This morning I had a visit from my Hospice bathing attendant, Michelle, and Hospice nurse, Nancy.
Although I can bathe myself with a new bath bench and shower head on a hose, it does take its toll on my rather limited breath. So Michelle is coming Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to assist with the shower/bath. I have found this to be comfortable and pleasant experience, as close to a spa as I expect I will get. And as we become acquainted with one another it will be easier to rely more on her at that time when bathing options are more limited.
I find myself looking for places to steady myself while walking, and Hospice has ordered a cane with the feet to provide extra stability. I expect it will make me feel a bit more secure in and outside the house. It is with a certain sense of admiration for all those in the congregation who use canes and walkers that I join their company.
Nancy came a week ago and said she would see me in another week. She said the dame thing today. It seems that I am pretty much the same as last week.
The fluid in my right lung seems stable, my appetite is good, I am still on minimal medication: 2.5 mg of Methadone per day plus some steroids, and antacid to compensate for them. At night I use a couple of Tylenol PM to assist sleep (steroids can cause insomnia). Usually sleeping is pretty good with a few bathroom breaks.
I have some swelling in the feet (steroids again) and a broken blood vessel in my eye, but that has happened from time to time in the past as well. Nancy always asks about my pain level. I told her it was 1 on the 1-10 scale. It is essentially below my conscious awareness almost all the time.
I use oxygen for parts of each day and have a portable tank in the bedroom to help me catch my breath when I climb the stairs. Hospice has provided morphine which is used, not for pain, but because it can increase the transfer of oxygen to the bloodstream. I haven't tried it yet but know that if I have trouble breathing it is available. That makes me more comfortable.
It is reassuring to know that I don't need a visit from Nancy for a week, although she always urges us to call her if there are any questions at all.
I still am living in a state of gratitude. Awake at night I give praise and pray for you all. Each morning dawns as a new gift and grace abounds.
Posted by Donel at April 25, 2005 09:53 PMDonel, Marilyn and family. This is like old times. I am writing at 2 in the morning (old Ecunet times) but this time from the Sun Princess off the coast of Mexico.
Marilyn has had the news that her Sister Miriam has been discovered with Liver Cancer. She received this news by e-mail while we were on our cruise. It is inoperable.
Marilyn would like to fly to Victoria, but we are only half-way through our cruise.
The joy is that three of our children and two grandchildren visited their aunt yesterday, so the next generation is stepping in.
There are many joys on the cruise. Yesterday I presided over the 50th wedding celebration and renewal of marriage vows for Gail and Ernie, good friends from Maple Ridge.
There are truly many blessings.
Gordon (Marilyn is still sleeping, which makes sense!)
Posted by: Gordon Laird at April 26, 2005 01:21 AMI think I have been "stuck" in the anger stage for the last few months about your dance with cancer. After 40 years of searching for a spiritual home I found the First Congregational Church after listening to you and Cindy tell your stories of the Bible. I hesitate to call your stories "preaching" as I always had a negative connotation about that word growing up. In my search for a church home, I found pastors who berated their flock into believing everything they did or thought was evil and had to repent or risk losing their soul. To me, that was "preaching". But you and Cindy made wonderful stories of the Bible and helped me understand — I came to realize that my actions, or lack thereof, made a difference in people's lives as well as my life after death. I have been able to ask God for forgiveness truly because I wanted to and not because I was supposed to. When I found you and the First Congregational Church, I felt like I was home at last for the first time in my life! Since that time you baptized me, welcomed me to the church, and married Mark and me. My soul has truly been enriched by you!
One of the stories you told in church one Sunday was about a woman who was sitting with her dying mother. (I'm probably badly paraphrasing here — but this is the "jist" of it!) She said to her mother, "When you get to Heaven you will meet all the people you love." The mother replied, "Honey, when I am in Heaven, I will love all the people I meet". That story was so powerful to me and I will never forget it. I have enjoyed every single one of your sermons, Don, but that one stands out in mind the most.
