November 24, Highway

With the ribbon and bear around her neck, a tuft of now partially coloured blue hair sticking up from her head, the plastic, stiff-neck collar pushing up at her ears, and a bib tucked under her collar at her chest to protect her skin from the plastic, Angela has recently taken on the full likeness of a Shaman. When I tell her this, she is delighted. "Well, at times like this you have to stay close to your foundations."

She is certainly contesting with a trickster. The tumour in her back is at the same time compromising, and sparing her spinal cord. It has destroyed one of her vertebra, so it is at the same time threatening, and supporting her spinal column. I get lost in my contemplations of the potential complications of this. The surgeon is unwilling to speculate aloud. He shrugs his shoulders. He says, however reassuringly to himself and to us, that the body can sometimes adjust "in miraculous ways."

So far so good. Her neurological symptoms are stable. Her pain is no worse.

I am trying to adopt, as much as I can, Angela's shamanistic ways. I found myself in Bancroft yesterday, which is an hour drive north of Springbrook. I do a clinic there on Wednesdays. Because it had snowed the night before, everything, on the drive up, was frozen, and still. Such a desolate road. It is so long, and quiet, in fact, that by the time I get there, I am baffled that Bancroft exists. Who lives up here? Why? Of course it is the privilege of my profession that I spend my time meeting people, and so it was only a matter of time yesterday before this strange place became very human, and very real, but, for that matter, even more baffling. Yes, life exceeds my imagination everywhere I look! In this, I choose to take hope.

I remain in contact with Angela all day. We are throwing crazy words back and forth through "text messaging." Even brief indecipherable messages are helpful, her humour and determined spirit come through even there. I am stealing time between patients today to write this post. I've become very grateful for words. So, friends, I will continue to do my best...to keep in touch.