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You are welcome to apply any part of this article to your own personal use. Please do NOT publish any part of the article or apply any part of it to any non-personal use without the express written concent of the author.
Namaste, dear readers.
As I sat down during one of my insomnia moments to begin working on this dispatch, my fingers were insisting on sharing my answers to the deep questions that I've been living with these past months. So I guess now is the time. Some of you may find the discussion uncomfortable or boring. To skip to the next section, click here.
Let's review the questions first. What is the cancer saying to me? Who is listening? These seem innocuous, no? But during those times listening to the darkness the questions have an unfathomable depth to them and point to myriad others.
So how does one go about answering such unanswerables? For me it meant getting clear on my own paradigm of life.
My paradigm has been long in formulating. I was raised in a deeply religious household, Presbyterian if you must know. My father never expected to live into teenage years, but was there with four children because of several experiences with faith healing. He lived into his mid 70s. From my perspective he lived his beliefs On my mother's side there were also some severely held beliefs. From time to time she did missionary work, traveling the world in support of those beliefs. But the concept of living her beliefs is weak in her. She would forgive, but would only do so after getting even. So with such a background it's no wonder my own paradigm took so long in formulating.
Let's say there's something "out there" that is a power beyond imagining that was able to create the whole universe. Some would name it God, Allah, The Great Mystery, The Higher Power, The Great Spirit, all limiting terms. Let's say further that part of this power came into our physical world get some work done. We can call this part a God Light, Soul, Spirit, Self, again all limiting terms. For convenience I'll use Self.
To work in the physical plane a Self needs some physicality. So it calls to a particular egg and sperm and has them union. In doing so the Self selects a particular mother and father. That, in turn, brings with it a particular locale, a particular culture and personal history, a particular economic status with its attendant hopes and fears, promises and pains, joys and sorrows, feelings and spirit. These are the necessary ingredients for getting the tasks accomplished, for playing the game ahead.
As the fertilized egg progresses into zygote and following phases and becomes a child at the call of the Self, so does the Self get integrated into the physicality of the body. It forgets it's a Self and begins to think it IS the child, a self with a physical body with certain mental capabilities. This is a necessary shift in order for the Self to get the job done. Thus the child develops a consciousness of its own.
All of us have very complex and very subtle jobs to do. Part of my job, I know, was to have experienced and continue to experience the unfathomably deep grief of loosing a son when he was barely two. On the other side of that it's is fun for Kit and I to think of two Selfs agreeing to see if they could find each other in the physical world as we have.
It's also clear to me that part of my job deals with the cancer. Maybe the important part is coming to grips with my physical mortality, maybe it's what I post on the Internet for someone else. I really don't know, nor does it matter to me. I just do what I do and the job gets done. Or, doesn't.
At the end I see the physical connection between the Self and the body dissolve, or transition as I call it. There was a story told at the cancer conference a few weeks ago (check out www.healingjourneys.org). An old woman was dying of cancer. She was at home, her time was short. Her children came to be with her and brought their children. Grandma was put on a bed in the living room so that those closest to her would have full access. One child a was particularly boisterous five-year-old. He'd bounce around the house, but would periodically jump up on grandma for a quick snuggle and a word or two. During grandma's final day he managed a couple of snuggles. He was bouncing around the living room when grandma took her final breath. It was in that minute that he chose for another snuggle. He jumped on the bed. Grandma's eyes were closed. "Grandma?" he called. "Grandma?" When she didn't respond he lifted her eyelid. "Grandma?" After a minute or so he gently closed her eyelid and announced as he jumped off her bed, "Grandma doesn't live in there anymore."
This so beautifully illustrates the transition for me. There's nothing to fear here. Dying is just another one of life's adventures, one that we will all experience at some time or other. And, since it's so rare I consider it life's greatest adventure.
Having said all that, what about answers to the questions? Well, I can say I've discovered a few of them, many leaving a little smile on my face.
