Friday August 10 (10% max level of steroids) Because I felt so clean and refreshed in my own being I wanted the environment around me to be consistent with that.
I also wanted a reason to be outdoors.
So, I hired one of the young men in our neighborhood to be my hands outdoors and to do some overdue tidying up of the yard.
He had been delivering our weekly local paper for a few years, and he and friend had distributed a flyer that indicated they were available to do odd jobs.
I tried to mentor him, but was not able to motivate him to work effectively, so after an hour or so we stopped.
Also by this point, I had tuned up my guitar that had lain dormant for a long time, began playing my favorite flute (made of crystal) in my flute collection, and had launched the blog. I was immediately doing things with both the guitar and flute that I had never achieved before…it was glorious. I was taking great delight in writing the blog and reading the initial comments I was receiving. I felt as if I had creativity oozing out of every pore of my body. Susanne and my sister Nancy observed that since the tumor had been impacting the left (sometimes termed the logical) side of my brain, perhaps that created a shift to the right (sometimes termed the artistic) side of the brain. I don’t know…what I do know is that it feels wonderful to be creative, and I hope that it doesn’t go away as I recover.
I find myself drawn to reading spiritually related materials such as a book entitled "How Prayer Heals" by, Walter Weston, who Susanne had interviewed during her freelance journalism and radio hosting days. I was fascinated to find that he is a Methodist minister and has a doctorate in prayer and healing research. The book is a presentation of scientific research proving the effectiveness of prayer and healing-touch in effecting healing. He compares and contrasts Eastern and Western healing approaches. He sees that the Eastern, secularly based, healing approaches have no Higher Power-oriented prayer component and “do not offer supportive community, relational healing, or religious nourishment for the ill. These are already present in the Western holistic health model.” He also indicates “…of all the issues surrounding healing prayer, the importance of faith and belief during the healing encounter has been the most troubling for me. The public overwhelmingly believes that one must have great faith in God in order to be healed. This has been hammered into our minds by one television faith-healer after another…The truth is that the only qualification for offering healing prayer is a loving concern. The only qualifications for being healed are the desire to become well and a trust in healing prayer.” What a refreshing perspective. Susanne tells me that, the last she knew Mr. Weston was living Medina, which is only about 1 hour. I really want to meet this man, gain more insight into healing prayer, and discuss my experience with him.
My pattern each night continues to be sleeping for a few hours, very peacefully awake for several hours, and then more sleep. Early in the steroid ramp down, the awake hours were pretty charged with frantic thoughts running around in my mind. One of the nights I chose to experience a practice that my friend Rick Eastburn indicated he has done many times during nights with wakefulness…he sits and reads Baha’u’llah’s “Book of Certitude” from cover to cover. I tried this and it was wonderful.
Saturday August 11 (10% max level of steroids) I wrote my first poem since November 1998 My previous set of poetry entitled “The Journey: a Collection of Poems from the Irregular Journal of Craig Farnsworth 1986-1999” was very largely therapeutic as I struggled with depression off and on during that period.
I decided to take another crack at hiring a set of hands.
I had established a friendship with a neighbor, Howie
Germany, who has a teenage son Marcus.
I had hired Marcus once to assist with moving a load of books from pallets in our garage down into the basement.
He performed that task acceptably.
We agreed on a wage for my current work and set to work.
I wanted him to tackle cleaning the brick patio, which was thoroughly caked with dirt, moss, and weeds, and the lawn furniture, which had become very dirty. I explained what I was after, offered some suggestions as to how to best accomplish it, and he set about the task with enthusiasm and actually developed an approach beyond what I had suggested.
I had a delightful time chatting with him.
He is entering 11
th grade, attended a math/science camp during the early part of the summer, and has aspirations to be pediatrician.
The
Euclid High School is divided into 6 small schools.
Students apparently have the option to attend the one that is most consistent with their interests and aptitude.
He attends the Academy for Intellectual and Interpersonal Development, which he indicated has a strong competent of character development….outstanding.
He accomplished the task in two 2-hour time segments and the
patio looked as good as the day I finished building it 4 years ago.
Sunday August 12 (10% max level of steroids) I sometimes participate in a Sunday breakfast get-together at a restaurant. The regulars were willing to bring food and prepare breakfast at our home this week instead. I was delighted. Tim McDonough and George Eaton showed up early to begin cooking breakfast on the gas grill on my newly rejuvenated patio. Several others arrived later, and we had a wonderful time talking and eating.
Susanne and I decided to go down to one of the lakefront city parks to enjoy the scenery. While we were out we also visited Lillian Horn, a 97-year-old member of the Euclid Bahá’í community. She had been following my progress via her son, Robert, and was delighted to see me…and I her. We did a little playing with dueling canes.
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The rest of the story…
Each spring Craig picks a project to do outdoors. This spring was the yard and replacing all the grass. He kept struggling through trying to do it, even though he clearly wasn’t feeling well and was struggling with his right leg. The best part of working on it was meeting and interacting with various neighbors, particularly some of the children who offered to help, but the physical work was exhausting. Even more challenging for Craig was that the new grass did not grow in well, and the yard ended up looking much worse than when he began. At the hospital, he kept fretting about how the yard looks, until finally his mother gave us money to have a landscaper come and fix it.
I’m glad Marcus is working out well as Craig’s hands. He needed that effective support and assistance. Even with someone else doing the work, it is clearly uplifting Craig to see the environment improving. The lawn cannot be done until late August, but he’s happy that it’s scheduled.
It was a fun blessing to have friends come for breakfast. It was the first time this summer that we were able to use the patio, and the weather was perfect. And I didn’t have to cook a thing!!! Normally, we have people over regularly. We ended the breakfast with prayer together…lovely.
We have been having conversations about the delay in the pathology report and the effect of prayer over the last 3 weeks since the surgery. As the prayers influence Craig’s physical healing, do they also affect what’s happening over at the hospital with the pathologists? Can lab results change to reflect current reality instead of the reality of 3 weeks ago? We were joking last night about the pathologists being so confounded by the daily changes in the tumor that obviously this is the reason it is taking them so long to do the report. Either that or there are cartoons etched on it and they keep getting distracted :-).
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