Amazing Grace

Today, I'm going for my first chemo session on my own . The day will start with a 45 minute drive from the mountains to the coast, here in 
Andalucía, Spain.  This land has been my home for the last 18 years. Today will be chemo  session number 6!

Merche, my faithful young Spanish friend who has been me from the start of  this journey, driving me, then sitting beside me at every session (every 15 days), is out of action because of family commitments.

Can do this alone now? Yes of course I can. Si puedo!

Hmmm.  Let’s see.

6.30am the alarm goes.

At 7am I drive to Motril in pitch darkness, lashing rain, thunder and spectacular lightening. My heart is in my mouth as the  car behind me decides to practically attach itself to my bumper.

Picture a very bendy road cut into sheer mountainside, mostly with no passing  for many kms, and huge drop on the right hand side, the side I’m driving on.

8.05am. I’m the first to arrive at  the day hospital. They redo the blood test to see if my body is capable of having the chemo, last week it wasn’t.   Yesterday’s blood test in Orgiva was a botch they tell me.

At 9.30 I hear my name shouted.   Minutes later the head nurse Reyes arrives and hooks me up to the machine. She handles the machine with great skill and patience. Tell me if anything hurts she always says.  Reyes has masses of curly black hair, always perfectly lacquered . When our eyes meet,  I find myself sinking into an ancient well of kindness.

I bless the drugs and ask them to do me only good. This prayer is part of my chemo ritual. I’ve had practically no side effects  at all, except for one amazing one.  There is cortisone in the drug cocktail, so for 10 days my legs feel brand new, and the arthritis disappears.

Because I didn’t come last week, this week’s companions are all new, and  they are all men.   It seems each one is in bad shape.

One has scars all over his face and weighs about 5 stone.

I missing Spanish Encarni, my friend who always sits opposite me . A seamstress, aged about 55, she smiles and talks a lot.  She dresses her size 20 body with great care and tremendous flair. Her gleaming dark grey hair is extremely short . 
It’s 'growing back in,' Merche commented one day.

I've lost lots of my hair , but not all, and that's stopped now.   So I have a deep  new appreciation of how other people treat their hair.
Encarni  and I  exchange lots of smiles throughout the morning.
I always tell her how guapa ( gorgeous) she looks . She beams more.

After Christmas  she  wasn’t smiling.  She looked terribly ill.  Chemo does not work for everybody.   Please let her  be  a suvivor, I kept praying. I felt such love  for her and such sadness she was so unwell. I have no pain and practically no side effects at all. Two weeks later she was smiling again.

11am. Jaime the volunteer sandwich man who is always joking, arrived.  He wasn’t joking today. One of ‘our’ men was lying on a bed behind a curtain having  his chemo. Jaime be-lined for him  abandoning his trolley with ham bocadillos ( fat white rolls) fruit juices, yogurts, paper napkins and sugar free biscuits. He then exchanged some encouraging words with 3 guys, each one sitting on a  blue chair, looking sad.

The rain was still lashing down. 

How are you today he asked me smiling.  Jaime’s about 70. I want to ask him why he has chosen to volunteer in the chemo day ward, but I never get the chance.

Muy bien I say, and mean it, though I’m a tad wrecked after the white knuckle ride here! This soon will pass, I'm sure.

I ask him for a fat white roll and can’t believe how ravenously I devour it.  It is not on the healthy eating list, and part of me definitely doesn’t care, today.

12 noon.  The shy, small, middle aged priest arrives and I think about the blessing I will ask him for. 

I feel my spirit  rise. I remember his last blessing.  He put his hands on my head,  and I was immediately transported  into another dimension.

As usual he speed walks from chair to chair saying hello /how are you.  He gives a fleeting peep behind the curtain.  Then he’s 3 feet away from  me, and I lose my nerve.
He smiles sweetly, but my voice gets frozen, and he  and my blessing vanish into thin air, fast.

The hours are slipping  by.  I dip in and out of The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro. It’s  a fascinating autobiography set in Scotland and Canada.  A certain James Hogg features.  A certain James Hogg was my first  real love when I was 4 years old. Our paths crossed in kindergarten in Edinburgh.  I’d been  adopted from Ireland and was now living in Edinburgh.  James and I were inseparable.    Maybe it was he who taught me to smile, all those years ago?

So love synchronicity.  So love signs, signals, and messengers in whatever guise.
Today’s message/ reminder is definitely  all about recognising love, enjoying it, allowing it in new ways to awaken parts of me which may have been  hibernating way too long. 

And I'm learning how to be compassionate towards myself and others, without falling into dread. I'm learning about amazing grace.

1pm -ish.  Encarni is standing in front of me in a striking black and white outfit. She’s beaming. I’m so delighted to see her I can’t hear what she’s saying.  I don’t know why she’s here today, but I receive her multiple kisses on each check and feel truly blessed. I’m so happy to see you she says. 
Igualmente, I say (I am too).  

Could she have come just to see if I was here??

The drive home is easier. The snow covered  Sierra Nevada mountains are awesome.  The mist is playing with the landscape. The rain is lighter. My faithful 19 year old car trundles on. Nobody wants to hook themselves onto my bumper. Phew.

A lovely new friend asks me to come and eat pancakes this evening. It’s  Shrove Tuesday.

I will, because she lives next door.  And because  she has walked the chemo path , and now has a brand new life, which inspires me beyond words.

“Know that everything is in perfect order whether you understand it or not.”
― Valery Satterwhite