Doctors put drugs of which they know little, into the bodies of which they know less, for diseases of which they know nothing at all. - Voltaire
What a trip this trip has been. Since I learned of my condition, life has taken a surreal plunge into the unknown and the undesired. Some nights I stayed up restless and worried, afraid my entire future was going to be taken or tampered with. There are always those inevitable and various life moments that happen at inopportune times and to people we love the most. Always after the fact, we wonder why we waited so long to change our course.
I met a new patient yesterday, who not only understood me to the T, but also articulated the very phrase I have been saying in my minds eye about what we will accomplish here. It moved me to tears to make that kind of immediate connection with someone you just met. That morning at breakfast, I sat with another patient who was leaving after a two week treatment. She is in her seventies, lives in Riverside, and was here to get her diabetes under control. She and her husband were sharing with me the condition she arrived in. There were dark circles or liver spots on her arms and legs from all the toxicity she was carrying. Her voice was like old school Chicana; sweet, and calming, as she reminded me of my Nana Helen. Her family asked her to come here to get her body and sugar levels under control. Because of her age, she just figured she was too old to make that needed change to improve her quality of life for her remaining years. I assured her that her children and grandchildren would like her to be around for a long time, and without needless suffering. I cried again. I looked at her arms and let me tell you, they were without spots. Perfect seventy-something year old skin.
Yesterday was a beautiful and emotional day for a lot of us. The clinic treats ten patients accompanied by their companions on a revolving time frame. More than half of the day we spend together on a property that lends itself very well to a kind of communal living lifestyle. We eat our meals together, enjoy our hourly drinks in the courtyard space near the nurses area. Then of course there is our time spent by the sea. During those moments of waking hours, we exchange stories of experience, strength, hope, loss, victory, and most of all change. Our conversations sometime consist of tears and emotion, usually followed by an abundance of laughter. Before my stay here, I longed to have that connection with another person who was walking the same path. We are similar beings in different ways and it is a blessing to be surrounded by them. Tomorrow is another day of goodbye's to more amazing people, and more experiences that will forever change the way I see the world.