With a lot of help from your prayers, despite the sluggishness that comes from having to temporarily go without thyroid hormone (which is only 'til my treatment's over), I was able to put in a joyful hour helping Sister Anne Elizabeth in the Georgetown Visitation Monastery garden on Wednesday afternoon.
Sister Anne Elizabeth actually picked the veggies shown, but I pulled up weeds and unwanted vines, as you can see in her poetic account of the afternoon on the Visitation Sisters' Live + Jesus blog.
Eight hours from now, I will visit the hospital for a 45-minute body scan that will show the doctors how much tissue left over from my thyroidectomy needs to be nuked when I go in for my radioactive-iodine treatment next Tuesday. Then I will be free to go home until my Tuesday hospitalization, and can take it easy as I prep for my talk at St. Charles Borromeo Sunday night.
Actually, I'm really working this hospitalization thing, which is not as serious as it sounds. The "nuking" will consist of a single radioactive-iodine pill that I will take upon being admitted to the hospital next Tuesday, where I will be isolated until the radiation lessens enough for them to let me go Thursday afternoon.
I truly have a lot to be thankful for on this Feast of the Assumption for all the blessings I have received this past year, particularly that my cancer was diagnosed before it could be spread, I am getting the very best post-op care, and I have wonderful family, friends, and readers like yourselves who are praying for me.
