Another loss...

Today, in therapy, there was this moment of pure comfort.  I was telling my therapist about my appointment with the pulmonologist and she spoke into pause of mine: "You must have been terrified hearing that."

She gets it.  She understands the reality of what I am facing, the enormity it could be.  This isn't a matter of worst case scenario, it is about understanding that I don't have an answer, but rather a treatment trial that, hopefully, will work.  But, because it might not, I have the monthly re-testing to closely monitor the situation.  The reality is, I have had a significant decline in function whilst awaiting my appointment due to, at this point and time, indeterminate cause.

But that bit of comfort came after learning that my therapist can no longer see me weekly.  She's been retired since the fall and cannot really manage all the folk she's trying to ... finish ... working just two days a week as she is doing.  All of us weeklies need to go to bi-weekly.  I get it, but ... how do I live this life without her help?

SIGH.

She has been helping me for 13 months now, eleven of them no longer charging me.  For each session, she receives a mere $20 from Medicare, which I am most certain goes to the practice of which she is a part.  So, every single week, I have marveled at her mercy and yet worried that it will come to an end.  Not her mercy, but that she's retired.

How long will she carry those of us she didn't want to abandon in her retirement?
Each and every week has been a blessing.
Each and every week brings me closer to the end.

And I am not ready.

The thing that she also gets is how completely and utterly overwhelmed I am each and every day.  She's watched me grow more ill over those 13 months.  She's seen me.  And she understands how Sjögren's has brought such an increase of suffering to my life.  The suffering and being overwhelmed all day long, every day is too much.  At times, I can shove it all far enough from me to savor the bits and pieces of my life that are filled with grace and peace and joy and not ... illness: Amos, cooking, my home, my haven.  At other times ... I struggle against drowning.

I really, really, really don't know how I will go from weekly help to bi-weekly.
I just don't.

But my dear friend Mary is formulating a plan.
I do sure love me a plan.
The mercy of friends.