Jane's Rainbow: for all needing support & comfort

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 06:19 AM

i trust renewed courage continues
blessings to all    pete.

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 07:32 AM

everyone is saying what I wish I could find the words to say.

love from sandra

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 07:25 PM

Sometimes I can do no better than the words of others and in this case I love what Janie and Maeve have given us. Nigel my friend, hold tight and hold on to each other and hope for the best possible outcome whenever that time arrives. You'll find us still here and still sending our best thoughts, love, and caring.

Much Love,

Pat

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: fat B****rd
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 03:36 PM

Dear Nigel and Ann.
If I don't post here all that much it doesn't mean that you and yours are not in my thoughts.
With the best possible regards and a wish that you have the best possible Christmas.
Charlie X

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: Nigel Paterson
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 12:29 PM

Janie, Pete, Maeve, you bring tears to my eyes; fill my heart full of love & once more restore my courage & strength to live in the moment. True Friends bringing thoughts & words redolent with truth & wisdom. I was particularly low this morning. My mood has lightened & the 'dark corners' don't seem quite so dark.
       Life's Blessings on All who meet here,
                                                                With Love,
                                                                               Nigel & Ann.
                                                                               xxxxxxxxxx

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: Janie
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 07:21 AM

That is so beautiful and wise, maeve. Thanks for posting it.

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: maeve
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 07:13 AM

Dear Nigel, Ann, and Jane,

What we have is this minute, right now, polished with memories and hopes. That's all we ever have. All that changes is our response to events of life and death. Posted here with love to you, this is a reminder to "Take Joy" my husband and I have placed in our home:

"Fra Giovanni's "Letter to a Friend"
Here's a beautiful calligraphic version...click

"I salute you. I am your friend and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not got. But there is much, very much, that while I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instance. Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. Take joy! Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty . . . that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it, that is all! . . .

And so I greet you, with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away."
                  ******************************
"Letter to a Friend" attributed to Fra Giovanni, 1513
~ Fra Giovanni Giocondo [c.1433-1515] was an early Italian Renaissance pioneer, architect, archaeologist, Franciscan friar, and classical scholar.

*Take Joy! is an excerpt from FRA GIOVANNI's, "Letter To A Friend: A Letter to the Most Illustrious the Contessina Allagia Dela Aldobrandeschi", Written Christmas Eve Anno Domini 1513. However, there is some debate: "The British Museum stated in 1970 that it had "proved impossible" to identify Fra Giovanni, the purported author of this letter. It is possible that it was published in the 1930s, "with Christmas Greetings" from Greville MacDonald, son of novelist George MacDonald, and Mary MacDonald".   [wikipedia]

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 06:31 AM

normally i would be at church at this time but tommy has a bug so i stayed home.maybe that was in some way providential as i have just read and pondered your post ,nigel,and lifted my thoughts in empathetic prayer for you.
tommy has myotonic dystrophy and when we took him on we were told that he would not live long and we have had some close calls and all the time we know that humanly speaking he is deteriorating-but not as fast as expected.
we also have a friend who was expected to die 4/5 year ago but is at present in remission,i think.she has however recently had treatment abroad which family and friends have paid for.
i think you are probably right in expecting the inevitable and it is painful emotionally for all concerned and physically sometimes for jane.living in the present situation could be for quite some time yet,-though of course we can not forsee as you have said.
try not to let what will happen to all of us at some time steal the precious times and the potential times of joy in the now.
God bless   pete.

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: Janie
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 06:21 AM

Nigel & Ann, please consider this to be simply in the fwiw department. During those times of standing still, try simply to soften around the pain so that you neither resist or nor cling, but accept. And in that moment of accepting what is in the moment, realize it is ok to accept all of that moment, not only the pain and anticipation of loss at some point in the future, but also the love, laughter, and delights for the senses that are there to be had in the same moment.   

And Nigel, don't worry in this thread about gun control in America. There are currently two threads, and many others that are archived where the debate on that issue, often rancorous, rages on.

