Spirits up

Friday 30 March

I have to say (and I have told her this many times) that I admire this woman tremendously. True, she had her doubts, before she went in, as to whether she should even go through with this. I didn't answer, for we both realized this was a rhetorical question. However, from there to make the leap towards folding back into the fully blown hospital routine she had come to know all too well, is quite another matter. Starker still, to muster the courage for deliberately walking into harm's way after what she has been through, is like taking on a second tour of combat, after barely making it through the first. She shows fortitude and stamina, taking the daily routines in stride. But she also tries to suppress any fears or even thoughts of what may or may not happen to her once she enters aplasie. I do, too. Fretting is pointless. We are beyond the point of no-return. We shall have to take it as it comes.

We speak over the phone several times a day ("Just to hear your voice"), from the wake-up call at around 8:15AM to the sleep-well call of around 9:15PM. I visit once a day. This afternoon, around 6:00PM she was on the line with her sister Christine in California. My sister Hanneke had called earlier, and while I visited, there were several other calls including one from Elisabetta in New york. I could tell the attention was uplifting, if only as it showed that so many people actually care about her. It is heart-warming to her.

We talked but there was hardly any news to convey. What I did bring was a pack of flans caramel (one of her favorite desserts) and a supply of pyamas (the hospital no longer issues gowns to patients except in Intensive Care). We went over some current affairs and solved the Jumble with some difficulty. Tomorrow we are going to try and get the iPad going, so she can contribute to the blog herself and whip out some emails. I promised to sort email addresses off of her PC at home. So perhaps many recipients will get a weird textless message from me. Pay it no attention.

Oh, and the sound is back in the TV.