From the bottom of my witchy heart...

Thank you. All of you.

Simple words could not have expressed how much your comments on my post the other morning meant to me. With the addition of a group of you spreading the word and having complete strangers come to my aid, I was even more at a loss for words. The outpouring of love, sentiment, caring, selflessness, encouragement, healing and energy has left me speechless and more than a little humbled.

I am in awe of this circle of spirits I've landed in. We are spread throughout the globe but the compassion and care we share for each other makes it feel as if there is no physical distance between us at all. If I could hug each and every one of you, I would, right now. We could probably break the record for the world's largest group hug if we were ever to gather in the same place at the same time. What a spectacle that would be!

Your efforts to help me are felt and appreciated more than I can express. You've given me encouragement, hope and the energy to keep on doing what I love and not let this thing get me down right now. If there is a silver lining to this, it is in knowing how many people I have at my back to hold me up when I begin to falter, both here and at home. I am a lucky witch to have the husband, family, friends and community that I do. I used to say, if it weren't for bad luck, I'd have none at all... but that sentiment is changing, rapidly.

All that said, there is still a battle in my cornea to be fought and won. When I saw the doctor Sunday afternoon, he drew me a diagram of the offending outbreak. The bad news is there are a lot of tiny lesions in the area of my iris. The good news however, is that they are not near the area of my previous outbreaks and shouldn't reach that portion of my eye if we are pro-active and I heal fast enough meaning, no new scar tissue near my pupil. In fact, the buggers aren't near my pupil at all, for now.

He put me on a different medication than I generally use for this, a gel that is less toxic and abrasive to the eye than the drops I used for the 6 months I went through this previously. As far as I'm concerned, if it's better for my eye, I'll take it. The side effects read that they were mild; it may cause blurred vision (well, there's gel in your eye so that's a given), mild irritation the first time you use it and mild redness. All fair enough. I spent the $200 on this tiny tube of gel and proceeded to use it, only to wake up on Monday with my eye the purest red I've ever seen and nearly swollen shut. Turns out, I'm in the 2% of people who are allergic to the stuff. I'm back on my original eye drops, threw away the $200 bottle of gel and have gained my first ever medical allergy.

On the plus side, my eye is a little better looking than it was on Sunday now and I look like I have pink eye instead of the zombie rage from 28 Days Later. My eye still stings, is hateful of the computer and any light source at all and is far from healed, but any improvement is a good improvement in my book.

I'd like to leave you all now with a photo that our favorite neighborhood Old Bagge, Linda, suggested I post. This is my 'heart stone' set out on my altar:

It is an unassuming hunk of rock, neither smooth nor overly attractive, just a big old piece of salt and pepper quartz. The special thing about it, to me, is that my lovely Joe grabbed it when I was saying goodbye to my favorite spot of the ocean before we moved to SC and didn't present it to me until after we had settled down here. On top of all that sentiment, it's the rough shape of a heart, hence it being called my heart stone.

I've been focusing my need to heal on this lovely stone, collecting the energies being sent to me in it to take as I need, either by holding it or in conjunction with a wee bit of candle magic and the use of that huge quartz point to channel and magnify it. Linda, in her infinite wisdom, recommended that I post a photo of my healing stone and let you all hold the image of it in your minds and send your energies directly to it, so, here it is.

Thank you all again, for being the magical, wonderful, loving souls that you are. I love each and every one of you, truly.