I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge here the support of Father Robert Tucker. The best part of him is that as our confessor he was the greatest consolation to the Community. We would not have gotten through one of the worst times of suffering except for Father Tucker’s noble heart—and his sense of humor.
When Abbot Matthew ended his tenure, Abbot Mark Serna—also from Portsmouth and an equally caring man—completed the assignment. What I remember most about both of them is that neither gentleman ever came across as “the boss”, as I had feared they would. They were put in charge but never insisted on relating to us because they were in charge. The brotherly and fatherly concern they showed us was genuine. They gave to me personally a fresh witness to the authority of the Church and were instrumental in helping me to accept that authority in friendship. This was a most healing experience for me.
As I look back, that period of our lives was one of incredible formation for us that we could not have anticipated. The Community remained beautiful, strong and clear, and the new and positive relationship with Rome that Lady Abbess had promised came to be.
—Father Matthew never forgets to send me a note on my feast day, which may seem inconsequential but it is a sign that he remembers us.
On February 27, 1997, the completed chapel at Our Lady of the Rock was dedicated, with Lady Abbess, Mother Irene and Mother Maria joining in celebration the seven nuns now making up the Community on Shaw Island. On the chapel altar stood the crucifix given to the Community by Henry Ellis.
Mother Therese remembered the day with tears in her eyes: “We rejoiced in the completion of this phase of development. We marveled at the beauty of our new place of worship alongside many local craftsmen who had worked in the construction of the chapel. They were part of the 150 residents who attended the dedication—almost the entire population of Shaw Island!”
In the summer of 1998, the nine nuns in Final Vows did participate in the ceremony for the Consecration of a Virgin, officiated by Abbot Matthew. I think once we agreed to elect a new abbess and showed we were not going to fight Rome, the powers relented about this ceremony. Ironically, by suppressing it they had made it all the more meaningful and important to us!
Thirty-Nine
Except for getting the flu each winter and suffering a brief bout of neuromas, which were successfully treated by wearing orthotics, I had a pretty good track record as far as medical problems went.
But in early 1997, I underwent a root canal. I was in the dentist’s chair for several hours, and on the way home I was reeling. Mother Irene, our infirmarian, prescribed bed rest right away. I slept from Friday afternoon to the following Sunday morning.
When I awoke, I expected the pain in my jaw but, when I put my feet on the floor, I felt as if I were standing on a bed of needles. The stings shot up my legs like lightning bolts.
We thought it might be a spur and made an appointment with Dr. Richard Biondi, the Community’s internist in Woodbury. Dr. Biondi referred me to a neurologist, Dr. Kenneth Kaplove, who thought that the root canal might have upset the neuromas; he prescribed medication as well as water physiotherapy. I began swimming every day in the hydrotherapy pool at a center for orthopedic rehabilitation in Waterbury and found that this was the only time I was not in severe pain.
It was a stroke of luck that this facility was in the process of moving to Middlebury and had to replace the pool to fit the new quarters. Greg Wright, the owner, offered to give us the old pool, which we installed in a greenhouse-root cellar on our property so that the entire community could take advantage of it.
The medication, however, brought no relief. I was then treated with cortisone shots in both feet, but I continued to experience pain and difficulty standing and walking.
Thus began a two-year fruitless—and often counteractive—odyssey to find out what was plaguing me. Throughout the rest of 1997, all of 1998 and most of 1999, I saw a succession of doctors in the Waterbury and Southbury areas whose diagnoses widely varied. One doctor treated for arthritis. A rheumatologist diagnosed osteoporosis. An immunologist and an anti-inflammatory specialist both detected hypothyroidism.
An orthopedic surgeon, who strongly felt that the problem was the result of neuromas and metatarsalitis, had an ankle-foot brace made to ease the pain of walking, but after several months of wearing the bulky thing, I was no better. Another doctor said there was “a problem with anti-cardio lipin antibodies”. I can’t remember now what that meant, but he said it was very rare. Another simply told me I was losing the padding on the bottoms of my feet.
