Have you ever noticed...

the amazing resiliency of the human mind and spirit?

One of Mom's surgeons mentioned something like this one day last week, when he was discussing with us her planned ostomy surgery. The thought of living with a bag attached to her was shocking, disturbing and downright frightening. This resident put it into perspective for us both...and he was right. The human mind learns to adapt...to change...to accept things that we would never have imagined we could or would accept at any point previous. We find ways to make it 'acceptable'...to joke...to laugh and alleviate some of the tension and fear. And we adapt.

I am not a religious person, per se. I consider myself more spiritual than anything else. I believe there is a higher power - God, Jehovah, whoever - and that we all have faith in something beyond our own existence. How we choose to worship that power is the only true difference. I am uneasy with the thought of evolution over purpose and creation....I don't delve into that internal debate if I can at all help it - but this journey with Mom has shown me a few things. It has forced me to look a little further...a little deeper. While I carry my faith in an entity beyond my view and that faith keeps me sane some days, I have to accept Darwin's Evolution Theory a little more each day as I watch Mom adapt and grow and change with each new challenge this disease is bringing her. And I am learning that it is faith that sustains the spirit while it is evolution that sustains the mind. Without either...we really are lost.

Anyhow, as you all most likely know, she did NOT have the ostomy....rather, they chose at the 11th hour to do a stint in her bowel to alleviate the blockage (caused by the tumour growing and pressing on the bowel itself). And it seems to have worked. I almost wonder if that was not a test of our faith....and our ability to cope and adapt. If so, I think we passed both.

Tearing my mind away from the tired philosophical thinking....Mom looked even better today. She is much more her old self, unable to sit still for more than a few minutes, up and down and around getting and moving things she thinks someone might need LOL! It was nice :-)

Best wishes.