Hello Everyone,

A night like last night was bound to happen.  Two types of chemo, as much as I visualize them as the elixir of the gods, is still chemo!  The pain and nausea got away from me and it took most of the night to turn it around.  By 4 a.m. I went into a deep, painless sleep (God bless pain killers!) and opened my eyes to the first glint of  golden clouds around 7 a.m.  The nurses tell me I am fortunate to have this view.  Other rooms here look out at the hospital building.  Very desultory!

My platelet count was under 10,000 so they needed to begin with a transfusion right away.  Bleeding can start around that number.  I was at 9K this a.m.  Very good exercise of faith to be laying in the bed, with a bad headache, waiting for the platelets to arrive and wondering if bleeding is occuring.   It is absolutely amazing to feel so at the mercy of life and to entrust myself into Its loving arms.  What else can I do?   Perhaps one day I will be able to look back on this experience and count myself as extremely fortunate to have had my inner mettle tested (and hopefully strengthened) through an ordeal like this.  The treatment for Leukemia is particularly arduous, according to the oncologist.  Their aim is to completely wipe out all bone marrow...and then, in the 4th week, rebuild it.  If all goes well, I would be in remission at that point.  Then follows a two year chemo program, chemo injections into my spine, etc. etc.  Believe it or not, I'm looking forward to being out of the hospital and into that phase!

I am blessed to have such positive energy around me and to know people with true healing gifts.  This experience, however, is ultimately a solo one.   While I can hold the hands of my loved ones and open to their healing, it is the inner healer, the inner hero in me, that is my greatest ally.

Well, enough about illness!!!!!  The golden clouds have given way to a deep blue sky.  I long to breathe in the prana....