Last night Joyce and I were thankful to witness the light provided by several of the parishioners of her church. They brought with them the spirit and good cheer of the holiday season. We don’t get to visit with many of them these days. It was so good to see their faces and hear their voices again.
Thank you all for sharing your light with us.
That may be the appropriate heading for this posting at this time. For the most part the infusions have gone well. There are side effects, but those are to be expected for all the stuff they are putting in Joyce’s body. Since she has been on this “every two week” schedule with the Trodelvy infusions, her body, with regard to the cancer, has responded positively. We are supposed to be scheduling a PET scan in a few weeks to see if that will bring any more positive news like we got the last time.
When a person goes through the grieving process (DABDA), it ebbs and flows. It is like taking two steps forward and one step back. Of course we are at the last D and the last A part of the process. And, the infusions can be thought of as part of the B process, I suppose. I strongly believe that reminding myself where we are in the process helps to ground expectations in the reality of the moment.
Soldiering on is how I would describe Joyce’s attitude. She is limited in what she can do at the moment, but she is always making strides to improve her strength and ability to be more independent than she has been able to be in the last year. She is walking with more confidence. She is pitching in to do some of the housework, by her request. And her demeanor is more positive than it has been in the past year as well.
This moment feels, in a way, like it is the two of us walking down the beach hand in hand. We rely on each other but can feel the sand shifting with each wave that washes beneath our feet. And in that sense we adjust our stride to accommodate the change in order to move forward on this journey.
We know that we will be sailing on rougher seas in the future. But for now it is good to breathe the fresh air of each new day as we enjoy this brief respite before we weigh anchor and leave Tranquility Bay behind.
