Going under the Knife

The perception of life really changes.

I looked out the window this morning and the sun was just coming up hitting the hospital wing that juts out like a billboard into the open landscape. The concrete squares, striped gray from years of rain, had a golden glow, the sky was in the soft early morning hues, some gentle clouds hung over the lower Catskill mountains that are embracing the horizon... and all of a sudden I had to weep with gratitude for the mere fact that I had been lucky to have had a bed by the window all these days. That I could have seen the sky, and the rain, and the fog, and the snow.

My fluctuating room neighbors had been so much less fortunate.

Many other little things bring tears to my eyes today too.

Liz, who has been my "Tech" every dayshift (Techs are the ones who regularly measure my blood pressure, temperature, and oxygen levels, she also makes my bed every day and even tidies up the room) a hefty black woman from Guayana, told me I needed to take a shower this morning. Remembering how Suzi helped me take my first shower on the day I left Albany Med back in January, how it made me feel like a little child again, how with such a simple gesture of being washed, life becomes safe and simple. Would Liz do the same for me? Would it feel as safe, not knowing her? And I felt a soft surrender. It didn't matter. A woman washing another woman. Just giving in. Yes, that made me weep too.

As it turned out Liz very carefully wrapped up my IV tube in a plastic sleeve and sent me into the shower as a capable human being able to wash myself. Weak as still am this was actually not a problem, because my IV needle is not inserted at the hight of my elbow, but lower down at my wrist. That allows me to bend my arm any way I need to.

A little later I though of my sweet sister so far away... in Chile. And all of a sudden I really wanted to hug her. How long has it been that I last saw her? More than a year, almost two? I could feel my arms closing around her, around her body that grew up right next to mine, that mysterious thread of life that connects us still even though we are scattered so far from each other over this big earth, even though I forget to call her sometimes for weeks on end. In that moment there was nothing but gratitude for how much I loved her.

The tears don't end here, but my letter does.

I am starting to understand a bit more what the cysts were talking about yesterday. So much of this goes beyond my comprehension, but more of it enters like tiny little drops of clear liquid into my awareness.

Jimmy has arrived and is sitting patiently in his green vinyl recliner chair, computer on his lap. I am hungry, but not a drop of liquid or food until after I am done. He is chuckling, he must be on the comedy channel web page. Or he got an e-mail from his flight instructor and new best friend John.

Thank you, thank you, for walking with me.

I had no idea how overwhelmingly big this gratitude could feel.
Tomma