Praying for a Cure

Thank God radiation therapy is over.  My last treatment was more than a week ago and I will not miss any of it except the people.  The treatment is not that bad in and of itself in the short duration of the individual treatments, it's the build up of fatigue and the breaking down of the surface of the breast tissue that wears you out over the 6 week course.  That and pain of course, but this too shall pass.

The last 5 treatments are referred to as Boosters in that they don't radiate the entire breast for the last 5, they Boost your incision with radiation which allows the rest of the breast tissue to start it's immediate healing and recovery.  That was eleven days ago and I'm happy to report a steady healing has ensued.  I am noticing what looks like the old me under severely darkened skin tissue.  The pain is subsiding but still at times during the day - it's pretty painful.  (Adding this comment a few days later - feeling very little pain actually and my skin is gorgeous again :).

As I've said in the past, I am amazed at the resilience of the human body and the constant ability to heal itself.  My body has always had the ability to recover from everything that it's endured.  It also loves to be pushed past it's comfort level with physical activity - not with surgery and sickness, but with muscle building and fitness - hey, that rhymed lol, and I cannot wait to really start to work out again and feel 'normal'.  All things in due time though, I do need a little more time.

For now I'm sitting here prayerfully contemplating all that I've been through physically, emotionally, mentally, and of course spiritually and you know what?  I'm so much stronger for all of it.  All the tears and hand wringing, all of the mistakes and wrong turn taking, all the offerings made knees bended in prayer, all that I've ever known about God, His faithfulness, quickness to forgive a repentant heart, and His guidance has all made me what I am....and what am I?  Hmmmm.

I am a much stronger, redeemed child of the Most High God, woman, daughter, sister, aunt, cousin, mother (if only to all animals), lover, friend, worker, helper, servant, artist, writer, healer, teacher, mentor, horticulturist, dancer, warrior, an athlete, human being, Spirit, I am consciousness and I am love.  I am all of these things and none of these things.  I am a vapor, here today and gone tomorrow.  I am a breeze blowing over the range of the earth embracing every delicious experience, taking it in for a moment and letting it flow right through me. 

Life is truly wonderful and beautiful. 

I need only sit in silence for the shortest while to be brought back to center, focus and strength.  I need only to sit in the company of loving friends sharing laughter, ideas and creativity to know that I have many gifts and talents yet to share with the world.  I need only to hear the voice of a beloved family member to know where I come from and to whom I belong and that belonging to a family is a gift.  I need only to remember my past, my ancestors, and all of life's lessons to know that I am courageous, adaptable, more than capable and an over comer.

I am adding a new title to the 'what am I and who am I' listing.  I am now officially a cancer survivor. 

My Certificate for completing treatment.

I was given an elite membership into a club whose members are some of the most amazing people I've ever met.  It's not a membership that any of us prefers of course, but once you become a member the light that shines in and around the lives of these Saints is palpable. God's presence is found in these precious fighting hearts.

I saw Spirit everywhere, everyday.

I met a lot of survivors both men and women. One woman in particular was one of my nurses Lana!    These Nurses are very busy tending to multiple patients simultaneously and occasionally I would be treated by Lana. As we got to know one another and my breast tissue started to change (more redness and irritation) I would express my concern and speak to the her about what I needed to do to get some relief either from the irritation or the pain.  By the way, Aquaphor is an over the counter cream that I needed to apply many times a day after daily treatment.  It became something I always had on.  It is just like vaseline and while it's extremely thick, it affords a shield of moisture that the radiation is stripping you of - so go ahead and use as much as you want.  So happy to see it on my dresser unused for a week now.  But I digress...Lana, God bless her heart, shared with me that she herself was getting treatment also.  She is battling stage zero breast cancer as am I and had been getting radiation treatment at Holy Name for a few weeks before I started.

Can you imagine treating cancer patients for a living and then finding out you're going to be one? 

If I could reach out and hug Lana right now as I type these words I would for the sheer positivity that she always excuded especially considering for the most part I had no idea she was a sister warrior.  I had no idea until she told me and she only told me because she was further along in the process and knew that what  I was worried about was temporary.  She wanted to encourage me!

From the moment Lana shared with me, we shared more than a few connected glances, many hugs, a few tears and we encouraged each other on a soul level that is simply deep.  We both looked forward to seeing each other through to the other side. She along with several other women and I would forge through the radiation treatment together while some of us were undergoing chemotherapy as well.

I will never forget Lana or any of these souls for our paths have crossed on the battlefield.