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: Nigel Paterson
Date: 16 Dec 12 - 04:56 AM

It warms my heart to read & feel the optimism in the most recent posts. Sadly, that optimism doesn't extend to the Paterson Household. It turns out that Jane's course of Radiotherapy is for palliative care only. In reality, we are in much the same position as we were in late January, early February. Jane's cancer is treatable but not curable. We are haunted by the thought that this could be her final Christmas. No one knows how much time she has left; no estimates, no futile guesses. The 'Day at a Time' approach is the only way to go, but it begins to feel that we are simply standing still, waiting for the inevitable. My thoughts & words are coloured too by the appalling, catastrophic Murder of the Innocents at Newtown, Connecticut. My American Friends, please help this ignorant Brit form a greater understanding as to why 'The Right To Bear Arms' is clung to so passionately by such a significantly large percentage of the American population.
       I'm sorry that this post is so gloomy on this bright, sunny, Sunday morning (at least here in East London).
                        Keep safe; stay close,
                                                       With Love,
                                                                      Nigel & Ann.
                                                                      xxxxxxxxxx

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: frogprince
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 07:03 PM

Hmmm; Kat, we're looking at 5 sessions, and they said just approx a half hour for each.

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 11:27 PM

frogprince, i had three sessions of iv iron last summer. tell her to take along a good book or two. they cannot put it in too fast, so it took from 2.5-4 hrs.

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: gnu
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 11:03 PM

Thinga are lookin up. I hope up continues for all.

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 06:58 PM

Whoop de doop good news Nigel and froggie, Billy doing well too!

very nicely put, Wendy

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: billybob
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 06:45 PM

Whoop de doop good news Nigel and froggie, Billy doing well too!
I still have a sore behind after the cup cake incident but feel like dancing, what was that dance in the 20's? Was it the black bottom or the cake dance?
Dancing off............
Wendy xxxxx

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: frogprince
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 11:32 AM

We just saw my wife's doc as followup to the bone marrow check. No sign of any problem with her bone marrow. Some of the batch of meds she currently needs may be pushing her toward anemia. She'll get some doses of intravenous iron over the next couple of weeks, perhaps followed by periodic shots to stimulate her marrow to a little more production. Not bad news at all.

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: Nigel Paterson
Date: 12 Dec 12 - 11:01 AM

Very appropriate that we have some food related posts...Jane is eating normally & last night consumed a three course restaurant job! Her food intake is more than just a return to normality. She lost 4 kilos in weight last week; had that risen to 5, her Oncologist would've halted her treatment, so regaining the loss is uppermost in her mind. Next week the Dear Girl is going to have to endure five consecutive days of radiotherapy to zap the nasty critters that are invading her hip bones.
      Janie & Kat, I can barely keep from salivating on my laptop. Those recipes would prove to be temptation beyond endurance, even for a diabetic! (I have the will but no power!)
                      With Love to You All,
                                                      Nigel & Ann.
                                                      xxxxxxxxxx

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 08:21 PM

Before a family member was found to have diabetes, I used my sister's recipe for cinnamon-sugar nuts sauteed in butter...pecans, walnuts, etc. omg they were good!!

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: gnu
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 05:55 PM

You are keen on a whippin... kinky, you.

Well... better than just a freeresh when the thred is one from falling off. Sue me.

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: catspaw49
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 03:12 AM

Okay Rainbow Warriors!!! Let's all order up from Janie. I miss my Mom's homemade caramels at Christmas. How about you whip up a batch of those Janie???? Huh> Huh? Oh PLEEEEEEZE...............


Spaw

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: Janie
Date: 11 Dec 12 - 12:13 AM

I'm in the midst of my annual Holiday baking frenzy. Fresh apple cakes, pumpkin-cranberry-walnut bread, shortbread (a very plain and rich recipe, more biscuit than cookie (by USA definitions - not so sweet and a bit thicker than a typical cookie, shortbread or otherwise), blackstrap molasses cookies, savory roasted pecans, and who knows what else if I find time in this next week.

Virtual gifts of love to all of you from my virtual kitchen. Wish I could cross the street, knock on your doors in 3-D, and say, here is a little comfort food, seasoned with my gratitude to know you in the season for a little indulgence.

