You know, at the time, I was blessed. Blessed with good insurance, which I no longer have. Blessed with a good job, which I no longer have — and able to afford a live in nanny, who came to the US at age 18. Was that ever trial by fire for her.

I once asked the oncologist how much money they would spend on treatment for me. (keep in mind, NO RADIATION ever happened, which they wanted to do originally)

She said — half a million dollars.

I gasped, and asked, “what if this happened to someone without decent insurance?”

She looked at me with a straight face — “They’d die.”

I cannot say with any certainty that my healing was the result of just my vegan diet, my prayers, my consistent beliefs about staying alive for my son, my watching comedy every night, my research, their treatments, my being on prayer chains, or that one day I had the vision of the clouds breaking and being touched by a divine hand. I like to think it was all of the above.

What I do know is, I am blessed.

Thanks Marie, for being my friend. I can’t wait to get to Scotland to meet you.