Mark and I have read your blog since the beginning and have wanted to contribute something profound and meaningful. Not knowing the proper etiquette for voicing our feelings and concerns on the blog (is there one?) — Should this be private? Should I be doing this in a personal note to you instead? Is this meaningful or profound? What inspired me to write was Scott Opsahl's note "From the Pastor" in the April 20th edition of The Full Circle which gave me strength to contribute now. I need to let you know how much I admire you and how blessed I have been to have you in my life. You are to me, "dad", in my spiritual guidance.
Sorry to bring this back to the anger thing - I thought (in my "denial mode") that such a wonderful gift to the world such as you would be with us for many, many more years — you have so much yet to teach us! How can such a gift to his family and the rest of us with all your wonderful deeds, love, and teachings be called by God home NOW? I'm thinking that God has bigger plans for you, and needs you more with God than with us. And, while it has been physically painful for you and emotionally painful to the rest of us who can do nothing but stand by and let this cancer control the next few months of your physical life on earth, I think God knows that what you are teaching us now is probably one of the biggest lessons each of us will ever learn in our lifetimes. You are teaching us all how to move on to the next journey in our spiritual lives.
We love you so much Don and Marilyn. Thank you for the grace, dignity, love and devotion you have shown to the rest of us. For the rest of my life, and especially at the end of my physical life, I will be thinking of the lessons you have taught me. I look forward to one of you wonderful embraces in Heaven when my physical journey on earth has ended as well.
Erin Schlichting
Posted by: Erin Schlicting at April 27, 2005 09:20 PM Libby and I have been recounting the ways that you have been special to us. You have projected a loving, wise and enduring influence in our lives through our personal contacts and through your remarkable gifts of preaching. Given that we have been members just over six years, we can only imagine the wisdom and love you've shared with members who have been with you longer.
In a piece of fiction in the New Yorker magazine some years ago, the author had the following thoughts about how we view our lives, how we remember past events and how we assess this journey. He said,
"I had this sudden awareness of how the moments of our lives go out of existence before we're conscious of having lived them. It's only a relatively few moments that we get to keep and carry with us for the rest of our lives. Those moments are our lives. Or maybe it's more like those moments are the dots and what we call our lives are the lines we draw between them, connecting them into imaginary pictures of ourselves. . .
"I realized we can never predict when those few special moments will occur and how there are certain people, not that many, who enter one's life with the power to make those moments happen.
"Maybe that's what falling in love means - the power to create for each other the moments by which we define ourselves."
Donel, you certainly have created several memorable dots in our lives. Thank you.
Dear Don,
I have thought of you and your lovely family often over the course of some twenty years, in part because you are linked to a special time of healing for me. I just recently re-read my copy of "Five Sermons on When Bad Things Happen to Good People" from the Lenten season of 1982. In your sermons, you point out that God's creation on earth is not yet complete and that we sometimes get caught in the little pockets of chaos. The consolation you offer, what really helped me, is knowing that all our suffering and all our joy is shared with God. I can think of no one better prepared for the journey you have ahead of you. Tonight when I pray for comfort to you and your family, I will also thank God for what you have taught me. With love, Brian
Dear Ones-
It seems I am walking with two people dear to my heart, but the paths are so much different. I feel accepting and involved and loved with Donel's dance, but my mother's final journey is very different. How I long for the community of prayer and acceptance of FCCB to buoy Kent and I through these last days.
Reading the blog brings me to tears always, but I try to find some comfort or wisdom to share with my sister and the kids. Mom was hanging on to see Meagan, and now that she has ,she is slipping away. Her broken body is healed, but now her spirit just wants to go home. I spent the week-end with her, singing old gospel songs and some of her other favorites. My Dad's favorite was always Tom Hunter's "Rock Me To Sleep.".....it was a comfort to me then as now.
"Sometimes I'd like you to rock me to sleep
I'd like you to sing me a song.
I'm tired of trying to figure things out
And I'm tired of being strong."
It is serendipitous that the only item of furniture in the house with specifically my name on it is the rocking chair my grandmother brought to Chehalis by train to rock me to sleep.
I feel priviledged to share the dance and the journey with you Donel, and I hope maybe you might feel the slight sway of my rocking chair.
Love, Marilee
Posted by: Marilee at April 26, 2005 12:12 AM