“Think where man’s glory most begins and ends,
and say my glory was I had such friends.”
William Butler Yeats

Oh my dear friends, how do I thank you for your love, gentle caring, and support?

Yesterday I wrote here that I was going to the doctor to have my feet, especially my left foot, checked. I have “at risk” feet as I explained due to very serious neuropathy, a side effect of a few years being pre-diabetic. Thankfully, since going on the ketogenic diet a little over a year ago, I haven’t been in the diabetic range for almost a year. But neuropathy is nerve damage and is irreversible. As I wrote yesterday my doctor told me a few months ago that on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the worst, my feet were an 8. Taking care of my feet is my number one priority after general diet and other health measures. But in the last week my feet, especially the left one, have been swollen and the left one has looked discolored and bruised. I finally got really afraid and went to the doctor yesterday.

It was good that I went but the news I got was scary. There is an infection in my left foot for which I was put on an antibiotic. The infection is not bad and she felt it would clear up fine with treatment, but the more concerning thing was that she wanted me to go to the hospital for an ultrasound to make sure there is no blood clot in the leg. My heart nearly dropped out of my body when she said that and I started crying. I was so afraid I could barely breathe.

I drove home so numb, teary, and afraid I didn’t know what to do with myself. I stopped at the pharmacy to pick up the antibiotic and came home. I had been gone 3 hours total and poor Pugsley was beside himself. I walked him and tried to settle down. I had been told to keep my feet up which meant I couldn’t sit at my computer. All day with my feet up meant I drug out an old laptop that I had had before the fire. The battery doesn’t work, it has to stay plugged in to use and it is so old a lot of things don’t work. It keeps freezing up. I was near despair trying to use it. I badly need a new laptop but no way can I afford one. It seemed everything was going wrong.

Miracle of miracles my darling daughter Rachel called, she had had an appointment cancelled and was coming over earlier than expected to spend a couple of hours with me before she had to leave for a couple of days on a business trip. She felt badly to have to leave when I had to go to the hospital, normally she would have gone with me, but she came, cleaned up my kitchen, did a few things that needed doing, and sat with me. And then my darling friend Noni stopped by to check on me and — and I am so deeply grateful — said she would meet me at the hospital today and go in with me and stay with me during the procedure. It is a double pronged sword because I have the procedure itself which is scary but also I have to — and this is so hard for me — fill out all the paperwork for “Charity Care.” I have no insurance nor can I pay for this test. I am grateful for the help but I feel embarrassed and overwhelmed having to deal with all of the paperwork involved. Noni is going to go with me and help me. She is amazing. She takes things in stride and just gets things done!

And then I wrote in on my Facebook page asking for prayers, saying that I had a health issue and was afraid. I explained further in a note below what was going on. Immediately people started writing in saying that they were praying for me, and would continue to pray, offering prayers, love, and support. The notes from people kept coming in all night and this morning. I was overwhelmed with such a deep sense of what it means to have community, how very many loving people there are, how many people willing to stop their lives for a moment and say, “I am praying for you, I will be praying.” I cried. I was so moved, so touched, and so deeply grateful. There really are no words for how this moved me. But I absolutely believe in the power of prayer. I knew I had to ask for people to pray for and with me and that the prayers would help. If you are one of those people and are reading this know that I love you and care about you deeply and am so incredibly grateful, well, I wish I could hug you and hold you close. I want you to know how much you mean to me in my life. Oh dear ones, it means so much.

Then my friend Bekah called to check on me, to talk to me, and to tell me that she would be praying for me. She asked me when my appointment was so she could especially be praying then. It is at 12:45 I told her. She said she would be praying then and before. And last night before bedtime my dear friend Maggie FaceTimed with me — the video chat function wouldn’t work on the laptop, it’s too old — and it was such a comfort to see her and talk to her. And my dear, dear friend Katya, who is sick herself right now, took time to email me with love and support. It was a feast of riches.

I so often write about living alone, and how lonely it is, but this was yet another example of how we truly are not alone in the world. And to be not alone we must reach out, we need to reach out, we must work at building community for ourselves, we must find our tribe and we must love and nurture and offer support and comfort and prayers and anything else we can to others even as we need it for ourselves. I said this yesterday but this very knowledge is the reason I am going to open my Patreon page as soon as possible with little videos 5x a week at the basic level called “You are not alone.”

I want people to be able to see me and hear me and be able to write in and know that they are not alone. It feels like the most important work I can do in the world. I need to be able to support myself but I have to, while working to support myself, do work that helps others. This is how I will begin. I believe it is why God put me on this earth, and I believe that all of the struggles and hardships I have had and survived in my life have been for a reason. In surviving long-term abuse, mental health issues, devastating heartbreaks, a traumatic house fire, the recent terrible hurricane and loss of my beloved Delilah, but the loss of many before her, and so much more that has happened in my life, in surviving these things I have learned that we can indeed survive. And then of course there are multitudes of joys and love and beautiful things. I want to reach out to others, I want to share it all. I want people to feel that I am holding their hand and holding them close and loving them. I want people to know that they matter, that they have a purpose, and that in finding and living their purpose they can have a rich and fulfilling life. I want to find that for myself and in the process help others find it in theirs. Oh my dear, dear friends, we are not alone.

If you are reading this this morning I am going to ask you if you would hold me in prayer today dear friends, especially when I am going to my appointment to have the ultrasound done at 12:45, but prayers any time are deeply appreciated. And thank you so much. And I love you, I really do. And I said that from a full heart, wide open, and I want you to feel the love flowing from me to you. You are not alone. We are not alone. I feel your presence in my life and it helps me every single day. I am here for you too. If you write to me here in the comments here on the blog I will answer you, and each time I answer I am sending you love. Know that. Remember that. Hold it in your heart, now and always.