Interesting to note from my experience it seems cancer patients typically do not see each other in the treatment center (unless of course you need both radiation and chemotherapy which most people need).  The treatment center spaces your appointments out so as not to really overlap. The chemotherapy patients go upstairs while the radiation patients go downstairs. I became increasingly aware of this fact and I appreciated it as well although the lump in my throat is still there for obvious reasons.

Unfortunately, I have met too many women (and men) with cancer these days - it's the guy at the gas station and the woman at the card store, it's your neighbor and best friend's Dad, it's a friend of the family and your bosses wife, the banker, the hairdresser, I mean - who hasn't been touched by this disease?

My constant and deeply heartfelt prayers go out to Holy Name Regional Cancer Center, the kind people that grace it's doors whether in health care or treatment. I pray that healing Angels continually go before all battling souls and make straight the path to wellness and ultimately help humanity find a cure.

Brave can never even come close to describing the Spirit with which this battle is fought.

God, great creator of all that is, hear my prayer.  We are all effected and afflicted if just one of us is, please in your mercy help your suffering children, wipe dry our tears, comfort our broken hearts, renew our weary minds and reveal to us the cure for cancer.  Amen.

Live, Pain Lies On The Riverside

I have never taken life

Yet I have often paid the price

And you, you are a victim of this age

And the guilt that hangs around your neck

Has got me locked up in a cage

You've got to learn to live until no end

But first you must learn to swim

All over again

Because...pain lies on the riverside

And pain will never say goodbye

Pain lies on the riverside

So put you feet in the water

Put your head in the water

Put your soul in the water

And join me for a swim tonight

I have forever, always tried

To stay clean and constantly baptized

I am aware that the river's banks are dry

And to wait for a flood

Is to wait for life

I've got to learn to live until no end

But first I must learn to swim all

Over again,

Because...

Pain lies on the riverside.

Be Mindful of What You're Thinking & Doing

Dr. Mehmet Oz is a world renowned health and heart guru. He, along with 70% of all medical Doctors agree that stress can manifest itself as illness in the body and the opposite of that is also true. Meditation and deep breathing exercises can prolong your life. Which would you prefer?

Masquerade

Written by me - 10.5.07

I can see your profile
The mask you're wearing

It partially hides nonetheless
Your heartless and blank staring

Why are you pretending
It doesn't hurt that much

The sting is obvious
Anger the crutch

Telling yourself you're not in pain
Everyone thinks you're close to insane

You're killing yourself now
In everything you do

It's not you against them
It's you against you

Your portrayal deceives you
No one believes you

Stop pretending you don't know
Stop pretending you don't care
Stop pretending you're in control
Stop pretending you're not frail

Baby boy is broken
Into tiny little pieces, you

Are not too old to be told the time has come
Put down your head and rest some

We'll pick them up one by one
We'll move on from what's been done

The pieces are not too many to mend and to hold
C'mon young man, you're not too old

You're just in time for the mirrors reflection
All the hurt, all the rejection

When a kiss and a hug
Was all the situation needed

But your knee jerk reaction
A shoulder shrug pleading

Away from the inevitable
Seaming of the soul

It seems the years
Have taken their toll

The walls are higher than you ever intended
impenetrable as planned, anger-hate blended

Love can't get through
It's more than most can stand

Safe and secure
In the cocoon you've spun

With less than silken threads
You're not getting it done

Dissolving before our eyes
The barricade is breaking

Into tiny little pieces
Too many to hold

Hands growing cold
As cold as your heart

Pleading with it's rhythm
Stop, stop, start, start

Which will it be today
How long can you stay

In your skin
in the fray

Of yesterday's memory
It's stealing today

And you're persecuting the world

You say no
You've got a long way to go

Everyone else hasn't got a clue
But it’s still you against you

Inside your suffering soul
There's limitless strength
Beneath the jaded anger

pain is a four letter word

So, the nurse took nine stitches out of my finger this morning.

She called in an assistant to hold my finger while she poked and pulled the blue stitching up to the surface. She used a clamp and small scissors, cutting string one by one.

Everything was fine until she made a uh-oh sound and then started to speak in a way that was alarming to me.

Nurse: "Okay. I have to get this stitch out and, it's uh, in between your nail and your skin".

(The nail you ask? It was removed for the surgery. Then replaced to help the finger heal - yes, removed, replaced and I'm told will fall off and grow back, way on down the road. Yay.)

Nurse looks directly into Patient's eyes.

Patient: "Okay, everybody BACK OFF me"!

I wanted to bolt out of the room. I felt crowded. I got claustrophobic. . .I placed my head in between my legs and tried to breathe normally.

