Site icon Fabienne S. Morgana

Prayers for chronic / acute illness

fabiennesmorgana
Apollo

Last week I mentioned that I was devoting my post on Blackberries and Perscribed Burning to someone starting chemotherapy on the Monday.

This Monday, they start their second week of chemotherapy. I’m dedicating this post to them as well, and wishing them all that they need and want to support them in navigating the experience they are living.

Holy Ones, lend me your wisdom — I’m sick and I’m struggling becuase there’s no end in sight. Guard me against eugenics and gross negligence and all the evils rooted in the industry that preserves profit over healing. Guide me to thoughtful, thorough physicians made bright by compassion and competence; to clean, well-staffed facilities free […]

a prayer for chronic illness

I always find the posts from the recluse interesting and I recommend following their blog at The Patron Saint of Hard Times.

I have shared their post A Little Inspiration a couple of days ago here.

They also write about the experience of being neurodivergent here.

There is a blog about being a spoonie Polytheist and how much prayer helps here.

Asklepios

Prayer to Asklepios

You lift your snake-entwined staff, great healer, and send out healing knowledge.

You know each drug and its effects, each technique and when it should be used, each symptom and what it means, each illness and how to treat it, each patient and what to do.

May my (their) hands be yours.

A Book of Pagan Prayer
Ceisiwr Serith

It took me until I was in my late 40s to realise that I was neurodivergent and had been masking my whole life; and the thing that made me realise was reaching perimenopause.

Apparently, it is really common that neurodivergent people can experience a real shift in terms of their ability to mask with the arrival of perimenopause / menopause.

In 2018, in my late 40s, I also experienced one of the worst and longest periods of depression for quite some time after the death of a step-sibling (compounded by 12 deaths over the previous 5 years).

This is also when I started wrapping (covering my head) in public, and that is a strategy that still works for me and has become increasingly tied to my devotional practice.

Ironically, the only time I have not wrapped in public over the last 5 years has been when I was bald from chemotherapy treatments!

Hygeia

There’s another Polytheist who has been sharing about their experience with depression, again, well worth the read: here.

At the same time as that significant episode of depression, I also decided that instead of keeping secrets around my mental health condition, I was going to be more open about my nearly 50 year lived experience with it.

I think making the choice to explore transparency around the topics and experiences of perimenopause and depression and fibromyalgia definitely helped to support me in my navigation of how to deal with cancer, surgery, chemotherapy, the ongoing medication I take (and the ensuing side effects) as well as now, my transition to what life post cancer looks like.

I’ll drop a hot tip, 2 years later, there is no ‘back to normal’, it’s about defining what life post cancer is, whilst at the same time balancing gratitude and an acknowledgement of the grief for what was lost, and establishing the new boundaries and capacities/capabilities.

When I was starting to navigate my exit from the cancer experience and my return to what my new life, my next act, might look like, I found the following blog posts by Dver detailing their experience with breast cancer and I am forever grateful to them.

I hope in some small way, my own posts reach and help someone in the way that the sharing of others helped me.

Another great comfort to me was To Rejuvenate and Nourish: Nine Days of Prayer to Asklepios, God of Healing by Galina Krasskova.

A friend also gifted me another of her devotional books, this one on Apollo: Of Bow, Lyre, and Prophetic Fire: Nine Days of Prayer to the God Apollo. 

Other blog posts with links to prayers / hymns

Hippocrates

Related blog posts: Cancer

Gratitude practice blog articles

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