JOE

     I am more than halfway through my treatments.  It was so much easier this week than last week.   Maybe I am just used to it, who knows.  I made it to yoga this week.  The doctor says the lightheaded feeling I get has nothing to do with the radiation.  He said that maybe I am just nervous.  Could be.  I am nervous.  I am nervous and excited about it being over. The young people doing my treatments are so kind.  I keep doing my silent affirmation.  "Every hand that touches me is a healing hand."  I am however, falling in love with the men that park my car.  I have conversations with Joe alot.  He is from the Philippines.  He has only been in this country for three years.  He is fifty, but looks thirty.  He told me he loves this country, and his wife is a nurse at the Cleveland Clinic.  While he talks, he pays very close attention at the people coming and going.  He runs everywhere.  Yesterday, he ran to help a woman who was on the ground.  She was getting into the passenger side of a car, and got out of her wheelchair and fell.  Joe ran to help as well as others.  They finally got her in.  One man, another valet, talks to me and asks how my treatment went.  When I give him a tiny tip for bringing my car to me, he is so gracious in accepting it.  Like I gave him a fifty.  One man talks about the weather and said yesterday, "I am complaining now, but in January, I will miss this heat."  Cleveland weather.  It's either winter or summer.  Joe told me that he sends money to his grandmother in the Philippines every month.  He said he understands we have healthcare issues in this country and financial issues, but it is so much better here than in his country.  He told me he has four children.  "I told my wife.  I will work any job to support my family."  I see so many patients come and go and I asked Joe about all he sees.  I see some people bald from chemo and some unable to hold their heads up while being wheeled to and from their cars.  I see so much.  I am so lucky that all I am having is a two minute session and I am done.  I'm not throwing up.  I'm not exhausted.  I walk out.  I eat my graham crackers to stay grounded, and I go home.  Easy.  My heart hurts for others.  Whenever Joe talks to me he touches my arm very lightly.  "Every hand that touches me is a healing hand."  That includes the valet.

THANK YOU

      I had a dream this morning right before I woke up that my old landlord found so many things in my apartment that were not cleaned or thrown out.  There was a potato that grew to be about eight pounds! It looked like a baby.  I was so happy to wake up in my double bed in my new home.  I never had a double bed my whole life.  My last place was quaint and cute and in the beginning, it was fine.  Plus, the added bonus of my cousin living downstairs, who I adore.  But as time went on, the rent got higher, my cousin moved out, and the place was sold a few times. This last landlord, who has owned the place for nine years, refused to do much, such as paint it.  Or change the carpeting that looked like it had been there since the seventies.  My favorite experience with him was when an outlet piece was coming out of the wall, and I told him.  So, he wadded up a paper towel, and wedged it between the outlet and the wall to keep it secure.  That was it.  That's how he fixed it.  When I showed him last year an area in the living room where the plaster was falling out of the wall, he said, "I'll get to that this summer."  So far, nothing.  A few years ago, he came into my bathroom when I wasn't home and there was water on the bathroom floor.  Not a lot.  Just a small amount from when I stepped out of the tub that morning.  He was so upset and said I must be leaving the bathtub running, and walk away letting the tub overflow.  I don't know what he was talking about.  The floor in the kitchen was crumbling and I do mean crumbling. Pieces were breaking off especially around the refrigerator. When I woke up this morning, I had such gratitude that I was out of there.  I giggle with delight when I see my living room with a new couch that people left here.  I marveled at the a kitchen, complete with a a built in oven, when I made banana bread the other night.  Yesterday, my landlord/roommate said, "Next week we'll get a board made to put under your mattress to make it firmer."  What I'm saying is, he GAVE me this beautiful bed and since I sink into the mattress, he's fixing it to make it firmer for me. The feeling I have is gratitude.  It's the same gratitude I had when I came home from the hospital, and knew I would walk again.  It's freedom.  I sat on the deck this morning thinking what a perfect place this is to heal.  When I drive out of his beautiful driveway and see his neighborhood, I look in the rear-view mirror and catch myself smiling..
Somebody pinch me.

DAY 2

   I will be doing my third day of radiation tomorrow.  I was so exhausted and "spacey", after the first one and the second, I did much better.  I am repeatedly amazed at the compassion of others.  Have I said this before?  I am repeatedly amazed at the compassion of others.  And I am repeatedly outraged at the stupidity of others.  Ya.  With me, your damned if you do and damned if you don't.  I get to the Cleveland Clinic, and it takes two minutes for the treatment and then I come out and the valet parking took way too long.  After fifteen minutes, I ask the girl what the problem is.  Others that came out after me have their cars and drive away,  She is as confused as I am and asks the "men" parking cars what the problem is.  I calm myself down by doing my gratitude's.  That's all I do when I get scared.  And I have gotten scared alot.  "I am grateful my parents aren't around to be upset over this."  That's a biggie.  As much as I miss my parents, the parking of cars threw my father into a rage.  Could that be where I get this attitude?  Nah... not me... And he hated the responsibility of driving places.  I am grateful I can walk.  I am grateful I can take myself to these treatments.  I am grateful I HAVE a car.  Ya.  That's a biggie too.  As I say these gratitude's I see my car.  Works every time.  I breathe as deeply as I can and get my ass home safe and sound.  Not to my old apartment, but to an air conditioned beautiful home.  I just moved here with a friend.  He charges a very reasonable rent for such a beautiful home.  It has one of those circular driveways and I park right in front of the door.  Did I mention I am repeatedly amazed at the compassion of others?

INDEPENDENCE DAY

  So now I have moved.  I have moved to one of the prettiest suburbs in Cleveland. I was having afternoon tea and the maid brought out my usual finger sandwiches. As I was eating, a bug flew by and I said, "THEY HAVE FLIES IN CHAGRIN FALLS?!!  I THOUGHT THESE PEOPLE HAD MONEY!!!!!" 
  It is overwhelming to move here from a building where I didn't have water if someone in another apartment was taking a shower, and then to move to a home where the kitchen is 5 times as big as my old kitchen.  I am beyond grateful.  It is lovely here.   I just need a better wardrobe.