "Lord....?" I thought and prayed.

"I'll tell you tomorrow," I replied very softly. "I'm not making that manner of decision just like THIS!"

And I already knew.

NO. I do not want your "treatment". I will go home to palliative home hospice care when I am able enough to leave the hospital. I will not attempt to buy time from you. God has my life in His hands. He will bring me Home to Him when He chooses. Not you.

And that is where I am today.

I'm not quoting numbers. I have 3-4" of papers and charts and labs. I've not looked through them. I am not concerned with that. I am operating on one lung, which I am told is done ably by many. The right loculated pokey is simply non-functional at this point. I have had fluid removed from around my heart (!) - a "pericardial effusion" manifested that was operated on - and also from around the lung area. At one point in the hospital I had three drainage tubes hooked up to me, one heart and two lung. I have NONE today. At one point in the hospital, after weeks at home on 24/7 oxygen (5-6 liters/minute), I was on 20 liters/minute. Weaned down to 2, I haven't had supplemental oxygen in well over a week PRAISE be to GOD! I walk slowly. And I walk. I take oral steroids every morning, a protocol I felt a 70% willingness to do. They're supposed to help shrink the tumors plural (alas). There are side effects. After over 2 months of sleep deprivation, I am learning how to sleep again. In peace. When I awaken in the night, I pray and sometimes simply give praise and thanks to God.

I am surrounded by love and support of friends. My first few days back in my own home became a whirlwind of utter JOY! Meals out, laughter, fellowship, breaking bread with my beloveds in Christ Jesus. Spontaneity. Yes!

There is much I wish to uncover, share and explore in this space from my heart. Taking in your love, your thoughts, your candles, your prayers. Opinions will fly. That is life. I am not sitting in my prosaic rural Novato home waitin' da die. I'm not flinging an ego-sword of outrage, proclaiming, "I'll show YOU!" I don't have a road map. I have the Lord God Whom I love and Who has never abandoned me for a half-breath. I am curious. I am sometimes afraid.

I am surrounded by the Love of God and of the brethren. I pray and drink tea. And I can't wait for my next blog post.... for an exciting gift that is "planned" (ah, the catch-word!) for early September. DELIGHT. Tee hee! Wait and see.... breathe and laugh!

I am alive today. I will be alive after my earthly body says farewell. I will be as present with you all, my friends, as I am able.

gimme sugar and that sweet love of God

2011-08-03T18:45:00.003-04:00

Here's my num-num place holder with sweetness visions dancing from years ago as I bounced around Scotland on one of my many succulent journeys there. I'm home from 10 days in the hospital into which I was ambulanced on Sunday, July 24th with five gasping words to each 1/8th breath I'd become used to over the prior slowly shrinking 6 weeks. I spent 6 days in the ICU ward at UCSF Medical Center before being transferred to "11Long" - the cancer ward. If you're sick, go to UCSF. Marin County could not help me any more and in fact their brightest and best seemed to be colluding to scrinch my symptomology into bite-sized neo-fixes which were not helping me in any meaningful manner.

If you can't breathe, you can't move. You can't think. Cognitive function slowly erodes. Your best thinking and praying aren't clear and in fact are muddying themselves a la putting the little froggie in the cold water pot and slowly turning up the heat. If you do it gradually enough, rumor has it that it will cook to death before it realizes it. No drawn butter for me today, by the grace of God, thank You!

I am home. Jim and Jane brought me here via pill bottle pickup at the local über-organic Pharmaca and a salad 'n soup Whole Foods run. I sip a soda. I moved the breathing machines (all 4 of 'em) to the sun porch. I will sink into quiet, into ahhh, and share as I am able over the coming whatever bits of time. My fingers dance a happy beat all 10 fingers, lost to me in hospital land with my otherwise extremely able iPhone4 (get one!). Tonight my Sunday night Oikos Beloveds and I break Naan bread at a local Indian restaurant here in Novato. Pile the table high, give thanks, and give thanks again.

Thank You Lord that I am home. Thank You Lord for showing me Home. I crave Your strength today. In Jesus' Holy and Most Blessed Name, Amen.

Our Lady of Perpetual Help

2011-07-23T00:11:00.002-04:00

I was given this icon as a cloisonné-like medallion by Bette Campbell, a long-time friend and the mother of Susan, one of my high school chums. She's been back in my life since health challenges got a bit too vocal 2-1/2 years ago. I wear it almost every day, sometimes with and sometimes without an Ethiopian or pounded pewter cross. I've had numerous people stop me and comment. It seems to be a beacon. SHE seems to be a beacon! I once asked Bette where she got it. She beamed and said, "I don't recall!" Perhaps a Catholic gift shop on a tour of California missions?

Ok - out of the way right now - I do NOT have the biopsy results from July 15th! My oncologist's office does not, either. Evidently the slides have been scurried off to UCSF Medical Center where they're doing whatever they do to come up with a result we can work with. I'll never hold back on y'all! Once I know, I'll post it.

Thursday at 8:45am, dear Brigitte from St. Paul's and my choir came by to take me to Novato Hospital for my scheduled Thoracentesis... I believe my 4th since June 22nd. The 24/7 drainage tube for the loculated right side does a paltry but consistant job of getting out what it can. But imagine your lungs in one of those 1940's B-horror movies, where the walls close in from some wretched dungeon you've fallen into. After each "tap", whatever the amount of fluid removed, it begins to seep back in again. Even with plastic tubing up my nose and this wretched but necessary O2 machine giving me now 4 liters/minute, I haven't had a proper breath since the morning of June 20th. So the "tap" (Thoracentesis) is an ongoing need until the nightmare of the pleural effusion is completely healed (PLEASE GOD). And nine days prior, Novato Radiology had flat-out refused to try. Too many pockets in the loculations (think bubble wrap). I left in tears.

I was desperate on Thursday. And praying. I'd not met Dr. Chinn before but his eyes beamed warmth. Bent over my familar table and pillow, they started up the ultrasound images. Same old same old. They shook their heads and clucked, "I'm sorry... we're sorry... we can't do anything here." I tried not to weep. I looked up. "Please. Is there ANYTHING you can do to help me breathe?" Dr. Chinn then looked at my LEFT lung, which weeks before had been clear. It was not. "We have some fluid here," he said, "and I'll try to see how much I can get out. Are you okay with that?" I'd have been okay if he'd hung me by my toes and danced around the room to give me some more breath.

He also noticed my medallion. "I see you have Our Lady," he said softly. "Yes," I said. "She helps me. She really does."

He got out nearly one-third of a liter of fluid around my left lung. "You're breathing better already!" chirped one of the assistant nurses. I could feel it - a shift, an ease of a little more freedom. "Thank you," I said grasping his hand.

He then walked around to my front and said, "May I pray with you?" I was stunned, elated. "Yes PLEASE!" And this wonderful doctor in a hospital room prayed with me, asking for healing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. I was crying softly. What kind of miracle of God is THAT? A praying doctor!

I have a standing order for more of these. I phoned today. I see him again this Tuesday. You bet I asked for him by name!

The nurses gave me new information: "You've lost a lot of electrolytes today. Please pick up some Gatorade or Pedialyte, and rest." "I'm always resting!" I said. Still, I asked for a wheelchair to get me out and back to dear Brigitte's car. I was very happy and very weak.

I am on my knees grateful for my helper angels, not all of whom I've acknowledged in here. Back at the house, Brigitte swept my front steps that I can now barely ascend, put a small load of washing out on my wooden dryer on the deck, refilled my hummingbird feeder for me. She'd run into the local drugstore for my electrolyte goo while I waited in the car. And she picked some of my blackberries which are beginning to ripen. I insisted she take the small container. "This is the LEAST I can do to say Thank you!"

Carol L. came by shortly thereafter, bringing some of her Esau's Pottage (lentil stew). Oh how I cherish the gifts of my friends' homemade food! We visited for an hour, until by 3pm my eyelids grew heavy and I went horizontal on the sofa. "I'll go now," said Carol. Ah, rest time, I thought.

I stayed there for the next 16 hours.

My feet and lower legs have become sausages. I have never seen them so bloated and bulbous. My now-two lymph drainage sessions will hopefully help. I lift and ice them as I am able. Exercise? Sometimes I gasp going into the next room. The gym I grew bored with I now yearn for. I stare at the hills and fantasize walking them again, vigorously.

I pray to Our Blessed Lady more now. I need a Good Mother. The Mother of God, who can intercede for me and all of us, is a new prayer companion and spiritual succor in my life. Jesus, sometimes now I'm talkin' to Your Mother! And you know what? You All hear me.

Help me please to hear You.

the day after

2011-07-20T17:21:00.007-04:00

It was a marvelous day of goodness.... considering I limp, whine, gasp and frown. I have beloved friends!

Pat C. from St. Paul's has appointed herself as one of my more energetic errand angels. Retired yet fit enough to begin her days with 60 push-ups (!?) plus gardening, she has been over several times. She arrived yesterday at 11:30 am with flowers and homemade chocolate cookies. Praise God! Putting a load of laundry in downstairs in my basement - or cellar, as her Midwestern sensibility calls it - we then ambled out to my first appointment of a Lymph Drainage Massage in San Rafael. My friend Stacey had found the studio recently. When I saw the website and the lymph drainage service, I did not hesitate to phone. My lymphatic system is a nightmare and I need HELP!

Nirmal's (Neer-MAHL) studio is in an old Vic up two flights of stairs. It took at least 5 minutes with multiple heaving stops for me to ascend them, Pat holding onto my portable O2 canister. Nirmal and I weren't even sure if we could do anything, between the drainage tube in my back, O2 up the nose and my inability to lie flat on my back.

We were surprised and delighted to discover that we could. It felt lusciously, quietly healing. I will be back on Friday, with Pat at my front door!

I haven't driven in almost a week. I could, I think. I won't - just yet.

Then to Novato Hospital for a blood draw to make sure I have the right numbers for tomorrow's PLEASE GOD Thoracentesis. The phlebotomist was on it - one look at my veins and she could see they were a piece of work. She was a champ.

Last stop Whole Foods - this time me staying in the car while Pat grabbed a few items for me. My world slowly spirals smaller. Can I Welcome the small? Can I breathe into it, even though I ache for true breath as I'd known it? I struggle. Pat brought me home, put away my groceries, hung out my wet clothes onto my drying rack on the deck, and scooted off.

I collapsed on the couch for an hour and 20 minutes.

My birthday's not over! From numerous phone calls I wasn't able to answer, to the requisite 35 Birthday chirps on Facebook to emails galore, the LOVE poured in including a visit from my fellow alto choir mate Kari who brought her utterly delectable homemade hummus, raw veggies, corn chips and chocolate cake. We chatted and snarfed until there was an unexpected knock at the door - my choir director and his wife, Mike and Peggy! Ha ha; Kari had spilled the beans. We had a little party of four with candles, laughter and fun. Kari dashed up and down my basement stairs bringing the touched-up laundry from the dryer. A delivery arrived of flowers with balloons, from my precious friends Chris & Alice in Seattle (and Jane, Emma & Rosie, the four-leggeds). Balloons!

Love. I gasp and am loved.

The unexpected visit from Mike and Peggy touched me in a deeper manner: For the first time in years, I can be "dropped in on". Ain't that what LIFE is all about? None of this "let me check my Day Timer/iCal/whatever and we'll make some time...." I live that way normally. This is almost country life - just come on by, pull up a chair, you know how to make yourself at home.

I'm supposed to hear the results of the chest biopsy today. I've had many, many friend angels come over the past blur of weeks, visit, bring love, bring food, help me with things I grow weaker to do on my own. When will I hit bottom so I can rise again?

I'd like to start now.

Birthday girl

2011-07-19T18:45:00.001-04:00

55 used to be a perky speed limit. Now it's considered rather slow.

I am slow lately. I shall write more soon. For now, savoring the love, the cards, the favors, the errands, the gifts and the prayers of beloveds.

And begging God for the grace of a healing.

post-op

2011-07-16T15:37:00.005-04:00

I think but do not recall if this is St. George slaying a dragon. It's from one of the many side chapels at Exeter Cathedral in Devonshire. I need that imagery right now - good vanquishing bad, all of those dualistic paradigms that spur flickers of hope in me.

By 9:30pm Thursday night it was fermez la bouche! No eatie, no drinkie. Food I can do without for awhile but I'm a water sipper so that part was hard. A night of neo-hell getting 2-hour blips of sleep on my sofa. Up by 6am and eager for my dear friend Carol L., in her Episcopalian priest's collar for good hospital oomph. She came earlier than 8am as I'd silently wished, God bless her.

The inability to take a proper breath even on supplemental oxygen as well as the absence of long, lush deep sleep are wearing on me. I cried. She counseled with gentle but clear wisdom, and then off we went to the jolly Novato Hospital.

Poke, prod, test, get on down, lay on bed-gurney, jealously eye Carol's commuter cup java. Nurses came and went. The 3rd attempt to get a needle in my arm succeeded while I cried and Carol let me squeeze her hands to bits. "My veins are heavily scarred and they roll," I told them clearly from the start. Wouldn't believe me, wouldja? They'd get fooled by a nice fat one and then... needle goes to the wall. Ah, but they poked me with a little lidocaine first and that did ease my oww-owww-owww. Finally I'm wired, still eyeing Carol's secret morning drink.

Dr. Koenker came in and explained the biopsy procedure. That's what I was there for. I don't often beg but now I was when I added, heaving, "Doctor, I can't breathe properly. Help me, please. If you could tap me and take some of this fluid out that they refused to do on Monday, please... I can't live like this." He listened compassionately and explained with no rancor that there really was nothing he could do. Carol stood up and advocated for me: "She can't breathe. Can't you help her?" He could not. I sank back into the bed. After he left my room, Carol added, "You know, he's honest and clear and that is a good thing."

