Housekeeping And A Prayer

I added a feature to my blog.

I added a search function that allows you to enter a term and find the links to where I mention it at any time in all of my blog posts. Hope that helps.

And now let us pray (I digress for a minute. The expression, "Let us turn in our hymnals" makes me grin every time I hear it. If we turn them in, we won't have them to sing out of. Just some of what I call humor).

And now to my prayer.

Thank you for the gifts that have come from this "adventure." I speak of the people I've met, the people I've gotten to know better and the kindnesses that they all have shown. Let everyone know that I can recall from memory everything they did for me. Thank you for letting me smile as I recall them. Thank you for the knowledge I've gained and let me use it to help others in their adventures. Thank you for letting me be aware that I've only scratched the surface of all of the knowledge that is available about all of this. Thank you for letting me obtain additional knowledge in portions that I can manage and digest before you feed me more knowledge. Thank you for the hunger to desire more knowledge. Thank you for assuring me that none of this is because you arbitrarily decided that I should be given this illness just because it is your will. Thank you for assuring me that you are not the giver of the illness, but rather the giver of the grace, goodness and knowledge that has been a part of my treatment and care.

Help me to deliver grace back to those who encounter me as a patient, as a friend or as a fellow patient who has experienced what they are about to experience. Help me not to share my "war stories" but rather relay information to others that gives them hope to defeat their "alien." Help me to be able to listen to other war stories and know that they do not necessarily apply to my situation. Help me to remember the words of a nurse that told me, "Even though we work with cancer patients day in and day out, we can't imagine how they are affected emotionally by the whole experience," and that those words are of compassion. Help me to know that because a medical professional is uncertain about some of the process, I can't expect those who are not in the medical profession to fully understand what is taking place physically and mentally in the process. Help others to know that my "good days and bad days" aren't limited to the physical and that the bad days aren't over once the treatment finishes and I am diagnosed to be in remission. Help me strive to increase the amount of good days and also help me to be honest with others when I am having a bad day. Most importantly, minimize my impact on others when I am having a bad day.

Help me face "monumental days" (i.e. follow up testing, scans, anniversary dates) with courage. Let me allow others to create alternative monumental days that celebrate mileposts and achievements. I know that not every minute of every day can be a celebration, but let me try to make every day a celebration of something.

"Allahu Akbar"

"I like life
Here and now
Life and I made a mutual vow
Till I die
Life and I
We'll both try to be better somehow" - Leslie Bricusse, 1970

(Video link to performance of song.)