Welcome to Pilgrim Friends in a Lot of Places!

We have friends in many places, but I want to welcome and greet these, and thank them for following this blog! Thank you also for the e-mails you send me.
 Many of you have may have happened upon this blog while you were looking for something else. Others are friends and family. To all, I give a warm welcome, and a firm commitment to keep on telling the story of this challenging journey. I do believe that Cancer can be beaten, and I am working with my medical team, dancing as fast as I can, while they work as hard as they can to make cancer history.


Today I have some news of side effects, but nothing outlandish or hard to live with. For the past three days I have had hard pain in my ribs, and felt quite tired. This was expected as a result of Neulasta, and we are taking it in stride. No fever, although I came close last night. And, though I have been diligent with rinsing and brushing, I do have a few very small mouth sores. This is also a consequence of Neulasta, and it is a small price to pay, for the wonderful support to my white blood cells that this medication affords me.


The Grand River Hospital pharmacy makes a potion, a "magical" rinse based on many different meds, and it sits in a cool-aid solution. See? I told you it is magical. We know, of course, that there is no magic to this. Every thing happens as a result of something else, and those of us who count our origins from faith traditions know that we are not alone.


I never told you about my shaved head. It is gorgeous, I am told by my family that I have a very nicely shaped head. Of course the hair on my head has not fallen yet, but I decided to meet this side effect out at the crossroads, rather than wait for it to find me at home. So, on the Tuesday after Easter, in the presence of my grandchildren Gabriel, Jacob and Grace, David, my sister Grace and my daughter Ioanna, we made an Easter event out of my shearing. My son-in-law Daniel Martin looked at me firmly in my eyes and said: "Mom, I am honoured to do this for you". It was a touching ceremony, affirming that although the hair will fall, yet it will, by the Grace of God, grow again.


On the day of my first chemo session, one of the volunteers offered the comment that for her the most difficult thing to cope with was the loss of her hair. I was reminded of a hopeful reading that I have heard many times during hard times. From time to time I have made references to my own personal faith in this blog. Indulge me, then, as I share with you a passage from the Prophet Ezekiel. His people were in exile, and despairing. There seemed no hope. Ezekiel, in his inimitable prose tells us a story. I do not expect this story to have happened as it is told, but I know that the meaning of it is true:


See, then the reading about the dry bones, which may be also the reading about my white hair:


Ezekiel 37 
The Valley of Dry Bones


1. The hand of the LORD was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”


4. Then he said to me, “Speak to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!

5. This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’”


7. So I spoke as I was commanded. And as I was speaking, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.


9. Then he said to me, “Speak to the breath; speak, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’”


10. So I spoke as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.


I have two beautiful white wigs, very short ones, like my own hair used to be. And I am getting a strawberry blond third hair piece, with auburn roots, to look as my hair did when I was younger.

What do I need to fear? - when Jen brought her beautiful children Chase and Sierra to visit, and I got to hold Chase for a good long time, while he slept.


There will be new breath, and new life, and yes, even hair, by the will of the Almighty. But first I must get going, And I will see you around, with my baseball cap, and my friends, on the Way to Santiago.