Let go.

My blessed friend Julie L., who has just published her first (but not last!) book entitled "Disrupted: On Fighting Death & Keeping Faith," surprised me with her arrival. She brought a copy for me and signed it. We hugged and chatted, and then she left.

My sister Jean arrived soon after, who was to caretake me the remainder of the day. We weren't raised together and have a not insignificant age difference. Same mom. Yeah, THAT mom!

Off to the operating room. Gasping through two CT scans of abdomen and pelvis because I was lying almost flat on my back which I am virtually unable to do. The nurses and techs were lovely. One gal from Mississippi with that creamy butter Southern accent. Dr. Koenker close by. So either before or after the Versed & Fentynol began to drip in, he said, "You know, I think I'll try to take out a little bit of this fluid and adjust your drainage tube, as well. It won't be much but I'll do what I can." I don't remember if I cried but I grasped his arm; "Thank you SO MUCH." Sometimes when I surrender, goodness can find me.

Poke poke here, poke poke there. I wasn't fully out; there was little pain. And then it was over, me with a little bandage on my breastbone where we think by Wednesday we'll have some news as to the nature of that growth.

That morning pre-op phone calls were made to Metzger's assistant Gloria. When done, I had a prescription for oral morphine (told best at relaxing lungs themselves) and Atavan. I had her assurance that she would put in a standing order with Novato Hospital Radiology for me to call the day before and march my little heinie in there for a tap. I'm concerned that they have a tendency to refuse, but I will counter with a new tendency to insist. And phone numbers of lung specialists. A trail of possible solutions is beginning to take shape.

Jean was a champ. She drove me around, we quibbled in only a piddling manner (we are related, after all), I got dee drugs. I was so weak she had pushed me in a wheelchair both at the hospital and pharmacy - a first for me. By 7:30pm I was curled up on my sofa with a first hit of morphine. She watched me breathe as I dozed, deemed me safe, and left by 9pm. My 2nd morphine dose was at 1am. Early this morning I remembered; I needed anti-nausea meds when I got this !*#%! in the hospital! Let's just leave it at that. The bottle of foul-tasting liquid will be hidden for extreme emergencies.

I miss my mojo. I miss dashing around with verve and energy. Today's exhaustion allows me to say, "You're recovering from surgery; chill." Carol will stop by later and there are many I can phone. YOU are beaming me love, wishes, lit candles, encouragement.... you! My landlady (a Master Gardener) left a vase of her roses by my back door. I haven't said the Daily Office in ages; most of my prayers now are "Jesus!" when I'm heaving or saying The Jesus Prayer when I am frightened:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have Mercy on me, a sinner.

"O God, You are my Rock and my Salvation, to You I cling during this dark hour of tribulation. Hold my hand tightly, for I lack even that little strength I need to hold on to Your Hand."

are you a good cloud or a bad cloud?

2011-07-12T09:31:00.004-04:00

Nearly 12 hours in bed - well, my new "bed" of the living room sofa. My $300 Home Consignment gooshy fun oversized why did I buy this thing? is now my comfy 2nd bed. I readily slip from one side to the other and even the effing drainage tube tweaks only for a few seconds. Yesterday I awoke feeling druggy jet-lagged since I had pseudo-slept in one-hour blips for perhaps 6 hours. Horrid. Utterly horrid. It was Monday morning, but by gum I was on my way to SOLUTIONS, dammit!

By 3:15 pm, another round of mayhem and no solutions. Drove to Novato Community Hospital with an E-Ticket from Metzger's office for interventional radiology. Waiting for x-rays. Waiting for Alex bleeping Metzger's office to return from their fat 'n sassy one-hour lunch. (If this is an emergency, hang up and dial 9-1-1 now. I don't want to dial 9-1-1 now, you bastards, I want to talk to YOU). Curled up in my car in the Hospital parking lot because it was better to be there than the waiting room and I didn't have the oomph to drive the 4.3 miles home or to even swerve over to Starbucks in the adjacent shopping center. Lost connections re-establishing a flow of "next!" with radiology, then soon back in there for the thoracentesis I was now desperate for…. suck some of this out of my lung area, I can't breathe, please help me! And then PLEASE replace the tube with a larger one, too!

They could do neither. "You have loculations…. little separated pockets where the fluid is held. If the tube or even our needle goes into one, it doesn't take the fluid out of the others. We can't help you." I was weeping, which has now become really hard since I can't take a decent breath.

A Church friend on hold to visit since the morning was blown off for this? He'll come today, but really…. but really…..

My nose is slammed up against a wall of what next? I spent four days of hell in Marin General Hospital, to which I. Will. Not. Return. What part of NO don't you people understand? Yet I inherited my current now questionable duo of Metzger the oncologist and O'Dorisio the thoracic surgeon from there. Wanna see 'em again? Go back to MGH. I'm not going back. Vee have a problem. I say "no" and I get that veiled look of "You're not very cooperative, are you? Bad girl. We are the doctors. We tell YOU what to do, remember?"

Like hell you do.

Metzger is on vacation 'til the 21st. His office staff - you know, the people who answer the phones - were plucked out of some stoner haze middle school. And only yesterday I discovered that even if I went to Santa Rosa to be seen by O'Dorisio, he couldn't help my breathing any more than has been done.

The nose is up against the wall and it hurts.

The CT-guided biopsy for the mediastinal mass is still on for this Friday the 15th.

I have an appointment with Seattle Cancer Wellness Center for Thursday, July 21st. {Thank you, Anonymous}. One afternoon. Am I able to even fly? Book it? Ask for someone to come with me? I feel like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, who just wants to go home again… I just want to BREATHE again. Screw the maybe cancer and their long-syllable'd diagnoses…. I want to effing BREATHE! And nobody in conventional care seems able to help me today.

I will sleep and pray and suck supplemental O2 and have my friends come over one at a time and do one load of laundry one at a time and see where this goes. One day, one hour, one teary breath at a time.

some news

2011-07-06T19:26:00.004-04:00

Each day I'm too baffled and overwhelmed to write about what's been going on. Each day brings more details, options and sidetrips, making trying to spit this out a more gargantuan task by the day. I am also severely impaired and have been for weeks, which makes doin' stuff just that much harder.

My early June Northwestern healing journey was going along fabulously well until I landed with the Oregon monks gasping to take a proper breath. That was Monday, June 20th. Stumbling through an inability to get my head around this sudden onset of whackjob symptomology, even supported by phone by two of my naturopaths, I limped towards home with a 7-hour side pause at the Rogue Valley Medical Center ER (Medford, Oregon) on Wednesday, June 22nd. What do you MEAN my right lung area is filled with fluid? A pleural effusion? What do you MEAN you've suctioned out over a litre of fluid and more remains? What's this with some "fatty tissue" you're spying in an area behind my breastbone, all of you using such long medical names to confound the easily perturbed? I had full body CT scans four months ago and except for the mildest ?? or two, was FINE!

WTF?

Put on your racin' space hat. Two more ERs including a 4-day hospital stay from HELL (hear ye, hear ye - Marin General sucks!), one thoracic surgeon and one oncologist doing phone and bedside dances with me, test after test after…. you get the picture. I sit here now in my own Novato home, having begged to be released on July 2nd, with a "to go" garden hose attached to my rib/back area feeding a continuous fluid drain. I have breathing apparatuses because when one lung is virtually non-functional, it's really hard to get enough oxygen. And the dratted little oncologist - hunters that they area - had the audacity tell me that there is a 90% probability that I have an extremely rare and aggressive form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Here's its name: "precursor T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma- leukemia". Less than 1% of all non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

It's not the leukemia! It's not the myelodysplasia! It's connected but separate.

This does not make me feel better.

Now I'll copy-and-paste from the emails I've been sending out…..:

Oncologist Dr. Alex Metzger had sent samples of the pleural fluid to Los Angeles for some test called "flow cytometry." Prior to that tests of the fluid showed NO signs of malignancy! It should and will be followed with a CT-guided biopsy of the tissue mass in the anterior mediastinum (behind the breastbone)… besides the fluid, there are also "ceptations"… pockets of fluid… bla bla bla. This came on suddenly but evidently has been growing for 4-9 months!

I asked him, "Without chemo, how much time do I have?" And he replied, "With OR withOUT chemo, 4-12 months."

"Don't some people LIVE through this?" I said. "Yes, they do, but we don't have great treatments for it."

I'm not getting chemo.

One of the "WHY?"s drips with irony. The oncologist told me, "The primary cause of secondary cancers is the treatment for the first."

Of course as I had learned that over two years ago, I slowly stepped away from cytotoxic therapies in early 2009.

My thoracic surgeon Dr. James O'Dorisio encouraged me to get a 2nd opinion. This I will do, of course. First order of business is having my lung area finish draining so I can breath properly again.

I cry mostly when I pray. My worship communities have been glorious in offering support. My focus TODAY is: (1) Get my lungs drained, healed and functioning again. (2) Get the biopsy and CT scans of pelvis and abdomen this coming week at Novato Community Hospital - hey, at least it's as an outpatient! (3) Pray and make decisions based on the grace of God and not my own intermittent hysteria. From last Saturday's "terminal" news I have since trolled around online for holistic cures for aggressive lymphoma. I have made initial plans for last months on the planet as well as considered that this is a high order test that I may in fact live through with an unbelievable amount of work and grace.

I am open to a miracle of healing as well as growing in acceptance of death's presence in the not-too-distant future. I have said that I will go Home when the Lord calls me. Funny how I have an opportunity to mean that now.

If you're a prayin' person, I ask for your prayers.

I feel like a spinnin' top or a dreidel

2011-07-04T10:37:00.004-04:00

As well I feel like a teenager sprawled on the floor, listening to a song that says it for me! I suspect I'm being a bit harsh with myself. However before I say even more, this song blurts it out it for me today. If I was a better Christian I'd be quoting Scripture, to which I return daily.

This is the best recorded version I could find without uploading one of my iTunes tracks to some external site. Why is it so hard to upload a sound file to these blogs ANYways? So you get a static photo but the best recording by one of the best songwriters of the last 100 years. I covered this song when I sang with my Seattle trio OWL and could get lost in the angst for those few minutes... with only 2 guitars and keyboards!

We had fun.

There's a huge sea change going on and I'm still trying to navigate it not to mention write about it. This is a cherished spot for me to be real. I shall be articulate as well as I can as soon as I am able. Prayers are RECEIVED, blessed ones!

It's the 4th of July today. Go out and wave a sparkler, put on your 1950's best, eat hot dogs and potato salad and ENJOY this day for all the reasons you can. Including because you have it.

a needle in the grooves

2011-06-24T10:54:00.003-04:00

This is my place holder 'til I rescramble my consciousness to catch up with the unexpected Tilt-A-Whirl that began only days after leaving the Clinic and those blessed praying Sisters. I had to look through a half dozen videos of people singing way off key to find this choice morsel from long ago.

I'm back in Novato. It's been a ride.

Healing Prayer with three Sisters

2011-06-16T14:05:00.009-04:00

I am presently in an internet wasteland of bandwidth starvation, east of Sedro Woolley, WA where neither satellite nor mobile hotspot can be roused for more than a hiccup. A simple photo I uploaded took 10 unsure minutes to make it. However it presses on my heart to share from my journal writings about a powerful experience on Monday night, June 13th.... that on a level I find difficult to quantify, is in another realm from "all that I do" in rebuilding my health. I share it unedited and from my heart:

"Last night the Sisters did Healing Prayer over me in their precious small chapel here. I'd asked if they were doing Evening Prayer, and Pat began to describe their "Faith Sharing" in a way that told me it was Lectio Divina. And THEN… dear Sr. Carol Ann asked me again if I would like to have Healing Prayer. "YES!" And it would take the place of the others.

It is one of the most powerful healing communal prayer services I have encountered. Sr. Carol Ann led me through the visual walk in a Scriptural account I felt guided to - the woman with the "issue of the blood." (It was that or the story of Queen Esther). I was led in the Healing Prayer to the scene… to seeing Jesus surrounded by the crowd… to making my way through the crowd… who looked at me askance? Who of the woman gently grabbed my arm and helped me through? Who others of the faithful nodded, knowing that to Whom I felt compelled to touch is God Himself?

As I touched His Garment from being close to the ground, squatting or semi-kneeling, I FELT the POWER COME INTO ME. I imagined the Light of Christ in a nearly visceral surge. And when He turned and said, "Who touched me?"… I was a mixture of things, from feeling no fear, yes, it WAS me, o Lord!, to a sense of a little girl thinking, please don't take this away from me. Please don't take this back. It was an ancient fear, from my childhood… that whatever was given to me was never assured as permanent, as safe. The winds could shift at any moment and whim could rob me in a heartbeat. That brushed past me briefly. And then Jesus took my hand and led me away from the crowd… as that wasn't really "part" of the Scriptural narrative, I struggled a wee bit and my visualizations were not crystal clear. I remember thanking Him by kissing his hand at the end of our brief talk, as J would Fr. Tom in the Sunday Night Oikos group. I had tears running down my face at this point. And we'd all held hands while Carol Ann led us in the visualization.

I feel more energized this morning than I have in some time."

That blessing was from my three days at The Hermitage Place in Tacoma, WA, my next step respite after five days with the Benedictine Sisters at St. Placid Priory in Lacey. The three Franciscan Sisters have no website, no blog. They have a brochure. They have the Lord's loving welcome and gracious peace. Some photos I took are HERE (click on the LINK, as usual).