Uggggghhhh.

I know one thing about medical professionals. They are just like construction workers, who are just like carpenters, who are just like plumbers. They tell you it will take two weeks to do your renovation nay! reconstruction - and we all know that they lie like the rugs they lay. Two weeks turns into a month and the money due is usually tripled.

Medical professionals are no different.

Dr. Giampapa told me I was going to feel some discomfort.

Feel

some

discomfort

HA!

Let me tell you...pain is a four letter word and she's a bitch!

Nobody fully prepares you for meeting her and unless you meet her face to face, you will not be fully acquainted.

That's what he should've told me before the surgery. That's what I'd tell anyone going in for reconstructive surgery on their finger tip.

Old Patient to New Patient: "You my friend, are going to become well acquainted with pain, so prepare yourself!"

I appreciated the nurse's candor, but perhaps that was not the right time for me to be told to bite the bullet. Less is more when you're in the middle of it.

Before, definitely. After, too late. During, not so much.

I felt like I was going to faint.

The blood began draining from my head and I got queasy.

The nurse and her assistant began scurrying out the door and back in with a bucket that at first I guessed they'd use if I got sick. But it was filled with ice water and gauze.

They began placing wet, gauze compresses on my forehead, the back of my neck, and my wrists. It calmed me somewhat.

But I seriously had to calm myself down - she had only taken out half of the the damn stitches.

I stabilized and I asked to continue. I needed this torture to be over.

Pull, tug, snip. Pull, tug, snip - ooouuuuuchhhhh, a few tears and I got through it.

It actually wasn't that bad. We all agree, the worst (pain) is over.

Whew! A few deep cleansing breaths, ahhhhh, much better.

They bandaged me up for another two weeks. I still have to keep it elevated and bathe it in baby shampoo everyday. It's still painful to the bone, disgusting, white, unrecognizable and so far, completely useless.

They have assured me it's doing what it's supposed to be doing.

What? You want to see another picture.

Okay, but this was yesterday, so still stitched up.

Tomorrow, when I change the dressing, I'll take another shot.

Here you go... but beware...it's ugly.

Listen, I told you! I didn't lie did I? : *(

Mighty Lessons Learned

One of the biggest mistakes that I've ever made was not allowing myself to feel something, whatever that may have been at the time.

Perhaps I was going through a painful experience and instead of facing it head on, praying about it, talking about it (with the right people) I would either pretend I wasn't feeling it, or numb myself by getting into even more trouble.

That set me back monumentally. It's self sabotage.

I realize we do these things because it's hard to feel bad feelings, sad feelings, insecure or frightening feelings. Sometimes life is not all sweetness and air. Sometimes it's damp and heavy and musty and depressing.

I have found that over time it is best to acknowledge and accept whatever it is. You have to eventually anyway if you want to lead a healthy, productive, evolved, illuminating, conscious, forgiving, nurturing (to yourself as well as others) and gift filled life.

If you allow yourself to turn away from that which haunts you, you will only continue to be haunted. Perhaps it will show up when you least expect it.

We trick ourselves into thinking 'this or that' doesn't bother us. That it's all under control. But then the ripples on the surface of our lake break, and the cycle of pain and denial begins all over again.

It becomes a re-living of that very experience that you thought you'd put behind you. It taunts you. It teases you. It has all the power over you as long as you choose not to face it.

Once you do face it head on, however, the flood gates of anxiety, fear, pain, sorrow, remorse, anger, they all release and come to the surface. At that point, you can either turn away because it's too much or you can work through it. You might get sicker before you get better, but like any infection with a little care it will clear up.

I have many emotional scars that I tend to. All mighty lessons learned. I don't try to deny that they exist or that I once felt a certain way in particular. I am who I am. I went through what I went through. Life happens to all of us and it makes us stronger in the end, I am convinced because I am proof.

Today, I am living in the present moment. If something arises on the surface and bothers me, I tend to look deeper to find the root (if there is one). I will allow myself to feel. Feel the sorrow. Feel the loss. Feel the insecurity of it all. If it is a deep rooted feeling and I know the origination, I pray and meditate and give that over to God. I 'give it over' to God by releasing it into the air, into the Spirit, into Grace.

God waits all day for us to give Him our struggles and He happily takes them and replaces them with peace, strength and a sense of space where there was none before. That space can then be used by God to teach us about the true essence of the strength in growing and evolving from humanity into Spirit.

Embrace the evolution and rejoice! What you are to be you are still becoming.

Love & Namaste