In Audiobook Land

The blood count watch continues and may for another week, maybe even two weeks.  My platelet count climbs everyday.  Nancy, the senior nurse on this unit, says that in her experience (of 27 years), platelets climb first with white count and then red count following. I take my rising platelets as a good sign that my bone marrow is recovering from the chemo and that we have the Leukemia on the run.  Daniel cooked me a big steak on Tuesday and I ate the whole thing, and my red count was normal the next day.  It dropped off a bit today; I guess it is time for more red meat.

I’m out on furlough most days, leaving the hospital about 1 and returning at 9pm.  Mornings are quiet, sitting in my chair getting my morning antibiotic infusions and doing stuff on my computer.

I have an 80 hour “dramatic” reading of the Bible (New International Version).  Though the producers put music behind the most dramatic and also the most boring parts, on the whole it is easy to listen to.  I’ve just finished II Kings and am about to plunge into the Prophets.  It was tough sledding through Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, yet those are the exactly books that I’m least inclined to read on my own, and I wanted to know what they said. 

With the iPod, I can’t back up a minute or so to re-listen to something I missed.  iPods are designed for music; “going back” means going back a full section, which might be as much as ten minutes.  Sometimes I will re-listen to a section; with the Thomas Jefferson, and other books, I’ve listened to the whole book again.  I decided not to have a copy of the Bible with me when I’m listening so that I can concentrate on the story being told, or the sense of the law being declared, or the rhythm of the names in a genealogy.  I can’t easily articulate what I’m “learning.”  I notice that being surrounded by these words and images up to eight hours a day, I have a sense of the context of the Bible and its authors that I never have had before. 

When I read the Bible, I tend to do so in a little at a time, a chapter or two, maybe a short book.  Even though I’ve had only one course on the Hebrew Bible in seminary, Prophets and Prophetic Voices, I’ve learned enough to understand that these early books were written much later than the stories they tell.  My long listening sessions enable me somehow to visualize the focal stories themselves and at the same time imagine the writers of the stories and their purposes for writing.  I haven’t noticed that I’ve had this inclination toward “post modern listening” (to subject and author) with other books – Karen Armstrong’s, the Adams or Jefferson biographies, Harry Potter, etc.  Having this “two-level listening” enriches the stories/laws for me in a way that it wouldn’t with Harry Potter or Jefferson for example.

I’m pretty comfortable in the stasis of my life right now.  I eat the same hospital food each day, get up at the same time, and of course get infusions at the same time.  I get some variety on furloughs: different food, friends, and cozy times with Daniel.  I know it sounds strange, but for the first time in my life, I find myself with almost no craving for change.  Yet, change is coming, and soon.  In a week, two at the most, we’ll know what my bone marrow already knows: whether it is still full of leukemia or not.  One of the (many) great cards Beanie has sent me has a verse from Maya Angelou which reads:

While everything

around you

is changing,

TRUST

your new self

to adapt

in all things

YOU do.

Comments

[Joan Martin]

Bonnie,

We continue to have a special candle lit for you in Truro on beautiful Cape Cod!

Joan