Hey, it is kind of you to be here....I have moved on to another blog, but please, feel free to browse around HERE first...it's been a long journey through cancer diagnosis, treatment, and recovery and I am happy and honored that you might wish to share some of that journey with me. I am also honored to have received the award you see to the right, and amazed that wonderfully caring people took time to follow my ramblings through the trials and turmoil of stage four throat cancer treatment...the comments left carried me through the most difficult year of my life.
So, whatever day or time it is right now, know this:
I
thank
God
again
and
again.
If you care to find me now (and I am still mindful of my cancer recovery, but not obsessed with it to the degree that I was here...here is my new address... http://blumswhispers.blogspot.com/
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Post 142 - Journey's end...but another begins!
I debated about using that video clip, but I wanted to end with a smile, and how can you not smile at Porky Pig? Look at that face...he really seems to have come to terms with himself and his limitations...he seems... well... happy, doesn't he? I dont think he's hiding behind a facade...Porky's just livin' in the moment!
The time has come to wrap up this one year journey/blog. I just re-read my first entry, posted on July 30, 2009, and here is some of what I wrote:
I am one day into my life with a diagnosed carcinoma...a metasticized, undifferentiated squamous cell carcinoma in my neck, to be more precise. I await the PET scan next week to give me a more specific diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment protocol.
I am not by any means at home with this awareness...but as the hours go by, so does the sinking in process.
I have another awareness, and that is an abiding sense of love...from God, from my family, from the few friends I've confided in.
I depend on scripture and poetry and calm morning walks to lift my spirit.
I seek to deepen the deep things of my life.
Wow, has it been a long and interesting year! I am amazed to be sitting here typing a year later, in such good spirits. I made it! And I fulfilled my mission with this blog. You know, this may sound like a cliche, but I only made it with the love and support of God, friends, famly and readers. I've been more transparent than I ever could have imagined a year ago. When I re-read the post from last July, I was writing that the diagnosis was "sinking in," but looking back, I know I was naive, minimizing, and still mostly in denial.
It seems that's how I always start "journeys." Had I really known what I was in for...it would have been more than I could have handled at that point. I am grateful that only God is all-knowing!
So here I sit, one year later, with a good prognosis and a clean CT scan. Those of you who have travelled with me through this know I've moped and whined through some of this past year, and rejoiced and sang through other parts of the year. Cancer is a bitch! I am not trying to be cute. I realize how fortunate I am to have come through stage 4 cancer as a survivor to this point...the title of this post could easily have been cut off after "Journey's end." But, by the grace of God, I get to start another journey. So I take a deep breath, give thanks, and pray that I take the deeper things and lessons I have learned on this journey with me. I pray I enter the next with more compassion for those who suffer, be it physically, emotionally or spiritually. Although I can't bear to imagine it, I know if the journey would have taken a different turn, God would have provided the grace to enable me to deal with that...as it happened, moment by moment. I am going forward with a lot of gratitude in my heart. How blessed I am! I am humbled by all I've received.
Here's an invitation. I am not ready to quit blogging. It's too much fun, and too good a way to procrastinate when I have paperwork I should be getting done at my office to just let go of. So I will start a new blog for another year.
There was no particular name that jumped out at me; I only knew I wanted "cancer" out of the name. I thought, since I am just rambling most often, "word salad" might fit...but that's not very original...then "whisper salad" popped into my head. Not real creative, but it's my idea...so I'll start off with that.
And, if you care to join me...here's the link:
http://blumswhispers.blogspot.com/
Thank you so very much for travelling with me. You just can't imagine how much it means to me!
God bless you, friend!
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Deeper things - Bless you, bless you - moving on down the information highway
I've been thinking about this blog in light of the good news I had from yesterday's CT scan results. It has been such an incredible journey! When I wrote my first post, which was just about one year ago (7/31/09), there were several things I had no idea about...
1. Just how difficult, painful, and traumatic the "treatment" process for my stage four cancer would be...yes, the radiologist tech warned me that 35 days of radiation to the throat was about the worst place to be zapped, and the ENT told me it wasn't going to be easy and I'd be pretty beaten up before it was over, and my oncologist told me I might be too physically weak to handle the third round of chemo (and thank God for my weakness...I was too weak and was spared round three)...but I had nothing in life to compare that to. My oncologist promised me I'd survive this cancer, but, initially, the thought of NOT surviving never even crossed my mind. How could a young, healthy guy like me die from a little tumor? Further, I was resistant to getting a "feeding tube;" thank God he talked me into it. In my ignorance I thought I would be tough enough (though I also knew I was a coward when it comes to pain) to eat and drink with a "sore throat." HA! Little could I imagine that at the height of my misery, there were days when even pouring a cup of water into the feeding tube was too much for me to think about. Swallowing? No, way! The lining of my throat was completely burned off, my saliva turned into rubber cement, and eventually turned off altogether, taste buds completely shut off, and infections in my mouth and stomach along with chemotherapy nausea and days upon days of sleeplessness left me a shell of a being...I don't recall writing this, but deep inside, I started thinking I was not going to survive the ordeal...I became too weak to walk from the hospital parking lot to the radiation and chemotherapy torture chambers...so for a period of time I was wheeled in a wheelchair from car to radiation room, strapped to a table, head immobilized in a plastic mask that was secured to the table, zapped, and wheeled back. My chore was then to survive the 50 mile car ride home, nodding on and off and trying not to be sick in the car. Let me tell you, if you have never been in such a state...it very much becomes an altered state of being...almost a trance like reality when who one was before this, or who one will be after this ceases to exist, and time sort of gets suspended in a foggy, jellylike state of discomfort, pain, and dysphoria that seems to have no beginning and no end. I put acorns on my windowsill to symbolize each day's passing for the 35 days of radiation, and pine cones for the chemotherapy days. It sounded like a good idea at first, like I was going on some hiking safari and would count the days away from clocks and watches in the "wilderness" with each new adventure gazing at the acorns and marveling. Well...I kept at it, and ended with 35 acorns and 4 pine cones on that windowsill, but, truth be told, in some ways, I really HATED those acorns...those acorns are in a jar hidden away, and I still haven't been able to look at them since treatment ended. Maybe someday the symbolic element that I hoped for with those acorns will inspire me. We'll see. They are just still too much a reminder of the ordeal right now.
2. Kathy - I promised Kathy at the onset that I would keep the blog about me... after all, if I wanted to make my private life public, it was my business, but it was NOT my right to make anyone else's life public. So I have kept references to Kathy and our marriage to a minimum. But I have occasionally lapsed (like right here). I had no idea how strong Kathy could be. When I needed her strength, she was a rock. I could only pray that I would be half as loving and strong and compassionate if, God forbid, she should ever have such an unfortunate need.
3. My twists and turns with Jesus - I can honestly say I had moments when I never felt closer to God... and I had moments when I never felt more distant and alone. At it's best, I felt His love in a way that is difficult to explain. Just as I was getting ready to begin treatment, I had the very real experience of hearing a voice in my head reciting a verse from a Psalm..."your love is better than life." It filled me with such peace and comfort that I knew it was going to be OK...His love would never abandon me, in life, or in death; and that was all I ever needed. And to be honest, at it's very worst...I had doubts about whether God even existed, let alone was mindful of this little speck of a being. I had moments of fear that somehow I was being punished for a lifetime of sin and falling short of His expectations, or that He just never really did care about me after all, or He just simply did not exist. But, then, I'd get some encouragement, sometimes from a blog post I'd write, or a comment I'd receive, sometimes from a Psalm I'd read, sometimes from a hymn I'd hear either on-line or in my head, sometimes from having a prayer time, sometimes from scripture that would invade my thoughts out of "nowhere" (ummm...thank you Holy Spirit). It all only confirms for me that God was with me throughout. In spite of my wanderings, rebellions, spiritual journeys and adventures and eccentricities... in my heart of hearts, I know...I know I was made for God. I don't know how else to say it. And my life doesn't make any sense at all without Him. Believe me, I know that to be true. I was made for God. I can't escape that reality any more than I can stop breathing. Oh, I can hold my breath for awhile, but hey, at the end of that, I'm breathing again. I can wish it weren't true, I can wish I could forget all about Him, I can try to think of Him as some projection of my own neediness, but ultimately, when I come to the end of myself, He is there. Without beginning, without end. In all His majestic glory. As it should be. He's there. I can't escape Him. And I just know it. And I love Jesus. I can't escape that either (nor can I even imagine ever wanting to, but I suppose...if Peter could deny Him, certainly I could as well). I just love Him. And His love completes and compels me. I have no good explanation, outside of His amazing grace, that He should be mindful of this undeserving little Jewish kid from Long Island, but it is my highest desire to know Him and conform my life to His. And His love is...well, I'll just say it...His love is deeper than cancer.
4. This blog - OK, I hope I can say this right. At first I thought it would be therapeutic for me to journal my experience with cancer treatment. I had often thought of journaling, but never, as an adult, took the plunge. Until now. Then I thought, "wouldn't it be neat for me, such a low-tech person, to figure out how to blog." I had stumbled on a blog written by a woman who had leukemia (who, by the way, has become a friend). I thought..."I'll just write my journal in the form of a blog. Others do it, so can I." I was amazed when I actually got it figured out and wrote my first post. I had no idea anyone would actually find it and read it. So... imagine my surprise when I got my first "comment." To date there have been roughly 9,000 visits to the blog. And 33 people signed up as followers... (to be honest...I have no idea what that means). I am not so grandiose to believe that this is any kind of big deal. There must be a gazillion blogs, and I know a lot of those 9,000 visits are repeat visitors. There are probably blogs written by dogs and cats that have more "visits" and followers. Who cares. But let me tell you...it IS a big deal to me. I score very high on every measure of introversion. I am not one to reach out or ask for help. This blog has been a lifeline when I have been withdrawing from the world. I have had friends, family, and COMPLETE strangers reading and posting comments. There have been people who visit regularly from states I have never been to nor did I know anyone within their borders. I've had visitors from about a dozen countries across several continents. Some probably came to the blog via a typo on an address line. Who cares. I have been touched, encouraged and deeply moved by anonymous comments, along with comments from friends and families. There were days when I really wanted to give up, crawl in some hole and die, when I read a comment that completely lifted my spirit. I believe God's hand was in this blog as well. Maybe yes, maybe no, but that's my hunch. And I have been so deeply moved and uplifted by the kindness and compassion all of you have shown me. For taking the time to read. Or comment. Or thinking of me or maybe lifting up a prayer on my behalf.
From the deepest part of my heart... God bless you, friends. I love you.
1. Just how difficult, painful, and traumatic the "treatment" process for my stage four cancer would be...yes, the radiologist tech warned me that 35 days of radiation to the throat was about the worst place to be zapped, and the ENT told me it wasn't going to be easy and I'd be pretty beaten up before it was over, and my oncologist told me I might be too physically weak to handle the third round of chemo (and thank God for my weakness...I was too weak and was spared round three)...but I had nothing in life to compare that to. My oncologist promised me I'd survive this cancer, but, initially, the thought of NOT surviving never even crossed my mind. How could a young, healthy guy like me die from a little tumor? Further, I was resistant to getting a "feeding tube;" thank God he talked me into it. In my ignorance I thought I would be tough enough (though I also knew I was a coward when it comes to pain) to eat and drink with a "sore throat." HA! Little could I imagine that at the height of my misery, there were days when even pouring a cup of water into the feeding tube was too much for me to think about. Swallowing? No, way! The lining of my throat was completely burned off, my saliva turned into rubber cement, and eventually turned off altogether, taste buds completely shut off, and infections in my mouth and stomach along with chemotherapy nausea and days upon days of sleeplessness left me a shell of a being...I don't recall writing this, but deep inside, I started thinking I was not going to survive the ordeal...I became too weak to walk from the hospital parking lot to the radiation and chemotherapy torture chambers...so for a period of time I was wheeled in a wheelchair from car to radiation room, strapped to a table, head immobilized in a plastic mask that was secured to the table, zapped, and wheeled back. My chore was then to survive the 50 mile car ride home, nodding on and off and trying not to be sick in the car. Let me tell you, if you have never been in such a state...it very much becomes an altered state of being...almost a trance like reality when who one was before this, or who one will be after this ceases to exist, and time sort of gets suspended in a foggy, jellylike state of discomfort, pain, and dysphoria that seems to have no beginning and no end. I put acorns on my windowsill to symbolize each day's passing for the 35 days of radiation, and pine cones for the chemotherapy days. It sounded like a good idea at first, like I was going on some hiking safari and would count the days away from clocks and watches in the "wilderness" with each new adventure gazing at the acorns and marveling. Well...I kept at it, and ended with 35 acorns and 4 pine cones on that windowsill, but, truth be told, in some ways, I really HATED those acorns...those acorns are in a jar hidden away, and I still haven't been able to look at them since treatment ended. Maybe someday the symbolic element that I hoped for with those acorns will inspire me. We'll see. They are just still too much a reminder of the ordeal right now.
2. Kathy - I promised Kathy at the onset that I would keep the blog about me... after all, if I wanted to make my private life public, it was my business, but it was NOT my right to make anyone else's life public. So I have kept references to Kathy and our marriage to a minimum. But I have occasionally lapsed (like right here). I had no idea how strong Kathy could be. When I needed her strength, she was a rock. I could only pray that I would be half as loving and strong and compassionate if, God forbid, she should ever have such an unfortunate need.
3. My twists and turns with Jesus - I can honestly say I had moments when I never felt closer to God... and I had moments when I never felt more distant and alone. At it's best, I felt His love in a way that is difficult to explain. Just as I was getting ready to begin treatment, I had the very real experience of hearing a voice in my head reciting a verse from a Psalm..."your love is better than life." It filled me with such peace and comfort that I knew it was going to be OK...His love would never abandon me, in life, or in death; and that was all I ever needed. And to be honest, at it's very worst...I had doubts about whether God even existed, let alone was mindful of this little speck of a being. I had moments of fear that somehow I was being punished for a lifetime of sin and falling short of His expectations, or that He just never really did care about me after all, or He just simply did not exist. But, then, I'd get some encouragement, sometimes from a blog post I'd write, or a comment I'd receive, sometimes from a Psalm I'd read, sometimes from a hymn I'd hear either on-line or in my head, sometimes from having a prayer time, sometimes from scripture that would invade my thoughts out of "nowhere" (ummm...thank you Holy Spirit). It all only confirms for me that God was with me throughout. In spite of my wanderings, rebellions, spiritual journeys and adventures and eccentricities... in my heart of hearts, I know...I know I was made for God. I don't know how else to say it. And my life doesn't make any sense at all without Him. Believe me, I know that to be true. I was made for God. I can't escape that reality any more than I can stop breathing. Oh, I can hold my breath for awhile, but hey, at the end of that, I'm breathing again. I can wish it weren't true, I can wish I could forget all about Him, I can try to think of Him as some projection of my own neediness, but ultimately, when I come to the end of myself, He is there. Without beginning, without end. In all His majestic glory. As it should be. He's there. I can't escape Him. And I just know it. And I love Jesus. I can't escape that either (nor can I even imagine ever wanting to, but I suppose...if Peter could deny Him, certainly I could as well). I just love Him. And His love completes and compels me. I have no good explanation, outside of His amazing grace, that He should be mindful of this undeserving little Jewish kid from Long Island, but it is my highest desire to know Him and conform my life to His. And His love is...well, I'll just say it...His love is deeper than cancer.