My CBCs from Thursday, June 9th are sealed in an envelope at my request. As much as I pray and lean on the Lord God, I grow weary of my nose-ring knee-jerk upon seeing "the numbers". The numbers can wait. This day is at hand and blessed be God, it is a very nice one indeed.

quieten down

2011-06-09T23:20:00.004-04:00

The two-day drive north was arduous. I believe I was catatonic on Grace-infused auto-pilot for at least the first day to Grants Pass and certainly through much of the second day to this RESPLENDENT in its pure peace Benedictine Priory in Lacey, Washington. The image is from a little forest behind the retreat center, which is a short walk from the priory itself. Here are some nature photos I took.

My room is called "Gertrude." Her inspiration is "Gertrude the Great of Helfta," a 13th century German monastic, mystic and theologian. No, I hadn't heard of her, either. I was rather hoping for a more well-known icon such as Hildegard or even Julian. Each saint's room has a saying, an encapsulating sentence or two. Gertrude's is this:

I require
nothing
from you
but to come to Me
empty
that I may
fill you.

That pretty much nailed me right in the heart. With all of my keening about my blood counts, having these words on the wall of my small "monk's cell" are reminders.... are reminders.

The sisters are dear. I have joined them for 5pm Mass all three days (mornings & evenings, that is) that I have been here so far. Some members of other denominations are rather strict with cross-pollination. Here I am welcome to share in the Blessed Sacrament. By the time I leave, I'll even be saying Catholic-pronounced Amens! (They say AYY-men; Episcopalians say ah-men). The Lord's Supper precedes the evening meal at 5:30pm, which I've joined every night but tonight, taking a grateful plateful (couldn't resist) to sup in silence. They understand silence. One dear sister in particular has half an eye on me. "We're praying for you," she shared. After the post-meal Evening Praise service (a bit like Evening Prayer but consisting mostly of chanted psalms), she also said, softly and not intrusively, "Are you feeling fragile tonight?" Oh melt my heart with kindness.

SO FAR (ya-ha-HAAAA!) my "treatments" are going well, which today consists of me not feeling horrible as I did during the April round. (I realize that that may change). Yesterday was 50 grams of IV Vitamin C plus a "liver treatment" (galvanizing current sent via little pads). Today I had my IV H202 - 3% pharmaceutical grade hydrogen peroxide. I also had - gasp! - a mild spinal adjustment. I'm not only NOT feeling horrible, I'm feeling rather well. Tired, of course, but essentially unruffled.

I require

nothing

from you

but to come to Me

empty

that I may

fill you.

I looked more closely

2011-06-03T14:28:00.005-04:00

I was wrong in my last post. The fledglings and parent are NOT "exactly the same size". What I found even more touching is to see that the babies are quite plump while the parent looks thin and bedraggled. In fact I'm seeing two and three little babes fluttering on the nearby branch while "mom" frantically pecks away at my suet feeder and then stuffs the goods into their squawking, open mouths. I wasn't able to capture a focused photo of the gaggle - my Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX01 is a bit long in the tooth if extremely high class for its vintage. One geeky perk at a time; a fat, 14 megapixel Canon PowerShot is on my radar.

Monday I leave for the Northwest. My blood counts are down again. I don't know why. Today I am less depressed about it and more "stroppy" as my British friends might say. If the numbers descend to zero, I know that God still loves and looks after me.

Now to fine tune this trek......

please feed me, then teach me to fly

2011-05-29T20:31:00.008-04:00

I had been trying for weeks to capture the sight of momma bird feeding her nearby young'un from the suet & seed cake dangling outside my office window... and I can now edit my post from "couldn't do it" to "here's a cropped shot for you!" Thank You, God!

I can tell when they're close by, now recognizing the insistent cries of the young, "FEED ME, MOMMY!!" As well the titmice & chickadees in particular do this little wing flutter as they beg. It's hilarious. Me me me! Now now now! I'm HUNGRY!

What's odd is that both parent and offspring are exactly the same size. Were it not for the dance of relationship, I could not tell the difference between the two. They LOOK grown up enough to fend for themselves, but they keep cheep-cheeping and mom (I presume - could be dad!) keeps bringing over her full beak and stuffing it into the eager mouth.

Looks can be deceiving. I'm not enough of a birder to know when the parent will finally chirp, "Hey! You're on your own, kiddo. Do it."

It's a gift when a parent will care and it's a gift when a parent insists that it's time to grow UP.

God leads me to more and more surrender, which trims the frayed lines of my self will and, with irony and grace, finds me growing in the greater strength that comes from His indwelling Holy Spirit. When I throw back my shoulders and proclaim, "I can do it myself!" (or some cartoon variation .... you've heard the old joke: What's the last thing a redneck says before s/he dies? "Hey y'all, Watch this!"), I am learning to discern between God's empowerment and the rising tension when I huff 'n puff 'n go screaming into my next great idea. I have a lifetime of practice in the latter (gushing self will) and am learning the nuances of praying for the former - surrender to God's most gracious Spirit, Will, grace, guidance and empowerment.

When I was in flight training in the early 1990's, I just 'knew' that there was liberation on the other side of my terrors doing stalls, particularly power-on stalls. (For non-pilots, that's when you raise the nose of an airplane, reduce its speed and make it stop flying. You need to be really REALLY fast getting out of that one). "If I can only do this over and over and OVER again, someday I'll stop being so afraid." My heart would threaten to burst out of my chest every time. I'd keep doing it, hyperventilate, and dream on.

I no longer fly. Yes, I miss it. I never got over the fear of stalls. God was not a core part of my BEING. Stretch with me here for a moment: If God HAD guided me to BE a pilot, I wholeheartedly believe that with prayer the fears would have melted away.

More and more today, even when the dark side throws in taunts of any variety - my health of course is a ready mark - and I notice the restriction in my mind and heart, I begin to PRAY my way THROUGH it. My anxiety-prone neuroses begin to melt. Really! Is this cool or what?

A week from tomorrow I'll be heading up I-5 to Gig Harbor for Round Two of naturopathic immune-building work. I am SO EXCITED about this trip! My last post has all the juicy links. And today.... today.... I give happy thanks to God.

Northwest bound again next month

2011-05-11T15:38:00.003-04:00

I'm goin' back for MORE! My follow-up with Dr. Kolbo and the Mt. Rainier Clinic begins when I gently motor off in my own trusty steed on Monday, June 6th, planning some manner of in-between landing 'round about Grants Pass OR and then arriving in Lacey, WA Tuesday night for a Wednesday morning appointment. I love crafting this journey without the edginess of unwellness. Praise God for that!

Sometimes I need to unhinge my sticky thoughts and think more laterally. At first blush, flying is a no-brainer... it's less than two hours by plane from SFO to SEA and driving takes two days! However, the purported ease of flying turns into a very tiring 8-hour day from leaving my doorstep to arriving in the Northwest, with rides 'n shuttles 'n waiting 'n getting 'n sitting et cetera et cetera all factored in. Neither is eight hours of driving a picnic, however I prefer the coziness of my own car and not worrying about airport pat-downs and evil rental car agency shenanigans. Besides, I can not only pack my VitaMix for continued green smoothie fun but bring home a darling antique Scottish corner table I sold to my Seattle friend Annie years before.

So what's in Lacey, Washington? A prayerful alternative to posh and not inexpensive B&Bs: The St. Placid Priory. Anyone who knows me is aware of my love for staying in monasteries, convents and retreat houses when I travel. I don't think I even looked for the April trip, being as it was thrown together so hurriedly. With the luxury of driving, I began with my friend Google, and there opened the vista of exploration! I started looking in Oregon, where there are three obvious offerings in the Willamette Valley alone: Mt. Angel Monastery, the nearby Benedictine Sisters of Mt. Angel, and Our Lady of Guadalupe Trappist Abbey in Lafayette. What a wealth of community and worshipful riches! I plan to stay in at least one of them en route back to northern California.

After my week getting poked 'n prodded at the Clinic, I'm headed to a rustic retreat in Sedro Woolley that I visited last August, then called Cedar Springs and now called Thrive Wellness Center. While I'll be Herxed again whether I like it or not, heading to the hills for organic raw cuisine, juicing, classes, God in nature and an infrared sauna (the likes of which I've jonesed for for 18 months), wow - I'll glow! Now you know I love and give thanks for my organic, free-range and grass-fed animal protein, however a few days of high-enzyme living foods will be exceptionally healing and well-timed.

I'm praying my way through this journey, breathing...giving thanks... and getting excited! I'm headed back up North for a healthier follow-up rather than in an emergency scenario. If chocolate wasn't crossed off my list I'd celebrate with a truffle!

It is Mother's Day

2011-05-08T19:45:00.004-04:00

I do have a cropped version of this photograph. I didn't want to use that one, all tidied 'n gussied up. Here is my father, my mother and me. While the edges are rough, my friend Stacey did Photoshop out some crinkles.

Sometimes you can do that.

I thought of my mother Helen in Church this morning, how in the last years of her life I still kept her at arm's length. I was sober but not loving Christ as today. My woundology (to coin a phrase I believe originated with Carolyn Myss) had burrowed deep into my layers. I was more concerned with my armor than with an open heart, even if arrows would come flying at it. Had I more compassion and yes, gentle detachment then, I would have different memories. We might've been able to go out for tea or take a walk together. I'm not prepared to unpack why we could not. Not just now.

I didn't, we didn't. She died three days before Princess Diana was killed in August of 1997. Her ashes are interred in southern California. I wrote about that sometime last year (June). I'll let you find it if it calls to you.

This is the photo I uploaded to Facebook, but closer to the original. Mom was a beauty. She did and didn't realize it.

I'm wondering why Mother's and Father's "Days" are separated.

I think of Jesus' Mother, the Blessed Virgin, whom the Orthodox call The Theotokos. I pray to her sometimes, asking her to intercede on my behalf, but I don't consider her a "mom replacement."

My mother also had a mom, "Babu," a Ukrainian immigrant who had eight children, not all of whom survived childhood. Tillie was her name. My father's mother "Shayna" was killed in the Nazi death camps along with his father, brothers and sisters while he was in New York working for his uncle. There is generational grief in the mothering here.

I don't think Hallmark has a card for this.

While not blotting out the pain, I know exactly Who can soothe me when I feel it.

reflecting

2011-05-01T01:36:00.004-04:00

Recently I participated in a Baptism service at my parish, honored to have been asked to sponsor a wonderful woman named Maria. Looking at this photo, taken by another friend who lives far, far away in Germany even though he's a Yankee boy, I return to the latter part of the Baptismal service where the priest dips his finger in annointing oil ("chrism") and makes the sign of the Cross on the forehead of the newly baptized and proclaims, "...you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ's own for ever. Amen"

Marked as Christ's own FOR-EVER.

It is and isn't quite that simple - or easy. However, from the heart of the One who offers this new life, it is that pure.

On to the earthly trek, I am feeling better day by day. Really! Without the frenetic fix-it mentality that dogged last fall's gym runs, I've been using my Rebounder at home almost every day... gently. I took a rollicking fun hike yesterday with my friend Stacey up at Olompali State Park here in northern Marin County (followed by a grass-fed burger run, oh yeah!). I'm being Very Good about nourishing myself, stepping away from the "surely it's ALL good for me??" bakery section at Whole Foods and instead reupping my green smoothie regime plus salads salads and more salads. And healthy protein. And allowable yummy carbs like the mixed sweet potato and plain fries at the burger shack (fried in rice bran oil, which is even friendlier than using virgin coconut oil at high temperatures). My Lenten discipline of no sugar, chocolate or wheat got a wry chuckle when on my last visit to the Clinic I was muscle-tested for about 100 or so foodie bits. Not only was wheat a fail but also corn, soy and rice. Rice! Of course chocolate was a bwa-ha-ha NOT for you, little missy.

I'd been getting sloppy with my nourishment. It's just amazing what I can justify. Since healthy food is a powerful part of my healing modality, it is wise for me to be attentive. Not fanatical or diabolically perfectionistic, but serious. I was snackin' away on luscious organic cookies 'n such when I could've been sipping a smoothie or thanking God for a fresh, crisp apple. And so it is now... plus with a few more fiddly-bit supplements:

1. I'm taking 1-2 Tbsp./day of Metagenics "BioPure Protein," which has some mystery magic in it to help my immune system. It needs to be whizzed in a little blender, but with some fruit juice it's almost palatable!

2. I'm back on the liver pills. Gonna give those red blood cells all the help I can!

3. Russell's wife Cherie sold me this yummy powder that gets added to my health shakes - "Vega Shake & Go Smoothie."

4. The Clinic formulates a thymus-based product called "VR-7".... "for stimulation and support of your immune system." Works for me!

5. Now this sounds a little weird, but I'm taking it: Don't freak! It's a custom-made homeopathic remedy of my own blood. Russell took only a drop from my finger and made it up. I take it once a day. Read about it HERE.

Prayer. Prayer and worship are key for me. The pills 'n potions 'n health foods are all great gifts that I feel a need to incorporate in my living. When the Lord Jesus healed someone lame, for instance, He then would say, "Get up and WALK!" My "walking" includes this path of immune-supporting supplements.

I did get CBCs this week. I prayed that I would be calm and patient and not just knee-jerk myself in either direction.

My counts ARE better! The whites rose to 2.1 from 1.6; and those pesky platelets? The ones that freaked me out in the first place? They are PRAISE-WORTHY, having risen from 66 (yeah, they dropped up North, I couldn't bear to say that) to 103. The reds are slow but I've already learned that - they'll take 4 months to have a new life cycle! The neutrophils are still sluggards but I will pray them higher.

