Writings of Constance Ore ( 1937 – 2010 )

Plum trees are blooming everywhere, as are the pears, crab apples, and redbuds. It is the best part of our spring season with air scented by all the flowers, and the avian summer residents arriving daily. We have a good number of song birds that come here just to raise their families; we have water and lots of bushes and vines for protected nesting habitats. We also have an over-abundance of insects to add to their food supply.

This weekend, friends from out of state will be here and Charles and I will have the first of several celebrations of our 50 years of married life. It will be fine for all present to tell stories and compare lives in the intervening years since we were last together. Most of us are advancing toward “the golden years” (to use one of the many euphemisms used to describe those of us who are of a certain age). It should be a joyful time, and our visit to the oncologist today made us very aware that it is also time to do our celebrating. The last weeks have begun to take their toll on me; I am losing appetite, taste, and weight. All of these things are signs of the advancing of the malignancy – we will try a pill form of marijuana to see if it can help the nausea and perhaps make food taste better. (A possible side effect: “Acting goofy”.) Dear Charles said, “But how will I know?” Indeed!

I thought that I would be able to lift the refrigerator to dust under it after all the red blood that was transfused last week, but alas. I didn’t feel well until Sunday, and then it has been better but not grand. Our doctor friend told us that this can happen when someone is given a large amount of new blood – the body takes some time to become acquainted with it and one can have headaches, an uneasy stomach, etc., for several days.

As I mentioned, Alphie was very “clingy” after I got home, and chose to spend the next night on the floor between bed and bath instead of his usual place. In the darkness of 3:00 a.m, I tripped over him, falling hard on my right knee and on my face. My nose and my mouth struck the floor with great force. I thought at first that I had broken my nose, however it was all right except for a carpet burn on the end of it, and a black bruise at the base of the nostrils. These effects look very peculiar, especially with an upper lip that became swollen to about three times its normal size. After a day or so, I began to look as though I had tried one of those lip puffing procedures and it had gone very, very wrong. My upper lip is still thicker than normal, and it remains a dark purple because the tissue is bruised. Actually, I fared pretty well because my teeth are still intact, and the bigger lip look isn’t all that bad.

Fierce winds from the south are running through the tops of the Austrian pines that are near the house, and one can almost hear snippets of conversations that took place in Texas this morning flying overhead this afternoon. Yesterday’s warm air must be in northern Canada by now, and the molecules that passed in and out of my lungs may be those that are inhaled and exhaled by Arctic creatures today. Sometimes birds unintentionally get carried along in the jet streams and uncommon species make an appearance at the feeders. Tomorrow may be calm and rainy – perhaps it is the passionate, constantly changing weather of this state that makes its human inhabitants appear calm and even a bit staid. All of us rejoice together, however, as spring comes, summer makes a brief appearance, winter may spend a day or two, then spring comes again – at last! Hallelujah!

Yesterday, ten hours were spent in a windowless room with a curtain that could be pulled across the end of it. I sat in a purple tweed reclining chair placed next to the stand with four bags of fluids hanging on it. Two tubes came together about two feet away from my port; the red blood continued on and into the port, while the clear fluid waited “just in case” there was a need to rinse away the blood cells due to an unforeseen reaction. I did not have any, and nearly a liter of packed red cells were dripped into the port, up the tube into the jugular vein and hence into my system. Another small miracle taking place as a life is reawakened though the auspices of “the kindness of strangers”. I had a headache when I got home, and my stomach was not pleased for some reason, but today, I feel a beginning return to the person I used to be. It is such a happy thing to be able to start over yet once again.

Alphie has decided to be my very near companion today, so right beneath my chair is a dog dreaming about something that requires some chuffing, a few growls, and muted barking. It is a bit unnerving, but I do not disturb him since he has yet to become reacquainted with my different scent. Three bags of B negative blood from three different sources likely sends a whole new set of messages to his olfactory system. I have not had any clear visions of “otherness” but I do feel unsettled in a way that is new to me. A part of me wants of wring my hands and wail while another part sends soothing thoughts encouraging calmness.

Rains are falling and now the view out over Sanctuary is filled with green leaves on the willows and green grasses aggressively pushing through the winter bronze covering of the pasture. The little wood violets have begun to bloom and the jonquils and daffodils are also out; even so, just a few moments ago, a short spate of snowflakes filled the air. Spring will win, however, and the season of new life will once again lift everyone’s spirits. May your days have sunlight, birdsong and flowers in them, too.

Ah, summer! Our several days of spring were grand but by today, it feels as though nature is on “fast forward”. Sunday presented the first suicidal insect’s remains on the windshield of the car. Yesterday, after giving Alphie his daily “comb out” I discovered our first tick of the season. On our walk through Sanctuary this morning, I heard frogs chanting by the stream and a meadow lark singing up on the hill near the edge of the forest. As I came back, a medium-sized ribbon snake made its way across the path directly in front of me, provoking the little shot of adrenalin that sudden sightings of snakes seem to evoke. The temperature is at 72 degrees with the 80’s predicted for tomorrow along with storms and winds and wildly fluctuating barometric readings. It is all too much, too fast. Our atmospheric ambiance is likely one of the reasons that Nebraska is not considered a prime tourist destination.

Holy Week, and the church invites everyone to remember again the life-changing events that took place so long ago. Much of the 14th chapter of St. John’s gospel is devoted to Jesus’ words of comfort to his disciples as he prepares to depart the Passover supper and enter the Garden of Gethsemane. I particularly like to think of the words, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” because it addresses directly the hardest part of my own life – that is, the knowing and not-knowing about dying. I think about it a great deal since the arrival of the cancer. Plans are made for the future, but never for a long time, and always with a “maybe” lurking. I am now at the 46th day since the last transfusion; there were 56 days between it and the one prior to that; I hope to continue past Easter before getting another because we are planning a celebratory weekend at the end of April, and the blood is key to having the energy needed. As always, we are optimistic and we look forward to the days ahead.

Have a blessed Easter!