4. This blog - OK, I hope I can say this right. At first I thought it would be therapeutic for me to journal my experience with cancer treatment. I had often thought of journaling, but never, as an adult, took the plunge. Until now. Then I thought, "wouldn't it be neat for me, such a low-tech person, to figure out how to blog." I had stumbled on a blog written by a woman who had leukemia (who, by the way, has become a friend). I thought..."I'll just write my journal in the form of a blog. Others do it, so can I." I was amazed when I actually got it figured out and wrote my first post. I had no idea anyone would actually find it and read it. So... imagine my surprise when I got my first "comment." To date there have been roughly 9,000 visits to the blog. And 33 people signed up as followers... (to be honest...I have no idea what that means). I am not so grandiose to believe that this is any kind of big deal. There must be a gazillion blogs, and I know a lot of those 9,000 visits are repeat visitors. There are probably blogs written by dogs and cats that have more "visits" and followers. Who cares. But let me tell you...it IS a big deal to me. I score very high on every measure of introversion. I am not one to reach out or ask for help. This blog has been a lifeline when I have been withdrawing from the world. I have had friends, family, and COMPLETE strangers reading and posting comments. There have been people who visit regularly from states I have never been to nor did I know anyone within their borders. I've had visitors from about a dozen countries across several continents. Some probably came to the blog via a typo on an address line. Who cares. I have been touched, encouraged and deeply moved by anonymous comments, along with comments from friends and families. There were days when I really wanted to give up, crawl in some hole and die, when I read a comment that completely lifted my spirit. I believe God's hand was in this blog as well. Maybe yes, maybe no, but that's my hunch. And I have been so deeply moved and uplifted by the kindness and compassion all of you have shown me. For taking the time to read. Or comment. Or thinking of me or maybe lifting up a prayer on my behalf.
From the deepest part of my heart... God bless you, friends. I love you.
Friday, July 16, 2010
CHECKING IN - SO HAPPY - Turning my wailing into dancing
The"tumor board" of 20 physicians reviewed my scan this morning, and results showed no evidence of tumor or cancer. My tonsils were assymetrical, with slight inflammation, but they said that was not a big concern at this point, and it could just be post-treatment inflammation or maybe I had a slight respiratory infection like a mild cold when I did the scan. But, NO TUMOR. Oh. thank you God. I am breathing again. I will follow up every 3 months, and maybe they'll do another scan in a year or so. WOW! WHAT GLORIOUS NEWS!!! I am between clients right now, so I need to keep this brief, but I plan to post again today or tomorrow.
Thank you so much for caring enough to read this, and helping carry me through this stormy trial. More on that later today...
Right now, I need to spend a few minutes on my knees thanking God.
-------- Psalm 30---------
1 I will exalt you, O LORD,
for you lifted me out of the depths
and did not let my enemies gloat over me.
2 O LORD my God, I called to you for help
and you healed me.
3 O LORD, you brought me up from the grave;
you spared me from going down into the pit.
4 Sing to the LORD, you saints of his;
praise his holy name.
5 For his anger lasts only a moment,
but his favor lasts a lifetime;
weeping may remain for a night,
but rejoicing comes in the morning.
6 When I felt secure, I said,
"I will never be shaken."
7 O LORD, when you favored me,
you made my mountain stand firm;
but when you hid your face,
I was dismayed.
8 To you, O LORD, I called;
to the Lord I cried for mercy:
9 "What gain is there in my destruction,
in my going down into the pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it proclaim your faithfulness?
10 Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me;
O LORD, be my help."
11 You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
12 that my heart may sing to you and not be silent.
O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.
Thank you so much for caring enough to read this, and helping carry me through this stormy trial. More on that later today...
Right now, I need to spend a few minutes on my knees thanking God.
-------- Psalm 30---------
1 I will exalt you, O LORD,
for you lifted me out of the depths
and did not let my enemies gloat over me.
2 O LORD my God, I called to you for help
and you healed me.
3 O LORD, you brought me up from the grave;
you spared me from going down into the pit.
4 Sing to the LORD, you saints of his;
praise his holy name.
5 For his anger lasts only a moment,
but his favor lasts a lifetime;
weeping may remain for a night,
but rejoicing comes in the morning.
6 When I felt secure, I said,
"I will never be shaken."
7 O LORD, when you favored me,
you made my mountain stand firm;
but when you hid your face,
I was dismayed.
8 To you, O LORD, I called;
to the Lord I cried for mercy:
9 "What gain is there in my destruction,
in my going down into the pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it proclaim your faithfulness?
10 Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me;
O LORD, be my help."
11 You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
12 that my heart may sing to you and not be silent.
O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
checking in - part way there, good news thus far
Today I had my 9 months post-treatment CT scan...I've lost count of how many scans I have had, but I believe I carry enough radiation to power a mid-size city for a few weeks. I also had an exam by my oncologist and ENT (actually, my ENT's P.A., who seemed quite knowledgeable.)
Here's the good news...after being poked and prodded and had hands down my throat, the two physical exams both turned out great. NO signs of anything unusual, and my tonsils, throat, and neck seem to be all healing and happy and healthy. I have to wait on the CT scan results however, as the report wasn't yet done when I had the appointments with the docs. So I won't find out the scan results probably till Friday. I'm getting used to waiting, and I am not going to stress, but rather, just enjoy the positive comments I received regarding my recovery.
Here's the other thing about today. I really have come to appreciate human kindness and compassion in a new way. My oncologist has really been thoughtful and encouraging (and quite competent) every step of the way. While I've seen other competent doctors on this journey, they sometimes have lacked in the compassion/empathy/bedside manner that my oncologist has. It really makes an incredible difference. I told him how much I appreciate him today, because after my first PET scan came back with a "hot spot" in January, I kind of had a melt down in his office and told him I didn't think he was being straight with me when he was telling me not to worry. To his credit, he stayed calm, and again, re-assured me that he wouldn't tell me anything he didn't sincerely believe to be true. I love the guy!
Also, the woman who greets patients at the door of the cancer center of Methodist Hospital in Omaha and arranges valet parking for those too weak to make it from the parking lot to the entrance...Ethel is her name...just lit up when she saw me and gave me a big hug...I hadn't been up to the cancer center in three months, and she seemed genuinely happy to see me feeling well. She said she had a dream about me the other night. She greets hundreds of patients every day, but when she saw me she shouted "STEVE" and ran to embrace me. Then she gave me some more of her Ethel advice...(if you remember, I had a post during treatment about her telling me to "relax into this, hon" which for some reason really touched me.) This time, she told me that if I ever get sick again, to "make sure I don't let what's going on inside my body mess up what's goin on inside my head, cause if my head stays happy, my body's goin to get well much quicker." She's great.
I'm having a good day. And I am ready for more good news come Friday. (I'll even accept having to wait till Monday, just in case the phone doesn't ring on Friday.)
There's so much in the course of a day to thank God for...if I could only remember to just keep my head happy!
Here's the good news...after being poked and prodded and had hands down my throat, the two physical exams both turned out great. NO signs of anything unusual, and my tonsils, throat, and neck seem to be all healing and happy and healthy. I have to wait on the CT scan results however, as the report wasn't yet done when I had the appointments with the docs. So I won't find out the scan results probably till Friday. I'm getting used to waiting, and I am not going to stress, but rather, just enjoy the positive comments I received regarding my recovery.
Here's the other thing about today. I really have come to appreciate human kindness and compassion in a new way. My oncologist has really been thoughtful and encouraging (and quite competent) every step of the way. While I've seen other competent doctors on this journey, they sometimes have lacked in the compassion/empathy/bedside manner that my oncologist has. It really makes an incredible difference. I told him how much I appreciate him today, because after my first PET scan came back with a "hot spot" in January, I kind of had a melt down in his office and told him I didn't think he was being straight with me when he was telling me not to worry. To his credit, he stayed calm, and again, re-assured me that he wouldn't tell me anything he didn't sincerely believe to be true. I love the guy!
Also, the woman who greets patients at the door of the cancer center of Methodist Hospital in Omaha and arranges valet parking for those too weak to make it from the parking lot to the entrance...Ethel is her name...just lit up when she saw me and gave me a big hug...I hadn't been up to the cancer center in three months, and she seemed genuinely happy to see me feeling well. She said she had a dream about me the other night. She greets hundreds of patients every day, but when she saw me she shouted "STEVE" and ran to embrace me. Then she gave me some more of her Ethel advice...(if you remember, I had a post during treatment about her telling me to "relax into this, hon" which for some reason really touched me.) This time, she told me that if I ever get sick again, to "make sure I don't let what's going on inside my body mess up what's goin on inside my head, cause if my head stays happy, my body's goin to get well much quicker." She's great.
I'm having a good day. And I am ready for more good news come Friday. (I'll even accept having to wait till Monday, just in case the phone doesn't ring on Friday.)
There's so much in the course of a day to thank God for...if I could only remember to just keep my head happy!
Sunday, July 11, 2010
checking in -Trusting God, creeping anxiety
So, I go for a CT scan, my first in three months, on Tuesday. Please pray for a good outcome. Thanks. I know God is with me, regardless, but, of course, I also feel anxiety creeping in on the edges as Tuesday gets closer. If the scan is clear, that could be the last scan unless I begin having symptoms or the ENT detects something in a future physical. I so desire for that to be the case (a good outcome, that is).
I will be sure to post again on Tuesday evening. I'll keep this post brief, as I don't know what else to write. I've been feeling pretty good, and I feel I am getting my life back more and more each week that passes. Let's get this done.
I will be sure to post again on Tuesday evening. I'll keep this post brief, as I don't know what else to write. I've been feeling pretty good, and I feel I am getting my life back more and more each week that passes. Let's get this done.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Deeper things - morning magic
Graphics - Layouts - Photobucket
Another sign that I am returning to my old self...I am again waking up every day quite early (around 5-5:30AM). I've heard that as people age, they require less sleep...well, for me, I must have begun that kind of aging around 21. I am, simply put, a morning person, and I have been for over 30 years. As an undergraduate I was able to sleep the morning away, generally after partying ridiculously late the night before. It was not unusual to grapple with the decision "breakfast or lunch?" as my roommate and I would regain consciousness after a night of insanity sometime around noon. After college, I lost the knack of sleeping late (or as they say in Nebraska..."sleeping in.") I have previously written about the roots of my insomnia around age 9 (an entry made in August 2009..."morning walk of agitation.") Here's the link should you care to empathize:
http://sblumsblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/checking-in-morning-walk-of-agitation.html
Add to that my father's distaste for my sleeping late as an adolescent...I would spend weekends and summers living with him, the times most kids get to sleep late...his bedroom door was across the hall from mine... generally whatever time he got up, he decided was time for me to get up...he would pound on my door like King Kong himself was standing outside wanting in. To sleep late was to be a "lazy bum". If my brain ever did have the notion that it was permissible to sleep late, my father took care of that!
And while I did not want to be "a lazy bum," I also did not want to risk not getting "enough" sleep...Even though waking early has been with me for decades, it has often been accompanied by worries... "will I be tired all day"..."will I not perform as well because I am not rested"...etc. What silly things to be hard on oneself for... guilt about sleeping late, and worry about waking early. How neurotic!
ENOUGH of that nonsense...
Waking early is a gift... There is magic in the morning that you late sleepers no nothing about. It really is wonderful to greet the sunrise by being out walking, and it is wonderful to wake up with the stillness and quiet that accompanies early morning. (No one's pounding on my door anymore). Having a leisurely cup of coffee with breakfast and the morning paper (or better yet, a quiet time for devotions) AND time to exercise before work is wonderful. Getting outside and beating the heat of the day in the summer is luxurious.
Here is a poem I think I have quoted previously...I love the idea of starting the day intentionally with gratitude, kindness and happiness in one's heart... How I start the day is a good barometer for where I am in life... God, if I am to wake up before dawn, let me wake up with a prayer of gratitude on my lips and joy in my heart.
I remember reading somewhere of some guy who would wake up and yell "I'M BACK" to the world first thing upon opening his eyes. I haven't tried that yet, and I am sure Kathy would be less than delighted with her day starting that way...(but, hey, maybe once in awhile wouldn't be so bad...what do you think, Dad?)
Why I Wake Early
Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety –
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light –
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.
~ Mary Oliver ~
Friday, June 25, 2010
checking in - a walk around the lake
I woke up quite early this morning and drove out to a nearby lake and took what I considered a brisk paced walk around it's 2.5 mile circumference. It was one of those perfect mornings, around 70 degrees and very calm. Birds, ducks, frogs, water and trees. So nice. I say "a brisk pace" yet I was passed by several joggers and two women walking...I can't figure out how some people walk so fast. They weren't "power walking," they were simply walking and talking with no apparent effort and they passed me like I was standing still. As soon as they passed, I tried to match their pace by watching and walking in sync with their steps... it couldn't be done... It's a mystery to me how some humans can walk so fast and it seems so natural.
Here are two ideas that I am considering for the next twelve months:
1. Arrange a slow race ...called a "mindful mile." There will be no winner, the race is an un-race....the goal of which is to walk VERY slowly, silently and mindfully for one mile. Everyone who enters gets a very, very cool mindful mile T-shirt, and the entrance fees (after the cost of the T-shirts) go to charity (perhaps a children's cancer charity?). I'll have to find someone to design a very cool to die for t-shirt.
2. Celebrate 12 birthdays in the next year...just a thought...I was too miserable to celebrate my birthday last year in November, and who knows how many trips around the sun I have left. Why be stingy? Since my birthday is on the 5th of the month and since July marks one year since my diagnosis, I am thinking of beginning in July. On second thought... July 5th is already a holiday as the 4th falls on a Sunday. No point doubling up on a holiday. I will start in August. I will take the 5th of every month off from work, and plan some birthday adventure. How much fun is that??? Oh, I will love it. Give me one good reason why not? I will so look forward to my adventures. The only thing in common will be that each monthly birthday will include one large piece of cake (or pie) to celebrate. Some adventures might be alone (I am thinking one adventure would be to spend one full day from sunrise to sunset at a Monastery in silent reflection) some might be with Kathy, some might be with whoever cares to join in... mmm...another adventure could involve driving early morning to Kansas City for a great BBQ lunch/dinner, followed by a walk through some neat neighborhood and birthday cake at some KC bakery and driving back to Lincoln at night. And...I'd like to have a birthday adventure serving others in some meaningful capacity that is totally new for me. And a birthday adventure where I learn something completely new, like a private lesson by an expert in calligraphy or playing an Indian flute, or origami, and then spend the rest of the day practicing. This idea to plan a birthday adventure on the 5th of every month occurred to me around 11PM last evening and I had the most difficult time getting to sleep because I kept thinking about different adventures I could plan. Some were wild and crazy and dangerous, so I best slow down and reflect a little before commenting any more. Otherwise, I might regret my words...I can just see myself standing down at the railyard trying to hop a freight train and cursing myself for ever having this adventure idea...
And finally...a quote for the day...
"Sometimes the truth depends upon a walk around the lake."
Wallace Stevens
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...can't you see the sunrise on the water?
