What many thoughts go through my mind. I handed my phone to the Dr. P who attempted to speak with the staff member from the other hospital. A while later I heard the summary, “not candida,” as in, do not panic…thank God!…”we’ll try to treat through the infection”…for now no surgery. Candida is yeast. Candida Lucitania is the the yeast we all fear, the yeast that would have meant scanning his entire body looking for where it is hiding. He so much more active than before. Without the pacifier, this would be torture to him. Not candida.
The beeping is driving me mad. His tube keeps getting twisted so it keeps beeping. This is out of the ordinary. It is after lunch and after lunch is when I take my leave of him. I tell the nurse I am going to leave so I do not break the pump (the beeping pump). The kids comes tonight. I will leave at 5:30pm so I will take only an hour leave. Thus the overall time I am absent is not too much. Each step is calculated in this way, because I cannot be away from him.
I will take my book and read in the sunshine even though the clouds have not come out yet. I recall my morning reflection and that talk about the sun coming out and anticipation dying down. It has not. How deep is that meaning?
I did not read St. Zelie Martin’s letters yesterday so I will read them today. I will take Don Quixote with me in case I grow weary of reading letters, but it is unlikely because she is dying of breast cancer, but she is praying for a cure!
The letters I read, while sitting in my park among the flowers, are filled with urgency as she seeks a pilgrimage, as she prays for a cure. She goes to Lourdes and it is exhausting and full of trouble. She is not cured. Zelie continues to hope.
I feel like she walks along side me. I am not dying of breast cancer. I do not have thoughts racing through my mind about how my children need me just a little longer and how since they need me, perhaps God will not take me.
Or do I?
Hoping that God would allow her to stay just a little longer. She does not pray for a complete cure, just a few more years to help her Leonie. Zelie’s faith and courage: she takes nothing for herself. Her children are her purpose; they are the reason she moves forward. She owned a successful business but found her reason for living was life with her husband and children.
I walk along the path and it hits me how God has answered our prayers. Yesterday in my conversation with Mrs. G, the topic about thanking God for little victories came up. We’ll take what we can get, she said. This is a little victory. Not removing the Broviac means two less surgeries, at least for now, or at least in the big picture. And we can continue to pray. We do not have to pray for great and global things, although God could surely answer those prayers as well, but he will answer in the little ones. Or at least he will help us to get through.
So what it is then? Flowers along the path, the little things along the way, the prayers answered. It is hard to understand the ups and downs, one minute up, the next minute down. But maybe it is only hard when one expects a cure, or for it all to end. I stopped thinking that way at the onset of the third hospitalization. We will drive ourselves mad with that: when will it be over? It will not. I mean, one day it will be different, but it will never be over. Accepting that is the first step to sanity. The next step if finding things that can be joyful. Those are the flowers. And they are red and purple and yellow and smell wonderful along the path. The sun came out as I read.
