An update from a very foggy mind...

First the good news…
Thankfully there is news.  My doctor thinks it is great news, and while I suppose he is right, great news in cancer is different than “great news.”  It is akin to discovering that you have a worm in your apple (as my kids love to joke)…it’s a great discovery because you could have discovered half a worm…  This is the category in which my “great” news fits…are you ready for it?  It appears that the surgery biopsy didn’t detect cancer in any new places!?!…anticlimactic I know, but my surgeon after previously asking me if I was sitting down and taking it easy now tells me that I should be jumping up and down.  (Make up your mind)  Multiple lymph nodes surrounding what turned out to be a 4 cm tumor were matted together and had grown into being a part of the tumor… but that was to be expected.  The rest of the 33 nodes and other tissue they took out and biopsied all came back negative, which is the great news part of the findings.  It means that I’m not on the verge of being stage IV, which is how I would have felt if a number of lymph nodes had been cancerous in addition to those already enveloped in the tumor. 

It also means that theoretically I might be cancer free and that I might stay that way…The possibility that I might live through this whole thing is almost harder to imagine at this point.

Of course news like this has a shelf life of about 6 hours before it seems old and less relevant.  I have a CT scan coming up (I’ve had several other types of scans but not a CT one yet) and now I’m already thinking more about what the results of that future scan will show vs. the results of a surgery that was done last week.  My next round of appointments are approaching and we’ll be deciding now how to treat me now that I’m stage IIIb and no longer IIb.  It sounds like radiation and immunotherapy will both be on the table as options…when I know more I’ll say more…

 

So how are you really doing?

It seems nary a day passes without me being asked to reflect on how I’m dealing with everything…  I’ve thought a lot about it and to be honest I don’t really fully know the answer.  But here are my convoluted thoughts.

When the river currents of life grab you and try to pull you under, you can thrash about in panic, try and stand straight up and find a foothold, hang on to the pathetic branch that you think will save you from the foaming water…the list goes on.  To the best of my ability, I’ve tried to simply let go of all anchor points, pick up my feet from the ground below, and allow the currents to carry me, to teach me, to humble me, to bless me.  Thrashing about and panicking never solved a damned thing, attempts to control the uncontrollable at best lead to temporary illusions of stability.  Sometimes I find myself shoved under and my lungs burst within my chest, but alternatively I often feel lifted up and carried not just by the angry waters but on the wings of a thousand prayers.

Where I find strength, I know it isn’t my own.  When I find pain and suffering I try and welcome it as an honored guest, as it is only by diving into the darkest parts that we ever find healing.  Fear hasn’t been present, the need for control is (daily) given over, pessimism, optimism, certainty, and the future are all banished concepts… and all that jazz…somehow the whole thing seems easier than I would have imagined.  Certainly the circumstances are overwhelming…but sometimes you’re so far in over your head that you have to simply let things figure themselves out. 

And on the other hand, I know that there are no shortcuts in life.  We don’t get to jump to “acceptance” without first experiencing anger, denial, bargaining, etc.  Resurrection by definition is preceded by death, and not just the idea of death but the experience of death.  Peace is preceded by deeply mourning and experiencing grief.  All of which makes me wonder about my reactions thus far. 

One of my friends and I were talking the other day and he warned me of two pitfalls towards which my super-ego would be steering me.  First the super-ego will try to make meaning of the mess, to take something that might be meaningless and to give it significance.  Secondly my super-ego will use my past journeys to color how I react to today’s experience.

Pitfall #1:  Some say, “Everything happens for a reason.”  This religious idol lifted up in some factions of every major religion is the epitome of pitfall number one.  What the saying suggests to me is that a (loving) God somehow thought that XYZ, which is painful and unjust, should occur and thus orchestrated it for God’s mysterious purposes which we are not free to question.  Bullshit.  Try telling that to a victim of abuse (actually please don’t), it’s laughable and offensive.  My cancer might be a specific/direct gift from God but it is more likely to be a gift from my gene pool… 

While I could never say that “Everything happens for a reason.”  I do think that everything is used.  As we look back on our stories and see themes and rhythms and rhymes appear with regularity, we can see how all of it is used by God for our highest good and the highest good of the world.  Especially the suffering, the bad choices, the pain…the parts of our story we wish we could forget seem to play starring roles in stories of love, redemption, transformation, resurrection, etc.

