Support Kathleen's Journey to Recovery

This fundraiser is for Kathleen Alta MacAusland our dear friend and sister. Your support of Kathy will help relieve some of her financial pressure. Let’s help her find some much needed breathing room.

In her words:

Yesterday, my son and I drove to a City of Hope hospital that's about 90 mins from home. I'd been diagnosed as having a tumor on my right kidney about 2 weeks ago. I'd called an ambulance for myself that morning because of the overwhelming pain from a pinched nerve in my left hip. The E R doctor had an MRI done and this tumor was revealed.

I have to say that my brain froze for about 12 seconds when he told me. When I could speak again I felt a strange calm fill me. After I returned home, I still felt this sense of 'stillness' within my heart. I noticed the next day that my world, my life, was all okay... in that sense of the slogan from the 70's, 'I'm okay, you're okay'. I started questioning myself, asking if I was experiencing some kind of denial? Didn't a tumor promise me an exit from everything I know? I'm a very dramatic person in the down low places of my Being. Places private and wordless. I felt myself dipping my toes into that dark water.

Still, as the last couple of weeks crept along, this quiet continued to prevail.

I wasn't comfortable with the response that I was getting from my doctor's office. A dear friend told me to call City of Hope and make an appointment myself. I did and 5 days later there I was. My son drove me, and helped me to get there without incident. We laughed, sharing stories, all the way there and back.

I told the doctor, 'somebody left their tumor on my kidney. It's not mine, so I'm ready to give it back'.

Here's how I see what has come to my heart... in AA there is a reading that people take turns before every meeting , reading. It's called "The Promises". There is a sentence in there that goes "... and we will know peace." When I was new to AA over 10 years ago, whenever I read that, I would instantly cry. I'd have to catch my breath in order to keep reading. I'd never known peace. I'd known other wonderful feelings, but peace alluded me.

Here comes a challenge for my heart, might, mind and soul, and what my response would be, unbenounced to me, the Peace that was promised me IF I would do the Work.

Knowing peace, that state of being which remains intact, come what may. A shelter in the storm.

I thank God for the 'gift' which doubles me over in blinding pain, which took me to the hospital, where the MRI caught this tumor. If there can be a better web, I cannot imagine. My whole being is filled to the brim, and overflowing, with Gratitude.

Cancer cannot destroy Gratitude. The surgeon will take the tumor and half of the kidney out in the middle of May. I'm on a wait list in case anyone cancels. I can still go to work and tend to the things one believes are important.

I wanted to share this with my dear fb friends, but not until I knew something concrete. I'm grateful for the love found here in about as abstract a place one could imagine. I live a private life yet I have nearly 5000 fb friends...

Isn't this a beautiful weird wondrous life?