Life at the intersection of faith, nature, history and art
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?– Mary Oliver
As I have written previously, this summer I was scheduled to undergo a stem cell transplant to fight what had been diagnosed as myelodysplastic syndrome (see my postings from March 27, April 2 and April 13). This syndrome, which is all too close a cousin of leukemia, was caused by last summer’s chemotherapy treatments for another rare blood disease. Anyway…
“Again I will build you, and you shall be built.” Jeremiah 31:4
If all goes as planned, sometime this summer I will be rebuilt, remade and renewed when the flow of someone else’s stem cells enters my bloodstream and makes its way, literally, to the marrow of my bones. So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be rebuilt from the metaphorical ground up. And, well, it’s spring and all that.
[Read more…] about A Rebuilding Year: Shooting for Perfection
If we live our lives well (at least this is the way I define “well”) then we live not in numbness and lethargy and apathy, but fully alive and feeling, aware of the sacred around us, and with an ongoing commitment to living an examined life — one centered on the presence of God, the teachings of Christ, and the power of the individual to change the world in some way, however small. And if we live that way, we should often find ourselves standing at metaphorical thresholds and forks in the road wondering which way to move, for there should always be choices to be made. A life lived well should never be lived on autopilot. To me, the worst kind of life would be one where I felt I had no options.
So here I stand on the threshold of so many decisions and life choices, as well as facing some health challenges and life changes over which I have little or no control, at least on the surface. Of course, we all have choices to make, even if the choice is about how we accept those things that have been thrust upon us.
[Read more…] about Standing at thresholds and forks in the road
On February 24, a week and a few days after a bone marrow biopsy, I learned that I have a new, and more serious health condition than the one I have been battling over the past four years. In fact, it was the chemotherapy I received this past summer for that disease, called Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis (LCH), that is the cause of my new health challenge. Against 99 to 1 odds, the chemo seriously damaged my bone barrow to the point where I have a condition called myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS, formerly known as “preleukemia”).
What I’ve been focused on the past few weeks is once again preparing myself to enter unknown territory. My spiritual journey into more than three years of on-again and off-again chemotherapy I chronicled in my book, “Embraced by God: Facing Chemotherapy with Faith.” Now I am facing the very real possibility that this syndrome (which I and most others have never heard of) will transform itself into leukemia, which everyone has heard of and is just about as scary a word as cancer. In any case, I am facing what I was told was the only possible long-term cure for the syndrome/leukemia — a stem cell transplant.
[Read more…] about The Road to Transplant: Embracing a New Paradox