But the answers themselves don't really matter. The paradigm I've shared with you doesn't really matter. What I have found is that living with the questions, listening to the darkness, that's what counts. That's where I first experienced my Self as a separate and distinct entity from my self, effortlessly shedding a good deal of baggage along the way. And that's what's made the difference. That's what gives me some power, some say in what's happening in my life. That is what's brought me so much peace.
Let me clarify something here. When I talk about listening to the darkness, I'm not talking about listening to some spiritual dark side. I'm merely listening to the quiet at nighttime. Normally during the daytime there's just too much noise to hear what's to be heard.
Kit needed to go to Palo Alto, California, to take care of some business during these Nadir Days. The day before she left I woke particularly cold. Having learned my lesson I immediately called my patient coordinator nurse at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) and arranged for a blood test to see whether my red blood was low. Damned if it wasn't. So we arranged for a transfusion the following morning, Tuesday, August 3.
So I drove myself... barely... to the SCCA for the drink. By the time I got there I was just able to hold my head upright. I lay down on the bed, pulled out the end of my Hickman catheter to the nurse and closed my eyes. In the blink of an eye two hours had passed and the nurse was hanging my second unit. I started sitting up and taking in my surroundings. In another blink of an eye I had drunk up the second unit, and was loaded for bear (pun intended). Damned amazing how that red stuff works.
We arranged some support for me while she's gone. Rebecca is a delightful, pretty (pin-up quality) Australian bride of one of the skippers at Windworks Sailing Center (www.windworkssailing.com) where Kit and I teach. She was to come in for the entire time Kit was out of town. As it turned out she only came in a couple of times. My son Gavin and his wife Michelle also came over to provide some support.
Late Thursday evening, day #10 following the start of my infusion, my temperature started to climb. This precipitated the most difficult Nadir Days to date, lasting until Friday, August 13.
Most of this time is a blur. I do know that in the first few days my fever was getting out of control, requiring packing ice around my neck, armpits and groin to keep it from running away (a scary touch-and-go time). Somewhere along the line I broke down crying, wondering how much more of this I could take. I had a second transfusion on Sunday with two units of blood, plus platelets for the first time, then went home on Sunday evening with the fever stabilized and my neutrophil count sufficiently recovered to handle it. I had doctor appointments on Monday morning with all seemingly okay but had to be readmitted later that day when the fevers started climbing again.
I developed a horrendous, racking cough. The usual controlling medications didn't work. I was loosing sleep and rest, and was in danger of having my fever begin to run amok again. I really hate taking medications which blur my consciousness, but chose to make an exception in this case. It took nearly two days of semi-consciousness to get the cough under control. But in so doing I got a lot of sleep and began to get ahead of the fever.
The fever broke finally on Wednesday night, waking on Thursday morning drenched in sweat and wrapped in soaked bed linens. Then there was a third transfusion with two units of blood on Thursday. Finally on Friday I was well enough to come home.
We found an infection in my gut associated with mucositis (inflammation of the mucus linings of the body), one of the side effects of the chemotherapy. That's probably why the fevers hung in there so long. I've been prescribed a very specific antibiotic to clean out whatever's left. Another cause is the cumulative effects of the chemotherapy. At the present point my body is too beat up to continue with Cycle #5 as scheduled. I will have to have a rest period first.
For what it's worth the Monday morning appointment with the doctors included a new CT (pronounced CAT) Scan of the lesions in my lungs. The encouraging news is that there was no measurable change, same as the previous CT Scan result.
The doctors now feel that this is an opportune time for surgery to remove the lesions. I'd have to undergo a rest period to prepare for the surgery anyway. By examining the excised spots they'd have a better idea as to how to proceed. For example, if the spots were all necrotic (dead cells) there may not be a need for more chemotherapy. I meet with the thoracic surgeon next week to learn more.
So for now it's rest, rest, rest, rest and more rest for me.
Namaste, dear readers, and fair winds.
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