Questions
My PET scan is tomorrow. It's feeling like moment-of-truth time.
I remember two years ago, the night before my PET, feeling like I was on an airplane and the gears were engaging beneath me. I was going, I didn't control the speed or the height and there was no getting off. It's different now. I've been worrying myself sick for a week and a half; I know my blogging doesn't really reflect that, but it's true. I'm in a spiritual place of openness, wonder and closeness to reality, at the same time as I want to hold on to this life. Want to be healthy. Want to never have had cancer. And that just isn't going to happen, even if the scan is clean.
The power that I'm held in is love and truth. I also have this human body that I don't know how to trust. I don't know how long I'd have to wait after this recurrence to relax, to get up in the morning and go about my day without looking over my shoulder, or staring too closely at my surgical scars. A friend I haven't seen in over a year greeted me today (at her husband's ordination) with, "Peace on your journey and what the FUCK?!" She was absolutely right about both.
I'm just looking forward to getting some freaking answers. Regardless, almost, of what they are.
If I'm clean, then there are no tumors in me that are large enough to find. If this was a metastasis, will there be more? If this was a new primary, how often will my body throw those? (If there's any way of predicting that, I don't know it.)
Either way, then what do we do? If I'm clean, do we put me on a trial, or watch me and let me feel well? If I'm not, which of the two options (immunotherapy or chemo, both awful) do we try?
And if I'm clean... do I just whiplash back into life? How on earth am I going to do that? One of my mentors gave me a clue today. She came up to me at the ordination reception. She knows what's up with me, and she's been there when I've asked her to be. Today she didn't mention it. She said, "We have extra food. You can take it to the river." She gave me the work she knows is mine. I got to be normal for one afternoon. It was right.
How do you live a coherent life, with a body that feels well even while it randomly threatens to kill you? And I know it's not threatening anything; the disease process is mindless. My body and I are not enemies. I just don't know how to honor or trust it. I talk about wanting to be whole, and I think I have meant being spiritually courageous. I don't know how to be holistic: mind, body, spirit all fully embracing life.
I do think that once I get into tai chi, that will help. Any kind of exercise, really. I need to love this body, even while I'm weirded out by it. Treating it as a hostile alien is exactly the wrong approach.
I skimmed Sister Outsider when I was too young to appreciate it. I remember that Lorde writes about loving her body again after breast cancer. I checked out The Cancer Journals from the San Francisco library, but wasn't in the right frame of mind to read it. Maybe now that would help.
I don't think I know anybody who's had recurrences of their cancers. If you have, I have a question for you. How do you navigate living your life?
9 comments:
I'll be praying for you. I'm sorry you're having to deal with this.
Thank you so much.
You are now our teacher.
How about juggling? Seriously. How about a juggling image to navigate by --when you have food to take to the river, you juggle that and nothing else... when you have to medicate or do medical stuff, do that and nothing else.... when you eat, eat with glory.... only the present moment is what counts....
There is a good book "Sacrament of the Present Moment" --french, translated...
We had a healing service this morning and I asked for healing for you. Our priest was surprised since most ask for themselves. When I requested prayers for his wife on FB a few weeks back, a miracle occurred. Her trouble with her intestines disappeared with no medical intervention. Should I ask again on Facebook but for you? Prayers continue...
Margaret, thank you. That's a useful image. I'll check the book out.
Pseudo, NO. The idea of a "miracle" scares and alienates me more than the cancer itself. If you'd read my previous post, you would understand why. I don't believe in or respect a god who does selective curing. I do not want this journey taken away from me. Whatever it means, it is mine. Don't ask God to remove it.
I know you're trying to help--but don't go there. If you pray for me, pray for the wholeness to come through this with integrity. Don't pray to remove it or to make it easier.
I'm not sure it was a miracle either. That was Larry's interpretation. He didn't pray to have the cancer removed either. Just that Godde be mindful of you and help you in your struggles.
"All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."
Around the corner from us, a little girl has put up a "shrine" to her pet cat who died--- a small stack of bricks with and old piece of wood saying how her pet loved living in that house, a small piece of tree limb that obviously had a candle burning and finally melted away upon it, and a small piece of tree bark saying in magic marker "leave what you wish..."
There is where I have been leaving all my concerns for the past few weeks, not knowing what to do with them, and especially my concerns for you. I am trusting that God will hear her faith on behalf of all of us. But I do know, leaving all things there, that "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."
Anonymous, that's lovely. Thank you.
You can get solid information from people who've walked in your shoes via a melanoma bulletin board or listserv. List members will have all sorts of help and perspective they'll be willing to share with you. And you won't feel so alone with it.
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