Blessings

Two nights ago I could not sleep.  I could not sleep.  I have never had insomnia like that in my life.  It wasn't until five thirty in the morning that I finally was able to sleep and then for only two hours.  I tried everything - drinking almond milk, breathing, reading, going to a different bedroom, in and out of the bed for hours and hours.  Trying to calm myself because I know how important sleep is.

I googled chemo and insomnia and found out that - YES - insomnia is definitely a thing when you are on chemo.  And the whole thing scared me.

Yesterday Marnie, Erik and ten year old Maggie came over with pizza.  Erik helped John with cutting some fallen trees by the boat and later we all went on a boat ride on Hoover.  It was delightful, except I felt like my eyes were at half mast - I was so darn tired. 

Marnie sat with me and she and Maggie told me all the "tricks" that Maggie has learned to help her sleep - like breathing and counting with your fingers, counting to 500 and saying good night to every part of her body.  It was so sweet and actually so helpful. So last night after they left I went right to bed after taking a pill.  And practiced what I had learned and it worked.  Or maybe I was so exhausted from the night before, that I was going to sleep no matter what.  But the bottom line is - I got 8 hours of sleep.  Thank God.

This morning I wake and realize that even though I did get sleep, my energy is just not there.  It is so weird to be worn out from not doing anything when I am usually a very high energy person.  But what I am telling myself is that this must mean that the chemo is working.  I picture it shrinking my "couscous" cancer and helping it to depart from my body.  That is surely how it works, right?

So the blessings - family, sleep, faith continue to sustain me.  And hold back the fear that is always right around the corner. 

It has only been three weeks since I learned that I have cancer.  A long way to go.

I think I will include a prayer today that has always been a touchstone for me - about trusting the slow work of God.  The work of  spiritual growth and the work of healing - unseen but real.

Patient Trust

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ
excerpted from Hearts on Fire