It Is All A Mental Game

This entry's first photo............ Anna, in a silly familialy famous pose, tells it all. When you have to enter into a box, close the door and blow into a machine when it is hard to breath in the first place and be stabbed and poked, the best thing to do is, find attitude........... and then eat Chinese food afterward.....

Things went so much better today than Anna feared. There were a couple of things that gave her mounting anxiety in anticipation that panned out to be just fine. It was the mountain is made out of a mole hill analogy. I am sure we will all meet up with this more than once in this experience. It is expectations and anticipation of something negative or scary that makes things seem to be worse than or bigger than they really turn out to be. As Anna said today, "I can see that this is really a mental game." Yes, as Everything is, don't you think?

It is all a mental game. It is how you look at it. Sometimes we need a little humor or seeing things as a bit absurd to lift us up a bit. In between appointments and procedures today we took a walk, or I walked, she was pushed on wheels to the Cantor Museum. The museum is a short walking distance from the hospital on Stanford campus. It is a good place to escape from the hospital. We have made this trek more than once. But, you see, everything is a metaphor for our lives now, so in a sense, we can never get away from it all.

We entered the sculpture garden in front of the museum and traveled up the ramp. The museum just closed so we stopped to gaze on the landscape and Rodin's famous sculptures. "Oh, my gosh, do you see what I see?" This famous garden display transformed before my eyes into, Rodin's Transplant Donor Tribute Garden! What a trip!

Pieces of bodies on display, in full view and honored for their parts, not the whole. Heads gone, arms gone, whole bodies gone. Where did they go? Were they donated to worthy souls needing them to continue to live and breathe on this earth? Did Rodin have a vision for transplant, a future medical miracle? Was he prophetic? The next time you see a Rodin, you may see it in a new light, the glory of body parts, the miracle of transplant..........

As you can see the day offered a grin or two for us. Welcome I must say at this time of intense-ness. And then, as I said earlier, Chinese Food, we went for PF Changs... and the Katsura tree flowers were in full bloom, smelling so well." (referenced from my first blog post entry, go to: Miracle On Order) Oh, I do love this image, this is how our day two of evaluation testing ended. Smelling the Katsura tree flowers is cryptic I know but means, we had another fortunate fortune. This time it was found in Anna's Chinese fortune cookie after dinner.

"Long life with the blessings of family and friends is yours."

As I told her, you chose that cookie, it could have been mine, but no, it was yours. And we smiled. This special fortune is now folded and safe in Anna's wallet.

And for me, "You will be singled out for a special promotion within the month." So does that mean that I will be pestered by solicitor phone calls? Or, is the special promotion an addition to my title, no longer CF Mom but a promotion to be CF Mom/Transplant Mom? Wish it was so easy.