I truly can't believe it has been almost a year since I posted. Here's a recap: I was seriously ill for most of last year with a massive Vitamin D deficiency. My pain levels were completely debilitating. I went on automatic pilot as a teacher; I am still amazed that I was able to complete last year's teaching. Being a good teacher is very, very important to me and I was extremely disappointed in myself. I don't know why: I was literally racked with nearly unsurvivable pain from head to foot, but mostly in my spine and lower back; moving was a form of sheer torture. I just accepted it and walked through the pain to teach. It was difficult beyond anything I have previously gone through. If I did not have my granddaughter Thistle (who lives with me), I would not have had the strength to keep going. I finally got a new rheumatologist who ran several tests, including a Vitamin D test, and the deficiency, once corrected, gave me a truly new lease on life. My doctor said that this type of deficiency is becoming rampant. It has taken about six months for the pain to leave entirely. My body is still not out of the woods yet, though; I am on three months of prednisone now for a kidney-related flare. If this does not knock my illness down, then Imuran is the next line of defense, then CellCept; if those do not work, there are stronger chemotherapies. It was very hard to take home literature from my doctor on the various treatments. My elder sister (who also had lupus and died form it in 2008) endured a nightmare of Cytoxan chemotherapies; prednisone also destroyed her hipbones and caused horrible osteoporosis. Incredibly, my bone scan showed that I have extremely strong, dense bones despite literally years of prednisone now (I have had prednisone now at least once a year since 2009, often many months and high doses of it for asthma and lupus). And still, and still...life for me is good, and beautiful, and the release from pain is a redemption. Lately I have been dreaming about my own death, about entering the afterlife, about being on a sort of threshold these days....and yet we are all on such a threshold to one degree or another. This day I am alive. This day I feel and know the beauty of a world that persists despite all the ways it has been ravaged, and I feel that touch of grace again which I cherish, which helps me keep going.