John and Amanda and the little ones left to go home to San Antonio last Wednesday and the house is again, quiet. I admit the quiet is welcome and we have reset the house and rooms to better serve the two of us and other visitors. I am amazed and thankful for the challenge of traveling (my trip to Boston for brother’s memorial) and for being with a young family in our home for 3 weeks. It is important to drop the regular routines and then re-evaluate what is really important, we get in ruts so easily.
Michael has had some amazing days lately. We drove to the coast and did a short hike down to Hobbit Beach and back up, seeing grand expanse of sand and sky and hills close by. Then he had the energy to go out to eat and hang out at a nearby coffee shop. I did qigong in the reeds by the river mouth in front of the coffee shop. That night he got a fairly high fever and had one throughout the next day. That was hard mentally to face. He was so energetic the day before.
I felt myself on a roller coaster again exhausted by the ups and downs. I thought about trying to embody transience (this too will pass) and transcendence (go beyond or above situations and get a different view). I thought about how we create whole worlds in our minds that may or may not be true. The material world around us becomes a mere reflection of what we “think” it is. Is Michael really sick? Maybe not.
After a day of me swimming through this aforementioned crisis in my mind, Michael remembered to attach bags to his drains to get any potentially infected fluid out of his system. After doing so, the fever broke and he had a good day on Sunday. On Monday he decided to go for his first bike ride in four months. We ended up doing an 8 miles ride (flat ground) and ate lunch at a café in town. We had to stop on the way home because the café took a long time and we had a 1PM phone call with his doctor. We took the call alongside the river. The doctor was pleased to see us in our riding gear enjoying the outdoors.
Meanwhile the cholangiogram that was originally scheduled last Friday is now moved to Wednesday 7/24/24. It will be at the local hospital but performed by the new team from Renew Institute (specialists in interventional radiology). They will take pictures of what is going on in the bile ducts. There will be sedation and the whole procedure will need around 5 hours for prep time and recovery. We appreciate your prayers for this procedure that it will go excellently and it will clarify his situation completely!
Also Michael added a new story, so don’t miss that!
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