Mick McKellar Update--Day +76
Happy Mother's Day! It is nice that the focus of phone calls and messages moved to Marian for a day, and away from my situation. It was great to hear from the kids, too.
We are going after my rash with skin creams that seem to be having some effect. I have felt no other adverse reactions or changes that accompanied the major outbreak, and we will learn more tomorrow as Monday is a testing/consultation day (early start/lots of waiting). We're hoping my liver numbers continue to stay good and that this rash disappears.
Sometimes it almost feels like we are waiting for GVHD's next move, because it is so unpredictable. I'm still dealing with blood glucose testing and insulin shots, but we have high hopes that discontinuance of the steroids will bring that back down to normal.
Missing Mom
May 6 was the 21st anniversary of my mother's death. She was a cancer survivor -- she had a small cell carcinoma treated with chemotherapy and radiation. She visited a local hospital for some tests, contracted a bacteriological infection, and died within a week. Like me, her immune system was compromised.
I wrote poems to her starting at age 12 and she wrote poems back to me. Our poetic correspondence continued until shortly before her death in 1990. The mystery surrounding the disappearance of our poems has never been solved -- my poems locked in a wooden box that she kept, and her poems locked in a wooden box that I kept -- when opened after her death were both empty. Not one poem of that long and wonderful conversation has ever been found.
I think of her on Mother's Day and remember her marvelous ability with imagery, always relying on simple and accessible language. She passed on her love of the sonnet and for simple rhyming couplets. I like to think that an echo of her legacy lives on in my own poetry.
For Mom
Her words revealed the truth of what she saw,
Within the images drawn so sparely --
The lines so fine her words could always draw,
Her thoughts with wondrous details seen rarely.
I miss her deep and abiding insight,
Her wit, most rare, that touched my human heart.
I gather what I can of her life light,
And pray to share it before I depart...
Mick McKellar
May 2011
Thank you all for your prayers and good thoughts.
God bless, and good night,
Mick