Friends, the theme of the day might be sighs. Or deep breaths. Oh breath, how do we breathe thee deeply? Let us count the ways…
- First, just behold the quaint familial unit (above) hanging out, and chilling with dinner, like it’s just no big deal to be together. At home. Chowing down. Ho hum. And oh the blessings.
- Second, Dea reports that since her return to the island she is eating well and sleeping restfully. In her own bed. And she can quite literally breathe deeply. Despite some really serious surgery on her lung, and a bunch of post-operative poking and prodding, as of my last chat with her, she is dutifully doing her prescribed breathing exercises, and she can breathe pretty comfortably. And so we remember to cherish these things that might occasionally fall taken for granted. It’s helpful to have the necessary gear working properly when a big sigh of relief is in order, and that order came this afternoon…
- Although she hasn’t talked much about it, the second big objective of her surgery was to collect lymph node biopsies, so that they could be tested for the presence of any funkies that might be wandering into those systems without permission. Today she got word that her lymph node biopsies were tested, they look clear, and so people who know her say they may be the only part of her that is NOT funky. These test results were a giant relief, with giant implications for the way she’ll be able to spend the rest of summer – outside of radiation and chemo wards. Dea, tonight we all breathe a deep sigh of relief with you. Seriously.
A quick housekeeping note: our dearest patient reports that her fridge overfloweth with the generous supply of meals that people have helpfully delivered. In order to moderate the new task of managing the supply of food in the house, we have modified the volunteer food signup list by eliminating every other row in the meal calendar. This was a quick and dirty strategy to cut the food supply down by half — and we urge you to please look here to see if your meal day was adjusted or canceled.
Dea asked me to encourage people to “please feel free to contact Dea in regard to food deliveries. Please provide enough food for four people, as Ricky is home for the summer and we have one additional guest staying with us for the next number of weeks. Preferably organic when available, with vegan options as well.”