September 22, 2009
A dark and cool day meets the eye this afternoon. It is sweater and hot soup weather, with Charles announcing that he would like to have a little wood fire this evening. It seems too soon for our seasons to rush onward, but perhaps as one grows older (and older) the brain perceives more slowly, making days fly by more quickly. It is only in the doctor’s office that time seems to revert to a form of eternity, with minutes moving past as slowly as they did in one’s childhood.
One thousand three hundred and forty days have passed since I had the diagnosis of cancer. Using such a number and contemplating the fact that somewhere in the course of that time I learned to live “a day at a time”, it’s been quite a while. Today life goes forward with a closet full of drugs to apply as needed. The long term use of Prednisone (at 10mg. every other day) helps the pain but messes with my mind just a bit. One of the side effects is its ability to carry a person off to euphoria or to cast one down into depression. The “every other day” application is designed to give the body a little recovery time between each intake so now my psyche is like rickrack instead of going onward in a straight line. Tomorrow it is back to the doctor to pursue the next assist to prop up the exhausted being. I am anemic of course, and my B-12 indicator shows a growing deficiency so there are more things to try, whether blood transfusions or injections of B-12, or “other”. If I were a soup, there would be far too many seasonings tossed into the pot for a decent product – I think my person now includes a huge number of additives not unlike the ingredient list that one could find on a very cheap hot dog.
Most of our summer birds are gone, but of the robins and flickers, some seem to remain across the winter, and others appear to fly elsewhere, presumably south. Right now, there are lots of robins conversing loudly in the cedars and willows, and the flickers are in rare gatherings of eight to ten in the top branches of the dead cottonwoods. Charles says they are arguing about which ones get to stay and which ones have to move on.
While we have always lived by faith, these present days and those ahead seem to require a greater measure of trust in God’s mercy since a weakening of the body requires a strengthening of resources in other places. In the Scriptures, and in prayers, hymns and spiritual songs there is much material for me to call upon, and I am always thankful for it. Psalm 23 is a favorite because I have it memorized and because when the words come to me, they are sung in a setting written by Charles. The psalm concludes with the lovely promise, ”Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
Listen to Psalm 23, composed by Charles Ore and performed by Charles & Heidi Ore