I am so grateful to be feeling better today. The past few months have been Mr. Toad's Wild Ride in places, even with Christ Jesus by my side. And I thank Him for BEING by my side.

For you who read this and pray for me - BLESS you and BLESS YOU again!

Alleluia! The Lord is Risen Indeed!

2011-04-25T10:59:00.000-04:00

15th Antiphon at Matins for Great and Holy Friday

2011-04-21T23:10:00.007-04:00

This blog posting and video from Fr. Thomas (from whom I am gifted with a Sunday evening Liturgy and Bible Study) came in just as I was rushing out the door for Maundy Thursday services at St. Paul's. Barely 24 hours back from my Northwest healing adventure, I was in a fog. Determined, yes; dressed and spritzed with the teensiest bit of scent, yet woozy. My will and my wooziness conversed while I prayed. As I drew near to Hwy. 101, I felt strongly in my heart that as much as I wished to join my Church community tonight, I would still be loved by God to worship at home. I drove back home sensing in my heart that it was a wiser decision.

I listened to this Orthodox chanting and was transported. I will listen again while I say Evening Prayer.

approaching Holy Week

2011-04-16T11:31:00.005-04:00

Solemnity. Suffering. Salvation.

God's timing and not my own.

I am still in Gig Harbor working with the team, led by the very able and empathetic Dr. Russell Kolbo. In fact, we have prayerfully chosen to extend my treatments through Tuesday, returning on Wednesday. I've struggled with this decision on several levels, not the least of which is missing the beginning of Holy Week at my Church, St. Paul's in San Rafael. Another reason is that I am finding this particular healing path very difficult.

I thought I'd feel BETTER - now! And my team did, also. Well GEE - if I'm not feeling good, why in the blazes am I staying LONGER?

For a similar reason that I came up here in the first place: Because it feels like the right thing to do to give my weakened immune system a shot of joy-juice.

I need to remind myself that while I can feel instant uppity wow! in the short term - after prayer, after exercise, after a lovely mug of tea with honey - some things just bypass my expectations and stick their naughty little tongues out at me. You'd THINK that after IV infusions of these amazing healing concoctions, from high dose Vitamin C to the "Myer's Cocktail" to oxygenating hydrogen peroxide, I'd feel GREAT! I don't. And I am suspecting that this is a drawn-out Herxheimer experience. Die-off. Detox.

One of my practitioners of the past 2-1/2 years told me, "When my European clinic patients would feel terrible after IV therapy, they'd call me up and THANK me." What? They understand that this is the process.

Another difficult inner dynamic is my "Showtime, Folks!" subpersonality. I wanted this to be a jolly, heels kicking up adventure I'd write about with glee. Look! The training wheels are off of my kid's bicycle and I can do it MYSELF! I'm having an expectation malfunction.

As well as the visceral buoyancy I yearn for, I am reminded that my blood cells have a life span and it doesn't involve an overnight turnaround. True, I need to monitor them. I do. And faith is a part of that trek. Here's some research I did on their little lifespans:

"Platelets have an average life of 8-12 days

The white blood cells have a rather short life cycle, living from a few days to a few weeks. A drop of blood can contain anywhere from 7,000 to 25,000 white blood cells at a time.

The lifespan of white blood cells ranges from 13 to 20 days

The average lifespan of a red blood cell is 100-120 days (4 months).

The average lifespan of non-activated neutrophils in the circulation is about 5.4 days"

It is important that I pay attention and yet not become utterly tied up in them. This is a worthy intention. I fail at it much of the time. Oh they're UP! Oh shit, they're DOWN! My propensity for crazy-making remains.

While it's honestly one of the least of my worries, I am anemic. Ta-daaaaa. And if I pour serious dollars into the latest supplements, chow down on grass-fed beef, beet juice delights and other iron-rich foods, those red cells will take 4 months to become reborn. Yes, I know it's not acutely linear... today's healing jolts could show in a week or so. However... there is timing. And patience.

And while it's nothing like what our Lord Jesus did for us, there's suffering.

How many have heard the tale of what happens when you try to hurry along a butterfly chrysalis? The beautiful creature is destroyed or damaged. "But I was just trying to help!"

Timing. God's timing.

and I thought cod liver oil was weird...

2011-04-10T20:01:00.006-04:00

This is my Northwest doc, Russell Kolbo (N.D, D.C), adding in a potent vitamin brew called a "Myer's Cocktail" to the last dregs of my first ever IV dose of 3% pharmaceutical hydrogen peroxide. To anyone including hidden subpersonalities of my own who might be thinking, "What in the WORLD is she DOING???" - I respond by saying, "My prayerful best to rebuild my weakened immune system."

I do have a wee photo gallery (click on said word) of the past few days, from the Mt. Rainier Clinic I cannot BELIEVE I forgot to link to my new in the woods bed & breakfast out on the Key Peninsula yet a mere 7.4 miles to the Clinic.

It's Sunday. Question of the day: How's it going? Answer in the moment: Slowly, sometimes challenging and yet hopeful. I cry sometimes when the needles go in, and there are no shoddy phlebotomists around including Russell. My veins are scarred from the hospital treatments of 2-1/2 years ago. I'm a 'fraidy-cat. It hurts and I don't like the pain. I do wish however that I'd be getting more of a BUZZ with all of these megavitamins bypassing my gut and going straight into my bloodstream! I tell you, were it not for Lent, I would be snarfing down the there there now comfort chocolate like mad! Still - how can I not feel looked after here? Everyone at the clinic rocks. Russell's wife Cherie, who'll soon have her own juice & smoothie bar plus educational studio, has brought me whopping healthy green smoothies four times this past week. She makes her own "health bars" with grains, low-glycemic sweeteners & dried fruits, wraps 'em up and leaves a basketful in the IV Lounge for all the patients. "Here," she or Russell will say, "take one of these!"

I love when deep wisdom, decades of experience and a kind heart come burbling together. While I would like to be kicking up my heels TODAY.... bounding up a mountainside TODAY... not being so tired or suffering from a Herxheimer episode that I missed a local 10am Church service this morning, I feel that I am in the right place. That especially includes where I lay my head at night.

After 5 days and nights at the lovely Maritime Inn, I reached my limit with the street noise. I had been sniffing around the local environs for quieter accommodation, however in my tiredness I really wanted the Maritime to work out. I didn't want to pack up and schlepp out again. Then 6am Friday morning, I heard them, yelling. Boisterously. Kayakers. Oh bless their fit and able hearts and bodies!

That was enough. I'd had it. After a phone call to the kindly Innkeeper here at the Bear's Lair B&B out in the blessed Thank You God! boonies, I was penciled in. The manager at the Maritime was understanding; there were no issues even though I'd booked the entire 12 days. And I am just beginning to find some deep, uninterrupted sleep. Yeah!

That's enough outta me. I am slow. I am grateful. I am healing one day at a time by God's Grace and through the hands of some very gifted servants of His.

emerging from chaos

2011-04-06T13:59:00.007-04:00

I'm feeling better already.

I remain needle- and pinprick-adverse. I can't watch them poke me. I can't even stare at it once I'm wired in. However on Day #2, now with a whopping 75 grams of Vitamin C and other healthy bits dripping into my veins (versus yesterday's intro of 50 grams), I feel so much better than from Monday's late and rainy arrival that I want to skip a jig around the nearest evergreen.

Grumpy would be too polite a term for my mood when I arrived. The worn 12-Step mantra of "don't let yourself get overly hungry, angry, lonely or tired" came scrambling back in with a humbling vengeance. I thrashed through 'em all and went straight to psycho. It is possible, perhaps even likely for example, that when I staggered over to the Thrifty Car Rental counter at SEATAC Airport, having reserved a "Wild Card! Let us surprise you!" deal of a 'mid-sized or larger vehicle' for $16.95/day (can you blame me?), the offering of a Dodge Grand Caravan (akk!) could've been renegotiated to something else without them insisting I would pay MUCH MUCH more for it. It's rather hard to be seething while shattered exhausted. I did not want a tank. I wanted a car. "The computer chose this for you," the gal smirked. Perhaps more grounded and rested I might've walked to another counter. I didn't. I nay'd their insulting push for THEIR auto insurance options (another $170 for the 12 days), brushed past a near threat of her vocally wondering if MY insurance company would pay for my time & rental while any damage, yes even a windshield nick, would see the $$ ticker go on until any repairs were completed, and finally signed, outraged and spent. I am driving a white monstrosity that gets 15 mpg. But such a deal, eh?

Speaking of the allure of deals, my dear friend Ruthie sent me THIS:

Somehow naughty words misspelled in another dialect are very funny.

Fortunately for penny saving I am committed to my healing here at the clinic in Gig Harbor rather than taking an extended road trip. Otherwise for 15 mpg I'd rather be in a Ferrari.

Incidentally, for those who trust in the efficacy of IV megavitamin therapy, what I've gotten in the Bay Area runs around $200/treatment (1-1/2 to 2 hours). This clinic charges $75.00. That alone helps pay for any return journeys!

My room at the Inn is okay. Trying to hack past the fairy tale glens of hotshot websites, even aided and abetted by the likes of TripAdvisor, doesn't prepare you for What It Is. Like the "surprise!" of Thrifty's wickedness, you get what you get. The Maritime Inn is a LOVELY place. My room is very posh. My tub has jets! And the traffic noise, yes, from the 2-lane main drag of pokey little Gig Harbor grates on me like... well, fill in your own analogy. However with one day of healing treatments under my belt, my crankiness has ebbed a tad. I may switch; I may not. The manager of the place cannot be nicer, and that is a plus.

The week preceding my departure featured me slamming down the greens, both in fresh green smoothies and sauteed delicacies from spinach to dandelion greens. Logically and intuitively I knew that it would help. I had become THE slacker on things green months back. Hey. This is my health and life! Funny how the yummilicious organic bakery sweets from Whole Foods began to take the place of my fresh juices and green smoothies. I think my inner 4-year-old had scrambled into the kitchen. It is amazing how alluring sweets are to me. I need a TREAT! Multiply, amplify... and away we go.

Prayer. Green drinks. Prayer. And? Yesterdays CBC (April 5th) saw those pathetic platelets MOVE from 73 (March 28th) to 85.

That. Is. SOMETHING! What'll they be after a week of all this turbo joy-juice? Hoooo-eee!

WBC crept up from 1.6 to 1.7. At my levels, I take all the positivity I can get. RBC is still a slogger at 3.2 but I've never felt in danger from their lowness, only fatigue. Hmmmm. Grass-fed steak or a bowlful of beets? Bring 'em on!

I have dear friends here in the Northwest I'd savor seeing. I'll be at the clinic every single day, even on Sunday afternoon (after Church of course). Not sure if I'd be energized or flattened, I've made no social plans but one. I'll let the time unfold.

I am immensely grateful to God and my holistic healing team for this opportunity to undo the last few months of ecch and rebound in greater wholeness.

wanna play ball, scarecrow?

2011-04-02T01:18:00.005-04:00

I'm drinking Dandelion tea and packing.

Monday I shove off for 12 days in the Pacific Northwest - to a little town called Gig Harbor to attend to matters of health in as focused a manner as I can.

On the one hand, my ultrasound results were, as far as I can tell reading the report, that lovely medical term of "unremarkable." Evidently the 2.5cm "mass" was an ovary itself. Silly CT scan, eh? If there's anything else awry down in them thar parts, it wasn't see-able from that test.

My latest CBCs were not good. That's why I'm hitting the road Now.

Akk! Eeek! What's "not good!?" I've had a significant platelet drop in only 3 weeks from 89 (already too low) to 73. The WBC that was a robust-for-me 2.2 just 2 months ago has slithered to 1.6 again. I'm still anemic (RBC 3.32). Neutrophils in their usual scraping the bottom ozone (.4). I'm tired. Mojo is gone. All that I do on many levels got hit with some trigger, singular or plural, in the past four months. My immune system has been having the air let out of its little tires. Two of my practitioners went into a huddle and this was strongly recommended. The clinic there boasts many holistic therapies, including but not limited to megavitamin IV treatments. Damn, will I ever get away from these needles? There's also some hyperbaric oxygen about a half-hour away. I've booked a room at a small Inn, got the flights, got the car reserved, and am getting ready.

It will not be an inexpensive endeavor. However my path needs a boost now.

I'll unpack possible "why?"s later. It could be any number of things. Whether weak or strong, the proverbial straw often arrives unexpectedly.

Lenten lessons and posh jeans

2011-03-26T14:10:00.007-04:00

Oh, the rigors of unwellness to amuse, educate and humble. Possibly edify. Depends on my attitude and how much of it, willingly with soft YES, I give to the Lord. "Take my weakness, take all of me." As well it's almost amusing how a very old paradigm towards God remains: When things are purring along, I'm chipper and exuberantly grateful. When the chips are down, I slither into a back closet, yearn for chocolate and scowl. "You meanie!" I harrumph. "If You really loved me I wouldn't BE in this mess!" How many more Warner Brothers cartoons stock lines can you come up with? I could readily load 'em up under 'garden variety abandonment issues'. A few sniffles and aches are all it takes.

I suspect this is ADD of the soul, a massive schism of disorganized focus. In my weakness I am readily blown about by winds. I've checked off my To Do List - score! I made it to the gym, to the hills, to 15,285 websites this hour scouring the baffling wails in my trade, to that phone call, even to the Eucharist - score! When I was little I always handed my elementary school report cards to my Dad. Obviously my mom read them too but what remains is the pat-pat-patter of my heart memory handing them to Dad. I was a little kid in a tumultuous household and had a patchwork array of grades: 1-2 C's (math!), a glob of B's, a few pristine A's. "If you can turn the C's into B's and B's into A's, that would be much better," my father told me.