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: frogprince
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 11:31 PM

But the buns are all black and blue... : )

So glad to hear the positive stuff from all of ya.

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 10:49 PM

I'm glad Jane is starting to feel better and that Billy's completed his last round of hospital chemo. Wendy, ouch! Sorry about your fall, but glad the cupcakes survived!

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 09:55 PM

Wait and hope with a lot of love and look what happens! Bumps in the road and we'll always be here......Happythoughts your way tonight Nigel. Very happy thoughts!


Spaw

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: gnu
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 09:39 PM

DITTOS!

Made my day and I needed that! Great news all round.

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: Jeri
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 09:33 PM

I wish I had a magic want and could make heal everybody. Until I get one, you have my continued well-wishes. I'm very glad things are getting better!

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: GUEST,999
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 08:37 PM

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas . . .

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 08:21 PM

good save, Wendy!

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: billybob
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 02:04 PM

So pleased Nigel, that is heart warming news, those side effects can be horrid so to hear Jane is feeling much better today is wonderful!

Good news here too, Billy had his last Chemo treatment at the hospital today so four more days of chemo tablets to go this week and then fingers crossed for the tests in the New Year, however I can make you laugh I hope, I made a batch of gingerbread cupcakes to say thank you to the team at Colchester hospital,glammed up a bit as it is Christmas ,so was wearing silly shoes, slid on the corridor floor and landed up spread eagled, BUT I saved the cup cakes!! Think they will remember me?

Love and smiles,

Wendy xxxx

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 12:09 PM

been very tied up last few days so when i began reading i felt a little of the pain that you had but was pleased to see a much brighter picture emerge.
love and prayers pete

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 07:50 AM

brilliant news

sandra

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: Nigel Paterson
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 07:30 AM

I'm no doctor, but it would appear that Jane's problems over the past few days have been a pharmacological crisis, rather than pathological. We spoke on the phone this morning. Up until yesterday, she wasn't even able to pick up the phone, let alone make a call. Her voice was bright & strong; she's eating again & feels so much better. Jane was warned that the latest course of chemo would have unpleasant side effects that might last for a few days, but none of us imagined just how severe these would be. Looks like the Mudcat Mojo has worked it's magic once again.
      I'm so pleased too that 'Catters return to post...it's wonderful to hear from everyone of you.
      With Love,
                     A much less anxious Nigel & Ann.
                     xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 10 Dec 12 - 12:35 AM

sending the usual love & hugs, & hope

sandra

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: Maryrrf
Date: 09 Dec 12 - 10:12 PM

Nigel, I don't go on Mudcat as much as I used to and rarely post, but I have been following this thread and adding my prayers to all the rest. I suspect that there are many who quietly wait and hope with you and your family from a distance.

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 09 Dec 12 - 04:23 PM

I wish I could hold Jane's hand, if that would provide any comfort.

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: Pete Jennings
Date: 09 Dec 12 - 12:57 PM

I'm still here, been here all along - more love and hope from Staffordshire. Pete.

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: GUEST,999
Date: 09 Dec 12 - 12:11 PM

That is wonderful, Nigel. You know, I think about you, Ann and Jane every single day, no kidding. It's strange. Sometimes I'll be playing guitar, washing dishes, trying to understand the logic of geese or staring into space, and boom, there y'all are.

I banged my foot into a chair leg a few days back. I kinda squinted my eyes, gritted my teeth and worked hard to avoid voicing a string of expletives mostly gathered from friends of my youth who had colourful vocabularies in English, French and Italian for just such occasions. Infinitely small potatoes in light of the concerns you carry and the courage you continue to show. Semper fidelis, buddy.

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: Nigel Paterson
Date: 09 Dec 12 - 11:30 AM

Love & Hope...clinging firmly to both. Interestingly, Jane managed to get up today & she has eaten solid food for the first time in four days. We are having to learn to recognise the positive & negative changes in her condition as 'micro events'. Tiny changes that bode ill or bode well. Additionally, we are all recognising that we are becoming emotionally exhausted. The proverbial 'Good Night's Sleep' is an effective panacea, but not always easy to achieve. So in between my last post & this, I can report positive movement, not forgetting the 'micro' caveat.
         A warm welcome to Frug. Your first post I think (Could be wrong). Hope it's the first of many.
         Thanks Bruce for the blissful email. You really have a way with words that go straight to the heart of the matter.
         To Kat, Rumanci, Spaw, Wendy: Love, Hugs & Kisses,
         With Love to You All,
                                        Nigel & Ann.
                                        xxxxxxxxxx

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: GUEST,Frug
Date: 09 Dec 12 - 09:23 AM

Radiating positive vibes...