I think I had just about every known test in the world, including an MRI of my brain that revealed nothing abnormal. Yet I could barely stand or walk. On those occasions when I was taken to a doctor’s appointment, I had to use a wheelchair. But that didn’t work for maneuvering inside the monastery building. As the halls are too narrow, the wheelchair didn’t work except in the large common room.
There was no time when the pain subsided. Even when lying down it was so sharp that I developed TMJ from clenching my teeth during fitful sleep. This caused difficulty in eating, which, in turn, resulted in continuing weight loss. The burning in my feet traveled up my legs into the pelvic area. It was depleting my strength, leaving me in a weakened state, susceptible to infection. Recurring mouth ulcers appeared as well as urinary tract infections.
Dr. Biondi felt that specially built shoes molded to my feet would help reduce the pain. Over the years a dozen or more were handmade, first by an old-fashioned shoemaker, Mr. Ron Pelletier in Monroe, and later by Jon Rood of Footprints in Newington, and they did have some short-term benefit.
—I was often so embarrassed to call these people and tell them the shoes were not helping that I finally wrote out an apology, memorized it so that I wouldn’t forget anything and performed it on the telephone.
With each doctor, each diagnosis, medications were prescribed and many interacted to cause other problems—cold sweats, hemolytic anemia and tinnitus that got so bad I could not bear the sound of the Community chanting in the church and even found the quiet of my cell invaded by a cacophony of ringing inside my head. The minute the flu hit the East Coast, I was struck full force and developed pneumonia. Whatever was going on, my immune system was not doing its job.
I religiously followed through on the prescribed remedies while trying to maintain my work and prayer schedule. But there were days I would sit through a chapter meeting or a homily at Mass and the only thing I could think of was getting my feet into a hot bath—soaking in a tub relieved the pain a little. I fought giving up my job as portress. I was scared that it would take me out of association with the Community, but eventually I was forced to admit that I was unable to fulfill those duties.
I refused to give up my commitment as dean of education. The women had concerns that needed to be addressed, and they were unaware of the level of pain I was living with. Personal health problems were not spoken of or made common knowledge in the monastery. Certainly Mother Irene was kept informed, but she was involved then with our seriously ill Lady Abbess at the Tower.
Mother David and Mother Simonetta Morfesi were the only two who were living through it with me. Mother David visited my cell to bring me notes from the Community and massage my feet with a salve, and Mother Simonetta, who worked in our infirmary, took on the roles of nurse, counselor, friend and watchdog.
—Mother Simonetta did it all with such grace. She never made me feel like an invalid. With all her other duties, I know she did not get to bed until eleven or twelve each night. It was a tremendous service to me and a great hardship for her.
I did manage to meet with each sister in the Education Deanery, though the meetings were held in my cell, not in Corpus Christi. I was rarely out of my cell except for those Offices I was occasionally able to attend. I took all of my meals in my cell, and I had to be helped to the bathroom and in and out of the tub. I used to pray, “Oh, to have the liberty to take a shower again!”
—Yo
u know, the fact that the nuns were in the dark about the extent of my pain was the best thing in the world. I found that by listening to their problems, I could turn off my own for a while. If they had known, their concern would have barred the door to the honest way of communicating we had established.
What about prayer?
I think common prayer, the Office, is very good for dealing with pain. It’s where you know you are in union with others and with their prayers. But to be constantly praying by yourself when you feel pain, well, all you do is go back into yourself. You can do it for a while—two or three days—but, after that, all you can do is try to put your mind somewhere else. God did not create us to suffer. He made us for joy and goodness, and He made the body to be a container of beauty. I believe He wants our body to be a treasure. If not, why would God want His Son to be part of humanity? When we are in pain our only answer is to stay in that identification with God’s Son, who transformed pain through love. You start to identify your pain as the prayer itself.