A half century later I look back and see that I live my life never acing it and never experiencing profound satisfaction save when I am kneeling at the foot of the Cross. Many of my hours include the tiny daggers of "just a little more." Fathers and mothers, be aware of the seemingly idle words you say to your sensitive children!

Side-stepping others' sniffles gets old. Most people step out into the world unwell - it's the American Way. Well, unless I wear a sandwich board proclaiming my undercut of neutrophils, eventually a stray germ will slither through. Tuesday it began; a sore throat. You know how AWFUL those feel! I scoured the web for folk remedies and found a doozy site, then began pounding back the hot water and herbal teas with organic apple cider vinegar, honey and a brash sprinkling of cayenne. Down the hatch! My brain fogged. My body ached. Drink açai juice with aloe vera and 3-5 drops of grapefruit seed extract. Wednesday I had a mild (100.2º) fever - akk! help! - yet that lasted only a few hours. Thursday whispered a turnaround and still I gave choir practice a miss with achiness, self-pity and a Greta Garbo voice. Today I'm savoring more hours without lunging for a Kleenix every 15 minutes. Cold or severe allergies? I have a funkomatic immune system and I am not sure.

I am healing. And I am nervous. I have weeks' old petechiae on my lower extremities and will get another blood test Monday rather than cower and think, "Oh no, my platelets, OH NO……." There's faith and then there's foolish denial. I need to look.

I am still waiting for the ultrasound results.

So when the going gets tough…. let's shop! Two years (can you believe it!?) after being sprung skinny from the half-million dollar chemo diet, twigs here got curves, 8 lbs. worth. After bludgeoning myself for in-denial gluttony and then setting aside sugar, chocolate and wheat for Lent, I still need more than 2 pairs of trousers to live in, the remaining laughing at me from the nether reaches of my closet. As I allow the Lord to reshape me - versus the I'm gonna kick some ass! battle cries at the gym, which resulted in NADA after 6 months save for a few tighter muscles - I wanted a few more pairs of slacks. I lumbered down Hwy. 101 to a local mall and raided Chico's. I bought two: Dandy petite khaki's on sale for $29.99, and a new pair of jeans at full fat retail. $79.99 PLUS TAX. I'd already scoured the sale racks but found no $30 jeans that appealed - they all had that "we shop at K-Mart!" veneer. These rocked.

I have never before paid nearly eighty bucks for a pair of jeans. Even though I see ads all the time (when I stray from online Scriptural studies or my market research) for posh jeans from $100-200 and up which of course I would NEVER PAY. I am consignment store girl! I took a recent old fave pair to the tailor's for gosh sakes! "Sale" is one of my favorite 4-letter words.

I just paid eighty bucks for a pair of jeans; Thank You, GOD. They are soft, beautiful and fit me. I took one little side-step out of a very old paradigm and sighed a sweeter smile.

I love letting The Lord nuzzle me through the ordinary.

Waiting on God and a few doctors

2011-03-21T14:59:00.005-04:00

Bless you curious ones! Of course in spite of my gross impatience, most test results take time. A week. Two. More. (Unless I'm getting my OWN blood draws via a handy place called Direct Labs; then it's often the next day).

I endeavor to wait with patience, living and breathing and giving thanks today.

"Don't worry," said the doctor.

2011-03-11T22:52:00.008-05:00

That is about as clear and concise as I am able to share, to those quietly as well as noticeably eager to hear my news!

The doc left me with his own repeated beliefs that this was probably a small benign ovarian cyst. I have the requisition forms to get another appointment, this one to tango with a hospital-based ultrasound team (hotter gear), a mammogram and a CA-125 blood test. The older ultrasound gear he had in the office, he said, would tell him no more than he learned by examining me manually; pressing here, pushing there. He explained a number of things: One, 2.5cm is not a size to be concerned about. "Many menopausal women can have 5cm cysts. The important thing is that after your hospital ultrasound with 'doppler studies', to repeat these tests every 6 months. We want to watch you." I kept pressing him with my need to walk out of his office TODAY knowing FOR SURE whether this little thing was cancerous or not. He said fairly straightforwardly, "I cannot tell you that for sure today, neither can the equipment that I have. What I can tell you is that I am not worried. And I don't want YOU to worry. Now these are our next steps...."

I can become excruciatingly AR wanting to KNOW! Just hand me the damn certificate stating without a question of a doubt that Everything Is Great! This reminds me of a poignant scene from the movie Ghost Town where the lead character survives a near death experience (following a colonoscopy which I am also being advised to arrange, akk akk!), against all odds, miracle of miracles... only to step in front of a bus. So I didn't leave the doc's office today knowing with unerring certainty that I was 150% as fit as a fiddle. This doctor is not a kid (which I prefer in a physician - a kindly demeanor, intelligence - genius, in fact, warm heartedness and gray hair). My insides say that I can walk away with FAR more hope than the curt wording on the CT report which made for just a FEW nerves....

"Don't worry," he said after explaining next steps once again to my prodding. "Don't worry. Go home and have a good night's sleep."

Sunset was near as I drove north over the Golden Gate Bridge from the City. I exited at Sausalito and took the winding road to the Marin Headlands. I wanted to SEE the ocean. Not the bay, not a stream - the expanse of the sea, oddly calm. I thought of my Dad and growing up in Venice Beach. I thought of the devastation in Japan and sighed another prayer.

I needed to breathe the ocean air.

Contrasted with oncologists who exhaled muted doom, this physician was almost reassuring. I will know more after more tests. Yes, I know that the CA-125 - a blood test for ovarian cancer - is riddled with falsehoods and inaccuracies. "Benign tumors or cysts of the ovaries can also cause an abnormal test result." Yeah, check THAT out! Warning to worrisome self: Do it and don't freak.

"Don't worry," he said.

Philippians 4:6-7 (New International Version)

⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Pray for Japan

2011-03-11T11:33:00.004-05:00

First - please stop for a moment now and pray for Japan. I cannot get my head around the unearthly devastation and ongoing hell following an 8.9 earthquake. It's a tiny country with real people dying and suffering.

Yes, I think of Biblical prophecy such as Matthew 24:6-8,

⁶And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. ⁷For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.⁸All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.

Was there ever such a time until now? I don't know.

I ponder the voice and messages to which I listen. I'd spent the better part of almost an hour combing the most up-to-the-minute websites that I could, including USGS on Twitter. Shifting from care for others to concern for my own behind, I have tried to discern what was the real MESSAGE regarding the tsunami waves heading towards the west coast of the USA. I looked, scoured, read. Real danger! Oh they're now hitting Crescent City! Are my friends there alright?

To what do I pay attention? And what action do I take?

Finally I found the local radio station on the internet. It was playing classical music. And when the announcer's voice came on, there was no panic. There is awareness. The waves are beginning to hit the West Coast NOW! And.... they are 2- to 5-ft. in height.

I'm calmer knowing that my own flesh is seemingly safe for now; may I still pray for the hundreds dead and thousands hurt in Japan! The aftershocks continue.

Pain and suffering are in so many places.

Sometimes I listen to fear and purported reason in potentially alarming situations. The waves rock the small boat and o, where IS the Lord? I get an ultrasound today, in a few hours. It will discover what is already inside of me, this mysterious "2.5cm mass." Benign or malignant? I don't know now; I will by this evening, most likely.

"Be not afraid," said Jesus to the cowering fishermen, "It is I." (John 6:16-21).

The storm was real. So was Jesus.

"Be not afraid."

Lent begins

2011-03-09T02:49:00.004-05:00

"You're my..... Night Light."

I love this group. I listened to them in the 70's when I loved the Lord, before I wandered away for over 20 years. I refound them recently. It's a static photo but a stellar recording.

"You're my...... Night..... LIGHT."

It's late right now. Ash Wednesday begins in 5 minutes - it will already have begun by the time I hit the "Publish Post" button. I'm typing quickly because I'm tired and I yearn for sleep soon.

I'm seeing doctors quite a bit lately! Yeah right, I couldn't fool you. I'd rather be at the gym frowning at my butt or hanging with my Sunday Night Liturgy and Bible Study Group. However things must be sorted and I doth proceed to sort.

This Friday I'm getting an ultrasound (woo!) to get a closer look at a "questionable 2.5cm mass in the right adnexa." Yeah, that's what I said, too! What the hell is that? It's down around my girly bits. Vaguely. A recent set of low-radiation full-body CT scans showed some utterly awesome results - heart, check! Bone mineral density, check! (Now that's an irony altogether, wouldn't you say?). Lymph glands, check (THANK YOU GOD). But there's this schmutz down below.

Are you a Good Witch, or a Bad Witch?

We'll find out. I'm rooting for words like "benign cyst."

And if it's not, then it will be dealt with.

Preceding the scans were some mild dips in platelets again. It's been an eventful couple o' months for things bumping into me on the health front. I fell on my butt 2+ weeks ago! At least my tailbone and back are healing.

So Friday - ultrasound. What are you, little bump? (No pregnancy jokes, please - that's impossible for at LEAST 2 good reasons!).

I have the most AWESOME people praying for and with me. You might be one of them reading this now. I feel so held, so not alone.

and He walks with me

2011-02-26T12:04:00.006-05:00

There ain't no snow in the Bay Area today, at least not below 1000 feet. We all got so excited... us pseudo seafaring city goofs. Other parts of the US and world shiver in record cold plus multiple feet of snow. We crane our necks for a dusting while others may save their pennies for a holiday here. Irony and beauty do a little polka.

In 1993 or so I bought a very posh pair of hiking boots from LLBean - from their store in Maine, no less. They were at the time a small fortune for me: $100! Yes, they were stiff leather and would take some breaking in. Throughout all of my subsequent global rambling those boots followed me, from Scotland to Seattle to California and parts in-between. My expensive hiking boots!

Fifteen years later I finally admitted that they did not fit properly. I had relinquished countless hiking opportunities because I'd clung to a pair of boots that were supposed to do the job and yet hurt my feet after 20 minutes of walking. "I paid $100 from LLBean, dang it. They're supposed to be GREAT!" They might well have been but not for my odd, semi-flat and duck-like wide feet. I held on in denial. And didn't get my heinie out into God's glorious lands unless the weather and terrain were just right.

Two years ago I gave them away. I let go. I told myself the truth. This isn't working.

Two weeks ago I high-tailed it to REI, found a harried yet helpful salesperson in their shoe department, and proceeded to try on pair after pair. I had 10 minutes remaining before I was to leave to attend a Eucharist with the Benedictine monks in the Berkeley hills. Eyeing a pair on display, I asked for these in two sizes. I often need a shoe a full size larger than my size 6 feet. Slipping on the size 7's, I walked around the store. I felt like I was walking on air yet supported. I walked some more. SOLD. Mine!

It wasn't even until I made it to the checkout counter that I realized I'd found a $200 pair of footwear. Barely blanching, I got out my credit card (which I do pay off every month, incidentally). And this past week, injured from a fall last Sunday and taking a break from the gym, I put them on and went for a one-hour walk in the local hills. I breathed the air, I watched a deer eye me and then scamper away, I made it to the top of a small hill with yes, multiple stops. It was muddy in places. It was twisty in places.

It was beautiful.

I have been humbled by the consequences of slipping on early morning ice en route to church last Sunday. Landing soundly on my butt I also pulled a few muscles. I am healing ... however my self will run riot I WILL lose those eight pounds dammit! fervent go GET 'em! gym rat run has taken a pause. Is all of me God's or am I still trying to impress Him by attempting to atone for my in-denial gluttony of the past year? Granted it's been a muddle, which is why I can take so long to wake up. Of COURSE it's awesome (lavish pat-pat-pat) that I'm going to the gym! I'm rebuilding my brokenness by His Grace! Or am I also trying to make good on my own until it's Showtime for God? Houston, we have muddle. Of course "God didn't make me fall" - however post pity party has found me contemplative. And prayerful.

This past week I tried out my new hikers on a glorious cold winter day. I've paused my almost relentless gym run which has built muscles but not addressed my in-denial snackaholism. I've prayed more. I've given thanks more.

Wry humble pie as Lent draws near.

He blesses me

2011-02-05T11:53:00.008-05:00

This was a Christmas gift from my dear friend Stacey. It was also the first time I'd suggested to any living being that I had a Wish List on Amazon... cheeky me! I had linked this gorgeous icon from another site. Stacey listened with her heart and I was filled with delight!

The mystery spots have nearly all gone. The cold is a memory Thanks Be to God!, replaced by what I suspect are allergy sniffles and congestion. On a recent return to the gym, I told my darling private trainer Robert to "work me as best he would." The session before I'd been exceedingly particular about what I did and did not like. As the polished pro he is, he attended to my wishes and I had for the most part a milquetoast workout. Last week I said, "You know my issues - tell me to do whatever and I'll do it." Bless him, that man worked me! And what a wry joy to spend more time concerned about fleshy thighs and bottom than whether I'd live or die that day! This is a good thing. And how posh is this, to admit that I'm working with a personal trainer sometimes once a week?? Of course I shoot for workouts on my own 3-5 times weekly....

Spring is here, six full weeks before its official date. It should be in the early 70º's this weekend and it's only early February! I want to cheer and not gloat for my friends in other parts of the world shoveling snow and shivering. I'm timidly thrilled about our good weather fortune ... please don't disown me!