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: rumanci
Date: 09 Dec 12 - 09:07 AM

Love and Hope - two of the best four letter words there are and Hugs.
Constantly.
rum

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: catspaw49
Date: 09 Dec 12 - 07:58 AM

I love the word Hope. It embodies nothing but positive thoughts for any outcome and assures us that those who send it will always be there sending more. Hope isn't cheap and actually is all encompassing. I always feel this group here may send prayers or thoughts or whatever their personal belief empowers them to do, but the one thing everyone on this thread sends in virtually every message is Hope.

So I end this one simply sending my best Hope for Nigel and Ann and Jane and the entire family. Its a good thing.....Hope.

All human wisdom is contained in these two words, 'Wait and Hope."
― Alexandre Dumas


Spaw

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: billybob
Date: 09 Dec 12 - 07:06 AM

Dear Nigel and Ann,

sitting here at the other end of Essex and wishing to be nearer,hopeing so much that Jane's medication is the cause of her present debilitation.You have given all of us so much love on this thread,certainly your thoughtful comments have helped me over the past six months.Please know that all those positive words of kindness are sent back to you and multiplied!

May you all find strength and know that you are in our daily prayers and that Jane will soon be feeling much stronger again.

Wishing you both all the blessings that you have been sending to us.
with love
Wendy xxxx

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: Nigel Paterson
Date: 09 Dec 12 - 05:16 AM

Ann & I spent most of yesterday with Jane. She stayed in bed. Seeing her lying there, in pain & listening to her voice that sounded frail & strangely child-like was a total anathema. She has devoted her adult life to her husband & her four, bright, energetic children, energy which she has repaid in spades...clubs, teams, parties, shopping, school trips...you know the drill. Jane has kept physically fit too, playing netball right up until two weeks before her initial diagnosis. The contrast between then & now is stark & frightening. We are pinning our hopes on her current distress being pharmacological rather than pathological. The latter we can barely begin to consider, let alone talk about.
       And You, our Dear Friends, are a great source of strength & comfort. The physical distances that separate us melted away months ago. Ann & I wish Life's Blessings for every single one of you.
       With Love from our Hearts to Yours,
                                                             Nigel & Ann.
                                                             xxxxxxxxxx

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: frogprince
Date: 08 Dec 12 - 03:21 PM

Here with you.

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: gnu
Date: 08 Dec 12 - 12:56 PM

Thoughts & prayers continue here as well.

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Dec 12 - 11:13 AM

Still here, nearer and nearer for love, compassion, and the sharing brought about by Jane's thread know no distance, no time, no barriers. You and your family have given us so much. May our sharing help you through this and whatever may come. I give thanks that Jane is healthy and whole. I give thanks for this, or something better, for the highest good of all concerned. So mote it be!

With much love,

kat

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: Janie
Date: 08 Dec 12 - 07:50 AM

No words - just open heart.

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: catspaw49
Date: 08 Dec 12 - 06:55 AM

Next post is 1000.......And today there is more energy flowing to more people and the grand companionship created............wow.......Hoping for the best now for Jane but also thinking how much Jane has created and given to all of us.........


Spaw

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 07 Dec 12 - 08:03 PM

Aw, Nigel, like so many here, I'm still on it. Today I drove on a road I drive on occasionally and noticed the a side street was named Paterson St. with one t. I immediately thought of Jane, Ann, and you. I probably would have done so even if the street sign had said Patterson. My prayers continue.

Subject: RE: Healing thoughts & prayers please (Nigel Paterson)
From: billybob
Date: 07 Dec 12 - 02:48 PM

SEnding love,
Wendy and Billy xxxxxxx