Putting the Patience back into "Patient."

And I honestly have to say that yesterday was probably the best day I've had since I was last discharged from the hospital on April Fools Day. Since that day it's been basically three weeks of constant pain and a dull narcotic daze, poor sleep, imposed immobility, fatigue, frustration, and a litany of other "complaints" which I've been trying simply to take in stride, even though I am physically incapable of bearing any weight on the left side of my body.

But this weekend it's finally starting to feel like maybe I'm turning a corner. I'm still certainly not in any shape just to jump out of bed and resume my "normal" lifestyle (whatever THAT is now). But it feels like I'm making progress in all the little ways that matter, and that feeling makes all the difference in the world. My friend Jerry is out visiting me from Portland Oregon for the weekend; this is something he'd worked out shortly after he learned of my diagnosis, before anyone had any idea that I would be hospitalized for so long. We'd planned to check out some of the local restaurants, maybe take in a Sea Dogs game...but instead we've just been hanging out here around the hospital catching up on our twenty-year friendship, which is astonishing to us both.

Margie and I met Maggie and Jerry when Margie and Maggie were both first-year Law Students at Lewis and Clark. Maggie and Jerry had both just moved to Portland (OR) from Boston (MA) and were looking for temporary housing while they looked for a place of their own; Margie and I had advertised that we had space available for people who were comfortable around large dogs (a Weimaraner named "Calvin" and a Dalmation named "Luther"); and the next thing we knew, we were like members of a large, extended family. For years we celebrated the holidays together: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter dinners (plus whatever else we could think of at the time); and even though we haven't been in close touch since I moved here to New England in 2001, the same could be said of most of my West Coast friends.

But this weekend it's been just like old times again. With me feeling "on the mend" and Jerry here to wheel me around, we were able to get outdoors and sit in the courtyard yesterday afternoon; and then last night he brought in take-out from Binga's Wingas and we watched the Bruins and the Canadiens in Game Six of the Stanley Cup playoffs. What can I say? The Sea Pups are on a road trip this weekend anyway. So tonight it's seafood, with the Celtics to follow. And maybe a little of the Red Sox from Fenway this afternoon.

This morning I met Jack Gibson, the man for whose wife the Gibson Pavilion is named. Apparently he often comes in on the weekends to meet the patients here and to hear their stories, and to share his own story with them. He told me that he is also a three-time cancer survivor himself, and that as a child he occasionally used to attend First Parish with his grandmother. So I gave him an invitation to my Installation Service, and perhaps next time I see him it will be back at First Parish again.

As I suggest in the title, I think that the most challenging thing for me to do right now is to stay patient: not to rush back too quickly, or to push myself in ways that are just going to make things more difficult down the line, but rather to let the healing process take place at its own pace and speed. John Wooden used to tell his players to "move quickly but never hurry" and this is good advice for me as well. I feel the urgency of treating my disease. I'm eager to resume my work at the church, and missing the day to day activities of my daily life. But the most important thing now is simply to "wait upon the Spirit," and let the healing process take its course. And that waiting can sometimes be the most urgent task of all.