shanikka and Susan Gardner, photo by navajo
Our friend, shanikka, has been very, very ill for a month and a half -- and she's been in the hospital for the last three weeks. A bad case of diverticulitis led to an abscess, a perforated bowel and infection throughout her system. Drugs aren't getting ahead of the infection so she's going to have surgery to resection her bowel, possibly as early as tomorrow. Her comment from yesterday's Black Kos diary:
An update on me: my surgeon has decided that the interventions that were being done (percutaneous drain system) to try and resolve my abscess and unbelievable levels of inflammation have reached the point of diminishing returns given that it is also the source of some of my complications. So even though conditions are definitely not ideal, I will be having my bowel resection surgery on either Thursday or Friday. I am a bit scared particularly as the risks are greater and I may end living with an ostomy of some kind for months afterward, the prospect of which depresses the hell out of me and makes me cry. But at least I will be moving forward one way or the other, and that's something.
Kind thoughts and prayers are appreciated.
We are gathered here tonight to send shanikka our thoughts for her healing.
See shanikka well and smiling, her immune system in balance, free of pain.
Guide her doctors' and nurses' hands.
Protect shanikka from harm.
Bless her.
Hold her in safety and good health.
Please add your kind thoughts, in your own tradition, in the comments below.
Namaste.
UPDATE: Surgery will be tomorrow morning (Friday). Keep holding shanikka in your heart! Her comment below:
I am rarely at a loss for words, but right now they largely fail me.
I honestly don't know what to say, in response to such an outpouring of love and support from this community. I was not online today because of a combination of pain and pre-surgery test/prep activities so while I knew from Sara about the online vigil, I had no idea that so many had taken their time to say they were pulling for me.
I am going into surgery at 8:30 tomorrow morning filled with joy, now that I've cried at the sheer msgnitude of this vigil. I do not deserve much of what folks have said here, but I am humbled that my relatively sparse contribution to daily Kos is perceived so positively. I will try to actually earn it, when God willing I can write more regularly.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you everyone.