Here are two ideas that I am considering for the next twelve months:
1. Arrange a slow race ...called a "mindful mile." There will be no winner, the race is an un-race....the goal of which is to walk VERY slowly, silently and mindfully for one mile. Everyone who enters gets a very, very cool mindful mile T-shirt, and the entrance fees (after the cost of the T-shirts) go to charity (perhaps a children's cancer charity?). I'll have to find someone to design a very cool to die for t-shirt.
2. Celebrate 12 birthdays in the next year...just a thought...I was too miserable to celebrate my birthday last year in November, and who knows how many trips around the sun I have left. Why be stingy? Since my birthday is on the 5th of the month and since July marks one year since my diagnosis, I am thinking of beginning in July. On second thought... July 5th is already a holiday as the 4th falls on a Sunday. No point doubling up on a holiday. I will start in August. I will take the 5th of every month off from work, and plan some birthday adventure. How much fun is that??? Oh, I will love it. Give me one good reason why not? I will so look forward to my adventures. The only thing in common will be that each monthly birthday will include one large piece of cake (or pie) to celebrate. Some adventures might be alone (I am thinking one adventure would be to spend one full day from sunrise to sunset at a Monastery in silent reflection) some might be with Kathy, some might be with whoever cares to join in... mmm...another adventure could involve driving early morning to Kansas City for a great BBQ lunch/dinner, followed by a walk through some neat neighborhood and birthday cake at some KC bakery and driving back to Lincoln at night. And...I'd like to have a birthday adventure serving others in some meaningful capacity that is totally new for me. And a birthday adventure where I learn something completely new, like a private lesson by an expert in calligraphy or playing an Indian flute, or origami, and then spend the rest of the day practicing. This idea to plan a birthday adventure on the 5th of every month occurred to me around 11PM last evening and I had the most difficult time getting to sleep because I kept thinking about different adventures I could plan. Some were wild and crazy and dangerous, so I best slow down and reflect a little before commenting any more. Otherwise, I might regret my words...I can just see myself standing down at the railyard trying to hop a freight train and cursing myself for ever having this adventure idea...
And finally...a quote for the day...
"Sometimes the truth depends upon a walk around the lake."
Wallace Stevens
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...can't you see the sunrise on the water?
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
deeper things - wanting more
Even this far along in my recovery, I fight with a desire for "more." I want to enjoy food as much as I used to, I want the energy that I had a year ago, I want to live oblivious to my health. When I am in this "wanting more" mode, I forget all the progress I have made, and I measure myself by the yardstick of what I don't have. I read a poem today that captured it for me.
But the mind always
wants more than it has -
one more bright day of sun,
one more clear night in bed
with the moon; one more hour
to get the words right; one
more chance for the heart in hiding
to emerge from its thicket
in dried grasses - as if this quiet day
with its tentative light weren't enough,
as if joy weren't strewn all around.
- Holly Hughes
from Mind Wanting More
Well, one doesn't have to be a cancer survivor to live in a state of wanting more.
Here, though, is the amazing thing..."this quiet day with its tentative light" is absolutely and perfectly enough. And the poet is right...there is joy strewn all around. And all I have to do is change my perspective one half a turn and I realize I'm blessed with this ordinary Tuesday.
Isn't it something that joy makes itself available to us, even when we've neglected it for long periods of time!
Hey, here is my plan. I am going to take all the things that I don't have, along with all the things I want more of, and put them up on the top shelf in an old storage cabinet in my garage. There is some room right next to a large heap marked "painful memories I got tired of visiting." Since I already avoid that cabinet at all costs (rather than face the task of cleaning it out), I will almost never encounter the stuff that I don't have. It will simply collect dust. At some point in the future, I will realize I have no use for any of it anyway, and put everything from that shelf out at the curb on Monday morning for the garbage man to haul away. And I wont miss it at all!
But the mind always
wants more than it has -
one more bright day of sun,
one more clear night in bed
with the moon; one more hour
to get the words right; one
more chance for the heart in hiding
to emerge from its thicket
in dried grasses - as if this quiet day
with its tentative light weren't enough,
as if joy weren't strewn all around.
- Holly Hughes
from Mind Wanting More
Well, one doesn't have to be a cancer survivor to live in a state of wanting more.
Here, though, is the amazing thing..."this quiet day with its tentative light" is absolutely and perfectly enough. And the poet is right...there is joy strewn all around. And all I have to do is change my perspective one half a turn and I realize I'm blessed with this ordinary Tuesday.
Isn't it something that joy makes itself available to us, even when we've neglected it for long periods of time!
Hey, here is my plan. I am going to take all the things that I don't have, along with all the things I want more of, and put them up on the top shelf in an old storage cabinet in my garage. There is some room right next to a large heap marked "painful memories I got tired of visiting." Since I already avoid that cabinet at all costs (rather than face the task of cleaning it out), I will almost never encounter the stuff that I don't have. It will simply collect dust. At some point in the future, I will realize I have no use for any of it anyway, and put everything from that shelf out at the curb on Monday morning for the garbage man to haul away. And I wont miss it at all!
Friday, June 18, 2010
deeper things - musical interlude -
Winding down...the last video I posted was a video from a "poetry slam." I am greatly impressed by the talent that writing and performing a poetry slam requires. Here is one of the best I have heard. It's a poem about Beethoven. If after hearing it (or instead of hearing it)...you care to listen to a snippet of Beethoven, I have also included a video of a recording of a movement from the 9th Symphony. If music is capable of eliciting powerful emotion, and we know that it is...I contend that there has never been a more powerful piece of music written than Beethoven's 9th symphony. Of course, as in my enjoyment of poetry, I have no real formal music background; I just love Beethoven's 9th. Ode to joy!!!! Can anything top that? Just listen to this guy's poem about Beethovan, and then listen to a performance of Beethoven himself. What magic, what music! Go ahead...listen...you can hear them both in about 10 minutes...there is nothing on TV right now anyway! Oh, listen... you can hear tears, you can hear laughter...I don't know anything, but the poem and the music inspire me...happy day...happy summer! To hear a good symphony orchestra play the complete 9th symphony, sitting with eyes closed and heart open...one feels transported to heaven!
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Deeper things - GOD DOESN'T WASTE PAIN
The title of this post reflects one of the most profound statements I have encountered. I would like to claim it as my own original thought, but, truth be told, I heard it from a friend I met when I was consulting a few years ago at a local private college. Jackie, a senior at this college, had lost her boyfriend (fiance?), a fellow college student who died suddenly after collapsing during a pick-up basketball game with a couple of other students. He had an undiagnosed heart defect which led to his heart attack. The entire college was stunned with the loss of this gentle, loving, compassionate, godly and popular student, though, obviously, none more deeply than Jackie. When I recently heard Jackie say "God doesn't waste pain," it was as if God Himself were tapping me on the shoulder and saying, "...get it?"
God doesn't waste pain.
Oh, how that has helped me make sense out of Romans 8:28 ("...all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose"). How that statement has helped me make sense of my own ordeal with cancer!
What amazing lessons God has taught me through this cancer journey. Sometimes, as I was walking through "the valley of the shadow of death" my vision was clouded by despair and pain. Sometimes it was clouded by fear. Sometimes it still is. But more strongly than ever, I can say, "thou art with me" and mean it.
Since, God willing, I am winding this blog down (July 31 will mark one year since I started this blog, and a fitting time to bring it to a close), I have been reflecting on a few of the entries that meant the most to me. The entry from August 2009, entitled "Six Amazing Words" was one of them. Of course, you faithful readers remember, but for the one or two who don't, the six amazing words were "Your love is better than life" from Psalm 63. The verse came to me loudly and clearly as I was driving to pick up some Chinese food a week after being diagnosed with cancer. At that time, the edge of anxiety and the thought about the possibility that my own life could succumb to cancer was just starting to make it's way into my brain. The verse from Psalm 63, one that I was not really aware that I had memorized, was a soothing balm.
So, here are four amazing words...not a verse from scripture, but I believe words that could have come from the very heart of God...
God doesn't waste pain.
In love, He uses it to bring forth something new and awesome...
Did not Jesus, Himself, for the joy set before Him, endure the cross...?
God doesn't waste pain.
Oh, how that has helped me make sense out of Romans 8:28 ("...all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose"). How that statement has helped me make sense of my own ordeal with cancer!
What amazing lessons God has taught me through this cancer journey. Sometimes, as I was walking through "the valley of the shadow of death" my vision was clouded by despair and pain. Sometimes it was clouded by fear. Sometimes it still is. But more strongly than ever, I can say, "thou art with me" and mean it.
Since, God willing, I am winding this blog down (July 31 will mark one year since I started this blog, and a fitting time to bring it to a close), I have been reflecting on a few of the entries that meant the most to me. The entry from August 2009, entitled "Six Amazing Words" was one of them. Of course, you faithful readers remember, but for the one or two who don't, the six amazing words were "Your love is better than life" from Psalm 63. The verse came to me loudly and clearly as I was driving to pick up some Chinese food a week after being diagnosed with cancer. At that time, the edge of anxiety and the thought about the possibility that my own life could succumb to cancer was just starting to make it's way into my brain. The verse from Psalm 63, one that I was not really aware that I had memorized, was a soothing balm.
So, here are four amazing words...not a verse from scripture, but I believe words that could have come from the very heart of God...
God doesn't waste pain.
In love, He uses it to bring forth something new and awesome...
Did not Jesus, Himself, for the joy set before Him, endure the cross...?
Sunday, June 6, 2010
deeper things - poetry slam - wake up!
Gabrielle Bouliane died less than two months after this poetry slam performance (she died toward the end of January 2010). She was dying while I was reviving from my chemo and radiation which was completed in October 2009...it could just as easily have been the reverse. My time (and yours) will be here any day now... This is her heart. Wow... and I complain about not having saliva or being able to eat dry foods or having low energy? Take this and let it permeate your heart. So... remind me... what is it that is stopping us from doing what we need to do and saying what we need to say that will add meaning and value to our lives NOW? Give it some thought.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
checking in - spaciousness and stillness
It's been awhile since I've given a progress report... So...here it is.
Energy - About 80% restored. I no longer nap during the day. I am working full time without any problem. In the past two days, I have walked the equivalent of 10 miles, and in the last five days, I have walked 21 miles. That's about equal to my pre-treatment activity. Most mornings, I am greeting the day with a two mile walk, (and often some chi gong exercises) and really enjoying it. I am much lighter and my muscular strength is probably half what it was...I'd like to start doing some light weight training soon. Sometimes at night, I feel myself crash when we sit down to watch a TV show...Sometimes, it is almost painful...but I wake up refreshed.
Taste. About 75 % restored. For the most part, I do not taste foods as strongly as I used to. Some foods, particularly sweets, are still a bit unpredictable, and at times, unpleasant. Milk often tastes a bit sour. I ate a few bananas this past week...bananas for some reason taste funny now. I used to love eggs...now, sometimes, I do not like the taste of eggs at all. If a food is spicy, it is difficult to describe how harshly it burns...it is virtually intolerable. I ate a bagel, cream cheese and lox for breakfast today (my traditional Saturday morning breakfast)...it wasn't bad, but it was a lot of work. Eating with minimal saliva is more of a chore and less enjoyable, but I have come a long way back. I just discovered ARBY's sells an apple turnover that tastes just delicious to me with a cup of coffee or tea. I pass an ARBY's on my way home from the office, and I fear I will become addicted to this treat. I am enjoying coffee a lot. I drink green tea, but tea now always leaves an unpleasant aftertaste. I drink gallons of water, but other than coffee or tea, most other drinks, such as fruit juices, taste weird.
Salivary function. About 25% restored. This is the worst of the lingering aftereffects. I do not know yet whether I will still improve here or just have to learn to live with this. I do have some saliva, but it is not "normal" and I frequently feel like I have to rinse my mouth. Unless I am eating something with sauce on it, or lots of moisture in it, like oranges or melons, I have to drink water to swallow. With meat, chicken, bread, crackers...if I don't have water, the food gets stuck in my throat. When I am outdoors or am doing a lot of talking, my mouth gets really dry really fast if I am not sipping water. Now that the weather is warmer, it's not as bad as it was in the cold.
Neuropathy. Another side effect of chemo that has not gone away. My fingers and toes often tingle. Sometimes my whole right arm is a bit painful. When I wake up in the morning, and am nice and warm, I barely notice it...it seems to get worse as the day goes on. But, it is very manageable, and does not impair walking or grasping or typing, etc. If it gets no worse, it's no real problem, just a bit annoying.
Some days I just feel lethargic and a bit nauseated and just not well. They seem to be isolated...I just go on with the day and invariably the next day I feel better. This is a new reality for me, having come from a place of almost unbelievable continuous health. I hardly knew what it meant to feel "under the weather." I never was an energy superstar, and my normal pace was first or second gear, but now, I am learning to adjust to having these days that just aren't so hot. Today, actually, I have felt as good as I have felt in almost a year. If I could forget about the saliva, I would say today I felt like my old self.
SPACIOUSNESS AND STILLNESS. I have a new longing...well, not new, but more pronounced. It is a longing for stillness and spaciousness. I have difficulty putting this into words...but when I am walking early morning, or practicing meditation, or just sitting quietly without any distractions, I feel myself move into a place of deeper peace and fulfillment, and it's like thirst-quenching is to a thirsty person. Today while I was walking I had this thought...life begins with tremendous spaciousness...then, as the years go by, we fill that space more and more until at some point, there is virtually no space between the barrage of stimulus at all...we just move from one hectic moment to the next hectic moment...then, as we approach old age, infirmity, and ultimately death...we begin to again have some spaciousness, depending on the speed of that process. Well, friends, let me tell you...I am reclaiming some of that back right now. I am certainly not yet old (isn't it something how "old" is a relative term, and moves a little further down the road than we presently are...) and God willing, have some healthy days ahead...and I never want to fill them up to overflowing with noise, activity or mind racing thinking again. NO SIR! Give me quiet walks, quiet times with God, quiet time to contemplate and meditate. SPACIOUSNESS AND STILLNESS....
