Bonnie Recovery

Ho, Ho, Ho, and Happy New Year

Yes, Daniel and I have been so involved with life that we have not been blogging.  If our two weeks of Christmas (Sunday before to Sunday, Jan 3) weren’t the very best of our lives, certainly this has been the finest Christmas in our life together.  We are still basking in the joy of it as well as resting and resting from our activities.  I’m sitting in my black chair, turned to face the Christmas tree and be near the ocean facing windows.

We would be grateful for such a fine Christmas even without comparing it to last year.  When I think of last year though I am surprised and especially appreciative.  On December 25, 2008 I was in Duke hospital, ten days post surgery and not at all sure if I’d ever be able to walk again.  Daniel came to be with me in Durham, but I was alone most of the time during my precious Advent and 12 days of Christmas.  I had had a Foley catheter for two months and would not be rid of it for another two weeks.  No one was strong enough to hold me so that I could stand.  My feet were bandaged and I did not yet have any shoes to help me stand even if my legs were strong enough to support me.  I could not sit in a wheel chair more than an hour at a time.  Even though I could celebrate the Incarnation of the Holy Spirit in me, I wasn’t at all sure that life would have much for me in the future.  It has been a hard year for me learning to walk again and getting more sight back than I could have wished for that Christmas, yet the year has been rewarding in so many ways.

For those who are interested, there follws a little blow-by-blow of our fabulous Christmas 2009 season.  I have several pictures that I want to include in the text; I've put an album of most of my photos in an album shown in the right column.  My son Ron has become quite a good photographer and is very involved in his photography lessons and assignments.  We had a well photographed two weeks.

Birthday 2010

The best of times, the worst of times... well, almost.

What a difference a year makes.  Last year my birthday was such a celebration.  I was absorbed all day in the big party in Washington.  I felt deeply happy that the country had finally been rescued from the forces of the dark side.  At last, reason was taking over the direction of the country.  I wouldn't let myself hear about the news from the Massachusetts election until late last night, and I told Daniel I DID NOT want to talk about it.  I just wanted to be silent in my misery.  I feel so displaced; I can imagine that many of you do too.  I guess it gives me more empathy for conservatives who felt displaced by the 2008 election.  I'm not sure I want to feel any sympathy for them though.   I'll get over it; you will too.  I know there are "lessons to learn" and that this is a lesson in not taking anything for granted in politics, blah, blah blah.  I'm not going to think anymore about it right now.

Daniel and I are planning to go out to our favorite restaurant tonight (assuming they are open on Wed nights in the winter; this is summer vacation land and many places are open only on weekends if at all).  It amazing that little Oak Island can have such a great French restaurant.  I'll have to eat soft, mild food since my mouth is again quite sore with what I think must be graph-vs-host disease.  Oh well.

I am feeling grateful.  I'm still basking in the holiday spirit.  We are loving our view of the ocean.  Ducky asked where we are that we get an ocean sunset . . . as if only you west-coasters can enjoy such a thing.  Our NC house/beach is south facing.  This means in the winter (only) we get sunrise and sunset over the ocean.  WOW.  Who could not feel grateful to live in such a place?

And I'm grateful for my recovery this year.  Last year I was completely wheelchair bound.  I didn't even yet have "bathroom privileges" -- meaning I was supposed to (and needed to) call for help to go to the bathroom.  BUT I could use the bathroom, unlike a month before when I was bedpan bound.  Thank you God for the luxury of bathroom privileges and skills.

Yesterday I had an amazing spiritual experience.  I am doing the Ash Wednesday sermon at St. Philips.  I've been pondering and pondering what I would say.  I decided to start the draft.  Though I will do the sermon "extemporaneously" I wanted to write it out to share here on the blog and elsewhere.  I felt that I needed to start the draft before I turned my attention to our book writing.  Daniel was in Wilmington and so I sat down about 3 and started drafting.  Three hours later I had a respectable draft of the whole sermon.  I felt as if I were channeling.  The whole thing came gently and surely.  I will be doing much in refining it and turning it into an extemporaneous sermon over the next weeks before the 17th.  Yesterday's experience felt like a birthday gift from God:  "Bonnie, here is what I want you to say in my name." 

My birthday present to myself is a renewed focus on our book.  I haven't written a thing since mid November.  I'm now committed to time in my chair; dare I hope to continue that "channeling" experience?

Thank you for all your birthday greetings. 

Much love to you all,

Bonnie for BanD

I guess that's why they call it CHRONIC Illness...

We have had an amazingly good time with family and friends over the last several months.  We are both uncoiling.  It is as if we have beaten like tetherballs, dizzyingly tight up against the poles of our lives and now we are unwinding.

This year I did a David Allen year-end exercise, recalling what I had done this year.  Question: What has actually been completed?  We have been so wrapped up in staying alive and keeping the houses intact, I felt we had completed nothing.   As I began our review, I noticed that the calendar year of 2009 was a completely arbitrary unit of time;  It was more instructive to review my sense of time - from the beginning of our exodus from divinity school Cambridge until we settled into this house.  So my "year" ran from July 2008 - until the last days of 2009.  We had been feeling like displaced persons for 18 months.  When Bonnie could work in her study and cook; when I could really hear into my music, we were back home.

I was surprised to see how many things we had actually completed in the domains of health, family, house projects, finance,  and spirit during our 18 month exodus.  (As much as anything is ever completed in life.)  Most significantly Bonnie had been fully re-born, again.  I had actually graduated from being a full-time care giver, to a normal spouse.  (Well, as normal as I get.) 

As we re-engage in living, we are unwinding years of samsara.  I find my self "awakening" to our environment and my Self, my health etc.  At times sunlight bursts through the clouds and literally makes me look up and see the ocean.  Other times I actually SEE our warm, little home.  I am sure the Sun has been bursting through clouds over the last 18 months.  But I barely noticed.  I was literally asleep or I was head down, focusing on what we are doing or facing. 

And then there is waking up to see Bonnie - in a different body altogether.   She is a more mature and wise spirit in the world.   Yet she has a child's sense of play at times, singing to herself.  Other times one can see the effects of the Predisone on her body and on her disposition. 

Bonnie remains a remarkable spirit and woman, even as she lives in the midst of a life that takes of hours of real effort, every morning and night, simply to retain her ability to SEE, walk, hear and keep her mouth and eyes intact. 

While Bonnie was getting her study / home office back in some semblance of order for the first time since divinity school and while we were in the midst of 20 days of Christmas, while I was getting the music system back into the "goosebump zone", Bonnie's mouth developed sores that indicate an outbreak of Chronic Graft vs. Host Disease. 

So we are off to the Duke Bone Marrow Clinic tomorrow - a 7 hour round trip - to see if we can ward off this chronic disease from spreading into Bonnie's eyes, skin, stomach and liver.  

I guess that is why they call what Bonnie has endured for 7.5 years = CHRONIC illnesses. 

Curiously, neither of us are panicked or even particularly stressed out by this latest outbreak of CGvHD.  By now this is a normal state of affairs. 

Grey storm clouds swirl and blow for days over the ocean.  This is part of our everyday reality.  Surely the sun will burst through and shine in our back door one day.  We pray for another few years of living, even if with Chronic Illnesses. 

And until we are swept away by the ocean of life, what an amazing life we are living. 

Thank you for being such a vital part of our life-scape.

/Daniel for BanD