Halfway to Health

As of noon today, I am halfway through my chemotherapy treatment. 

As in, I completed 3 of the 6 doses that make up Round 3, and Round 3 is halfway to the total of 5 I will have. 10 weeks, it’s been since I was diagnosed with Leukemia, and I guess the total of the 20 weeks of my life for a life is not so bad. But, I’m tired today, from the cumulative effects of it all.

This morning I was writing my morning pages, and just as I wrote that I was feeling kind of off today, just then, I got a phone call from a woman I know who’d had cancer and wanted to know if she could drop off some cancer-fighting affirmation CDs someone had given to her during treatment. At the exact same time that I was on the phone with her, I got a text from another friend saying that she wanted to cover the remaining cost of the women’s new year’s retreat I’ve gone on for the past 4 years. … And that her mother-in-law, a 4-time cancer survivor, wanted to donate funds to my holiday wish list as well.

Talk about timing.

A friend texted me a few weeks ago, and in her great empathy, she said that she wished she had a magic power that could make all this go away. I replied that she does have a magic power: "The same power that saved Harry Potter’s life over and over again – Love."

Cheesy and hokey as my reply to her was (and knowing it was just a good line) ;) I do believe that to be true. That love can heal; that love can save.

Sometimes, as we all know, “love” is not enough. It doesn’t change the person you want to change in the ways you want them to change. It’s not enough to bridge gaps between lovers that have value mismatches. Love isn’t always enough to make everything alright … But it doesn't hurt, does it?

Well, except in that song, “Love Hurts”…

Today, this halfway mark, is a nondescript day with rain lightly falling and a grey view of the construction site out my window. It’s a worker-bee kind of day, doing what it’s supposed to be doing, without much pomp or circumstance. But, it has been dotted by these moments of care and love – a friend with a coffee; one with a bowl of soup; another, a new book and hat; still others, a donation.

I’ve been trying to actively catalogue these gifts of human kindness as shows of Universal love and kindness, and so I’ve sort of begun keeping a list of all these things. The list is already very, very long.

(And that’s it for my, “I’m tired, but I wanted to stamp the occasion and check in with you” blog. Thank you for reading – I hope your reading material picks up from here) ;)