While the longing for spaciousness and stillness seems to me a generally good and healthy pursuit...wouldn't you know, there is a bit of a dark side to this that harkens back to my past. My mother, who was a generally sunny, cheerful and wonderful woman, briefly entered a state of catatonic depression...she became a statue...and required shock treatment ...electroconvulsive therapy...back in 1964. After a few weeks of brain zapping with electricity, she snapped out of it, and was her cheery self again for about thirty years until a relapse of her depression sometime in the 1990's... This second bout with depression responded well to Lithium which I believe she stayed on for the rest of her life. She died when she was 84, and did not have another episode of depression during the last 8 or so years of her life. Around the same time that my mother had her initial episode of catatonia and depression in the 60's...(I was an adolescent) I began having some milder symptoms myself. No one noticed. NO ONE NOTICED! When I was a freshman in college, at the State University of New York at Albany, I lived in an old dorm that was a spillover dorm (if I remember correctly) from the old teachers college, and was located a few miles away from the campus. They put freshman in this dorm because all the modern campus dorms were full and they had to find another place to stick us. Since it was an old dorm, it was built like an old dorm...long dark hallways, etc. I went through a phase where I would stand as still as a statue in the window sill of a very large window at the end of a very long hall. I would particularly do this after the hall lights were turned out around midnight, and only the exit signs were lit, making for a very dark tunnel like effect. I do not remember how long I would stand this way, and I was often high on a variety of hallucinogens, being in college in New York in the late 60's. I was virtually invisible to people coming back to the dorm late, or getting up to use the bathroom down the hall...I was not noticed because, I think, no one expected to see a person standing absolutely still on the ledge of a large window at the end of the hall. When I was noticed, people would startle, and then say something to the effect of "what the hell are you doing standing on the window sill up there?" I would calmly reply something to the effect of "I am not doing anything" or else, " I am just standing here." Surprisingly, those explanations generally seemed to suffice, given it was the 60's and being weird was generally acceptable. Now... over the course of the last decade...there are times I find myself given to similar moments like this...I drive somewhere, turn off my car, but do not move...I stay completely still for a minute, maybe five.... for no particular reason...I "stop" for a bit of time, and then continue doing what I set out to do. This is quite interesting... to me. I am fully in control, and am... by no means... stuck. I don't do this often, but I have an appreciation of this stillness and this "stopping " that is, perhaps, a bit eccentric. I guess a little bit of eccentricity is OK, even (or especially) for a psychologist. What is odd to me is that I haven't encountered such a phenomena in others. Why always the press to "keep going." Try it...just completely stop...be really, really, really still...just for a minute or two...it wont hurt you, and you may even enjoy it...then resume your activity where you left off. Perhaps this eccentricity has nothing at all to do with my longing for a more meditative and spiritual stillness and quiet... ...perhaps...
While I was nearing the end of radiation treatment, I had such a moment of "stopping" on the radiation table, and I wrote a short, one paragraph post (Sept 28 '09) hinting at it in a bit more descriptive manner...I was, by then, taking narcotics, and not saying anything too concretely. Here is the link to copy and paste in your browser if you care to read it...or you can go to the 2009 posts in the blog archive to the right, and click on September and then the entry that's titled "hold a second absolutely still." I am not sure if this post or that one makes more sense...
A slightly different perspective on the same concept.
Energy - About 80% restored. I no longer nap during the day. I am working full time without any problem. In the past two days, I have walked the equivalent of 10 miles, and in the last five days, I have walked 21 miles. That's about equal to my pre-treatment activity. Most mornings, I am greeting the day with a two mile walk, (and often some chi gong exercises) and really enjoying it. I am much lighter and my muscular strength is probably half what it was...I'd like to start doing some light weight training soon. Sometimes at night, I feel myself crash when we sit down to watch a TV show...Sometimes, it is almost painful...but I wake up refreshed.
Taste. About 75 % restored. For the most part, I do not taste foods as strongly as I used to. Some foods, particularly sweets, are still a bit unpredictable, and at times, unpleasant. Milk often tastes a bit sour. I ate a few bananas this past week...bananas for some reason taste funny now. I used to love eggs...now, sometimes, I do not like the taste of eggs at all. If a food is spicy, it is difficult to describe how harshly it burns...it is virtually intolerable. I ate a bagel, cream cheese and lox for breakfast today (my traditional Saturday morning breakfast)...it wasn't bad, but it was a lot of work. Eating with minimal saliva is more of a chore and less enjoyable, but I have come a long way back. I just discovered ARBY's sells an apple turnover that tastes just delicious to me with a cup of coffee or tea. I pass an ARBY's on my way home from the office, and I fear I will become addicted to this treat. I am enjoying coffee a lot. I drink green tea, but tea now always leaves an unpleasant aftertaste. I drink gallons of water, but other than coffee or tea, most other drinks, such as fruit juices, taste weird.
Salivary function. About 25% restored. This is the worst of the lingering aftereffects. I do not know yet whether I will still improve here or just have to learn to live with this. I do have some saliva, but it is not "normal" and I frequently feel like I have to rinse my mouth. Unless I am eating something with sauce on it, or lots of moisture in it, like oranges or melons, I have to drink water to swallow. With meat, chicken, bread, crackers...if I don't have water, the food gets stuck in my throat. When I am outdoors or am doing a lot of talking, my mouth gets really dry really fast if I am not sipping water. Now that the weather is warmer, it's not as bad as it was in the cold.
Neuropathy. Another side effect of chemo that has not gone away. My fingers and toes often tingle. Sometimes my whole right arm is a bit painful. When I wake up in the morning, and am nice and warm, I barely notice it...it seems to get worse as the day goes on. But, it is very manageable, and does not impair walking or grasping or typing, etc. If it gets no worse, it's no real problem, just a bit annoying.
Some days I just feel lethargic and a bit nauseated and just not well. They seem to be isolated...I just go on with the day and invariably the next day I feel better. This is a new reality for me, having come from a place of almost unbelievable continuous health. I hardly knew what it meant to feel "under the weather." I never was an energy superstar, and my normal pace was first or second gear, but now, I am learning to adjust to having these days that just aren't so hot. Today, actually, I have felt as good as I have felt in almost a year. If I could forget about the saliva, I would say today I felt like my old self.
SPACIOUSNESS AND STILLNESS. I have a new longing...well, not new, but more pronounced. It is a longing for stillness and spaciousness. I have difficulty putting this into words...but when I am walking early morning, or practicing meditation, or just sitting quietly without any distractions, I feel myself move into a place of deeper peace and fulfillment, and it's like thirst-quenching is to a thirsty person. Today while I was walking I had this thought...life begins with tremendous spaciousness...then, as the years go by, we fill that space more and more until at some point, there is virtually no space between the barrage of stimulus at all...we just move from one hectic moment to the next hectic moment...then, as we approach old age, infirmity, and ultimately death...we begin to again have some spaciousness, depending on the speed of that process. Well, friends, let me tell you...I am reclaiming some of that back right now. I am certainly not yet old (isn't it something how "old" is a relative term, and moves a little further down the road than we presently are...) and God willing, have some healthy days ahead...and I never want to fill them up to overflowing with noise, activity or mind racing thinking again. NO SIR! Give me quiet walks, quiet times with God, quiet time to contemplate and meditate. SPACIOUSNESS AND STILLNESS....
While the longing for spaciousness and stillness seems to me a generally good and healthy pursuit...wouldn't you know, there is a bit of a dark side to this that harkens back to my past. My mother, who was a generally sunny, cheerful and wonderful woman, briefly entered a state of catatonic depression...she became a statue...and required shock treatment ...electroconvulsive therapy...back in 1964. After a few weeks of brain zapping with electricity, she snapped out of it, and was her cheery self again for about thirty years until a relapse of her depression sometime in the 1990's... This second bout with depression responded well to Lithium which I believe she stayed on for the rest of her life. She died when she was 84, and did not have another episode of depression during the last 8 or so years of her life. Around the same time that my mother had her initial episode of catatonia and depression in the 60's...(I was an adolescent) I began having some milder symptoms myself. No one noticed. NO ONE NOTICED! When I was a freshman in college, at the State University of New York at Albany, I lived in an old dorm that was a spillover dorm (if I remember correctly) from the old teachers college, and was located a few miles away from the campus. They put freshman in this dorm because all the modern campus dorms were full and they had to find another place to stick us. Since it was an old dorm, it was built like an old dorm...long dark hallways, etc. I went through a phase where I would stand as still as a statue in the window sill of a very large window at the end of a very long hall. I would particularly do this after the hall lights were turned out around midnight, and only the exit signs were lit, making for a very dark tunnel like effect. I do not remember how long I would stand this way, and I was often high on a variety of hallucinogens, being in college in New York in the late 60's. I was virtually invisible to people coming back to the dorm late, or getting up to use the bathroom down the hall...I was not noticed because, I think, no one expected to see a person standing absolutely still on the ledge of a large window at the end of the hall. When I was noticed, people would startle, and then say something to the effect of "what the hell are you doing standing on the window sill up there?" I would calmly reply something to the effect of "I am not doing anything" or else, " I am just standing here." Surprisingly, those explanations generally seemed to suffice, given it was the 60's and being weird was generally acceptable. Now... over the course of the last decade...there are times I find myself given to similar moments like this...I drive somewhere, turn off my car, but do not move...I stay completely still for a minute, maybe five.... for no particular reason...I "stop" for a bit of time, and then continue doing what I set out to do. This is quite interesting... to me. I am fully in control, and am... by no means... stuck. I don't do this often, but I have an appreciation of this stillness and this "stopping " that is, perhaps, a bit eccentric. I guess a little bit of eccentricity is OK, even (or especially) for a psychologist. What is odd to me is that I haven't encountered such a phenomena in others. Why always the press to "keep going." Try it...just completely stop...be really, really, really still...just for a minute or two...it wont hurt you, and you may even enjoy it...then resume your activity where you left off. Perhaps this eccentricity has nothing at all to do with my longing for a more meditative and spiritual stillness and quiet... ...perhaps...
While I was nearing the end of radiation treatment, I had such a moment of "stopping" on the radiation table, and I wrote a short, one paragraph post (Sept 28 '09) hinting at it in a bit more descriptive manner...I was, by then, taking narcotics, and not saying anything too concretely. Here is the link to copy and paste in your browser if you care to read it...or you can go to the 2009 posts in the blog archive to the right, and click on September and then the entry that's titled "hold a second absolutely still." I am not sure if this post or that one makes more sense...
http://sblumsblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/checking-in-hold-second-absolutely.html
A slightly different perspective on the same concept.
Friday, May 21, 2010
look out -- our new kitten coming soon
he worries...
will Simcha
look down from heaven
and hiss...
*
*
*
*
*
Simcha, you are the alpha cat of my heart!
lessons learned - chew your food slowly
All right, I re-adopted the "lessons learned" title for this post. It is a lesson, and I am learning it. Now that I am nearly devoid of saliva, swallowing is always a bit of a challenge. If I do not pay attention to what I am doing when I eat, I invariably am startled into the realization that this bit of food that is currently lodged in my throat is not going down as it was meant to. Thus far, I have been able to quickly drink some water and resolve the situation without embarrassing myself, or worse.
Today, I had a ghoulish image of spending the last few moments of my life vainly attempting to perform the Heimlich maneuver on myself on the back of our dining room chair, while the little TV in the kitchen was spouting out the news of the day (the five thousandth story I've heard on the impact of the oil spill) and keeping me company while my wife was gone. Would I hear the voice of my dear deceased mother saying "I told you a hundred times to chew your food slowly!"...or would I have the thought..."this serves me right for watching TV while I was eating...I'm such an idiot!" or would I be thinking..."maybe I should use the upholstered chair, this wood chair is killing me..." or maybe my last thoughts would be..."I shoulda picked up some won-ton soup to go with the sesame chicken..."
Anyway...the lesson here...is to pay attention to what I am doing. Doing that when I eat may become life or death for me. But when I am talking to my friend, my wife, my client, PAY ATTENTION.... when I am watching the Robin feed the baby Robin in the nest just outside our window... PAY ATTENTION... when I am reading a difficult poem, or a passage of Scripture, or when I am in prayer, or washing the dishes... PAY ATTENTION.
Steven...PAY ATTENTION...your life is in this moment...and please, for Heaven's sake, chew with your mouth shut!
Today, I had a ghoulish image of spending the last few moments of my life vainly attempting to perform the Heimlich maneuver on myself on the back of our dining room chair, while the little TV in the kitchen was spouting out the news of the day (the five thousandth story I've heard on the impact of the oil spill) and keeping me company while my wife was gone. Would I hear the voice of my dear deceased mother saying "I told you a hundred times to chew your food slowly!"...or would I have the thought..."this serves me right for watching TV while I was eating...I'm such an idiot!" or would I be thinking..."maybe I should use the upholstered chair, this wood chair is killing me..." or maybe my last thoughts would be..."I shoulda picked up some won-ton soup to go with the sesame chicken..."
Anyway...the lesson here...is to pay attention to what I am doing. Doing that when I eat may become life or death for me. But when I am talking to my friend, my wife, my client, PAY ATTENTION.... when I am watching the Robin feed the baby Robin in the nest just outside our window... PAY ATTENTION... when I am reading a difficult poem, or a passage of Scripture, or when I am in prayer, or washing the dishes... PAY ATTENTION.
Steven...PAY ATTENTION...your life is in this moment...and please, for Heaven's sake, chew with your mouth shut!
Sunday, May 16, 2010
deeper things - life, after dying, revives
I feel like getting away from the title "lessons learned" ...it just started to sound very pompous to me. I also feel like adding a few poems. This poem may be about death or dying, but to me it is more about living, and the realization that even when we go through death, literal or figurative, there is life on the other side. There has been life before cancer, during cancer, there will be life after cancer... there is life after loss and grief; even in the midst of loss and grief, if I was willing to listen and remember, I was carrying all the large and small joys of my life in my heart...listen, if you are in the valley, just listen...there is another voice to hear, faint and distant though it may appear. Someone once anonymously posted a comment (after a post entitled "dayenu") and used the phrase "whispering dayenu." I am not sure what that person meant...but I know what the comment meant to me. Sometimes, in the midst of pain, I could not jump up and down with joy, and the best I was able to do (and only at best) was whisper with the faintest wisp of gratitude...whoever wrote that comment...I was so moved by it and those two words that I carry them with me.
Give a listen to this poem...tell me what it sounds like to you...I think it is recited quite nicely, (especially the pause right before the words "then journey on..." Hearing a poem gives such a different perspective than reading it...I will put the poem in print below the video, if you insist on reading it, but at least try to listen along while you read. It's an oldie but goodie, written by Emily Bronte in the mid 1800's. Be quiet, and in quiet listen to the poem. Please tell me how it speaks to you
There should be no despair for you
While nightly stars are burning;
While evening pours its silent dew,
And sunshine gilds the morning.
There should be no despair--though tears
May flow down like a river:
Are not the best beloved of years
Around your heart for ever?
They weep, you weep, it must be so;
Winds sigh as you are sighing,
And winter sheds its grief in snow
Where Autumn's leaves are lying:
Yet, these revive, and from their fate
Your fate cannot be parted:
Then, journey on, if not elate,
Still, NEVER broken-hearted!
Give a listen to this poem...tell me what it sounds like to you...I think it is recited quite nicely, (especially the pause right before the words "then journey on..." Hearing a poem gives such a different perspective than reading it...I will put the poem in print below the video, if you insist on reading it, but at least try to listen along while you read. It's an oldie but goodie, written by Emily Bronte in the mid 1800's. Be quiet, and in quiet listen to the poem. Please tell me how it speaks to you
There should be no despair for you
While nightly stars are burning;
While evening pours its silent dew,
And sunshine gilds the morning.
There should be no despair--though tears
May flow down like a river:
Are not the best beloved of years
Around your heart for ever?
They weep, you weep, it must be so;
Winds sigh as you are sighing,
And winter sheds its grief in snow
Where Autumn's leaves are lying:
Yet, these revive, and from their fate
Your fate cannot be parted:
Then, journey on, if not elate,
Still, NEVER broken-hearted!
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
lessons learned - silence
The sweetest song is silence...
