May you be blessed with good friends.
May you learn to be a good friend to yourself.
May you be able to journey to that place in your soul where
there is great love, warmth, feeling, and forgiveness.
May this change you.
May it transfigure that which is negative, distant, or cold
in you.
May you be brought into real passion, kinship, and
affinity of belonging.
May you treasure your friends.
May you be good to them and my you be there for them;
may they bring you all the blessings, challenges, truth
and light you need for your journey.
May you never be isolated.
May you always be in the nest of belonging with your
anam cara.
~~by John O'Donohue in ANAM CARA: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
Anam cara is Gaelic for "Soul Friend."
Friday, March 27, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
I went Thursday to get a second set of mammograms as recommended by the Breast Center because the radiologist saw some abnormalities which may be of concern. Dr Pope reviewed the mammogram films with me which showed a vast number of calcified cells in my breasts. They were the size of white pepper sprinkled on a whitish-grayish background of what I was told were mammary glands and other breast tissues.
One reason so many of the speckles showed up on the films is that the technology is now digital, more sensitive and explicit than when I had a mammogram two or three years ago. Nowadays they can see things in the breast tissues that were not visible before; but it is still not any way as specific as putting each of those cells under a microscope to determine their particular nature and significance.
The calcified cells may or may not be cancer cells which have died and calcified. Dr. Pope is going to advocate with Blue Cross Blue Shield, my insurance coverer, for my having an MRI, a $2000 test. With with an MRI the various tissues in the breast can be seen in color. This helps determine their pattern in the breast, particularly if those cells are lining up in the ducts.
Pope warned me that BCBS will fight this tooth and nail, not wanting the test done until pre-surgery or post-biopsy. The issue here is that the calcified cells I have are in the entire breast, both of them. According to Dr. Pope, there is no way to needle biopsy every one of them, even if I was a pin cushion; and there is no guarantee that if just some of them are biopsied, they will represent the condition underlying all of them.
Calcifications can be a normal. Lots of women have them, including the gentle-handed woman who did my mammograms. There is, if I understood Dr. Pope despite my slight state of shock, about a 5 % chance that the calcifications in my breasts represent cancer.
I talked with Stanley on the phone immediately after getting my test results. I asked him if he would still love me if I lost both my breasts. He said, "Oh sure! I have had a long time to enjoy them." A long time indeed--- I have been with him since I was 21-years-old.
In Friends Midweek Worship on Wednesday, I kept getting visions of God as a woman, a nurturing mother. I could picture in my mind some to the first images of the divine which were not of the crucified Christ, but of a lactating Holy Mother Mary holding Jesus on her lap, sometimes nursing him, sometimes with Jesus point to her nursing breast.
Many of these images were destroyed when the icons of what is now the Eastern Orthodox Church, were demolished. I am not recalling the year the Roman Catholic Church came into ascendancy over Constantinople; but when it did, the Eastern Orthodox, broke away, not accepting the office of the papacy and not wanting to give up their spiritual art and devotion to Theotokos, Mary the Mother of God---- an image of the feminine divine.
In worship, my mind was enveloped in bosomy images and gave me a warm, secure feeling that radiated outward from my heart. I sensed my soul as the eye of a storm. Deep inside, I knew I had a core place, an eternal pilot light, if you will, that is strong, clear and life-giving, like love and courage itself.
If you, like me, are into the theology of lactation, here some articles to reflect upon and enjoy: "God's Love and Mother's Milk" >>
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=3513
"Theotokos Milk Giver Icon" >>
http://www.stjohndc.org/Russian/theotokos/e_9601_milk_giver.htm
One reason so many of the speckles showed up on the films is that the technology is now digital, more sensitive and explicit than when I had a mammogram two or three years ago. Nowadays they can see things in the breast tissues that were not visible before; but it is still not any way as specific as putting each of those cells under a microscope to determine their particular nature and significance.
The calcified cells may or may not be cancer cells which have died and calcified. Dr. Pope is going to advocate with Blue Cross Blue Shield, my insurance coverer, for my having an MRI, a $2000 test. With with an MRI the various tissues in the breast can be seen in color. This helps determine their pattern in the breast, particularly if those cells are lining up in the ducts.
Pope warned me that BCBS will fight this tooth and nail, not wanting the test done until pre-surgery or post-biopsy. The issue here is that the calcified cells I have are in the entire breast, both of them. According to Dr. Pope, there is no way to needle biopsy every one of them, even if I was a pin cushion; and there is no guarantee that if just some of them are biopsied, they will represent the condition underlying all of them.
Calcifications can be a normal. Lots of women have them, including the gentle-handed woman who did my mammograms. There is, if I understood Dr. Pope despite my slight state of shock, about a 5 % chance that the calcifications in my breasts represent cancer.
I talked with Stanley on the phone immediately after getting my test results. I asked him if he would still love me if I lost both my breasts. He said, "Oh sure! I have had a long time to enjoy them." A long time indeed--- I have been with him since I was 21-years-old.
In Friends Midweek Worship on Wednesday, I kept getting visions of God as a woman, a nurturing mother. I could picture in my mind some to the first images of the divine which were not of the crucified Christ, but of a lactating Holy Mother Mary holding Jesus on her lap, sometimes nursing him, sometimes with Jesus point to her nursing breast.
Many of these images were destroyed when the icons of what is now the Eastern Orthodox Church, were demolished. I am not recalling the year the Roman Catholic Church came into ascendancy over Constantinople; but when it did, the Eastern Orthodox, broke away, not accepting the office of the papacy and not wanting to give up their spiritual art and devotion to Theotokos, Mary the Mother of God---- an image of the feminine divine.
In worship, my mind was enveloped in bosomy images and gave me a warm, secure feeling that radiated outward from my heart. I sensed my soul as the eye of a storm. Deep inside, I knew I had a core place, an eternal pilot light, if you will, that is strong, clear and life-giving, like love and courage itself.
If you, like me, are into the theology of lactation, here some articles to reflect upon and enjoy: "God's Love and Mother's Milk" >>
http://www.religion-online.
"Theotokos Milk Giver Icon" >>
http://www.stjohndc.org/Russian/theotokos/e_9601_milk_giver.htm
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