On Tuesday, I walked into our kitchen early in the morning to start coffee for my husband and begin my daily morning prayers when I suddenly became paralyzed by excruciating pain. I could barely move and considered whether or not I needed to yell out to my husband to take me to the Emergency Room. I have been dealing with intense pain off and on and for months so I had to consider if it was different enough to warrant a trip to the hospital. I decided to slowly drag myself back to our bed and hold a heating pad to my abdomen that was inflamed from top to bottom due to a multiple chronic health issues that play off of one another.

Later in the morning, after I had slept for a while and the pain became bearable, I picked up my phone. There were multiple text messages, including one from one of my long time friends who just lost her mother to ovarian cancer. Another from my spiritual mother who is very concerned about me after a difficult year during which she lost her mother to a sudden stroke and her grandchild went into cardiac arrest at birth, but thankfully survived. Yet another from my best friend assuring me of her prayers who herself lost her step-mother to cancer earlier this year. I am surrounded by people who—on top of the pandemic—have been suffering great agonies and trials.

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