--- Heart
Be still and know that I am God
--- Psalm 46:10
Trauma has a way of silencing a lot of extraneous noise. But it also has a way of drowning out everything else with it's own harsh voice. In the midst of my treatment, I sat in silence, but at times the discomfort was deafening. Also, there were the times I sought noise to distract me from the discomfort of the immediate moment. During my daily radiation treatments at the hospital, there was an oldies station constantly playing in the background while I was strapped to the table and immobilized. I learned to judge how many minutes I had left by the number of songs I heard...each treatment was roughly four songs (with all the radio commercials in between) worth of time. And during chemotherapy, there was awful daytime TV playing in the room where I and dozens of others were sitting on recliners with IV's hooked up infusing our bodies with poison.
There is a kind of silence, though, that I have learned to appreciate. It is the silence and stillness that I think is implied in the verse from Psalm 46 above. (By also quoting from a Heart song, I do not mean to elevate those lyrics to the level of the Psalms, but rather, they seemed to fit right there; I just happened to hear the song "These Dreams" from which those lyrics were taken, about an hour ago in my car...that, along with Heart's "Dog and Butterfly" always caught my attention.)
The type of silence that I have sought is the silence that allows the awful and wonderful presence of God room to dwell. Awful in the sense of the humbling that I have experienced in silent moments like that, and wonderful in the sense of an appreciation of His majesty and awesome presence. It is a silence that allows me to still my anxieties and regain perspective. It is a silence that fills what has been drained away by the world, it's noise and its demands.
I have been on a few silent retreats at a nearby monastery, and I know that simply observing the absence of sound is not enough. There usually is all sorts of internal dialogue and noise accompanying the "quiet." However, I have found that sometime during the second day of a silent retreat my inner dialogue begins to quiet down along with the outer silence. Then, the "stillness" of Psalm 46 gets some traction...then...I start allowing some room for God. It's not that He wasn't present all along, it's that I was so distracted by the "noise" of my inner and outer world that I didn't notice Him...
So...this cancer expereience in some way has taught me to approach that silence more frequently and more hungrily. Ironically, I think the hit my energy level has taken in some ways has also made room for more stillness...I don't know...maybe I'm wrong about that.
I was having a conversation with a friend today about the verse "pray without ceasing." I do not know for certain what that means...but without regular times of stillness and silence...I know it's impossible.
Be still and know that I am God.
Could anything be more profound?
--- Heart
Be still and know that I am God
--- Psalm 46:10
Trauma has a way of silencing a lot of extraneous noise. But it also has a way of drowning out everything else with it's own harsh voice. In the midst of my treatment, I sat in silence, but at times the discomfort was deafening. Also, there were the times I sought noise to distract me from the discomfort of the immediate moment. During my daily radiation treatments at the hospital, there was an oldies station constantly playing in the background while I was strapped to the table and immobilized. I learned to judge how many minutes I had left by the number of songs I heard...each treatment was roughly four songs (with all the radio commercials in between) worth of time. And during chemotherapy, there was awful daytime TV playing in the room where I and dozens of others were sitting on recliners with IV's hooked up infusing our bodies with poison.
There is a kind of silence, though, that I have learned to appreciate. It is the silence and stillness that I think is implied in the verse from Psalm 46 above. (By also quoting from a Heart song, I do not mean to elevate those lyrics to the level of the Psalms, but rather, they seemed to fit right there; I just happened to hear the song "These Dreams" from which those lyrics were taken, about an hour ago in my car...that, along with Heart's "Dog and Butterfly" always caught my attention.)
The type of silence that I have sought is the silence that allows the awful and wonderful presence of God room to dwell. Awful in the sense of the humbling that I have experienced in silent moments like that, and wonderful in the sense of an appreciation of His majesty and awesome presence. It is a silence that allows me to still my anxieties and regain perspective. It is a silence that fills what has been drained away by the world, it's noise and its demands.
I have been on a few silent retreats at a nearby monastery, and I know that simply observing the absence of sound is not enough. There usually is all sorts of internal dialogue and noise accompanying the "quiet." However, I have found that sometime during the second day of a silent retreat my inner dialogue begins to quiet down along with the outer silence. Then, the "stillness" of Psalm 46 gets some traction...then...I start allowing some room for God. It's not that He wasn't present all along, it's that I was so distracted by the "noise" of my inner and outer world that I didn't notice Him...
So...this cancer expereience in some way has taught me to approach that silence more frequently and more hungrily. Ironically, I think the hit my energy level has taken in some ways has also made room for more stillness...I don't know...maybe I'm wrong about that.
I was having a conversation with a friend today about the verse "pray without ceasing." I do not know for certain what that means...but without regular times of stillness and silence...I know it's impossible.
Be still and know that I am God.
Could anything be more profound?
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Lessons learned - Rewriting the previous post
Here is a shorter version (in a poem and a quote)
If you can awaken
inside the familiar
and discover it new
you need never
leave home.
-----Ted Kooser
Only that day dawns to which we are awake.
----Thoreau
If you can awaken
inside the familiar
and discover it new
you need never
leave home.
-----Ted Kooser
Only that day dawns to which we are awake.
----Thoreau
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
lessons learned - it's all new
This past weekend, I was talking to a neighbor about how much I was appreciating regaining certain functions that I had lost (such as taste, energy, etc.). She wondered if it was a little like a kid feels who learns something new, like riding a bicycle for the first time, but even better because I have a larger perspective. She was right. I did my pre-cancer two mile walk around the streets of my neighborhood a few days ago for the first time in nine months. My legs were like jelly when I got home, but I felt really good about it. I ate a hamburger on Sunday, and pizza tonight and they both tasted so incredibly wonderful that it is hard to describe how much I enjoyed the experience. I had the energy to see six clients on Monday and I ended the day feeling invigorated. These things were all routine nine months ago. Now...it's as if these experiences are all coming to me as with a newness of one who has never known these before. This is a unique blessing...how many people get to re-experience pizza and have it taste like he or she is discovering this delightful food for the first time? Imagine that!
In a more general sense, regaining health has made so much of my life feel new. So, I was wondering...how can I keep this "excitement" of the newness of my life alive? How much we lose as we go through the years!!! The other day, I saw a toddler walking with his mother bend over and pick a dandelion with absolute delight! What joy we surrender as years go by. Why can't we preserve the freshness and wonder that surrounds our lives so fully as children...
Guess what? I feel like I am getting to do this...and it's great! I am using my "new" life as a grand experiment in not letting these things become "ordinary" and routine again. The "ordinary" is really quite extraordinary! Imagine if you lost your eyesight for six months to suddenly have it restored...The colors, the sunrises, the sunsets, the twilight would all seem so spectacular. Well, they are spectacular (and so is the taste of pizza and a two mile walk on a spring day)! It seems we have to lose something to fully appreciate it...well, it was so for me, anyway...though this time, I am striving not to take any of the joy for granted and I am grateful for it all. Every day. It is always fresh and new.
There is one more thing that is new every day, if only we could come to fully appreciate it...
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
--- Lamentations 3:22-23
In a more general sense, regaining health has made so much of my life feel new. So, I was wondering...how can I keep this "excitement" of the newness of my life alive? How much we lose as we go through the years!!! The other day, I saw a toddler walking with his mother bend over and pick a dandelion with absolute delight! What joy we surrender as years go by. Why can't we preserve the freshness and wonder that surrounds our lives so fully as children...
Guess what? I feel like I am getting to do this...and it's great! I am using my "new" life as a grand experiment in not letting these things become "ordinary" and routine again. The "ordinary" is really quite extraordinary! Imagine if you lost your eyesight for six months to suddenly have it restored...The colors, the sunrises, the sunsets, the twilight would all seem so spectacular. Well, they are spectacular (and so is the taste of pizza and a two mile walk on a spring day)! It seems we have to lose something to fully appreciate it...well, it was so for me, anyway...though this time, I am striving not to take any of the joy for granted and I am grateful for it all. Every day. It is always fresh and new.
There is one more thing that is new every day, if only we could come to fully appreciate it...
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
--- Lamentations 3:22-23
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Lessons learned - the sacred moment
The sacred moment.... a solid magnificent tree of a moment. A moment that soars to great heights, its arms stretched wide and open. Yet in this magnificent tree of a moment I find at times a colony of termites at work. They are nibbling away at it. Rendering it hollow, rendering it empty.
This sacred moment is right here, right now. I live it...I breathe it...I am present with it forever. Most of the time, I am at peace with it. But these termites are crafty. They boar their way into this moment virtually unnoticed. They go by different names... names like "yesterday," "tomorrow," "fear," "doubt" "what if?" "what if it doesn't?" "what will the next scan reveal?" They take from this sacred moment everything they can.
It's not that I can (or should) banish all uncomfortable emotions and thoughts from the present moment; it is just that there is so much to appreciate and be grateful for right now. When fear comes, it need not eat me up alive. I think I am learning to accept this along side the beauty and the blessings of the day.
Since I have not fully regained my energy, I don't have too much energy to spare. I seek to keep the invaders of this moment in perspective. It is a lesson learned. This sacred moment is complete and full! Here's a poem that reminds me of that.
Mindful
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
~ Mary Oliver ~
This sacred moment is right here, right now. I live it...I breathe it...I am present with it forever. Most of the time, I am at peace with it. But these termites are crafty. They boar their way into this moment virtually unnoticed. They go by different names... names like "yesterday," "tomorrow," "fear," "doubt" "what if?" "what if it doesn't?" "what will the next scan reveal?" They take from this sacred moment everything they can.
It's not that I can (or should) banish all uncomfortable emotions and thoughts from the present moment; it is just that there is so much to appreciate and be grateful for right now. When fear comes, it need not eat me up alive. I think I am learning to accept this along side the beauty and the blessings of the day.
Since I have not fully regained my energy, I don't have too much energy to spare. I seek to keep the invaders of this moment in perspective. It is a lesson learned. This sacred moment is complete and full! Here's a poem that reminds me of that.
Mindful
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
~ Mary Oliver ~
Thursday, April 15, 2010
lessons learned - I am weak
People who go through ordeals often come out with the thought "I am stronger" having survived the ordeal. You know, the idea that "if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger", or how about "only the strong survive" etc. Let me tell you, I do not suffer that delusion. I am more convinced than ever that I am a world class weak person.
Everything positive I have said in the last few posts is absolutely true. I am blessed and grateful for where I am and how far I have come in my recovery. In every way. I really am joyful about today. Yet, at the same time, in every way...I am weak. Also, absolutely true is the following:
Physically...I have emerged from this ordeal frail, fragile, vulnerable.
Emotionally...I am prone to depression, anxiety, fearfulness.
Spiritually...I am given to doubts, feelings of being abandoned by God, lacking in spiritual discipline.
Gee...take me away...I'm unfit.
I'm often such a disappointment to myself. I can add a few more gems...I am by nature fairly lazy, I'm not a fighter, and look to take comfort in...in comfort. I have a Masters Degree in the art of being a couch potato, and a Ph.D. in procrastination. I can be self-preoccupied and lacking in empathy.
Listen...I am not just beating myself up. I am weak.
So...what kind of lesson is this to learn? That I am a slug? No...but since I am no longer all that effective in hiding my vulnerabilities (they are just too visible) there are some lessons I am learning about weakness.
Lesson one: The weak can survive an ordeal also. Sometimes, a flickering flame endures in ways mysterious while a torch burns itself out.
Lesson two: Hiding vulnerabilities only goes so far...eventually it's a losing battle.
Lesson three: If I don't get too self-absorbed and hung up on being weak, there is still lots of love to receive...and, more importantly...to give. It is not so necessary to hide behind a wall of self-protection. Of course...I still do, and often. I should not have called these "lessons learned" but rather, "lessons I am learning." I still retreat to my ruts of old, yet, I am improving at being able to gently nudge myself out as well. I do not think I am so self-pitying anymore.
Lesson four: In some small way the light of this truth is starting to emerge...As I lean on and surrender to my God, His strength suffices. I have become more aware of just how hopelessly weak I ultimately am when I resort to relying on myself. What is becoming clearer to me is the fragility of my own strength and the permanence of His. I experience this in my frailty, not in my strength. I consider, wonder, and am in awe of the magnificence of the following:
He gives power to the weak. He increases the strength of him who has no might. Isaiah 40:29
He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me. Therefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong. 2Cor 12:9-10
Everything positive I have said in the last few posts is absolutely true. I am blessed and grateful for where I am and how far I have come in my recovery. In every way. I really am joyful about today. Yet, at the same time, in every way...I am weak. Also, absolutely true is the following:
Physically...I have emerged from this ordeal frail, fragile, vulnerable.
Emotionally...I am prone to depression, anxiety, fearfulness.
Spiritually...I am given to doubts, feelings of being abandoned by God, lacking in spiritual discipline.
Gee...take me away...I'm unfit.
I'm often such a disappointment to myself. I can add a few more gems...I am by nature fairly lazy, I'm not a fighter, and look to take comfort in...in comfort. I have a Masters Degree in the art of being a couch potato, and a Ph.D. in procrastination. I can be self-preoccupied and lacking in empathy.
Listen...I am not just beating myself up. I am weak.
So...what kind of lesson is this to learn? That I am a slug? No...but since I am no longer all that effective in hiding my vulnerabilities (they are just too visible) there are some lessons I am learning about weakness.
Lesson one: The weak can survive an ordeal also. Sometimes, a flickering flame endures in ways mysterious while a torch burns itself out.
Lesson two: Hiding vulnerabilities only goes so far...eventually it's a losing battle.
Lesson three: If I don't get too self-absorbed and hung up on being weak, there is still lots of love to receive...and, more importantly...to give. It is not so necessary to hide behind a wall of self-protection. Of course...I still do, and often. I should not have called these "lessons learned" but rather, "lessons I am learning." I still retreat to my ruts of old, yet, I am improving at being able to gently nudge myself out as well. I do not think I am so self-pitying anymore.
Lesson four: In some small way the light of this truth is starting to emerge...As I lean on and surrender to my God, His strength suffices. I have become more aware of just how hopelessly weak I ultimately am when I resort to relying on myself. What is becoming clearer to me is the fragility of my own strength and the permanence of His. I experience this in my frailty, not in my strength. I consider, wonder, and am in awe of the magnificence of the following:
He gives power to the weak. He increases the strength of him who has no might. Isaiah 40:29
He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me. Therefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong. 2Cor 12:9-10
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
checking in - six month oncologist exam
This week marks six months since I completed radiation and chemotherapy. I had appointments today with my oncologist and ENT doctor to do exams. No scan this time. My next CT scan (and possibly my last if results are good) will be in July. Both physical exams today were very good. Both docs said there was no sign of any cancer... both put their hands down my throat to feel my tonsil (gag me with a spoon!) and both put their hands around my throat to feel for any swelling of lymph nodes...and both said everything looked very good. Neither were overly concerned about the original post treatment PET scan that showed a lingering "hot spot" on the tonsil...it could have been a false positive. If my July scan is clean...then I will really have cause to celebrate; in the meantime, today's exams were encouraging and neither doctor saw any signs of cancer. I am grateful and thankful for these good signs.
