windinthemaples

1) I am slowly healing from surgery. Today marks my eighth day home from the hospital. The incision in my back hasn't finished closing yet, so I'm still stuck wearing big gauze bandages and taking sponge baths. Despite all our precautions, I caught a cold from Graeme as soon as I got home and all the congestion and all-night-long coughing is doing a number on healing that incision. On a few days, I was too active (walking up and down the stairs, mostly) and left feeling reinjured and miserable, so I've taken to a mostly bedridden state. I spend a few hours a day in a chair, but otherwise all of this writing comes from a prone position in bed with my laptop hauled on top of me. I haven't left the house in eight days. It is maddening. I've been prolific here on LiveJournal, catching up with all that Diana's Grove and Temple of the Twelve and other stuff I wanted to talk about, but really the highlight of my day is having the junk mail delivered to where I'm laying in bed. I'm not good at being patiently, helplessly incapacitated!

2) My mother-in-law is in town for the long weekend. She's delivering food and water to me and taking full care of Graeme while she's here. (Daniel has taken the opportunity to get some much needed work done.) I had no idea how much I'd need the help!

3) Today I got back into my astrology natal chart readings. Knowing now what next month's color is for Temple of the Twelve, I have no doubts that this has come blazing upon me so suddenly for a reason and that it will stick around and be solidified as a vital practice for me by the end of next month. If you are on the waiting list to have your chart done, I'm back on the queue and working my way towards you. :) If you've already received yours, I hope you'll encourage those left stranded and waiting by my surgery that it will be worth the delay. :D

4) While abed, I've devoured Tamora Pierce's Immortals series as well as Katharine Howe's The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. I'd read more, but I just don't have much in the way of focused concentration. I've also watched some things, streaming, from Netflix. The hours of my days, and nights, pass sooooooo slowly. If you've posted to LJ this past week, thank you for providing part of my continued sanity! :)

5) I have every intention of keeping my Pink Altar up far beyond the month's scope for Temple of the Twelve. It fills me with delight, certainty, center, and Self. There's no doubt that I find great purpose in life, everyday, in "Pink" pursuits--kindness, compassion, gentle healing, acceptance. It is just so lovely and affirming and right, taking such pride of place in my home. :)

I will post more details when I get out of the hospital, but I wanted you to know that your collective well wishes, good thoughts, healing, prayers, and Presence came through and have delivered some miraculous results with and after today's big surgery. The surgeons were amazed and I have experienced, first hand, the power and magick of love. Thank you, thank you, a thousand thank you's!

Tonight's cat scan will tell whether they got it all out or whether I need another surgery in a few days, but the doctors revised their liklihood of more surgeries from 50% certain to almost entirely certain I won't. That is your work and I love you all for it and your frienships.

Love!!

Rachel

History
In January, while wintering over in South Florida, I woke up with the most phenomenal pain of my life. Worse than labor pains, worse than anything. I couldn't even walk, I had to literally crawl (with several breaks to lay on the floor and cry) back to bed to wake up Daniel. I thought I was going to die, that I had some horrible ovarian cancer or something. Went to the ER and they diagnosed me with a severe urinary tract infection and a large (2 cm) stone in my left kidney. I've never had any sort of kidney stones issue and it doesn't run in my family. Well, they gave me pain meds and antibiotics and a referral to see a urologist about the stone. The antibiotics, within a couple days, had me feeling 100% better. The urology office didn't answer my phone calls, and the pain was all on the right side, not the side they found a stone in, so I ended up letting it go for months and months until June when we moved back to Chicago and I was able to make an appointment with a doctor here at the Northwestern University's hospital.

I've also begun having constant dull pain in my left kidney, blood in my urine, and sometimes attacks of sudden, debilitating pain that makes me pray for quick death.

Doctor Appointment Rundown
#1 (Urology Department): "This is too big to pass. You'll probably need surgery, but if it is a uric acid based stone, we can attempt to dissolve it with drugs. Probably won't work, but we can try. You need to get an x-ray. If the stone shows on an x-ray, it is calcium based. If it doesn't, it is uric acid. We'll have to see which it is. I'll see you in two weeks."

#2 (Radiology Department): *takes x-rays* "We can't tell you if we see a stone in the image or not and we can't let you see the image. You'll have to wait to speak with your doctor in two weeks."

#3 (Urology Department): "Holy moley! I don't see people with your kind of stone walking around upright. How are you doing this? Come on, you have got to see this x-ray! *x-ray looks like a white spiky sea urchin dominating a little dark cowering kidney.* See all the spikes? That doesn't look quite right to me. We need to do surgery, but I want to make sure before I do anything that it is really a stone inside your kidney and not something growing on or around it, something worse. You need to go see Radiology to get an ultrasound. Come back as soon as you can get those images. We need to do something soon."

#4 (Radiology Department): "We have an opening for an ultrasound in two weeks. Would you like to book that appointment?" "Well, my doctor sent me with this note to put a rush on it. I need these images to have surgery." "Sweetheart, that *is* with the rush on it. Well, I can get you in in ten days. That's the best we can do unless you're in the ER."

#5 (Urology Department): "You'll have the ultrasound done on July 9th? Okay. We can see you to review them on July 12th." "What if I have an attack between now and then? What am I supposed to do? Is there something I can take that's better than Motrin?" "No, narcotic painkillers would just make you sleepy and constipated. I don't want to give you those. Just do your best and worst case scenario, if you run a fever over 101 with the pain, we'll want to see you in the ER."

So, I have appointments #6 and #7 booked and, hopefully, will be able to put Pain Relieving Surgery down for #8. But seriously? Being sick is a full-time job. My mom found a lump in her breast when she was my age. It took 30 days before all her run-around doctor-appointments diagnosed breast cancer. I mean really, what's wrong with this system? It is not only annoyingly inefficient, but it is making Daniel's life miserable every day that I need him to stop working to babysit Graeme while I toodle around the hospital. :/ I don't want to be the one feeling guilty and apologetic for being so broken.

I'm hoping that a) my mom can come into town to help babysit so I don't have to be alone in the hospital for surgery and b) that I'll be able to attend my planned weekend at Diana's Grove this month pain-free. We'll see! In the meantime, I have ample validation, finally, for all that pain and discomfort and weeks of saying, "I feel like I'm being stabbed from the inside. I can feel something sharp rattling around in there." :D One can only hope I get to take the stone home for my crystal/mineral collection. ;)