WAITING IS NOTHING SHORT OF GRATING

Having spent many months

Concentrating on healing

The wait of these past five days

Grates at my peace of mind

Each time this question

Followed by the next, arises—

Am I headed back to surgery

In need of removing

What’s left of my right lung?

Am I fated to begin

The process of healing

All over again?

👩🏻Annie

Or not ...

AWAITING BIOPSY RESULTS

Still holding our breath

Calm on the outside

Not so much, inside

👩🏻Annie

BIOPSY VIA BRONCHOSCOPY

 Surprisingly, I slept soundly, last night

We left for the hospital at 7:15am.

Home from today’s biopsy at 1pm

As a camera was inserted into my lung

Via a bronchoscope with

A needle to follow

General anesthesia proved necessary—so

While Will spent most of the afternoon

Fielding calls and texts from

Family and friends

I slept

And now

With bated breath

We wait ... 

🙋🏻‍♀️Annie

IT’S ALWAYS SOMETHING!

We just returned home from Mayo.

Thoracic surgeon is concerned about a dark spot near the margin of my lung surgery, seen on last week’s  PET scan and chest CT.  We’re hoping it proves to be scarring. The fact that this spot did not light up on the PET scan is a good thing.  Biopsy scheduled for Friday.  Let’s hope for the best ...

 👩🏻Annie

CURRENT IRRITANTS TO PEACE OF MIND, PROVING TO BE MINE

 Thought you’d like to know that I’ve been in need of my own advice in that just as—

I can’t ‘work’ at relieving my adult loved ones of life’s classic frustrations ...

I can’t ‘work’ at hurrying myself to get well

So rather than ‘hurrying’ toward a future day, I need to relax into today, and thus, rather than denying all that I’m feeling, which disturbs my peace of mind, I can remind myself to respect whatever I really feel rather than being false to myself by stuffing irritation into denial so as to wear a positively focused happy face when irritability is what I truly feel, right now.  In short—I can be grateful for every blessing that is mine while also feeling sad, momentarily, about irritants to peace of mind that prove beyond my control.

(Whew!  Deep sigh of relief as my power of intuitive thought shines the spotlight of insight upon my inability to see how angry I’VE BEEN FEELING at MYSELF (rather than consoling myself as I would a dearly loved friend) whenever my positively focused mental persuasion fails to accomplish the impossible while wearing a loving smile, no less.

Though several irritants have disturbed my peace of mind, as of late, the one that has just stood up to accept the brunt of my anger is this undeniable reality:  After this past year and a half of life-threatening illness, I can no longer cling to the self deception that defies this deeper truth—no matter the youth of my strong spirited mind, the youth of my body is behind me, and as the sadness I feel is grief, and with this honest perception in mind, intuitive wisdom suggests, yet again, that I fully embrace the personal nature of this awareness:  I’ll never be younger than I am, today, and upon looking to the future in which, hopefully, my body will continue to heal, itself, my strength of spirit suggests that making peace with growing older is better, by far, than any alternative to today’s insight-driven, thought-provoking, positively focused, personal choice.  Amen.

🙋🏻‍♀️Annie

HOW DO I FEEL?

 How does—

How do

I feel

Differ from

How am

I doing?

Physically

I continue

To heal

So slowly that

Emotionally

I feel

Blue

👩🏻Annie

HOW AM I DOING?

 Several appointments at Mayo, this week—

Flushing my port

PET CT with contrast

CT of my chest

Appointment with oncologist

Appointment with thoracic surgeon

My main question—is lagging energy in keeping with this stage of my recovery?

🙋🏻‍♀️Annie