♫♪♫ Meeting the new oncologist. ♪♫♪

*So* impressed. From the flowers growing at the entryway, to the smile on the face of the receptionist, to his assistant’s offer of water or juice while we waited for the doctor to join us in the examining room. There is a mural (for lack of a better word) that you see upon entering the building, with a brass panel overlaying a housebroken waterfall (slipping down between two panels of glass, but still plenty lively), which reads, “Cancer Should Not Have the Last Word”. There is a poster in the elevator announcing a class next week on guided meditations. We brought home a plethora of pamphlets and other publications. Also our new doctor’s business card with cell phone and email address. [We like this young man!]

Our doctor also sent a referral to M.D. Anderson for the clinical trial that Beloved has been hoping to get into, that his doctor at Parkland did not [would not? could not?] refer him to. Our doctor did it on his laptop in a matter of minutes. He gave a thumbs-up to everything Beloved is doing in addition to the chemo: nutrition, positive attitude, supplements. We trust him.

Most important, when we stepped into the elevator to go up from the foyer to the office, and I saw the flyer for the meditation class, the Spirit washed over me. This is a place that Heaven touches on a regular basis. Beloved will be safe with these people. And I can work with them.

In lesser news, the knitting is coming along nicely. And the last news that Beloved gave me as I drifted off to sleep last night, was that we have been assigned to home teach / visit teach the family whose move from my old ward preceded my own; I used to teach their middle daughter in Primary. And my hives began to shrink and vanish, all afternoon, until most of them are now little red pinpricks on my legs. I still don’t know what caused them, but it’s clear that my stress level was higher than I thought, and that the release of that stress in the elevator at the oncologist’s sent a wave of healing throughout my cranky, spotty hide.

When I was sitting in the temple last night, talking with a fellow ordinance worker, she asked how I was, and I replied, “Fine,” to which she responded, “Why am I not entirely convinced you’re telling me the whole truth?” So I fessed up to the hives, and it turns out she gets them, too, so badly that they send her to the hospital.

It’s been a rough week physically, but a grand week spiritually. While I was in the shower this morning (I do some of my very best thinking there) I wondered if I should get myself tested for various and sundry autoimmune conditions. Starting with allergies, which I’d already promised myself I would do this year, and also testing for lupus and fibromyalgia. There is something going on. I can pretty well ignore the ankle that ebbs and flows. It’s a lot harder to ignore quarter-inch or bigger hives, especially when they start to form constellations in their circuit around my thighs.

I wish I knew more about reflexology, and how various bits of the body are interrelated. I think the ankle thing, and the TMJ thing, and the pinched nerve in my neck, and the hives, and maybe the sleep apnea, are all hooked together in a pattern that would make sense to somebody with a different skill set than I possess. I’m still at the point where I panic a little if the cat comes near my legs. A simple touch on a healthy patch of skin can trigger fierce itching all over my legs. An endlessly twitching cat’s tail is currently not my idea of a Real Good Time.

But as I said earlier this week, it’s not leprosy, or bubonic plague, or a whole host of truly miserable things. I have had moments of inspiration and joy, notwithstanding the itching that drove me to scratch so hard I bruised my legs (one downside to acrylic nails, dreadful sorry Clementine).

I am now going to proofread this and pour myself a big glass of water and knit a little and see if I can be asleep before 10:00.

The Father’s Day gift for Beloved arrived in yesterday’s mail, and while it’s not as snazzy as it looked where I first spotted it, it’s still charming and more than marginally useful, and I hope he will like it. I did find a truly inspired card to give him.