Oh, the Amish and the Communists

Beep…beep…beep… The thermometer just finished measuring my temperature. Now I have to turn the light on and record the number on a sheet. The time is 4:10 am. After getting three hours of sleep, I don't  really feel like having my tired eyes blasted with bright light. I make myself do it, fall back into my warm, snuggly bed, and pull the sheets over my head. It is Wednesday. I stubbornly declared Saturday my official day off and I am NOT measuring my temperature and getting up at all hours just to get the silly number! I crossed off all Saturdays with a fat neon orange highlighter. It may seem like such a little thing, but I do need a break from the rigor of treatments and schedules I have to keep.

My body is overloaded with toxins and acting like it. Because of active neurological symptoms I am not allowed to start a kill protocol next week. I decide I am just going to go with the flow. One of the patients has only done detox for eleven weeks and somewhere in the middle his body started fighting and killing pathogens. It was able to break the biofilm down on its own. He is being discharged without having to go through one single kill cycle. How different we all are and how differently we react to treatment! I am praying that my body would do the same. If a seventy-seven year old can do it, so can I. My own immune system is shut down and overloaded with toxins. The more my body can clear, the greater the chance it will start fighting. I am having a hard time walking again and feel like a need a personal assistant just to get around. But that's OK. Toxins are being pushed out of places where they cause damage and that's what matters. I can live with the misery knowing it is a "good" one! At least I am still able to walk albeit slowly. Many of the patients here can't, like my new Amish friend's husband.

The other day we got a ride to a vegetable stand. After our baskets are full and paid for we wait outside for our ride and talk. We have a lot in common. I am frequently asked if I am Amish. I usually reply "No, even worse, I live in a cave." When I was little, my father defiantly declared that the TV was full of communist lies and that there was nothing on it worth seeing. With only two channels to lose, we were not devastated. They started broadcasting at 8 am and usually ended somewhere around midnight with next to nothing to view. Instead my sister and I took care of our vegetable garden, flowers, chickens, rabbits, and other animals. We tried just about every craft we could find supplies for. As a result I have never gotten a TV. There is too much to do without it! I tried to recreate as much of my garden as I could by planting black currant, red currant, yosta berry, and gooseberry in my back yard. A blueberry bush graces the side of my patio, its branches loaded with berries in late June and early July.

I tell my friend about the garden plot I rent at a community garden right down the street. "We take care of a large garden and a small garden." she shares. By "we" she means she works the soil and cares for the plants while her wheelchair-bound husband watches. I am way too familiar with the scenario.

"Do you need a protractor?"

My husband is making fun of my ridiculously straight lines and right angles that I, the recovering perfectionist, created with a shovel and a rake in freshly tilled soil. He is watching me from the car. There is no way he can help with any of the digging. I try to create opportunities for him to participate. When the plants are growing he will be able to water with a hose and pick whatever ripened.

"I got some peanuts for the squirrels. We go and feed the squirrels that live in the tall tree."

My Amish friend doesn't share that she has to help her husband get dressed, lift him in a wheelchair, and then she can take him outside to see the furry critters. While others may just gloss over the sentence, I understand what the "we go" really means. I lived it and she knows it.  I don't have the heart to tell her that squirrels have flees which carry Bartonella, a tick borne disease. The two need the little things that they can do together. I think back to when I would come home from work and my husband would be anxiously waiting for me. I would take him to see baby goats and sheep at a local farm. Armed with his binoculars he would watch ospreys build their nest and raise their young. On the beach we would sit and look at tiny crabs poke out of their holes while swinging their toy-like claws when the tide was down. When he couldn't walk anymore I planted basil in a pot right in front of the door.

"Thank you for planting the basil. I watch the bees during the day when you are gone."

Two men in their early forties clinging to life while restrained in so many ways. All four of us had to learn to chose to see the beauty of creation and go on in hope while being incessantly pummeled by pain and suffering. To me the weakest people are the most important people. When I am weak I am strong. How crazy that my Amish friend and I meet here in sunny Florida!