In the times when I was alone, one of the best friends I had was Toby. It was good to be with another creature that didn’t care what pain was, didn’t care at all. He wanted his head stroked or a peanut. And I was beholden to Bob Rehme for the Academy movies. I could watch them on the little DVD player in my cell. Movies are a good way to get into some other place.
“Mother Dolores continued to meet with me during this period,” Joyce Arbib remembered, “so I became aware of her illness. I knew just from speaking to her that she was in hell, and yet she would see me each visit because she understood the importance of continuity in our meetings the closer it got to my decision to enter.
“I knew she was going from doctor to doctor close by the abbey. But being a New York girl and used to going straight to the top whenever I could, I consulted a neurologist friend who said, without hesitation, ‘There’s only one person Mother Dolores should see: Dr. Norman Latov, a neurologist at Columbia Presbyterian.’
“I called Dr. Latov and explained Mother’s situation. He set up an appointment. Mother Dolores got permission to travel to New York, so I picked her up and drove her into Manhattan and was with her when she met him. He seemed to know right away what she was going through. And from the beginning she trusted him.”
Given my symptoms and all the proffered diagnoses, Dr. Latov had a strong feeling that I had a nerve disease called neuropathy—a new word for me. But New York City was two hours away; since I would need a driver, I could not see Dr. Latov regularly. I continued with the cadre of physicians nearer to home, following through with each one because I felt I couldn’t drop a person in midstream.
The year 1999 began at the lowest point imaginable—the death of our friend Tom Pomposello. I felt the only way I could come to terms with Tom’s passing would be to make his coffin, and that was now impossible. Brother Iain Highet offered to do it for me.
Brother Iain remembered, “I had never made a coffin before, but she guided me through it. It was a case of being Mother’s body. Jeff Havill made some fine metal handles—sort of jazzy, with swirls—and Tom’s wife, Pat, brought friends to stain the box a turquoise color. We did together what Mother Dolores had done alone before. It was a good example of how Mother’s limitations called out the gifts of others, how the one centers the many, which is the general succession pattern of the continuity of life here.”
At one point, two doctors agreed that Mother Dolores had tarsal tunnel syndrome and recommended immediate surgery. In fact, a date for the operation was scheduled. But Dr. Kaplove intervened, requesting that surgery be delayed until more information could be gained from a lumbar puncture, a spinal tap. This was performed without a problem and proved normal. But, in the days following this procedure, there can be a possibility of leakage of spinal fluid, causing severe headache. For that reason patients are cautioned to be careful and rest for a day or so after the procedure.
I was not careful. I had a marathon of parlors, and as a result I felt as though I was hit over the head with a sledgehammer. I took a medication prescribed by a previous doctor, which interacted calamitously with other medications in my system. My body simply could not sustain whatever was going on. I collapsed and wound up in the emergency room at Saint Mary’s Hospital.
A blood patch—injection of drawn blood into the spine to form a clot—was administered to stop the headache, and it was essential that Mother Dolores not lose consciousness during the procedure. She heard the doctor’s voice ordering her to count backward from ten but couldn’t seem to follow his directions. She was fading.
Then I heard Mother David’s voice calling frantically, “Mother, don’t go! Don’t go!”
“Go where?” I thought, “I’m not going anywhere. Does she mean I’m going to die? I can’t die. I don’t feel well enough to meet all those people I haven’t seen in so long.”
“Count backward from ten”, she ordered. “Count! Ten . . .”
I repeated ten but couldn’t remember what number came before ten. Eight? Seven? “Can I start with seven?” I asked.
The patch was successful. The doctors, however, were appalled that Mother Dolores was a walking pharmacy. She had to get off many medications. She sought refuge through alternative medicine at the Holistic Health Center in Southbury, where for the next several months she underwent acupuncture therapy, which did provide some relief from pain—but only during the sessions.
—With no positive results during this long period, did it ever occur to you that this could be what you were facing for the rest of your life?