This week I read some of the posts I wrote in November. I don't think I had done that before. Oh, my. I was in such bad shape, physically and emotionally. I was alarmed at just how miserable I had been. So much of that is almost surreal at this point...was that really me going through such an ordeal? I have repressed much of what I was feeling and thinking. I have come so far. I am walking several miles a day, eating a variety of foods, regaining energy, working full time, and feeling alive. I still have only minimal saliva, feel the need for a 30 minute nap around noon, have slight neuropathy from the chemo, still have some distortions in taste (though that is improving all the time), can not eat anything spicy or with too much vinegar (salad dressings make me cry...but I love eating salads so I cry between bites...I have yet to find salad dressing without vinegar or ketchup which contains vinegar). I am not gaining weight, but being a little too thin is OK with me for now...I eat plenty and no longer have to fret over the caloric or fat content of my food... a blessing. I have learned to eat most dry food with the aid of water... still no bagels, but I have eaten Pizza, ribs, chicken, hamburger, toast and jam. I eat lots of spaghetti and lots of cereal. I found a place that sells crumpets...Ideal grocery for those in Lincoln... I had never eaten a crumpet before, but they go down easily and are sort of like a moist English Muffin!. I'm loving them. I can eat all vegetables and baked and mashed potatoes. I eat bananas and oranges (unless my tongue is cut from the dryness). I have lost my sweet tooth, but I have eaten marshmallow peeps and M & M's in an attempt to regain it...maybe I shouldn't try so hard!
I
feel
so
blessed
so
grateful
so
happy
to be
ALIVE!
I have planted lettuce and beets and am looking forward to planting more veggies in the next few weeks. I took my Mountain bike in to get tuned...I haven't used it in years, but I am looking forward to giving cycling a shot this year.
Right now, I am re-reading Walden by Thoreau...I read it last as a teenager. Great stuff. I have a few more "lessons learned" thoughts that I will hopefully get to in the next weeks. I hope to post about once a week for awhile yet. Today is a good day.
This week I read some of the posts I wrote in November. I don't think I had done that before. Oh, my. I was in such bad shape, physically and emotionally. I was alarmed at just how miserable I had been. So much of that is almost surreal at this point...was that really me going through such an ordeal? I have repressed much of what I was feeling and thinking. I have come so far. I am walking several miles a day, eating a variety of foods, regaining energy, working full time, and feeling alive. I still have only minimal saliva, feel the need for a 30 minute nap around noon, have slight neuropathy from the chemo, still have some distortions in taste (though that is improving all the time), can not eat anything spicy or with too much vinegar (salad dressings make me cry...but I love eating salads so I cry between bites...I have yet to find salad dressing without vinegar or ketchup which contains vinegar). I am not gaining weight, but being a little too thin is OK with me for now...I eat plenty and no longer have to fret over the caloric or fat content of my food... a blessing. I have learned to eat most dry food with the aid of water... still no bagels, but I have eaten Pizza, ribs, chicken, hamburger, toast and jam. I eat lots of spaghetti and lots of cereal. I found a place that sells crumpets...Ideal grocery for those in Lincoln... I had never eaten a crumpet before, but they go down easily and are sort of like a moist English Muffin!. I'm loving them. I can eat all vegetables and baked and mashed potatoes. I eat bananas and oranges (unless my tongue is cut from the dryness). I have lost my sweet tooth, but I have eaten marshmallow peeps and M & M's in an attempt to regain it...maybe I shouldn't try so hard!
I
feel
so
blessed
so
grateful
so
happy
to be
ALIVE!
I have planted lettuce and beets and am looking forward to planting more veggies in the next few weeks. I took my Mountain bike in to get tuned...I haven't used it in years, but I am looking forward to giving cycling a shot this year.
Right now, I am re-reading Walden by Thoreau...I read it last as a teenager. Great stuff. I have a few more "lessons learned" thoughts that I will hopefully get to in the next weeks. I hope to post about once a week for awhile yet. Today is a good day.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
checking in - Happy Easter! WHAT JOY!!!!!!
If you are old enough to remember the group "2nd Chapter of Acts" here is one of their best songs; if you've never heard of them but want to enjoy a great Easter song, give a listen. WHAT JOY!!!!! We can be born again!!!!! What joy...I wish I had the words to express my heart...what overwhelming joy!
It is a glorious day. It's been awhile since I've checked in. I want to tell everyone how I'm doing...Physically, emotionally and spiritually.
PHYSICALLY - I am generally moving forward. I have finally begun working full time again...my energy has yet to catch up to my schedule, and so, when I have a client cancellation, I often use the time to take a quick nap...something I never did before cancer treatment. Twenty to thirty minutes of sleep sometime around noon seems to keep me going for the rest of the day. I have regained my taste...though not as it was before. I can not tolerate spicy food, and some things taste stronger than they used to (for example, chocolate and coffee...I have to add milk and sugar to coffee after drinking it black for 30 years. Sometimes chocolate tastes too intense to enjoy, and burns a little). Some foods I do not taste as fully. I drink a lot of milk, but it often tastes funny. Thankfully, water tastes like water again, and the metallic taste is gone. In addition to spicy food, I can not eat dry food like bread or bagels. If I do eat a sandwich, I have to take a drink of water with every bite, or else I can not swallow the bread. It is easier to eat peanut butter on a piece of celery than it is peanut butter on a slice of bread because the moisture in the celery helps me swallow. But, praise God, I can eat peanut butter this way! My salivary functions are still screwy, and this is the most noticeable symptom I have...I must sip water a lot, especially if I am talking. When I wake up in the morning, there are times my mouth is so dry that it causes small cracks in my tongue...this takes a few days to heal, and in the meantime, anything acidic (tomato sauce, oranges, etc) burn my tongue. I try to walk every day, and my legs still get rubbery after a mile or so, but I am pushing it up toward two miles. It amazes me how my muscle tone deteriorated. Before treatment, my weight never varied more than a few pounds give or take of 160. I seem to have a new set point. Over the last six months, I haven't budged more than one pound up or down from 132. This is a bit frustrating, as I feel like I eat a lot of food, sometimes four meals a day, and can not gain any weight. Oh, how I used to wish for something like this! I always wanted to lose 10-15 pounds. And now, I want to gain 10-15 pounds! Generally I have no pain (except the occasional tongue burning...). My dry mouth is the most distressing symptom. I often feel slight pain in the neck area, and I immediately think "relapse," but then it goes away or shifts to the other side, etc. Perhaps it's phantom pain. The only hair loss I have is that my beard on my right side neck area does not grow, so I only have to shave half of my neck each day. Over the course of years, just think how much I can save on shaving cream and razors! I don't think I lost any hair on my head, but it is a bit thinner...perhaps that is aging more than radiation or chemo. At the end of April, I return for another check-up by the ENT and oncologist. I am optimistic. I am laughing more, enjoying more of life's blessings, and generally feeling at peace with God, with myself and the world around me.
EMOTIONALLY - I am generally up-beat, encouraged and grateful. I occasionally get discouraged about the effort eating can take, but then I remember how it was with the feeding tube. Sometimes, I have a bit of PTSD when I have a flashback to what life was like this past fall and winter...there are times when it seems like a bad dream, but there are times something triggers a specific memory of some very painful or some emotionally devastating time I had. This morning when I was taking a shower, I remembered how hard it was just to get the energy and motivation to take a shower, and how discouraged and freakish I felt when I had to look at that feeding tube as I stood in the shower. Sometimes I remember the long sleepless nights I had when I was sick from chemo, and in pain from radiation that burned the lining of my throat. But most of the time, I feel downright happy to be alive and so very grateful. So grateful. So very, very grateful to have today to celebrate.
I am appreciating the littlest things... you may find this insane, but I feel more connected with all things living than I ever have. We sometimes have these tiny fruit flies from bananas or something that comes in from the grocery store. When they fly around my face, I have this moment when I feel they are somehow greeting me. (...then I try to kill them). But seriously, my first instinct is to say "hello, little friend." I am sure that squirrels and birds are being very friendly to me. And I feel downright friendly toward them! And trees! What a wonder they are! I even occasionally (once in a while) enjoy people! I went through a phase during treatment where I was fearful of being alone...fearful that I would have some medical catastrophic event and die...I did not want to be around any people either, except Kathy. Now, I am enjoying time with Kathy, seeing friends, as well as times of solitude. Good thing.
SPIRITUALLY - I am re-connected in some new and old ways with God. I say reconnected because there were moments during the ordeal when I felt disconnected...I have not shared much about the origins of my own Christianity back in the early 1980's, but I became a Christian independent from any church involvement and independent of any people involvement...one of those miraculous revelations that many would be skeptical about. So, I still am a bit of a spiritual lone ranger...I always keep about an arm's length distance from church, partly to protect what I have with Jesus, so as not to get too distracted by church type and denominational/theological issues. I have attended a variety of denominational and nondenominational churches. I am currently a member of an Episcopalian church and truly enjoy the liturgy, the liturgical calendar, the daily office and the eucharist...but I don't really identify my Christianity with any denomination. I know I can be spiritually selfish and I know theology is important, but it can become so prideful and distracting (for me). There are great men and women who are marvelous examples of living Christianity active in various denominations, and I am a spiritual infant next to them. I am not worthy to tie the shoes of many I have met in the church. It always bothers me when someone brings up the "hypocrisy" of those who go to this or that church. Of course there are hypocrites in the church...we are, after all, sinners. I certainly am not free from hypocrisy myself. When I am in church I try to remember I am not there to judge people, or to emulate them; I am there to worship and draw closer to God. In spite of this, for whatever reason, I worship and connect with him best "in my closet" and I can become protective of that. I am still in awe of the God who loves me. I still have some unanswered questions about my own faith...like, how would I be doing spiritually if I didn't feel better physically?...I hope I never have to answer that question. I am not afraid of death at all, in fact, I have more a sense of being "ready" for that journey...it is just the process of a long, drawn out dying that scares me. I pray God will be with me in the event this is the way it shall go... and I with Him. My faith is strong. I love Jesus more than I can express.
One of my favorite verses is John 16:33...Jesus states..."I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart. I have overcome the world." I have a deeper appreciation than ever about the depth of those words. Trust me. Indeed, with Him and in Him I live and know peace beyond my circumstances.
Please watch the video...I am singing in my heart and sending this song out to everyone reading this. To my Jewish family and friends...Good Pesach! I don't have a Passover song to share with you. (I'd love for you to meet the Passover Lamb I've come to know and love!)...in any event...Good Pesach. There are magnificent mysteries to delve into in the Passover story...to paraphrase a rabbi I once heard...the deeper one looks, the more magnificent they become! God bless you all!
HAPPY EASTER!
Thursday, April 1, 2010
deeper things - a poem for the day
On the outskirts of Jerusalem
the donkey waited.
Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,
he stood and waited.
How horses, turned out into the meadow,
..... leap with delight!
How doves, released from their cages,
..... clatter away, splashed with sunlight!
But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.
Then he let himself be led away.
Then he let the stranger mount.
Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.
Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.
I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.
- Mary Oliver, from Thirst
the donkey waited.
Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,
he stood and waited.
How horses, turned out into the meadow,
..... leap with delight!
How doves, released from their cages,
..... clatter away, splashed with sunlight!
But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.
Then he let himself be led away.
Then he let the stranger mount.
Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.
Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.
I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.
- Mary Oliver, from Thirst
Sunday, March 28, 2010
deeper things - Ah, holy Jesus
Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended?
By foes derided, by thine own rejected.
Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee. I crucified thee.
'Twas I, Lord Jesus.
'Twas I.
By foes derided, by thine own rejected.
Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee. I crucified thee.
'Twas I, Lord Jesus.
'Twas I.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
deeper things - learning to appreciate you ( and me)
I can't say it any better than this (except I would add one more line...)
So every day
I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth
of the ideas of God,
one of which was you.
— Mary Oliver
the line I would add would be...
...and one of which was me.
So every day
I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth
of the ideas of God,
one of which was you.
— Mary Oliver
the line I would add would be...
...and one of which was me.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Lessons learned - Go to the grocery store, stock up on necessities, like bananas.
The lesson here...Steven, stop taking everything so seriously...I hope you all had a brief moment of wondering what in the world I was getting at with the title of this post...the title of this post means nothing at all; it was just something I overheard...I enjoy hearing short phrases out of context. Always have. When I was scared and weak, everything seemed so serious. I wasn't hearing anything that wasn't serious. I suppose when one is scared and weak, everything does seem serious. If I get scared and weak again, I probably will think the same exact thing. The truth is, everything is not so serious... I'm not so scared and not so weak today, and it sure helps to lighten up sometimes. The capacity to smile and laugh is a wonderful thing.
I write this as a note to myself...it seems a bit callous, but if we take ourselves too seriously, it can become a very prideful thing...and we become very self-absorbed. Boy, was I. There was no joy in Mudville.
It's so much more winsome to be of good cheer!
It's OK to smile...and to find lots of things to smile about.
My favorite first line of a novel? Here it is:
"In watermelon sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar." Richard Brautigan
I like that line so much...it always makes me smile...I read that line 37 years ago and still remember it. I've never had the slightest clue as to what it meant. That's part of why I like it so much. It just makes me smile.
I write this as a note to myself...it seems a bit callous, but if we take ourselves too seriously, it can become a very prideful thing...and we become very self-absorbed. Boy, was I. There was no joy in Mudville.
It's so much more winsome to be of good cheer!
It's OK to smile...and to find lots of things to smile about.
My favorite first line of a novel? Here it is:
"In watermelon sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar." Richard Brautigan
I like that line so much...it always makes me smile...I read that line 37 years ago and still remember it. I've never had the slightest clue as to what it meant. That's part of why I like it so much. It just makes me smile.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Lessons learned - let go of the "old normal", be gentle in transition, and be excited about and embrace the "new normal"
I've spent a lot of time learning this lesson, because I spent a lot of time grieving the loss of "the way I was" with longing and self-pity. I've only recently begun to celebrate "the way I am." Here's a few things I have learned:
There is a type of death that comes from trying to hold on to the past. When my expectations were in line with "the way it was" rather than "the way it is" then I had no joy in what was right in front of me. I missed out on the blessings of the moment and exchanged them for the experience of disappointment and discouragement. The death that comes from trying to hold on to the past is the diminshment of the present and amounts to the refusal to accept change. Trust me, I have seen myself do this again and again. "why can't I...I used to...I should be able to...."
During transition times of sudden upheaval and rapid change, there is such a grieving and shock to our reality that everything is flying about and any sense of "normal" just flies out the window. I think during these times, "embracing the new normal" is just not realisitic... The best I learned I could do was to just be gentle with myself during the ordeal of cancer treatment. Old normal and new normal were just not helpful concepts. Hanging on was about as far as I could go. Nothing was making much sense. At best, being as gentle as possible with myself and entrusting the moment to the care of God (when I could even do that) was as big an accomplishment as I was able to manage...at least for me, it was not the time to be a storm trooper. I'm no hero, and I crawled through that storm on my belly...no, actually, I couldn't even manage that because the feeding tube got in the way...I guess I just hung on for dear life.
