An Update as of 3/8/13

It seems that Bob’s well-intentioned but misguided immune system is once again getting riled up in some unhelpful ways. In the past few days, Bob has had several small neurological incidents and one small seizure. Both our neurologist and Bryn agree that another course of steroids is in order to try to calm things down before Bob’s immune system goes on the attack in even more aggressive ways.

As anyone who has struggled with an autoimmune disorder can attest, trying to reset a overzealous immune system so that it keeps attacking the very real threats that it is supposed to protect us from, and stops attacking our own vital, healthy tissue that we need to survive is no small matter. It is an imprecise science at best, and the tools the medical profession have at their disposal, while so much better than they had even a generation ago, are not able to target specific functions to turn on or off. So we keep trying our best to calm down the immune system without turning it off altogether which would leave Bob defenseless in the face of even everyday germs and bacteria.

These ongoing challenges have not kept us from having a good time while we are here with Bryn and Andres. On Tuesday, we traveled to Zion National Park and spent our time there is a state of awe and wonder at the majesty of the natural beauty there. Bryn was a little nonplussed when one of the rangers asked her if she was on spring break, perhaps thinking she was an undergraduate. She said to me “You’d have been happy if they’d asked YOU that!”, and I said I would have replied “As a matter of fact, I am!”

We also had a lovely visit to Lake Las Vegas, where there is a small artsy community on the shores of the lake. We had a scrumptious lunch there and then spent a little time wandering the shops when something very surprising happened. Driving the 25 miles from downtown to this small community, I had commented about how much the terrain around Las Vegas reminded me of parts of Israel we’d visited. I had been thinking about our time in Israel lately because just a few days before we left to come on this trip, Bob and I finally got around to hanging up the pictures in the lower level of our house after the mold remediation we’d had done over the holidays.

Among the pictures we hung was a piece that I’d bought when we visited the ruins of King Herod’s Palace at Caesarea in Israel. There is an artsy village there and in one of the galleries, I was taken by the bright painting produced through a unique process made from the dyed fibers of recycled pop bottles. I had never bought a piece of original art before, but I fell in love with the whimsical birds and decided I had to have one. I selected a small piece about one foot square to serve as my souvenir from our trip. But now, as I was re-hanging that piece in our basement, I thought that my little bird looked lonely and I was wishing that I’d bought two. The thought crossed my mind that I could probably find that gallery on the Internet and buy another. But those are the kinds of thoughts that tend to cross my mind, and not get acted on.

Well, here we are a week later strolling around this small, sparsely populated village in the middle of a desert and wander into a gallery to find the same bright paintings I had seen in Israel!  And there are my whimsical birds, along with the artist, Alycia Dighorka, herself!  She had moved from Caesarea and had just opened this gallery in Lake Las Vegas in December.  She originated this unique form that she calls “soft paintings” and is the only one in the world to use it (www.artnova-nv.com).  Of all of the places on the planet that she might have landed, here she was in Lake Las Vegas and we ended up there as well. As you might imagine, I am now in procession of my second piece of original artwork, and  my little bird will no longer be so lonely!

When something that strange and wonderful happens, I just have to believe that in the end, everything will be all right. 

-Megan