I don’t think I’m ascribing meaning or significance to a meaningless/random event…significance seems to have been birthed on its own.  The event of cancer on my community has been largely positive and deeply meaningful.  Because of a little mass of cells growing awry, we have all shined, love has been a verb not a sentiment, earnest, authentic conversations have occurred that never would have otherwise, new relationships have been kindled, we’ve each been invited to gaze and meditate on our own mortality, and souls have reached up to God, while holding hope, tasting grief, bringing doubt, and asking for belief… All of this is wonderful and there is much more beyond it…and none of it would have happened if I didn’t have cancer.  It is strange to be thankful for your cancer, but I know that Jamie and I are both grateful for how it has resulted in so many blessings.

Perhaps it isn’t that we are looking around and ascribing significance to meaningless events…it is that we are blind to the Presence of Significance that bathes all of life, all the time, even if God isn’t going around causing cancer, God is present in those stories, identifying with our suffering…and using it for Love.

Pitfall #2  I can’t help it.  None of us can.  We all will have our past experience and our current beliefs influence how we absorb each day…Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t stop it.  But in regards to how I’m dealing with cancer…it is a great question.  I’m sure that my past in dealing with this stuff must be helpful but I wonder at how it hinders me from experiencing my own experience. 

With Mom having died of melanoma at age 51, this whole process has seemed eerily familiar.  I remember going many of the classic stages/emotions around her death including anger, desperation, deep grief, and eventually I came to a place of peace and grace.  The feelings that I have right now are more along the lines of acceptance, peace and grace than anger…maybe not acceptance of dying, but acceptance of my current stage.  There have been tears, there has been grief, but these have been relatively few…mostly through this whole thing I’ve felt acceptance.

A little over a year ago I went on my vision quest/rites of passage trip down to the deserts of Arizona.  Part of the work surrounding that trip was to live life with open hands and an open heart, not holding on too tightly to anything here on this earth.  There is no doubt that my experience with deep grief and the spiritual work I’ve been doing in the last couple of years have helped prepared me for this…but perhaps in understanding what the final destination looks like (peace/acceptance) I’m somehow not experiencing other parts  (anger/sadness/bargaining) of the journey as much as I should.

Rather than shortcutting any process of suffering and putting on a forced picture of serenity in the midst of struggle, I would much rather let everything hit the fan, and be ok with the slow work of dealing with the carnage.

So I guess while I do feel relatively at peace right now, I don’t entirely trust my own feelings…part of me feels like there must be a well of other emotions that I’ll also have to experience as this process goes along—life it seems is always three steps forward, two steps back.  I’m trying my best to welcome and be present to what is, without forcing some neat linear process nor some premature conclusion or posture on to it.  If things fall apart and I’m a panicking, kicking and screaming mess for awhile, then so be it…

Neighborhood Garden!

One of my goals was to get planter boxes built for a pea patch on our block.  The idea was people on the block could grow veggies for themselves and with space leftover we could grow veggies for a local food bank.  After communicating this dream in a letter last week, we have some neighbors rallying around the idea and this Saturday morning, they’ll be filling and planting seven boxes on our front parking strip!  If anyone wants to come and help, let us know.  We’ll be serving muffins and lunch to our helpers! 

Truss has continued to improve, but he has a ways to go to get back to his previous weight/stamina/strength/etc.  River on all accounts is loving being in Walla Walla with his cousins, aunt and uncle, and grandparents.  Wake and Pier are both shining and having awesome summers.  And Jamie…my love, my best friend, my rock…she is doing miracles over here keeping everything humming and doling out lots of love to all who she touches.  Thanks to all of you again for your food, your prayers, your calls, your drop-ins (the drop-in is alive and well in Greenwood!), it has all been wonderful…

Cheers

 

Ned