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dcnovice -> DC Update: Lucky Thirteen (5/21/2014 11:51:55 AM)
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May 21, 2014
Lucky Thirteen
Dear Ones ---
My mind went wandering as I was changing my bag this afternoon, and I thought about how gloomy my emails and Facebook posts have been lately. I don’t apologize for that: They’re honest dispatches from a rough road.
Yet they’re also not the whole story. When I’m able to step back from the (sometimes literal) crap that gets me down, I’m struck by how blessed I am in many ways. So I challenged myself to come up with a baker’s dozen—Woodrow Wilson’s lucky number, after all—of things I am grateful for. Here goes . . .
1. I live in an age when cancer need not be an automatic death sentence. And my latest biopsies—half a dozen tissue bits plucked during an exam under anesthesia on April 30—were all negative.
2. My amazing family, friends, and church community have rallied around me generously and lovingly. And so have CM folks!
3. Through some combination of nature and nurture, I have a way with words. Writing has given me a fascinating career and now serves as a great tool for healing.
4. I have excellent health insurance, which has enabled me to get phenomenal amounts of high-caliber care.
5. After months (years?) of being too zoned out to do much more during my free time than lurk online, my mind is able to read again, and I’ve been delighting in both new discoveries and old favorites.
6. I live in a splendid city: beautiful, green, full of smart people, and rich in things to see and do.
7. I’ve been rediscovering the mind-blowing beauty of the Book of Common Prayer.
8. My workplace has been beyond accommodating in making sure that I continue to have an income and healthcare during this medical marathon.
9. I have not been admitted to a hospital once so far in 2014.
10. I dwell in an elegant, sunny, homey apartment in a fabulous location. And I share it with a sweet, stunning cat.
11. Thanks to my parents’ generosity, I have a home health aide who comes weekly to tackle stuff I can’t handle myself.
12. My appetite, a sign of health, has returned vigorously. Despite that, I’m still 70 pounds lighter than I was in September 2011.
13. Even amid all that’s gone on, I had a magical Christmas and a glorious Easter.
Wow! Thirteen blessings without racking my brain. I guess this really is a lucky day.
Thank you for sharing it with me.
Cheers,
DC
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