Home for Easter
I’m home for Easter, but not as I originally imagined it, with the transplant behind me. Just the opposite. Everything has been postponed until next week. Well, that’s not exactly true. My brother was allowed to move forward with the harvest of his stem cells – they’ll simply be frozen until I can get well enough to undergo the transplant. So he’ll be heading back to California on Easter Sunday and we’ll be hunting eggs and eating with the Brown family here in Cape Elizabeth.
Despite my resistance to being sent home last week, I have to admit it was the right choice. My cold got worse once I was back here and for most of the week, I’ve felt like a truck hit me. Just as the cold was starting to let go, I developed a case of shingles on my left arm. What a strange disease. It’s related to chicken pox, and in fact grows from the dormant chicken pox virus that has been lingering in your body since you were a child. It’s nerve related, following a nerve line from your spine to the periphery of your body, where it erupts as a red rash of sores that hurt when your clothes rub against them and tingle and burn like tiny electric shocks until they finally dry up and get crusty. No wonder people cringe when I mention it. It’s yucky. I’m taking meds to speed its demise.
And the newly revised date for my admission to the hospital is: March 28, 2008. Dr. Armand will be back from his Easter vacation, I’ll be over my ills (hopefully). Moriah’s 13th birthday will be that weekend (March 29). And Spring should be slowly getting established here in Maine. The daffodils on our table are so cheery and remind me of the hundreds of daffodils that grew wild on Blue Moon Farm. We were rich in daffodil cheer. The memory overwashes me now, warming me against the bite of the cold Maine wind.
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Yes….the magic of spring! (speaking from lands of still frozen piles of snow)….isn’t is nice that daffodils and their memory CAN linger! love and strength to you Lina!
I remember the hills and fields of daffodils in the spring at Blue Moon Farm too! A wonderous image to recall. I also recall how, through the farmer’s market you started, you provided our whole town with fresh daffodils for our tables. Let the brightness of those flowers drive out those shingles now and help you regain your strength. May that bad cold soon depart as well. Thank you Mark for helping Lina and may you have a safe trip back home. Thinking of you Lina and Craig and sending lots of love and good thoughts your way. Marta
Hi Lina,
Priscilla gave me your update and this website. I’m always amazed that after 3 years of medical school, when I talk to anyone savy who has been fighting a disease like yours, they put me to shame with their intimate understanding of the body. I send you all my best wishes from Puerto Rico. Please remind the girls I would love to host them here for a Spring Break or offer my apartment for a getaway next year. I had a fun Easter surprise of Evelyn reading me several poems she has written this month from poetry class. She promises more where that came from too, along with some she wrote before she got married. Perhaps Nana passed along more to her bevy of liberal grandchildren than we knew 🙂
hugs, Kelley
Lina,
You are in my thoughts and prayers. Keep the beautiful spring daffodils in abundance and focus. You are my rock star!
Sandy
I am so glad that Deb shared this website with the cooking bees. Although I live so close I am out of the news loop (still trying to figure out how to keep up with 4 kids- feel like I never leave the house). I send my thoughts and prayers -especially as you return to Boston. May the warmth of the coming months give you strength. Lynn B.