On the continued health-building front, I'm close to wrapping up a really really involved search for a new dentist. The kind gent with whom I've worked since 2004 is a fine dentist, but we've had a bit of a head-butting philosophically and it is time for me to move onwards. OK, since you're probably wondering.... my mouth is, to put it delicately, a train wreck. It was a piece of work before the AML hit and has backslidden even more with my focus on other things like blood counts and learning to hear God's voice in pursuing an array of alternative healing modalities. So when at my last visit, Dr. F touted some gum-healing products filled with fluoride, I balked. Actually I simply refused. And he got, shall we say, annoyed. Good sir, I need dental work in the five figures, even with my paltry excuse for dental insurance. We need to be on the same page. Cancer survivors don't DO fluoride! So on I've trekked, arranging in-person consultations (not exams but talks) with now four fine physicians. I have one more to meet and then it's time to begin sitting my butt in that dental chair and, assisted by prayer, headphones and a tiny smidge of nitrous (my 1st time in 28 years), go for it. Thank You God that I can afford this. And if the bill tally begins to soar, I know of someone who chaperones people to Tijuana for the same quality of dental work at one-quarter of the cost. Some people even fly to Singapore or Costa Rica in the name of dental tourism! How wild to be so blessed and yet live in a country that is essentially Third World (apologies for the un-PC term) in regards to quality medical care that all people can afford.

A hoped-for Holy Land Pilgrimage has been postponed until 2012. I am now beginning the work of researching travel to my beloved Scotland. I miss my friends there! It's also a royal investment of time to scour the web for options, so I shall weave it in between work (always a source of endless surprise), my worship communities, exercise and play. That's a life! How can I not praise God?

I can sin like that. The plague of spots got to me and I sat back in my chair scowling. I let the dark side get a few points on that, stabbing into my impatience, abandonment issues and sense of entitlement. This shouldn't be happening to ME! Well. Another day is then lost while I whine and act like a 3-year-old. Today if I find a new mystery splotch {...after all I've done, suffered, et cetera oh woe could be me... hey look, martyrdom!}, I will pray for patience and wisdom and not abandon the One who stands by me through all.

Psalm 118:24: "This is the day that LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."

reasonable news for now

2011-01-18T23:58:00.006-05:00

My friends Chris & Alice gave me these lovely mugs for Christmas.... filled with not only posh organic teas! Lent will come too soon... will it be time to relinquish chocolate yet again? It was a long Advent!

Just updates tonight:

The cold is 90% healed, for which I am EXCEEDINGLY grateful to God. It didn't become the flu, which I managed to come down with last year at this time (when my white counts plunged to point-nine). I've been to the gym a few times (whoa!) in the past several days and am slowly rebuilding my strength.

The mystery spots biopsy stitches come out tomorrow. Having to caretake this little bit of thread by avoiding too much water contact has been an extreme annoyance. How my aching muscles longed for the jacuzzi at the Club! I poured some toxic goo all over my body the other night presupposing something that has not been medically verified. At this point I will gargle from the La Brea Tar Pits if it'll make the invisible traumatizing bastards go away for good. All the brownie points I gave myself last summer for months of ecological line drying went straight to hell the past several weeks doing sometimes four loads of hot washing and drying a day. It's been a few days since I've seen new spots. I understand why people go mad over the seemingly "smallest" things.

My latest blood test results are a hoot. (That's a funny thing to write for someone who goes bonkers around them, wouldn't you say?). December's numbers were: WBC 1.7 (a notch low); RBC 3.7; Platelets 89 (low and disturbing), ANC (neutrophils) .4 (ditto). I had my blood drawn at the new doctor's office last week when I didn't want to, since when I'm sick, they suck. So....

WBC: 2.2 (not a typo)

RBC: 3.2

Platelets: 105

Neutrophils: Unknown 'cause they're called something else on this test

I could tell I was quite anemic just by looking in the mirror. You're as pale as a ghost! Perhaps I should be more worried, but I know I can bump the reds with diet and supplements over time. A platelet drop foretells that which I DON'T want to happen... and will not be named here! So my reds went turbo anemic yet my platelets rose. WTF? As for the white counts, I don't know what to say. I haven't been over two since I don't know when. In fact, the weird line I didn't recognize called "segs" seems to be another medical code for neutrophils. If I compare that percentage with December's, that TOO rose.

Something called "modified Westergren" was elevated. I believe it attests to inflammation. I've been sick! Duh!

And the rest of my numbers, all those bits from cholesterol to thyroid stimulating hormone to BUN this and bilirubin that? AWESOME. So now I feel like a bad parent trying to shame the dummy kid into emulating the brilliant sibling: "Bone marrow... yeah you! I'm talkin' to YOU! I want you to make like all those other counts and KICK SOME ASS now, ya hear? They're 4.0 Dean's List summa cum righteous! Just DO it, okay?" I've tried gentle yet powerful visualizations... patting my legs and saying, 'come on, kids, you can do it'. Today I was bratty and bossy. It's been a stressful month health-wise. You'd think the extra chocolate I'm helping myself to would be enough but noooooooooo.....

I took some wry enjoyment from the Old Testament reading I heard in Church on Sunday. Here's the line that stands out for me: "He made my mouth like a sharpened sword." [Isaiah 49:2]. In context this has great holiness. On Sunday I didn't feel so holy, so I latched onto it while I sulked.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the CBCs. The drop in reds makes sense. The whites shooting up while I've been rallying them to my defense on multiple levels...is this a miracle or a mistake? Where is my trust? I'll be closer to gratitude when I stop pouting.

¹² But who can discern their own errors?
Forgive my hidden faults.
¹³ Keep your servant also from willful sins;
may they not rule over me.
Then I will be blameless,
innocent of great transgression.

¹⁴ May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight,
LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

- Psalm 19:12-14.

warms, soothes, and sometimes burns

2011-01-15T01:38:00.009-05:00

This unwellness has offered a grab bag of clackity bits, from fear of my blood counts sinking further, scaring the YIKES! out of me to the sometimes quirky pleasure of using my erasure in my Day Timer with barely a blip of guilt. Good things include how utterly rested I feel after a marathon 9- or 10-hour night. The flip side of that (a la angel on one shoulder and that perverse twerp on the other) includes the GUILT for such indulgent SLOTH! You don't even remember your DREAMS for goodness' sake! What good are you?

Oh shut up already.

The dermo dance alone can take up whatever I've somehow once decided was the proper length for one post. This mystery spot plague has been maddening. Some very good news is that the culture I insisted on during our 2nd appointment finally came back negative. I do not have a staph infection praise GOD! Annoying news, however, is that the 2nd biopsy that almost caused me to faint…. which had been sent to UCSF Medical Center, where they are not known to be hacks… came back as bafflingly inconclusive as the first. The untwist the doctor talk translation seems to say that I am having an allergic reaction to something chomping on me… something spider-ish or mite-ish. For five solid weeks, all I had were mystery breakouts in various parts of my body. They still can't tell me exactly what is causing it.

This morning, however, over the course of 2 hours, I spied three teensy tiny things on my clothing. After weeks of 'WHAT IS THIS??????', I found three little creepies the size of a pin prick. Not pin head. Why I was suddenly given the gift of x-ray eyes and laser discernment, I don't know.

The minute I saw the bastard cootie, I was on the phone. Chem-Dry of Marin came over this afternoon and for to me a pittance of $90, sprayed my carpets, area rugs, couch and top of my posh patchwork quilt and foo-foo pillows for "dust mites and allergens." I'd already set off two room foggers a month ago! I've had my car scoured inside and out for $150!! If I wash my clothes any more in hot water they will disintegrate! I shower with Hibiclens antimicrobial liquid and afterwards dab on everything from antiseptic to my essential oils concoctions. (I also have some Fluocinonide - like the name? ugh! - to soothe the itchies). Since roughly December 8th, every couple of days a new handful of "bites" have broken out no matter WHAT I have done.

So I told the doctor after he cooed the inconsequential biopsy results over the phone. "I found something!"

"Well, then, they're probably not dust mites or scabies mites; the human eye can't see those. It could be any number of hundreds of mites. Because of your white cell counts, you're extremely susceptible to the kind of reaction you're having."

I'm beyond ready for them to stop. I pray that napalming my humble home will have done the trick!!!!!

Depleted from wrestling with illness and spots, I met with a new G.P. in the City yesterday, someone whom I felt could offer me more tests to get to the bottom of these challenges. And the kind doctor wanted - surprise - a blood test. I had brought December labs to let him know what he was dealing with. He wanted fresh ones. I made the merest attempt to squiggle out of it before nodding reluctantly.

There went the next 12 hours in a haze.

One of my prayers is to have that smidge of blood drawn from me and in the netherworld before The Results come back, be at peace. This is a fervent intention because the polar opposite normally happens. I become Zombie Woman. It's a miracle that I don't self-soothe with more

medicinal chocolate than I do.

Spazz attack aside, I was given a little gift in my anxiety. As the day went on and 5 o'clock passed, I realized that regardless of their promises, I wasn't gonna know 'til Tuesday as Monday is Martin Luther King Day (bless his memory). So even if the counts make me shriek….I am feeling better than I did yesterday and the day before. Even with my torment crouched with a spear, even pale and weak - I'm feeling as though I'm emerging from this neutrophil-sucking cold.

Quite a morsel of a little gift.

O my gracious, it's.... it's......!

2011-01-08T20:51:00.003-05:00

So what's a little sniffly cold?

Even the sturdiest can fall prey to ordinarily innocuous things gone wrong: Pneumonia; funked up flu shots; antibiotics that weaken one's immune system and then aggravate one's lower gastrointestinal tract - double up the probiotics when you're chugging those; dwindled effectiveness, tiresome whether you're depended upon or not; space brain; and why don't I have a roaring winter fireplace so I can torch all of those tissues filling up my waste bin??

I said space brain, yes?

This may well be my first illness in years where I have not collapsed twitching in a heap of fear. Being ill sucks - but when the offstage whispers taunt me, wondering about my blood counts with how low can they go???, followed by anxiety-infused "NOW what do we do???" - I get edgy. And I am blessedly less at the mercy of the what if??'s than before.

I still have white counts and neutrophils that set off alarms under the best of circumstances. Nurses from the hospital used to warn me about What Could Happen if I left my white-walled prison too soon, before those chemo-ravaged counts could crawl back up again. "Sepsis," one nurse intoned. "What's that?" I asked. Evidently it's when everything goes completely to hell and then you die.

"Fine. I'll stay another day. Too bad the food sucks here."

By the grace of God, I have been free from western medicine's hospital claws for slightly over two years. Can you dig it? Yeah! Still, after being surrounded with the best intentioned folks in my various social excursions, I have managed to come down with a cold. Akk! Blecch.

This is what I am doing: Prayer; rest and liquids; extra beta-carotene (50K-100K/day), Vitamins C & D3, ImmPower and even finishing up a box of the purportedly white cell-nudging ProBoost leftover from last year; s-l-o-w-i-n-g d-o-w-n; breathing; moving my bod just enough to keep the gremlins from stiffening my joints too much; praying over a still-good box of Zithromycin and remaining calmly open to taking it if it seems warranted; letting all this be a grace. And doing it again.

This is what I am NOT doing: Chasing down my healing team in a breathless panic; getting blood draws and freaking out to see the counts not on their best behavior; and being really really afraid, which kicks your immune system's butt. Not in a good way.

Added to this morass of unwellness has been a dermatological sideline as well - mystery spots! Itchy ones. Even with a seemingly perfectly valid excuse to lapse into hypochondria, initially eyeing a few itchies on my body had simply led me to sigh and think, "Hmmmm. Visiting someone with a cat. Maybe allergic reactions to a few flea bites? I live in the country. Coulda picked up something…" The short version of this tale of "What causeth these cooties?" includes a rather drawn-out month of worrisome itchies and two biopsies from a dermatologist who even now can only say, "Well, I just don't know for sure!" Of course my inner physician had gone haywire online, attempting to self-diagnose and treat before Dr. Dermo could see me. I bypassed fear and launched into certifiable paranoia. Suspecting "the itch mite" (also known as scabies, which sounds as sexy as leprosy) led me to thunder through my home, washing everything I could get my hands on in THE HOTTEST water, drying on HIGH, scouring floors and staring bleary-eyed at my posh bed while I searched in vain for any signs of little creepy crawlies. I made my own healing salve with essential oils (tea tree, orange & Neem) in a base of witch hazel. It's maddening having a problem and not knowing what it is. "You have this; do THAT." That works for me. One month after first noticing the spots and as I await the results of the 2nd biopsy as well as a culture for staph, I still don't know exactly what's been tormenting my body and psyche.

The doc who can't tell me what I have assures me that I don't have skin cancer. Whatever it is and was seems to be ebbing, thank God. The 2nd biopsy of last Wednesday almost caused me to faint, and my first stitches in 54 years are being covered, cared for and watched before they're taken out in 10 days. I want a lollipop for all of that!

When I was with my friends in Scotland from April-July of 2009, then only months out of the hospital, a "cold" would produce a high fever and once landed me in Emergency - God bless Alison for taking me there at 11pm! Last year I got some IV vitamins dripped into my veins that threw in a Herxheimer effect for good measure. This year I have prayed, NOT gotten CBCs while my immune system is working it to overcome these things, taken sensible measures, and prayed some more. "LORD, You'll heal me or take me home. Let it be so according to Your Will for me!" This year, the thrashing has eased greatly even if the itching and visual ikkies are a new thorn in the flesh.

I have mystery spots and a sniffly cold.

