Thank you for the notes I have been receiving inquiring about the Abbess after her surgery last week. She is recovering quite well, after a few days of extra sleepiness and soreness she returned to her usual spunky self. Her stitches will be in for another week. The medical report indicates that this tumor, like the one removed in late November, was indeed cancer. But also like the previous one it is classified as low-grade with clean margins (meaning it looks like it was all removed). My concern is, of course, that another mammary tumor developed so soon after the previous one in the same area. Our vet will have a consult with an oncology vet to see if she can give us more information.
In the meantime, her condition thrusts me even more deeply into the Lenten journey — the confrontation with limitations and mortality — so that I find myself wanting to hold everything dear even closer to me. A certain kind of clarity rises slowly from this place of living with questions, a wisdom about what is essential in life.
5 Responses
What a teacher about loving with abandon, living for this very moment!
Thank you for these gifts of prayer, I receive them with enthusiastic welcome.
Cautious optimism and prayerful thoughts for you and the Abbess.
I know that losing Molly put many things into a different context for me. You and the Abbess have my prayers in this time of questions.
may confrontation dissolve into something softer … more accessible … because of tenderness and the hospitality you must show to paradox and your questioning. answers will befriend you, christine. my prayers are with you and your beloved petunia. what gifts she continues to bring you.