Last Friday, our wonderful and amazing cat of eight years, Simcha (Hebrew for "joy"), suddenly, over the course of a few hours, became unable to walk on four legs...she was dragging her rear left leg. The trip to the Vet revealed the bad news - she had a blood clot in her Aorta that moved down to her leg, and cut off all blood flow to the leg, The other back leg was deteriorating as well, and it was likely that over the next 24 hours her pain and suffering would escalate...we could give her pain meds if we felt we needed another few days, but her back leg(s) would begin to swell and become very painful...treatment options all had very poor prognosis, and would likely be accompanied by much pain and suffering, only to postpone the inevitable by a few days or weeks. There was no blood flow at all to the left, and reduced blood flow to the right. Amputation was not possible as the exact location of the clot was unknown. We made the decision to have her put to sleep...and drove home Friday from the vet in shock and grief. It was very sudden and unexpected. It has been a very difficult week as we come home to an empty house and realize how many aspects of our life involved Simcha in small and large ways. We hadn't realized how much she had become part of so many routines and activities that we lived and how much we were involved in parts of her many daily routines. Simcha reminders are everywhere.
At first (while grieving and in transition) the "new normal" was just plain unacceptable. Life would not be OK without Simcha. I opened the door after work expecting to see her slowly walking toward me, stopping three feet away to stretch out and fully wake up from her afternoon nap, then walk slowly and deliberately over to the rug in front of the sink to lie down and wait for me to walk to her to give a proper greeting and petting. At precisely 7AM, 5:12PM and 9:12PM there was no longer the "stare down" as she silently announced the arrival of feeding time. When we brushed our teeth before bed, there was no Simcha on the counter getting her evening drink of fresh water in her own special plastic drinking cup reserved for her nightly drink. When we watched TV, there was no Simcha sitting on the Ottoman across from us, looking back and forth between Kathy and I before deciding which lap she would grace with her presence to get a little evening attention. Reading the morning newspaper, there was no cat trying to squeeze under or over whatever section was being read. Her morning toys, the afternoon game played in our absence (finding the pair of tan socks I daily hid in my closet and bringing them out to leave in the living room or kitchen...to say "I won!") and her nighttime ritual with a green foam ball all were noticeably absent, etc. etc. It simply was not acceptable. We loved her too much to have her gone. Life without Simcha was not going to be OK... It was time to grieve and hold on.
Now, a week later, of course, I find I still often am thinking of her with very happy and fond and loving memories. But...I am accepting the loss...and accepting life as it is today. In fact (and I am a bit ashamed to say) I think in a few months, we will be ready to adopt a new kitty (perhaps two?) into our home. (Anyone have a lead on any Ragdoll kittens?)
Life today, post cancer treatment is so complete and exciting. It is full of new discoveries and new celebrations. It is full of small and large blessings. I am fully alive exactly as life is...not less, not more. Yes, my energy is less than it was, but I sleep better than I have slept in years! No, I can't eat spicy foods...but I had some beef stew this week, and at least the vegetables tasted really good...if I cut the beef up into teensy pieces, it's not too bad, either! Simcha is gone, but oh, how she blessed our lives in ways we will always remember. Weather permitting I am taking walks outside and that is fantastic. Better than ever. The walk is about a third as far as "the old normal" and even slower than my previous slow pace, but I am not "then", I am "now"...and today's walk is wonderful and powerful. For awhile, I was living like I was dying...I actually had this thought..."why learn anything new, I am just going to die anyway... and soon...so what's the polnt!" Now, I am thinking again about taking some classes and I am again loving to read.
To paraphrase some advice given to me by poet Ted Kooser during my cancer treatment...advice I didn't quite get at the time, but I think I get more fully now...he told me to ask myself if I were sick enough that I might die today. If the answer was no, than I need to say to myself...
"...It looks like I'm not so sick that I am going to die today, and I'm not so sick that I will likely die this week, so then, HOW AM I GOING TO LIVE?"
Wouldn't you know that the biggest change through this whole business has not been my health, but, I think, it is in my attitude...I am living more in the present, realizing I am alive today and I have all sorts of choices and opportunities. There is a Hebrew song sung at Passover..."Dayenu." The lyrics recall all that God did for the children of Israel during the Exodus to the promised land. I believe the title means "it is enough." The lyrics state over and over something like..." if He had just done this miracle (or the next, or the next...etc.) it would have been enough and we are grateful!"
Today is enough...and I am grateful. DAYENU!
There is a type of death that comes from trying to hold on to the past. When my expectations were in line with "the way it was" rather than "the way it is" then I had no joy in what was right in front of me. I missed out on the blessings of the moment and exchanged them for the experience of disappointment and discouragement. The death that comes from trying to hold on to the past is the diminshment of the present and amounts to the refusal to accept change. Trust me, I have seen myself do this again and again. "why can't I...I used to...I should be able to...."
During transition times of sudden upheaval and rapid change, there is such a grieving and shock to our reality that everything is flying about and any sense of "normal" just flies out the window. I think during these times, "embracing the new normal" is just not realisitic... The best I learned I could do was to just be gentle with myself during the ordeal of cancer treatment. Old normal and new normal were just not helpful concepts. Hanging on was about as far as I could go. Nothing was making much sense. At best, being as gentle as possible with myself and entrusting the moment to the care of God (when I could even do that) was as big an accomplishment as I was able to manage...at least for me, it was not the time to be a storm trooper. I'm no hero, and I crawled through that storm on my belly...no, actually, I couldn't even manage that because the feeding tube got in the way...I guess I just hung on for dear life.
Last Friday, our wonderful and amazing cat of eight years, Simcha (Hebrew for "joy"), suddenly, over the course of a few hours, became unable to walk on four legs...she was dragging her rear left leg. The trip to the Vet revealed the bad news - she had a blood clot in her Aorta that moved down to her leg, and cut off all blood flow to the leg, The other back leg was deteriorating as well, and it was likely that over the next 24 hours her pain and suffering would escalate...we could give her pain meds if we felt we needed another few days, but her back leg(s) would begin to swell and become very painful...treatment options all had very poor prognosis, and would likely be accompanied by much pain and suffering, only to postpone the inevitable by a few days or weeks. There was no blood flow at all to the left, and reduced blood flow to the right. Amputation was not possible as the exact location of the clot was unknown. We made the decision to have her put to sleep...and drove home Friday from the vet in shock and grief. It was very sudden and unexpected. It has been a very difficult week as we come home to an empty house and realize how many aspects of our life involved Simcha in small and large ways. We hadn't realized how much she had become part of so many routines and activities that we lived and how much we were involved in parts of her many daily routines. Simcha reminders are everywhere.
At first (while grieving and in transition) the "new normal" was just plain unacceptable. Life would not be OK without Simcha. I opened the door after work expecting to see her slowly walking toward me, stopping three feet away to stretch out and fully wake up from her afternoon nap, then walk slowly and deliberately over to the rug in front of the sink to lie down and wait for me to walk to her to give a proper greeting and petting. At precisely 7AM, 5:12PM and 9:12PM there was no longer the "stare down" as she silently announced the arrival of feeding time. When we brushed our teeth before bed, there was no Simcha on the counter getting her evening drink of fresh water in her own special plastic drinking cup reserved for her nightly drink. When we watched TV, there was no Simcha sitting on the Ottoman across from us, looking back and forth between Kathy and I before deciding which lap she would grace with her presence to get a little evening attention. Reading the morning newspaper, there was no cat trying to squeeze under or over whatever section was being read. Her morning toys, the afternoon game played in our absence (finding the pair of tan socks I daily hid in my closet and bringing them out to leave in the living room or kitchen...to say "I won!") and her nighttime ritual with a green foam ball all were noticeably absent, etc. etc. It simply was not acceptable. We loved her too much to have her gone. Life without Simcha was not going to be OK... It was time to grieve and hold on.
Now, a week later, of course, I find I still often am thinking of her with very happy and fond and loving memories. But...I am accepting the loss...and accepting life as it is today. In fact (and I am a bit ashamed to say) I think in a few months, we will be ready to adopt a new kitty (perhaps two?) into our home. (Anyone have a lead on any Ragdoll kittens?)
Life today, post cancer treatment is so complete and exciting. It is full of new discoveries and new celebrations. It is full of small and large blessings. I am fully alive exactly as life is...not less, not more. Yes, my energy is less than it was, but I sleep better than I have slept in years! No, I can't eat spicy foods...but I had some beef stew this week, and at least the vegetables tasted really good...if I cut the beef up into teensy pieces, it's not too bad, either! Simcha is gone, but oh, how she blessed our lives in ways we will always remember. Weather permitting I am taking walks outside and that is fantastic. Better than ever. The walk is about a third as far as "the old normal" and even slower than my previous slow pace, but I am not "then", I am "now"...and today's walk is wonderful and powerful. For awhile, I was living like I was dying...I actually had this thought..."why learn anything new, I am just going to die anyway... and soon...so what's the polnt!" Now, I am thinking again about taking some classes and I am again loving to read.
To paraphrase some advice given to me by poet Ted Kooser during my cancer treatment...advice I didn't quite get at the time, but I think I get more fully now...he told me to ask myself if I were sick enough that I might die today. If the answer was no, than I need to say to myself...
"...It looks like I'm not so sick that I am going to die today, and I'm not so sick that I will likely die this week, so then, HOW AM I GOING TO LIVE?"
Wouldn't you know that the biggest change through this whole business has not been my health, but, I think, it is in my attitude...I am living more in the present, realizing I am alive today and I have all sorts of choices and opportunities. There is a Hebrew song sung at Passover..."Dayenu." The lyrics recall all that God did for the children of Israel during the Exodus to the promised land. I believe the title means "it is enough." The lyrics state over and over something like..." if He had just done this miracle (or the next, or the next...etc.) it would have been enough and we are grateful!"
Today is enough...and I am grateful. DAYENU!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Lessons learned - Endurance, faith & gratitude
Deep calls to deep at the noise of thy waterfalls
Thy waves and thy billows have gone over me.
Let darkness and privation
praise the Lord. Let hunger and pain.
Let snapping turtles in the murk
and ancient things asleep in mud,
let the hawk that takes the gosling,
praise. Let all things made of matter, melt.
Let the heart open, the belly open
to the great Y of the autopsy. Let scars praise,
cancers clap their hands.
Let the world turn like a toppled wheel,
the sea play its tambourines. The deep
calls to the deep. If all the world fell silent,
the stones would speak. Let evening come.
Take off your shirt and let it haunt the chair.
Lie sleepless. Let midnight come, and silence
like the inside of a bell. Let the stars
and the space between them,
our bodies and the space
between them, our breaths and
the space between them,
our lungs with their galleries, our hearts
with their aches and chambers, let longing
let darkness, let grief, let loneliness,
let death, oh praise, oh praise, oh praise.
---- Erin Noteboom
This poem was written by a rather obscure Canadian poet named Erin Noteboom. She is one of those poets I stumbled upon surfing the web...here is her link if you want to copy and paste it in your browser to see her other poetry and writing:
http://www.vividpieces.net/seal_up_the_thunder.shtml
In this poem, she borrows some of her phrases from psalms and other scripture to express something of what I am learning. In times of darkness, when His light seems dim and His love seems absent, when the future appears hopeless...He is still God and He is worthy of praise. He alone is in control of both night and day. He alone is my real and true and lasting security. As I know in a very real way, health may fail... I also know wealth may fail, and, God forbid, even family and friends may fail, so I best not rest my security on these things that are, to varying degrees, of course, so important. Today, when His light is ever so much more apparent to me, it is easier to praise Him than when I was enduring pain. But He is no more God today than when I felt only night. And He was no less God during my night of suffering than He is today. Jesus, you were Lord of my life then, and you remain the Lord of my life now. So heal me or take me home...You are worthy of praise.
My own faithfulness to Him is a fickle thing. I recall nights during this ordeal that I "felt" I had nearly lost my faith, or at least I began having some real doubts...did God really care about me, or even worse...did God really exist? I am grateful for His hold on me, rather than having to trust my hold on Him. Even during my times of doubt...this verse... "your love is better than life" from Psalm 63 that lit up in my head (I do not know how else to express the experience) so strongly as I was driving one day last August before radiation/chemo treatment began, stayed with me. Was this experience a gift from Him to comfort me during my darkest hours? Yes, I think so... Even now, when I think of the possibility of relapse... I remind myself of that moment of revelation/insight/awareness when those words and their truth resonated within me. And I am grateful... oh, praise Him, oh, praise Him, oh praise Him!
So the lesson learned...Life is precious...every day is precious...and His love...which is better yet...never fails.
Thy waves and thy billows have gone over me.
Let darkness and privation
praise the Lord. Let hunger and pain.
Let snapping turtles in the murk
and ancient things asleep in mud,
let the hawk that takes the gosling,
praise. Let all things made of matter, melt.
Let the heart open, the belly open
to the great Y of the autopsy. Let scars praise,
cancers clap their hands.
Let the world turn like a toppled wheel,
the sea play its tambourines. The deep
calls to the deep. If all the world fell silent,
the stones would speak. Let evening come.
Take off your shirt and let it haunt the chair.
Lie sleepless. Let midnight come, and silence
like the inside of a bell. Let the stars
and the space between them,
our bodies and the space
between them, our breaths and
the space between them,
our lungs with their galleries, our hearts
with their aches and chambers, let longing
let darkness, let grief, let loneliness,
let death, oh praise, oh praise, oh praise.
---- Erin Noteboom
This poem was written by a rather obscure Canadian poet named Erin Noteboom. She is one of those poets I stumbled upon surfing the web...here is her link if you want to copy and paste it in your browser to see her other poetry and writing:
http://www.vividpieces.net/seal_up_the_thunder.shtml
In this poem, she borrows some of her phrases from psalms and other scripture to express something of what I am learning. In times of darkness, when His light seems dim and His love seems absent, when the future appears hopeless...He is still God and He is worthy of praise. He alone is in control of both night and day. He alone is my real and true and lasting security. As I know in a very real way, health may fail... I also know wealth may fail, and, God forbid, even family and friends may fail, so I best not rest my security on these things that are, to varying degrees, of course, so important. Today, when His light is ever so much more apparent to me, it is easier to praise Him than when I was enduring pain. But He is no more God today than when I felt only night. And He was no less God during my night of suffering than He is today. Jesus, you were Lord of my life then, and you remain the Lord of my life now. So heal me or take me home...You are worthy of praise.
My own faithfulness to Him is a fickle thing. I recall nights during this ordeal that I "felt" I had nearly lost my faith, or at least I began having some real doubts...did God really care about me, or even worse...did God really exist? I am grateful for His hold on me, rather than having to trust my hold on Him. Even during my times of doubt...this verse... "your love is better than life" from Psalm 63 that lit up in my head (I do not know how else to express the experience) so strongly as I was driving one day last August before radiation/chemo treatment began, stayed with me. Was this experience a gift from Him to comfort me during my darkest hours? Yes, I think so... Even now, when I think of the possibility of relapse... I remind myself of that moment of revelation/insight/awareness when those words and their truth resonated within me. And I am grateful... oh, praise Him, oh, praise Him, oh praise Him!
So the lesson learned...Life is precious...every day is precious...and His love...which is better yet...never fails.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Lessons learned - Learning how to wait
There have been too many lessons learned to elaborate in one post, so I've decided to do a series of posts on what I have learned. Actually, these lessons are not lessons I have learned, but lessons I am learning... and they contain not many new ideas, but rather new experiences I have traveled through which makes for lessons lived rather than learned. I only knew infirmity from an intellectual perspective; now I feel as though I have lived it...and yet, I realize that all over the world, there is suffering that makes my suffering seem small. Nonetheless, these experiences...living out this process...has been new to me.