Normal people get colds and then get well. I shall also, by God's most loving Grace.

a new day in quiet

2011-01-01T17:20:00.006-05:00

This stained glass window is from the Chapel at Bishop's Ranch near Healdsburg, CA… my not even 2-day Silent Advent Retreat. The retreat center had been overseen by the Society of St. Francis in, I believe, the 1970's and '80's. The stained glass windows are a testament of Franciscan gratitude to "Brother Sun," "Sister Moon," "Brother Fire" and many other aspects of God's glories here on earth and in the heavens. "My Lord be praised...." they all say over and over.

I'm allowing this first day of 2011 to be a private retreat of my own, punctuated with the odd phone call and later sharing a "good luck meal" with two friends from my parish … a couple I'd run into at the Northgate Mall last night after running an errand at Macy's and pondering a film I ultimately did not see. I returned home to say Evening Prayer, candles ablaze. And take two bites of naughty chocolate cheesecake (shhhh!).

It is quiet.

My soul has yearned for quiet and I'm letting the Holy Spirit shush my jittery jagged should machine. Another breath. Raindrops, then my furnace kicking on again. Not far away the shoulds are glowering, hissing to judge. "Not enough!" a bony finger twitches.

I breathe again and thank God for the quiet.

While one of the blessings of Bishop's Ranch is their kitchen staff - and the joys of being served such glorious food! - I can savor my own bed even while the odd challenge gnaws away at me. I am rarely devoid of "…but what about THIS????" I am praying through more instances of their shrill jabs. I can be accountable to the Lord and not unduly idle… and taking restorative time feels, right now, like a gift. I know how to giddyup. God knows that, too.

One of today's gifts is peace. Today is a good day to be softly happy and alive.

darkness and light

2010-12-27T13:08:00.007-05:00

"Once in Royal David's City, Stood a lowly cattle shed…."

I shared in my Centering Prayer group last night that I felt I'd "failed" Advent. I had begun it with earnest intention to go inwardly in preparation for the celebration of the coming of Christ. In the shorter days I began to allow a more interior beingness take place. I had even booked a 2-day Silent Advent Retreat at the nearby Bishop's Ranch outside of Healdsburg.

By the time our little Chancel Choir was dress rehearsing for the Really BIG Christmas Eve service, I had allowed myself to fall headlong into the seasonal frenzy. I could feel it the weeks before Christmas. I couldn't seem to insulate my spirit from the incessant DO DO DO! GO GO GO! Buy this, plan that, make SURE of THIS! I was full-tilt ADD, knee-trigger WHAT'S NEXT? girl. It's not surprising that my blood counts were slightly worse for the wear this month, after I had crowed about their Meaningful Increase just weeks prior. Platelets: MOVE IT!

By the Christmas Eve caroling and 11 pm Eucharist service I felt like a wobbly cardboard cutout. Where was my experience of magical wonder and spiritual emergence? "I know I'm pushing it," I told myself. "I know this isn't really the best for my health on any counts." And while I continued to praise my disciplined Advent chocolate avoidance (now enthusiastically relinquished) plus read Morning and Evening Prayer most days from this wondrous publication called Magnificat, I found myself tango'ing with the old dynamic that I thought I'd dropped…. playing a Red Shoes kind of drama with "never enough."

It's Monday, December 27th. There's a lovely pale fog in my Novato front yard. My work with the markets, which consists primarily of trying to make sense of the diabolically senseless, may be easier this week. The BIG CRASH!! I've been poised for since this past SUMMER! remains a distant rumor yet continued possibility. I'm locked in a very stressful battle with Alta Bates Summit Hospital, who are justifying charging me over a thousand dollars in co-pays just to walk through their doors twice to have seen my oncologist Dr. Krijanovsky. He's been paid! The labs have been paid! The hospital wants more blood. Guess who's taking them to the local media and possibly an attorney? Sigh. Breathe. Pray! Can I fight the good fight without getting my knickers in a knot? Just when I tell myself that I'll have a quiet day, along comes some avoidance or outrage and like the quintessential Pavlovian, I'm off to the races, drooling.

I am still a work in progress.

Above is a photo of our choir. Even though my choir director chewed me out for asking someone to take photos (dude! I had asked him not to use the flash! Don't yell at ME!)…. even though I was bleary-eyed dreading singing the really way too hard Poulenc without another six months of rehearsal….even though I thought, "Lord, I love you… but it's awful late to be in Church….), I was present and GRATEFUL. Two years ago I spent Christmas in a leukemia ward. (Alta Bates has already extracted their pounds of flesh for THAT). I didn't cry, although I almost did during a few rehearsals. I am less triggered and more grateful, less terrified and more soberly aware.

Still. It's not easy to know that death could come knocking when I have not invited it. I have no cheese and crackers for you; go away! I thought I'd be saving these musings for 30 years hence. I am shifting from really quite afraid to slightly more accepting. And in fact, in very rare moments, I feel an eagerness to leap into the Lord's arms… and see again those I love who have already left this planet. I guess when I'm tired I think more about death.

I'll get more CBC's this week as I feel guided. The requisition form is ready to download and print out. I have to watch my blood counts even though I am not my lab values.

It's a little later. The fog is beginning to clear here in Novato.

It's almost Christmas and I think I'm gonna make it....

2010-12-20T12:54:00.001-05:00

take two, they're small....

2010-12-02T14:39:00.005-05:00

Behind every capsule I take is a fairly significant body of research, either my own or that of my healing team. In the past nearly two years since I stepped away from my last hospitalized chemo treatments, I have melded

and shaped this list from "anything I could get my hands on that might help me not have leukemia come back!" to supplementation that is more intelligently pointed towards rebuilding the me that was vulnerable to come down with this thing in the first place.

In lieu of spending the next two hours assiduously adding hyperlinks, I'll let any curious minds use Google to further their own investigation. You are also welcome to email me - I am happy to share my experience.

The ever-present caveat applies: There are no guarantees - except, for me, in God's love in His Son Christ Jesus. I have nothing to prove here. Each day is a gift! I have wanted to share in the spirit of "this is what I'm doing" rather than considering that I could offer advice - save for prayer! - to anyone else.

So! I pray and worship; I work; I exercise; I cherish my friendships; I nourish myself; and I take this stuff!

On an empty stomach 2x/day: Marrow Plus (Ji Xue Teng) by Health Concerns (2 tablets each time), then separated by about 20 minutes, Wobenzym-N by Garden of Life (2-3 each time). Earlier this year (April-Sept.) I took Vitalzym instead of Wobenzym.

The remainder I take with meals 1-2x/day:

Pine Street Clinic AML customized Chinese Herbal Formula*– 1-2 caps - and that IS

Ba Ji Tian

Bai He

Bai Hua She She Cao

Ban Zhi Lian

Chen Pi

Dang Shen

Dong Chong Xia Cao

Du Zhong

Gou Qi Zi

Hai Zao

Huang Qi

Tien Men Dong

Yi Yi Ren

MULTI: I vary them, zeroing in on whole food types. For example, Raw One for Women by Vitamin Code OR 2/2x daily Nutri-Essentials Plus by North Shore Nutriceuticals (developed by integrative oncologist Dr. Keith Block).

Super Omega-3 EPA/DHA by Life Extension, 2/day OR Parent Essential Oil- 2 caps / 2 times daily (has Evening Primrose Oil in it).

ImmPower by American Biosciences - 2-5x/week

Mega Green Tea Extract (98% polyphenols) by LifeExtension

Resveratrol (various brands) alternated and combined with Grape Seed Extract

Methylselenocysteine 200 mcg. - 1-5x/week

Vitamin C - 1000 mg. with bioflavonoids

Curcumin (various brands)

Digestive enzymes with meals: Betaine HCL 648 mg. and/or Maxi-Zyme Caps by Country Life.

Probiotics, e.g. Udo's Choice Super 8 Hi-Potency or Ultimate Flora Advanced Immunity.

Calcium - 3A Calcium Formula – 3 caps daily.

Vitamin D3-5 by Bio-Tech (5000 I.U.) - upping my dose to 2-3x/day for the winter.

Beta-Carotene (25,000 i.u.)

Hepatrophin PMG (liver pills!) by Standard Process, 1-2x/day

"Recovery" and "Bone-Stem" Aura Therapy Patches (Bio-Magnetic Systems Ltd.). Don't laugh; that and the liver pills saw the most improvement in my stable but very low blood counts for the 1st time in 18 months.

Several times a week I make a Green Smoothie (e.g. organic greens with fresh/frozen fruit, Tbsp. maple syrup and water) OR a custom "Power Drink" with Emergen-C, 1 T. Emerald Energy Defense green powder , Trace Mineral Drops (by Liqui-Mins), fruit juice, 2 oz. aloe vera juice, 1T. maca, soaked chia seed "gel," a few pieces of soft fruit. Also fresh carrot-beet-apple-ginger juice 2-4x/week.

Pure water! I have an AquaSpace Aquarius Triple Plus with AQUATOMIC® : AQ-435F/AT (AQ-435F/AT) (recommended by Jon Barron). Before that I got reverse osmosis refills from Whole Foods. For a year I've used a RainShow'r filter (with fresh filters, of course). I drink 5-8 glasses of pure water a day between meals.

Quite a list, eh? I try not to make idols of what I'm doing, simply to have a grateful discipline in it all. In everything I give thanks to God (1 Thessalonians 5:18), blessing my food, my water, my handfuls of herbs… breathing in deeply the gift of each new day.

May this be a blessed Advent for everyone reading this.

Food glorious food

2010-11-23T15:00:00.005-05:00

Oh what a week! Who amongst you looks forward to a gathering of loving family ties, a table laden with otherworldly delights, a day (or two!) off from work, the pleasures of creating culinary genius in your kitchens? Right. Same here. I'm jagged midway between my hourly conviction to welcome such goodness along with my DNA hounding me otherwise, from memories of rabid dysfunction to outright paranoia about what I will and will not be tempted to throw down my gullet. Peace and joy are not too far away, however!

May I pause right now and wish you reading this a truly blessed occasion of giving THANKS to God as you understand God. Gratitude IS big medicine!

"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." Proverbs 17:22. (NIV)

I was shown that Old Testament line over a year ago in the home of the people whose healthfully laden table you see in my photo. Yes, I regularly boast about Kevin and Jennifer Van Kirk at Hallelujah Acres in prosaic Golden, Missouri, about 45 minutes from Branson.

"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." Proverbs 17:22.

I suspect that every blog of a fighting cancer warrior includes their path of food and nutrition. How 21st Century hospitals can put multimillion-dollar equipment in their wards, require the most stringent training of all nurses and doctors and yet pile the cafeteria plates with such wretchedness is beyond me! I complained in BOTH of my hospitalizations! My friends brought me organic meals from Whole Foods when they visited! So this post is about Food, Glorious Food - giving thanks to God for God's bounty and sharing a smidgeon of my own "experience, strength and hope" as I continue to rebuild all of me as wisely as I know.

If you have any form of cancer - and I avoid generic references to it as each one is VERY different! - and are searching the Web for wisdom, I pray that the core of your search involves a Divine Source of guidance that informs all of your actions as well as building a team of people you can trust to the depths of your being. I'm not doing this on my own, believe me.

Awright awright - so what do I eat?

After 4-1/2 months as a "high-raw" vegan, two of my now-four holistic healing practitioners made some noises about including meat in my diet. I was appalled. The great and not-so-great thing about running with the raw vegan crowd is that they err on the side of "our way or the highway." Do I think it's a worthy way of nourishing oneself? Absolutely, if you're of a physical and even psychological constitution to benefit from it. I have doubts as to its efficacy as a long-term path. There are raw vegans out there who write books, give lectures and look FANTASTIC. Lord, bless them! And if anyone is on anything that resembles the Standard American Diet (aka the SAD), after some detoxing symptoms, they are going to feel GREAT going raw and vegan. For awhile at least! For myself, having been raised on animal protein from the local Jewish butcher shop, I responded positively to slowly adding it back in.

Being a high raw vegan did not help my blood counts. As it's my bone marrow I'm on a path of healing, that is pretty darn important.

Meaty Caveat: I will not touch feed lot meats of any kind nor fish that is taken from oceans or lakes in a non-sustainable manner. Please see the movie End of the Line regarding the latter comment, and do any amount of online research on "organic meat" to show you how poisonous is eating the flesh of any poor animal tortured in a feed lot environment. It's bad juju and it's bad for the human body, period. I gratefully enjoy organic ONLY red meat and poultry and thank them for helping me to grow in health.

ORGANIC is my rallying cry and commitment to health. Rarely do I touch anything grown commercially with pesticides. I admit that it's in my better interest to eat a non-organic apple (well washed!) than a wholesome organic brownie, even though a part of me will probably always try and steer me towards the latter. Sigh! Fruits and veggies - yeah! - both raw and cooked. The salad bar at Whole Foods and I are very good friends.

NO SUGAR, period. Yes to moderate use of honey, occasionally to agave (current controversies aside), never to Stevia 'cause I don't like the taste.

Almost NO dairy. I simply can't justify it, and as well being a Church singer, I don't want to clog my pipes. Do I yearn for rich creams and cheeses? Duh! I believe that I can get my healthier proteins and fats elsewhere. If it's refined, I look the other way. I lean into wholegrain or sprouted bread and grains, although I endeavor not to overdo.

Plenty of pure filtered water and herbal teas! Hydrate hydrate HYDRATE but not during meal times as it dilutes healthy digestion. I admit to a current run on aged pu-erh teas, which while caffeinated seem to have some health benefits. I haven't had a regular coffee or espresso in over a year, although I do treat myself to Swiss Water Process decaf.

Will I sample yummy naughties on Thanksgiving or other celebratory occasions? Yes.