I did have the feeling that it was forever, but I knew that was the evil spirit telling me it will never go away.
Did you believe it anyway?
Yes.
One evening at a social event in Manhattan, Maria Janis found herself seated next to Dr. Luc Montagnier, the French virologist who ten years hence would be a joint recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize for his discovery of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Maria found a moment to introduce Mother Dolores seemingly unsolvable medical mystery to Dr. Montagnier. He suggested she call him while he was in New York City.
Mother Dolores again got the help of Joyce Arbib, who was fluent in French, to make the arrangements with Montagnier. Joyce was now a postulant at Regina Laudis, having entered in November 1998, becoming the abbey’s second Jewish woman to do so.
Dr. Montagnier proceeded to treat, by long distance, mycoplasma penetrans in Mother Dolores blood, thinking that bacteria could have entered her system during the root canal and was wreaking havoc with her immune system. Under Montagnier’s treatment, the persistent sores in her mouth completely cleared and did not return. But that had been the only positive result. The pain in her feet continued to flare up, and she began to experience new symptoms.
The passing months were now bringing frequent headaches, difficulties in speaking and shifting areas of pain, sometimes in my hips and bladder, sometimes in my hands. I had difficulty grasping and holding objects. I could not snap my fingers. Sometimes I felt as if I had menthol in my eyes. I was frequently nauseated and seemed to live in a fog, finding it hard to think.
Some days I would be hit in the face. It could be ninety degrees, but I felt as if I were wearing an icy mask. My face was cold—not to the touch but from the inside. The nerves in my cheek would twitch. I could feel them jumping, and I knew that freezer door would open and my face would go stone cold until nightfall. Every day it seemed as if I was starting all over again. I’ve never felt so vulnerable. Was this going to be the pattern of the rest of my life?
—Sheila McGuire remembered your saying you were living a life of redemption. That was one of the reasons you had to accept this illness—because when you came into the monastery you offered yourself to God and said you would accept anything He sent you.
That’s not entirely accurate. Believe me, I’m not that holy a person. The redemptive life, to me, is not asking for calamity, but asking for the ability to withstand whatever calamity is
set in my way. I don’t have to be brave all the time. I can ask the Lord to be brave in me.
The very next doctor I saw listened to me sympathetically and then asked, “Mother, have you thought about seeing a psychiatrist?” That made me angry, but if I had wanted to give him a punch I wouldn’t have been able to make a fist! I didn’t want to admit I had something in my body that was advancing and could not be treated. And I couldn’t face the possibility that it might all be in my mind!
I went home and wept over my total helplessness. Then I got really mad. I picked up the phone and dialed the number of the neurologist in New York City whom I had previously seen and had liked very much. I was surprised when Dr. Norman Latov answered the phone himself. He had not forgotten me.
“No, you are not crazy”, he assured me. “All pain is real.”
I got permission to put myself into Dr. Latov’s care.
Forty
The term neuropathy is used to describe disorders resulting from injury to peripheral nerves. It can be caused by a number of diseases or conditions that affect those nerves.
Dr. Latov’s early diagnosis of my illness was sensory peripheral neuropathy. He recognized the symptoms I was experiencing because of his research in the area and because he has personal knowledge of the disease. Dr. Latov is a victim of neuropathy himself, although his in remission.
“In Mother’s particular case,” Dr. Latov told me, “she was diagnosed with other possible conditions because many of the physicians she saw weren’t familiar with neuropathy. She had neuropathy all along because no other disease causes all of her symptoms. And her examination, which showed sensory loss, confirmed this diagnosis.”
There are more than twenty known possible causes of neuropathy, Dr. Latov explained. Diabetes, rheumatogocial diseases and autoimmunity are major causes. Some infections can cause neuropathy and so can many toxins and drugs. “Neuropathy is, in itself, not always curable,” he said, “however, if we can identify its cause, and treat it, the patient can improve.”
The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey From Hollywood to Holy Vows Page 43