The restorative power of friendship

If good wishes killed cancer cells I would be already out of the woods by now. I have been overwhelmed by emails, Facebook messages, notes on my blog, phone calls, flower deliveries, visits - the good vibes are out there humming through the air, and I pull real energy from them, and thank you all for giving me strength through your love and attention. Wonderful people have been dropping by with food treats, made with so much tender care and loving attention. I am receiving good luck talismans and hats in the post, and wonderfully cheerful cards, and even an inspirational short story. Photos are being posted on my Facebook Wall. My family is weighing in in a big way - JP taking the brunt of the day-to-day grind of making me comfortable - Miriam has been the best nurse possible, organizing the house to make it more cancer friendly, arranging appointments, vetting phone calls, leaving lists so that JP doesn't have to make too many decisions about mealtimes - she will be returning for a week during each of my future chemo sessions. Eric is subletting his apartment in Lisbon, and will be here in a week's time to pick up the relay, and in the meantime, a good friend from Montreal is coming to stay till he arrives. My younger brother is coming for a ten-day visit, and all this activity is going to be very helpful in keeping me distracted from myself.

Friendship is restorative, but has to play second fiddle to sleep. Last night I took a wonderful little green pill that allowed me seven hours of uninterrupted zzzzzzzzzzzs. After more than three weeks of sleep deprivation, it was - HEAVEN!! I am planning on repeating that experience tonight - too good!! And a short aside concerning my liver pig-out from yesterday. I think that I got all the goody out of that purchase, as I now have a hard time even imagining how that could have sounded an attractive idea to me. I did enjoy it as it went down, but that satisfied me on some deep level that just doesn't need to be plumbed again. Ranger, our cat, is going to have to give us a hand with the left-overs, cause JP was no help at all. His serving yesterday went into his mouth and right back out into Ranger's bowl.

So today, I have felt fairly good - we took a short walk that tired me, and didn't get us all the way to the lake, but at least we took some advantage of the beautiful day. In spite of being a bit wobbly, I haven't needed any pain killers, and was able to spend some time on the computer. One day at a time.