Bummer Day

Got the lab tests back and have inflamed pancreas that is hard to treat and cure.

Dandy, just had a few meals I actually enjoyed after weeks of broth and now we go back to the broth ( feels like gruel) and vegetables and fermented stuff.

Got a bid for internet connection to the barn so the friend staying here can have it and it was like way way over what we expected, four times as much.

Breathless, and no energy.

Gordon is stressed that I am fading away, lost 25 pounds (actually, that isn’t all bad)

We are going slightly crazy with all the meds and routines and stuff.

Saw the heart doctor’s physician’s assistant in the afternoon. We’re not so happy with medications, she wants to address breathlessness with an Xray, and tells us

maybe there is a new bleed or more fluid where the great clot of blood lay on the lung and had to be removed.... Great.

She says ‘You seem depressed”.

You don’t know me, honey, when I get super quiet and my mouth is a thin slash across the bottom of my face....I am not depressed, I am ticked!

And I am. This is looking like a very long hard run.

So we go to the doctor’s office desk to see about the Xray... They might try to expedite the Xrays and some lab work for my UTI that is raging away, even do it tonight. The receptionist is helpful, very helpful. She coordinates it and makes it all happen and in the end we will go to the nearby hospital, go into the stylish new wing, no waiting, and are out in less than half an hour.

While I am standing in front of this cheerful, helpful lady’s desk, I looked down at my sweater and there on my belly (on my pancreas!?) is a big white feather plastered to my sweater! I am shocked. How on earth did that get there?

I turn around and show Gordon. This is off the chart. (Probably out of my pocket, but the sudden uncanny appearance that it was stuck there just then?)

(In our white feather lore, the appearance of the feather is a promise of a better, lucky day... and the every present help of those in spirit! They show up in the most amazing places!)

Okay, Nancy, get it right.

The broth, and organic salads from our dear farmer neighbor, the beautiful vegetable, the fine fermented yogurts... there are billions of people on this planet that would bless God for such food. (Quityourbellyachin!)

The stunning amount of time, money, attention, medical equipment and energy and caring healers focused on me and this eighty-two year old body, so I can stay in this planet a little longer Wow,, truly monumental! I mean I better make this work. I owe so much. We all owe so much.

I look around my home. Does my sister in Afghanistan, or Laos, or Ghana, or the hinterlands of Russia, does she have Kleenex? Can she warm the whole room up to a temperature to make her comfortable? Does she have a soft bed with a down comforter to go to at night? Can she put her grimy clothes into a machine punch a button...and walk away or is it long hours over a washboard of some kind? Can she take a hot shower? Can she hold a device to her ear to find out about some relatives in another village she hasn’t seen forever and would so love to connect with?

Oh, we arrogant spoiled ones in the West. How can we whine and complain about anything, we who with way less than 10% of the world’s population, suck up 25% of the world’s resources! Hello!

I smile at the white feather and complete my attitude adjustment, certainly due.

Tomorrow one of the talented, fiery young people I worked with in Youth Conference will come for a visit. She is expecting her first baby. So exciting. How special will that be?!

Life is good.