Like a kid at Christmas, I was elated on Tuesday to post: “A good report from my oncologist today–patients who do as well as I am have many years ahead AND word from my editor that a contract is in the mail for my book, which will be published by Upper Room Books in March 2021.”

Thanks to Facebook, 400 friends joined in my joy. I don’t take their response lightly. When someone says my good news absolutely made her day, her love and support makes mine! When friends and family say they’re praying for me, I feel sheltered in caring layers of healing love.

Although it was October 1, I was so pumped that sweltering evening I decided to sleep on the deck. It took me back to sleeping in our backyard with my twin sis and the girls next door. As I lay there, Ralph Carmichael’s “In the stars His handiwork I see” floated through my mind. A chill around midnight send me inside, where I grabbed a plush throw to take out with me and swallowed a gulp of elderberry protection.

Since my chemo pills compromise my immune system, I’ve become intentional about caring for it. I’ve averted the flu for years with a flu shot, combined with a spoonful of what Jim and I’ve labeled with a laugh, ‘The Recipe.’

It began with a relative handing me a bag of dried elderberries. She said soak them in vodka in a glass jar, store it on a dark shelf for three weeks and then swallow a tablespoon every few days to build up my immunity to viruses. Even her Amish patients say the concoction works.

Remember the Baldwin sisters, who introduced us to “The ‘Recipe’ on The Waltons, demurely offering their special beverage to guests? Jim and I traveled to Lake Placid one autumn and on the way there stayed at the Silver Spruce Inn, a B&B worthy of a Waltons’ episode.

Built in the 1790s near Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks, it resembles a lodge with beamed ceilings, cedar paneling and ten fireplaces, thanks to the reputable and wealthy Sallie Miller Smith. A friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, she expanded the place by seventeen rooms in 1923.

With her sister Margaret, Sallie was known for giving new shoes to children during the Depression years but that wasn’t the extent of their reputation.

The innkeeper led us to the basement where the sisters operated a speakeasy during Prohibition; a massive mahogany bar from the Waldorf Astoria remains from that era. In the dining room we glimpsed a secret panel behind a built-in bookcase with shelves just wide enough to hold contraband bottles.

Fast forward to now. If you’d like to experiment with a home elixir to short-circuit colds and flu, please research the web and be sure to avoid elderberries that are still green, which are toxic.

Sambucol, black elderberry extract with a sugar base, can be purchased in place of our homemade stuff. I carry Sambucol tablets in my purse, especially when traveling.

Vitacost’s website says an ingredient in elderberries may stimulate the immune system: “Certain flavonoids are found primarily in the pigments of dark blue and deep purple fruits such as black elderberry.” These berries have “twice the natural antioxidant capacity of blueberries and significantly more than cranberries.”

When I’m home I take our recipe but overall I’m cautious to protect my liver. I talk to it, telling it what a good job it’s doing healing lesions and how thankful I am for the way it processes the meds I take. It, in turn, tells me to treat it kindly. Most of the time we get along famously.

Health is about finding balance. It might seem crazy for a woman with a diagnosis of cancer to sleep on deck furniture when we have an air-conditioned bedroom for nights like last Tuesday but wholeness, whatever our age, involves recognizing and immersing ourselves in small joys. I won’t soon forget watching stars spread in their ancient patterns across the sky.

Humans are wonderfully, fearfully made. We differ wildly in our beliefs and practices, but everybody wants to be healthy. Even Jesus, who likely spent many a night in the open air. What better time to ponder the Creator of stars than when sleeping under them? Rest in this paraphrase from Psalm 8:

“O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name throughout all the earth! .… When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars You set perfectly in place, what are we that You are mindful of us? You’ve made us a little lower than Your angels, and crowned us as Your sons and daughters…”

What an awesome God.

All will be well.

Adapted from Texting Thru Recovery 2017, Indiana Gazette. (my photos) ©2019 Jan Woodard