Microcosm

This has been a tough week for me. I have wanted so much to be the helpful spouse and all I have succeeded in being is the miserably sick spouse who needs help. Ironic.
I have been fighting off pneumonia with antibiotics, and all the various medicines needed for fever, cough and the like. Good thing I went to the doctor and got treated. I actually just had an appointment for a physical, but while there found out my "cold" had turned into something a whole lot more.
Keith has been great, as has my daughter Kim. My bosses at school have been great as well, being very understanding.
I'm hoping (and hoping some more) that Keith will avoid this somehow. I hope everyone in the family does. We tried to be careful but this illness brought home how difficult it is to keep germs away. You can wash hands, disinfect surfaces but all those mysterious tiny organisms are waiting -- silent, invisible and potentially dangerous, even deadly.

I have always found the microscopic world fascinating. The hidden lives of things beyond our sight and even comprehension is so immense. How strange to think of it that way. Microbes and viruses live in an environment that is equivalent to the wide open spaces of our own universe. This innerverse is created by us. We are their environment. We are their planets, vast plains, wide skies and distant stars. Perhaps when we are struck down by a cold it is not really much different than one of us cutting down a tree in a forest. Its life is connected to ours, affects ours, but is completely unaware of our existence as separate organisms. It wants to live. We want to live. The universe is simply full of life striving to exist in whatever way given it.

So, I will try to understand the germ afflicting me is simply trying to live out its existence. I will feel no anger toward it. I will accept it as a part of the universe around me. And I will assert my own destiny as a living being to fill my body with chemicals to shake off its hold on me.

Cancer is much the same. The life of cells is a magical one that is beyond the understanding of most of us. Cells drive every part of our amazing bodies. They can adapt and change as needed. And sometimes they become unmanageable -- like a teenager that doesn't know when to stop a behavior that has become destructive. So we struggle to put the brakes on them. We have to force them to stop what they are doing. The life of those cells is in conflict with our life. It becomes a struggle to exist.

Innerverse. Universe. From tiny cell to galaxy -- life is everywhere. We can't become angry. But we can become determined to survive.