Seeing Clearly: latest on surgery and stuff

Sunday, February 10, 2008

latest on surgery and stuff

Hi, all,
Here is the poop on the surgery:
Monday January 11
pre-op stuff 8-9
surgery 9-10:30
recovery room 10:30-12:00 --then discharged

We are staying at the Residence Inn in Grand Rapids--room 722, phone 616-957-8111.
Because of the horrendous weather we thought it best to get to GR tonight. Deb drove us all in the Trailblazer-what a gal. The gal from Florida drove all of us Michiganders. She was and is awesome!! It took two hours.....yikes.

Deb, Annie, Jon, Bella and I are in a 2 br suite and my dad and stepmom are next door. It is a very nice place.
We will also be staying here tomorrow night, because I have to be seen by the doctor again
on Tuesday morning-easier to just hang here.

I wish I had the words to tell you how much I appreciate and love you guys who have been holding me in your arms through all of this. I feel your prayers.
Next time I see you, I will have one less eye but I have a feeling that I will see you all even better than I ever did before. funny.
as Carolyn said-see you on the flip side!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: Claudia, Nathan filled me in late last week on your news. I was overwhelmed for you, but I KNOW that you are going to come out of this just fine, and in some respects, better. I have a card for you, but have had trouble finding your address. I finally pulled a few strings and I think I've got it. Are you on Hollywood Drive? I hope so, because that's where your card is going.
Gades, I hope this message gets to you. You're my first blog. Virgin blogging, who would have thought?!

My prayers and thoughts and all the positive energey I can muster are with you, Girlfriend. This is a scary journey, to be sure. Believe me when I say I know how you're feeling on many levels. Beleive when I say, it's a very spiritual journey as well as physical and that you're going to be fine.
God bless and as they say, "May the Lord be with you, always."
Madeline; February 11, 2008 at 12:09 PM
Ms_Gundrum said...: I got the call that the operation was a success and the doctor "got it all".

You were said to be laughing and being your silly self. GIVE ME SOME OF THAT MEDICINE!

When you wake up, you will be beautiful and wonderful and lucky to be alive!!

See you tomorrow.; February 11, 2008 at 12:35 PM
Anonymous said...: Ode to my Right Eye

The day I woke up
and found my Right Eye
It was a relationship with you
that I hoped would never die.

You never failed me,
You understood my dread
You were always there for me,
Unlike Lefty and Fredd.

You helped me put on black eyeliner
Blue Eye shadow and black mascara,
You reflected the beauty in me
when I knew Lefty was a gonna.

This relationship we share
Is so precious to me,
I hope it grows and flourishes
Into infinity.

You are so special to me
And on you I must rely,
You are my one true friend,
My Right Eye.

Our relationship is visionary.
So let's hold onto each other.

I love you.
I will always love you,
My Right Eye.; February 11, 2008 at 12:38 PM

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The Journey

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

© Mary Oliver.

a poem from TRAVELING MERCIES by Annie Lamott

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feeling we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

--w.s. merwin

from Kabir, Indian mystic poet

Friend, hope for the truth while you are alive.

Jump into experience while you are alive!...

What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.

If you don't break your ropes while you are alive,

do you think ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic

just because the body is rotten--

that is all fantasy.

What is found now is found then.

If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with

an empty apartment in the City of Death.

If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

Night Letter to theReader by Billy Collins

Night Letter to the Reader

I get up from the tangled bed and go outside,

a bird leaving the nest,

a snail taking a holiday from its shell,

but only to stand on the lawn,

an ordinary insomniac

amid the growth systems of garden and woods.

If I were younger, I might be thinking

about something I heard at a party,

about an unusual car,

or the press of Saturday night,

but as it is, I am simply conscious,

an animal in pajamas,

sensing only the pale humidity

of the night and the slight zephyrs

that stir the tops of the trees.

The dog has followed me out

and stands a little ahead,

her nose lifted as if she were inhaling

the tall white flowers,

visible tonight in the darkened garden,

and there was something else I wanted to tell you,

something about the warm orange light

in the windows of the house,

but now I am wondering if you were even listening

and why I bother to tell you these things

that will never make a difference,

flecks of ash, tiny chips of ice.

but this is what I want to do--

tell you that up in the woods

a few night birds were calling,

the grass was cold and wet on my bare feet,

and that at one point, the moon,

looking like the top of Shakespeare's

famous forehead,

appeared, quite unexpectedly,

illuminating a band of moving clouds.

This poem does what all good art does-it makes my heart fill as I recognize myself in it, and I say, "yes! that is exactly it!" and I realize once again that I need to tell you so many things. I feel inspired. Alive.

There are not enough hours.

a note from Kevin Griffin, author and spritual leader from Shambhala