I have learned to wait.
There has been waiting in pain,
waiting in darkness
waiting in silence
waiting in fear
waiting in loneliness
waiting for doctors
waiting for things to get worse
waiting for things to get better
waiting for sleep to come
waiting for the fog to lift
-----and-----
There has been waiting with patience
waiting in the presence of love
waiting with hope
waiting in peace
waiting in gratitude
waiting upon the Lord.
Aren't we are all waiting all the time for some future event, outcome, or closure?...As soon as we come to the end of something, we see that we are waiting for something else...for the grade, the promotion, the diagnosis, the phone call, the weekend, the baseball season to begin, to end, the football season, the bowl games, the Olympics, the election, the diet, the feast, for the spring, the summer, the fall, (and even...for a few strange people, the winter), to live...to die. When I was able to swallow liquids again, and started drinking Ensure, I started waiting for the day I could eat food again...now, I eat food with sauce, and I find myself waiting for when I can eat a bagel...
At it's worst, waiting has become a trap for me. At times, it holds me captive...It makes the moment, the day I am living, irrelevent. When I was marking the days of radiation with acorns on my window sill, I was waiting for the 35 days to end...and it seemed they never would. There was nothing special about day 17, other than I was a little more miserable than day 16 and one day closer to day 35. Even more difficult, those sleepless nights when I was in discomfort and ill, I kept looking at the clock...2AM...3AM...4AM...5AM... wating for what? Those were the darkest of nights.
Even today...I am waiting...for my saliva to return...for my next cancer exam to, God willing, be a good one...
And yet, I believe, as is written in Scripture that "they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength..." (Isaiah 40:31)
And here is the lesson I am learning...waiting on God is entrusting tomorrow to Him, trusting the outcome to Him, and striving to ACCEPT and live fully my strengths and gifts and appreciate the blessings that are with me and available to me in this moment. While I can't eat a bagel...I can eat lasagna...then let me fully be immersed in that lasagna instead of waiting impatiently for the bagel that sits in the freezer. If my energy level only allows me to see four clients a day instead of six...let me be thankful for the four...or for the three or one...
While it is true I seem to be waiting all the time, it is also true that I have this day to contend with. This day brings opportunities and blessings and challenges for me. When I tie my energy up with some future outcome, I lose track of how precious this day really is. Even a day of pain may be full of meaning in endurance and a day to live well...that is the lesson I am continuing to learn...to trust (wait on) God on the cloudy days as well as on days of sunshine. To see that there is still value and meaning on a cloudy day...and a contribution to make, people to love, God to thank and blessings to be grateful for.
Certainly, this lesson is a hard one; one that I continue to learn and grow in experience...but I think I am living with more gratitude and patience and appreciation for this moment than I have previously known.
I have learned to wait.
There has been waiting in pain,
waiting in darkness
waiting in silence
waiting in fear
waiting in loneliness
waiting for doctors
waiting for things to get worse
waiting for things to get better
waiting for sleep to come
waiting for the fog to lift
-----and-----
There has been waiting with patience
waiting in the presence of love
waiting with hope
waiting in peace
waiting in gratitude
waiting upon the Lord.
Aren't we are all waiting all the time for some future event, outcome, or closure?...As soon as we come to the end of something, we see that we are waiting for something else...for the grade, the promotion, the diagnosis, the phone call, the weekend, the baseball season to begin, to end, the football season, the bowl games, the Olympics, the election, the diet, the feast, for the spring, the summer, the fall, (and even...for a few strange people, the winter), to live...to die. When I was able to swallow liquids again, and started drinking Ensure, I started waiting for the day I could eat food again...now, I eat food with sauce, and I find myself waiting for when I can eat a bagel...
At it's worst, waiting has become a trap for me. At times, it holds me captive...It makes the moment, the day I am living, irrelevent. When I was marking the days of radiation with acorns on my window sill, I was waiting for the 35 days to end...and it seemed they never would. There was nothing special about day 17, other than I was a little more miserable than day 16 and one day closer to day 35. Even more difficult, those sleepless nights when I was in discomfort and ill, I kept looking at the clock...2AM...3AM...4AM...5AM... wating for what? Those were the darkest of nights.
Even today...I am waiting...for my saliva to return...for my next cancer exam to, God willing, be a good one...
And yet, I believe, as is written in Scripture that "they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength..." (Isaiah 40:31)
And here is the lesson I am learning...waiting on God is entrusting tomorrow to Him, trusting the outcome to Him, and striving to ACCEPT and live fully my strengths and gifts and appreciate the blessings that are with me and available to me in this moment. While I can't eat a bagel...I can eat lasagna...then let me fully be immersed in that lasagna instead of waiting impatiently for the bagel that sits in the freezer. If my energy level only allows me to see four clients a day instead of six...let me be thankful for the four...or for the three or one...
While it is true I seem to be waiting all the time, it is also true that I have this day to contend with. This day brings opportunities and blessings and challenges for me. When I tie my energy up with some future outcome, I lose track of how precious this day really is. Even a day of pain may be full of meaning in endurance and a day to live well...that is the lesson I am continuing to learn...to trust (wait on) God on the cloudy days as well as on days of sunshine. To see that there is still value and meaning on a cloudy day...and a contribution to make, people to love, God to thank and blessings to be grateful for.
Certainly, this lesson is a hard one; one that I continue to learn and grow in experience...but I think I am living with more gratitude and patience and appreciation for this moment than I have previously known.
Friday, February 26, 2010
checking in - what have I learned?
I seem to have less of a sense of urgency about writing these posts these days. I do not know what that means...I wonder...should I formally have an ending to this blog? Should I just fade out with fewer and fewer posts? Should I work at keeping it going? The dramatic gains I made in the early months post treatment are gone, and now the gains seem slooooow and very gradual. I pray there are more gains to come, particularly in the area of salivary function. I pray the good news from the last scan will remain good news and that eventually I can really close the door on this episode in my life.
Here is one post I need yet to write..."What have I learned?" If I formally end this blog, perhaps that needs to be the title of my final post. I really need to put some thought into that. I suppose an even more meaningful post might be "How have I changed?"
Regarding my week or two since the last post, it has been generally good. There are still days my energy seems to forget to get out of bed with me, and there are days when eating is more of a chore, but there are also days when I feel more energetic and days I actually enjoy food again. It is always a treat to discover I can add a new food to the list of foods I can eat. Sometimes, it's up and down. For example, my tongue often gets invisible little cuts from the dryness or from getting scraped by some dry food in the process of chewing or swallowing...then I eat an orange and my eyes water with the pain of the acidic fruit on the cuts. But, I have also eaten oranges and enjoyed a burst of juicy sweetness, and not had that burning sensation on my tongue. It seems I am recovering taste on the left side of my mouth more quickly than the right, and I can tell that if I am going to taste anything sweet, it will come from the back of my tongue on the left...I have no idea where our taste buds are located, but that has been my experience. In the past, I just ate an orange and it seemed to taste sweet everywhere I chewed it. Now, I have to remember...back, left. I ate a marshmallow peep the other night...a past weakness of mine...I had to wash each small bite down with milk. The first bite was quite sweet...but by the last bite of it, the sweetness was gone. Weird.
If anyone has thoughts or suggestions about what to do with this blog, I'd be open to considering them. I know when I was going through what looking back seems to be a very bad nightmare lasting several months (which seemed like several years), this blog was always on my mind and often reading the encouragement from your comments is what kept me going. I started writing without the expectation of having anyone actually read what I wrote, and have always been amazed that there were people who regularly followed this beyond a few family members. I hope I have been able to convey how much that has meant to me. And thinking back, it seemed there were times I felt compelled to write about some aspect of my spiritual life, and other times I felt a need to share something I felt through the words of a poem I had read. More recently, it seems I am just writing "here's how I'm doing" kinds of entries, and I find it not very interesting to write about (or read) another post like..."guess what? I ate an apple today!"
So...my initial thought is that if my next doctor's visit/exam in late April yields good news, that I bring this blog to a formal end. Between now and then, I work on posting a few final thoughts, some of which I alluded to above. Then, we keep in touch through other venues... What do you think?
Here is one post I need yet to write..."What have I learned?" If I formally end this blog, perhaps that needs to be the title of my final post. I really need to put some thought into that. I suppose an even more meaningful post might be "How have I changed?"
Regarding my week or two since the last post, it has been generally good. There are still days my energy seems to forget to get out of bed with me, and there are days when eating is more of a chore, but there are also days when I feel more energetic and days I actually enjoy food again. It is always a treat to discover I can add a new food to the list of foods I can eat. Sometimes, it's up and down. For example, my tongue often gets invisible little cuts from the dryness or from getting scraped by some dry food in the process of chewing or swallowing...then I eat an orange and my eyes water with the pain of the acidic fruit on the cuts. But, I have also eaten oranges and enjoyed a burst of juicy sweetness, and not had that burning sensation on my tongue. It seems I am recovering taste on the left side of my mouth more quickly than the right, and I can tell that if I am going to taste anything sweet, it will come from the back of my tongue on the left...I have no idea where our taste buds are located, but that has been my experience. In the past, I just ate an orange and it seemed to taste sweet everywhere I chewed it. Now, I have to remember...back, left. I ate a marshmallow peep the other night...a past weakness of mine...I had to wash each small bite down with milk. The first bite was quite sweet...but by the last bite of it, the sweetness was gone. Weird.
If anyone has thoughts or suggestions about what to do with this blog, I'd be open to considering them. I know when I was going through what looking back seems to be a very bad nightmare lasting several months (which seemed like several years), this blog was always on my mind and often reading the encouragement from your comments is what kept me going. I started writing without the expectation of having anyone actually read what I wrote, and have always been amazed that there were people who regularly followed this beyond a few family members. I hope I have been able to convey how much that has meant to me. And thinking back, it seemed there were times I felt compelled to write about some aspect of my spiritual life, and other times I felt a need to share something I felt through the words of a poem I had read. More recently, it seems I am just writing "here's how I'm doing" kinds of entries, and I find it not very interesting to write about (or read) another post like..."guess what? I ate an apple today!"
So...my initial thought is that if my next doctor's visit/exam in late April yields good news, that I bring this blog to a formal end. Between now and then, I work on posting a few final thoughts, some of which I alluded to above. Then, we keep in touch through other venues... What do you think?
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
checking in - Good news for a Tuesday afternoon!!!
Tuesday afternoon,
I'm just beginning to see, now I'm on my way
It doesn't matter to me, chasing the clouds away.
The Moody Blues
Hey, Hey...I just returned from my CT scan, and the results were good...no indication of cancer...the physical exam, which included putting a tube with a flashlight on the end down my nose to look at the tonsil, also did not show any signs of tumor...I am quite relieved, to say the least...and the lymph node appears to be cancer free as well. Happy day.
Of course, the ENT still wants to follow me closely, and a follow-up exam is scheduled in 2 months, and then every 3 months for a few years...but for now...the news is good, and it is quite possible that the abnormal PET scan a month ago was a false positive.
If I begin having symptoms...persistent sore throat, coughing up blood, etc. then it's right back for more exams and scans, but as long as i remain symptom free, and the clinical exams by the ENT remain good, there will not be a need for further scans.
On top of that, I had the feeding tube removed...I haven't used it in over a month, and now that it looks like there will not be any surgery, at least in the near future, if not forever, there was no need to leave it in. Let me give you an idea of how these doctors remove a surgically implanted feeding tube from one's stomach. First, the ENT leaves the room and sends in his resident to do the job. Then, the resident asked me to lift my shirt. I quickly noticed there was no anesthetic or mention of putting me out for the removal procedure. Instead, he asked me this question..."Are you ready?" I gave a weak "I guess" for an answer, and he proceeded to grab the tube, and with one mighty yank...
Yeeoooowwwwwwww! A piece of rubber about the size of a hockey puck passed through an opening a little smaller than the width of a pencil eraser. Then, while my stomach still felt like something from the movie "Alien" just happened, he asked me if I would like to keep the tube as a souvenir. I gave a similar response to him as I did to the tech who asked me if I would like to keep the molded mask made for my radiation treatment.
But...I am feeling very good about the results of the visit, and getting rid of that awful tube that I've been wearing around for the last 7 months.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND YOUR KIND THOUGHTS AND WELL WISHES...I CAN NEVER EXPRESS ENOUGH MY HEART FELT GRATITUDE FOR YOU MY FRIENDS. GOD BLESS YOU ALL!
AND PRAISE GOD , PRAISE GOD, PRAISE GOD...HEALER OF MY SOUL AS WELL AS BODY...I HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN, LORD... IN YOU I TRUST...YOUR LOVE IS BETTER THAN LIFE...
I may be cured, I may yet relapse...but I am going to strive to receive each day as a gift and at least in my very small circle of influence, try to return the blessing each day somehow in some way.
Peace
I'm just beginning to see, now I'm on my way
It doesn't matter to me, chasing the clouds away.
The Moody Blues
Hey, Hey...I just returned from my CT scan, and the results were good...no indication of cancer...the physical exam, which included putting a tube with a flashlight on the end down my nose to look at the tonsil, also did not show any signs of tumor...I am quite relieved, to say the least...and the lymph node appears to be cancer free as well. Happy day.
Of course, the ENT still wants to follow me closely, and a follow-up exam is scheduled in 2 months, and then every 3 months for a few years...but for now...the news is good, and it is quite possible that the abnormal PET scan a month ago was a false positive.
If I begin having symptoms...persistent sore throat, coughing up blood, etc. then it's right back for more exams and scans, but as long as i remain symptom free, and the clinical exams by the ENT remain good, there will not be a need for further scans.
On top of that, I had the feeding tube removed...I haven't used it in over a month, and now that it looks like there will not be any surgery, at least in the near future, if not forever, there was no need to leave it in. Let me give you an idea of how these doctors remove a surgically implanted feeding tube from one's stomach. First, the ENT leaves the room and sends in his resident to do the job. Then, the resident asked me to lift my shirt. I quickly noticed there was no anesthetic or mention of putting me out for the removal procedure. Instead, he asked me this question..."Are you ready?" I gave a weak "I guess" for an answer, and he proceeded to grab the tube, and with one mighty yank...
Yeeoooowwwwwwww! A piece of rubber about the size of a hockey puck passed through an opening a little smaller than the width of a pencil eraser. Then, while my stomach still felt like something from the movie "Alien" just happened, he asked me if I would like to keep the tube as a souvenir. I gave a similar response to him as I did to the tech who asked me if I would like to keep the molded mask made for my radiation treatment.
But...I am feeling very good about the results of the visit, and getting rid of that awful tube that I've been wearing around for the last 7 months.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND YOUR KIND THOUGHTS AND WELL WISHES...I CAN NEVER EXPRESS ENOUGH MY HEART FELT GRATITUDE FOR YOU MY FRIENDS. GOD BLESS YOU ALL!
AND PRAISE GOD , PRAISE GOD, PRAISE GOD...HEALER OF MY SOUL AS WELL AS BODY...I HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN, LORD... IN YOU I TRUST...YOUR LOVE IS BETTER THAN LIFE...
I may be cured, I may yet relapse...but I am going to strive to receive each day as a gift and at least in my very small circle of influence, try to return the blessing each day somehow in some way.
Peace
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