Sunday, February 08, 2009

Checking back with Kristy. Uh-oh.

UPDATE: See Monday's post.


It's been quite a while since we checked in on our friend Kristy Dusseau in Michigan.

When last we checked in on Kristy -- who's fighting an ongoing battle with the aftereffects of the bone-marrow transplant that saved her from a rare, virulent form of leukemia -- she was back in the hospital. Since, she has been in and out of the hospital . . . then out for a long time, and able to move into a house with a good friend.

TO GET YOU caught up, here's the back story.

Steroids have taken a toll on Kristy, even as they have kept her graft-versus-host disease at bay. And, at last posting on her website, she was back in the hospital yet again.

Yet again. Can you even begin to imagine?

Begin to imagine, if you will, the psychological toll . . . the physical toll . . . the financial toll and every other possible toll. Whenever I think of Kristy Dusseau, I flash back to the Old Testament book of Job. Sure enough, today's first reading at Mass was from . . . Job:

1
Is not man's life on earth a drudgery? Are not his days those of a hireling?
2

He is a slave who longs for the shade, a hireling who waits for his wages.
3
So I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights have been told off for me.
4
If in bed I say, "When shall I arise?" then the night drags on; I am filled with restlessness until the dawn.
5
My flesh is clothed with worms and scabs; my skin cracks and festers;
6
My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle; they come to an end without hope.
7
Remember that my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again.

AND HERE I SIT, fancying myself miserable as I fight the beginnings of what promises to be a nasty head cold -- eating hot soup, sucking on zinc lozenges, inhaling nose spray and sipping on double-strength hot toddies I've dubbed "cold hooch."

Yeah, right. I'm sufferin', man. You bet.

I've said it before, and I'll keep on saying it: You wouldn't wish any of what Kristy has suffered on your worst enemy. You just wouldn't.

If you have a second, perhaps you'd like to say a prayer for Kristy. I suspect she really could use all of those she can get.

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