The most important thing I can say about food is giving thanks. Blessing one's food, every morsel, transports their molecules and healing properties to a goodness I call God's Grace. I try to listen to the unction of the Holy Spirit in how I nourish myself. What good is fanaticism or glowering rigidity? Likewise I pray for Godly discipline, since inside of me is a little cookie monster who will justify and gussy up any chance for a treat. The checkout line at Whole Foods is a particular weak spot for me, with their overpriced organic chocolates whispering, "I'm so small… you've worked so hard for me today!" Nearly 24 years of continuous sobriety ain't got nuthin' on my recovering sugar jones!

If you have any form of cancer, it is crucial how you nourish yourself. Find spiritual and nutritional wisdom that resonates with you. And use common sense. I do not believe that diet alone can cure this monster, however Twinkies and Big Macs are not the way to restore a broken body.

"A cheerful heart is good medicine…" Proverbs 17:22a.

silk flowers for four

2010-11-16T01:17:00.006-05:00

"What do you call the place in the wall where one's ashes lay?" I asked. "At a cemetery, it's a grave. What is this?"

"Well," said the nice woman in the second instance of a tone of voice I can only describe as intended delicacy. I'd phoned earlier to ask if certain bits would be there on the grounds. The folks didn't come across as false, but I'm aware that they probably feel they HAVE to be this gentle.

Death. Grief. Loss.

Be nice.

"Well, the wall is called a mausoleum," she said. "If the burial site is large, it's called a crypt. If it's small, it's called a niche." She pronounced it "nitch" and not "neesh."

"Really," I said. "A niche?" My mistrustful issues still churning, I later Googled it. I'd never heard of that before.

{Just now - I am so ADD! - I found a website describing 'solutions for cremation'. Suddenly I'm planning my funeral. Hello! Back to the present moment!}

This is about my mother. And this is about me as well.

My Dad and my brother are buried at Mt. Olive Memorial Park in a gawshawful part of L.A. that used to be near what once may have been called the City of Commerce. I chose that place for my father's burial because he and my mother chose it for little David's funeral. Yes, I've thought of having them moved elsewhere, but that's really taking control issues out into way way left field. After my mother died in August of 1997, three days before Princess Diana, I asked if she could be buried there. "No."

It's a Jewish Mortuary. She's not Jewish.

My half-sister and I found Pacific Crest Memorial Park for our mother Helen. It's in North Redondo Beach. I don't remember why we decided upon it. But I have visited it over the years, mostly perfunctorily. On this most recent trip to L.A., I almost admitted to myself that in my mere 48 hours there, I'd not be visiting my Dad and brothers' sites. I knew however that I needed to visit where mom's ashes lay.

When I last visited in June, it was during an absolute whirlwind L.A. la-la whoosh. For 9 days I dashed from one thing to the next. On that day I was on the phone in the car and while walking over to her corner. That's not on. This time, I very much wanted to be present. I wanted to leave silk flowers for her. There are funky little plastic urn-vases they sometimes have hanging around and other times do not (hence my phone call of the day before). Yes, they would make sure a supply of the little vases were out nearby. Yes, they would make sure the pole was there too, since I can't reach the vase holder.

I went to Michael's Arts and Crafts - you know, the chain that's everywhere - and found some fall offerings on sale for 80% off. I took at least 15 minutes trying to find the perfect combination. I was drawn to their attractiveness rather than the allure of scoring a deal. They had to feel right and look right. Four little bunches for the four of us. I paid $1.71 for them. A dollar seventy-one. They felt as though they were worth much much more.

I don't recall if I always cry when I go there, but I did this time. It was very important to me to have those silk flowers firmly anchored into that nondescript vase. "Stay," I breathed. "Stay. Let others see that someone cares for this woman who lived and died, whose own mother came to this country as an immigrant." I imagined her saying, "I really like these, Danni. Thank you for bringing them for me." Danni was my nickname. My brother David couldn't pronounce "Dianie" when he was very little.

"I'm sorry we had such a hard time," I said.

"Yes, I know," I imagined her saying back.

It was a gentle visit.

far away places

2010-11-11T15:26:00.003-05:00

I don't believe I will ever visit L.A. and be solely in the present moment, bug-eyed as a young alien stumbling anew onto a fresh planet. Zenlike presentmindedness eludes me. As long as I am alive I will go and I will remember. My heart will breathe in and out its episodic heaviness.

Tuesday morning I jogged in the sands in Redondo Beach. Back in the days I lived there I didn't jog.; I pumped iron and pranced aerobics at the gym while chasing skinniness. My 40-minute beach run framed itself into the ahhh yes of the pungent ocean air and the pounding waves [a bit rambunctious that morning they were]. I left my shoes and socks on a ledge and jogged barefoot. I played tag with the waves. I let my feet get wet.

I love the ocean. Growing up in Venice I will never forget falling asleep listening to the sounds of the waves, their distant rhythms soothing while family life crackled. Years later the boardwalk got dirtier and I longed for escape, especially after my father died. But as a child I listened to the waves breaking.

I jogged and breathed deeply. I thought of my life then in my early twenties. Why didn't I move back to the Westside to live closer to my beloved father? I kicked myself inwardly as I ran on the sand. What was I DOING here? Why in the hell wasn't I living in Venice?

I'm not sure what I was doing living in Redondo. I was beginning a long slide downhill and didn't know it. I went from being raised mostly in Venice Beach to a mid-teens parental split casualty with me 'n not-quite-together mom winding up in Palos Verdes. This was not a good move. Neither of us fit in. After two miserable high school years I went screaming out of the house as soon as I was of legal age and moved into in an 8x10' basement room of an elderly English couple in exchange for thrice weekly housework. I earned a pittance as a part-time Church secretary. A few years later I had my own apartment on the Esplanade, had said goodbye to Jesus and the Church, and thought that Top 40 bar bands were an exciting "calling" after my originals band disintegrated. I worked restaurants, offices and those L.A. bar bands. My father always filled in the blanks financially so I never starved - except of course in another delusional left turn.

I lived in Redondo until I didn't. And on this trip, for the first time since the early 1980's, I drove north along the beach roads to Venice in my rented Chrysler convertible with the top down. The last time I drove that route I was going to see my dad. It was and is embedded in my beingness. I drove and held my breath. He wouldn't be there this time. He died in 1988.

I found a parking spot on Pacific Avenue and walked the back streets to 28th and Speedway, the alley behind Ocean Front Walk. I looked at the hyper-priced cement monstrosities that were put up in place of the apartment building my father built in 1950. I walked past them slowly. "I used to live here," I thought-said to them, "and so did others… my mother, my father, my brother David… we all lived here and others did also. You don't know that. The old building is gone." Who knows what was there long before my father bought two oceanfront lots for $5,000 in what was known as a poor beach town?

I strolled northward along the boardwalk to the vendors and then walked "home." I don't know how to walk along there without feeling that I'd soon see Dad. He'd be there. He was my anchor. I loved him and never told him until after his stroke.

He died too young, before I could ask him enough questions, before I could listen more to his Brooklyn-tinged Yiddish accent, before I could let him load another bagful of groceries for me to take away. He was 73; I was 32. He is in my heart and prayers every day but I long to hug him and hear his voice once again.

Seems as if where I've lived isn't as important as what and who continue to live inside of me.

airborne

2010-11-06T23:21:00.005-04:00

I'll be in soCal soon - this coming Monday through Wednesday. A very short visit. I pray that it all unfolds according to God's Will. I don't have to keep reminding God that I'm His; however I notice I need to remind myself.

My trip was planned with an intention that may not take place. I'm still showing up. Southern California is where I'm from. I'll be in a little B&B cottage a block from the sands in Redondo Beach, where I lived from 1974-84. I am always revived being close to the ocean. I am always revived by surrendered closeness to God.

So here I am, posing in mid-jump on my Urban Rebounder. Daily I give my lymphatic drainage and goofball ka-boing quotient an 8- to- 22-minute bounce on this mini-trampoline. It's part of my wellness protocol along with many other things I'm entering into a willingness to be more open about.

Today I'll just write about exercise, leaving other entries for healthy nutrition, customized herbal supplementation and my Christian path. If I say nothing else, it is to proclaim that my Risen Lord Christ IS the core of my aliveness today. This doesn't mean I won't die someday, even of AML. I loathe writing that but I need to be real here. I consider my life and well-being as absolute gifts of God, as well resulting from the "things I do." If someone Googles "MDS," "AML" or "leukemia" and finds my blog, may there be morsels that are edifying! May the clearest be that my life is in God's Hands. May they also be firmly convinced that this is my path and that my purpose is simply to share my experience (& strength & hope!). Have your own wellness team, whether conventional or holistic! I suppose even an atheist can "beat cancer" but I'm not here to be the queen of diversity. This is my blog and my path - and for that I give thanks to the LORD God.

With that said - here's me on the Rebounder! I learned about this a year ago when I stayed at Hallelujah Acres in Branson, Missouri. Further studies on how Rebounding was fabulous for lymphatic drainage put me on the trail to buy my own. It's a brilliant at-home break as well as discipline since I work at home. That does get claustrophobic after awhile, so…. out I've been on the jogging trails over the years! My best in the past two years (post-hospitalization) has been 30-minute runs. I then bought a bicycle, the first I owned in aeons. I wanted both local eco alternative transport plus that wind in my face fun that only comes with bicycling, although if anyone hopes to catch a glimpse of me pedalling up Mt. Tam, think again. I'm a beach girl and flat works for me.

I joined a wonderful health club in mid-September, the Marin Osher Jewish Community Center (JCC). I'd been a guest several years ago so it was always on my radar. I found myself sharing with a dear friend that I was trying to max out what I thought would be "the wisest" way of getting my exercise. I think myself into corners like this on a regular basis, sometimes with good results and other times just painting myself into corners. "It's Spring and Summer; you SHOULD be out jogging and hiking! Look at all of this gorgeous northern California weather! Mush, l'il doggie, mush!" Boy, where did I learn to be such a pendantic glum-o-mat? Well, mush I did…. out in the local neighborhood and even driving to more adventurous jogging trails such as on the local Mt. Burdell.

One of my issues is, I don't really like jogging. Oh, I did it! {Effusive pat on head}. It was hard. Ka thump ka THUMP I went 2-4 times a week, listening to my goonball collection of 1970's and '80's dance music. Yes, I downloaded and work out to the likes of Play That Funky Music, White Boy! I filled in the remaining blanks with Rebounding and an occasional vigorous (sic) hike, which is not always fun by oneself.

It was time to find a gym I liked and this one rocks. It's clean. They don't blast offensive pop music over the speakers. It's not a pickup joint. It's family-oriented. And I felt it was - and it is! - I place I would GO to. I'm even working with a marvelous personal trainer named Robert Werner. Muscles are being shaped. Endurance is slowly increasing. A few more names around the club are remembered. And my half-Jewish heritage is always triggered when I go there. There is a primal part of me that will never forget that, I feel it in my bones and in my blood… those parts of me being held and healed on a daily basis.

Yes, I look in the mirror and am sometimes aghast I don't see the 30-year-old I remember. After 6+ weeks of fairly consistant work, I think my triceps and glutes should at least be a little bit tighter! But I feel it. Hey, I work at a desk… I stare at a computer and try to make sense of market mayhem. To get off my butt and move it is a gift.

One of my newer practitioners tries to caution me not to overextend myself. I'm finding my own push point without turning it into unhealthy exhaustion. I'm not an effusive fan of pain or even discomfort, so honestly I'm not that worried even if he is. It took me being a prayer rebel to step away from conventional oncology in February 2009. I wish to be completely obedient only to God. With humans I'll wrestle a bit.

I'll write future posts about how I'm living. A huge part of this is shifting my focus OUT of the paradigm of "trying to beat cancer" and more fully into the affirmation of a Spirit-filled life. I don't wish to be in denial here; I'm in remission with a serious-ass blood cancer from which I pray for a complete healing. However if I stare at it long enough, fear will swallow me whole. It's not much better if I put my hands on my ears and holler, "La la la LA LA, I can't HEAR you!" My love of the Lord is not as the big daddy in the sky who does my bidding verbatim.

Wretched things happen.

So does Grace.

Today I'm being given an opportunity to LIVE, to give Him praise and to say a few words about it. Do not look to me; look to the Giver of Life. And while I'm still here, I'll let you know what's helping me. It starts with putting God first.

It ends with that, as well...

...world without end, Amen.

and a blueberry milkshake

2010-10-24T09:17:00.003-04:00

I spent the day with an old flame.

Fourteen years since we'd last met, 18 years since our romance. I was nervous, excited, anticipatory. As I prayed I thought, "Lord, when I have I been this eager to see You? To fellowship with You? Does my heart skip an extra beat or do I trod into an Office, a prayer, a sitting…. like brushing my teeth? Would I buy You soft chocolate chip cookies to go with the real caffeinated coffee I myself would not drink? Would I tidy the home of my inner reaches or simply sigh, "I'm so glad You forgive and accept me." Am I taking You for granted again, Lord?

In the flesh another layer is peeled. This layer says, "You are a failure in relationship. You never married. You are cracked, broken, and now in mid-life, not the hottest chick on the block." I brush that aside while I yeah-but my way through my admittedly full days and evenings. Yeah BUT!

I didn't leave this man eighteen years ago; he left me. I spent the better part of a day with a man with whom I once fantasized marriage. We were companionable. No lunging, mind you. We're older and well-behaved. I spent the day with an old flame and felt the quiet pleasure of being with someone with whom I get along well.

I didn't feel so broken after all. We had a lovely day. We shared stories. Hugs. Laughter, oh yes, laughter.

He lives far far away. I spent the day with an old flame while an old frame crumbled away.

God can do that.