Big "C"

It Takes a Village January 11 2010


Today, I’ve spent time twice with people meeting to support community.

We know we need each other –

That, alone, we stumble weakly, wander wearily,

Starved of love and touch and caring.



We need a village –

Minds that work together,

Hearts that synchronize,

Hands reached out in loving help.

We belong together.

We like to think we’re independent, proudly standing up alone.

In fact, we’re each a part of all, deeply linked.

The human unit is a group – not a frail, lonely person.



Reflections:

Rosemary: I just got off the phone with my sister, who told me she’s been diagnosed this past week with breast cancer. The “Big C.” It really does have a weight – an urgency and power -- far beyond any other diagnosis. She’s terrified, understandably. She’s an experienced, well educated nurse. She knows the vital questions, the assorted risks. She’s well aware that for as long as she lives, this will hang over her head with every blip in her health – is it the cancer?

Ellen: When I was initially diagnosed with my cancer, it was as if I had been sitting with others at a table, and then, instantaneously, I was on the other side, at the other end, alone. I was no longer a part of the community of others, no longer with them. I was in a bubble -- marked, singled out, condemned.

Rosemary: It’s hard for me to believe this is real – and I’m not even the one who received the diagnosis. Already, though, it is as if “the other shoe” has dropped. I’ve been very mindful that Grandma was diagnosed with breast cancer in her late 60s. I’ve wondered if any of us – our generation – would also suffer this illness. They always say the risk rises if other “first degree” relatives have had the disease. Grandma was not a first degree relative, genetically – just in our minds and hearts. But my sister is a first degree relative to me. One of us being diagnosed with breast cancer means that the risk for all of us is higher than we had thought – especially since one of our first cousins, also in the same family line, has already been diagnosed and died from the disease. We were 10 grandchildren, and now two have turned out to have that form of cancer.

Ellen: Today, though, breast cancer caught fairly early can be put into long-term remission, and can also be managed as a chronic disease if it returns.

Rosemary: I know that’s true. I tried to reassure her with those facts. But I know that she’s still in that place of terror, where she feels like a deer caught in headlights, where her whole life prospect has changed in a millisecond. As she goes through treatment, she’ll begin to realize that she’s strong, and that she’s dealing with the stress, and isn’t threatened with immediate death. For her, the present moment will return, and will again be able to exert its considerable power. Thank God that we have that resilience in ourselves, that ability to adapt and to find our inner strength. I think that a big part of the terror we feel with a cancer diagnosis is that we temporarily lose our ability to stay in the present. We move totally to the future, to “what will happen to me?”

Ellen: A diagnosis of cancer often brings an immediately helpless feeling. That feeling leads to the term “cancer victim.” “Victim” implies that one indeed has no power to change one’s destiny. It always made me furious when I heard that phrase, “cancer victim.” Although I had cancer, I was not its victim. It was not an outside attacker. It was my own body expressing its physical vulnerability, becoming overwhelmed. It was a part of myself, and I felt it crucial to make peace with that aspect of me, to bring myself into one harmonious expression. Susan will regain her balance. She is a strong woman.

Rosemary: Cancer seems everywhere. So many people in my life have sickened with it, and it has brought death to quite a few. I often feel it surrounds me. It affects everyone’s life multiple times. Susan and two of my friends have recently been diagnosed and my brother-in-law is in the final stages of dying from it. Grandma, Dad, my cousin Laura, my cousin Tom, and Fred – not to mention animal friends I’ve had, have all died of cancer. Many other friends, of course, have had cancer and survived. It's a change in life's course, but of itself, it predicts nothing.

 Of course, in my work as a homeopath, I also spend a lot of time and energy helping people with cancer and people whose relatives and dear friends have cancer.

Ellen, all during your and my life together, cancer hung over our head, menacing us with your imminent death. We talked about this often, trying ineffectually to prepare ourselves for what we knew would be a deeply sad and disturbing moment. Of course, I ultimately learned that trying to prepare is futile. There’s no way we can predict what will happen. Imagining many different scenarios and rehearsing them - as I did --  only keeps attention on a negative future that probably will never happen as we imagine and fear.

The important thing is to live each present moment fully, as a gift that life has handed to us. Each blessed present moment lights itself and us. It is glorious. It is enough. Susan is a strong woman in excellent health. She is whole and her life is in perfect order. That’s the truth as it is right now, and as we can affirm in each moment as it arrives. There is a healthy Susan present in the universe right now. We need to switch to seeing the truth of her.


WHITE STONES, JANUARY 3 2009

Three years ago, first of the year,

At a church in Berkeley,

Everyone chose a white stone

And inscribed on it one word,

Our hope for 2006.

I wrote “Joy.” I wanted to be more open, to feel blessed,

To stop fearing your cancer’s growth,

To staunch my anger at confines of disability --

To answer grace with thanks.

You wrote “Is.” You resolved to be present in the Now and

Accept its gifts -- to find its bliss.

We were already pilgrims seeking peace together, come what may,

Sharing the rough road of illness, walking wearily, leaning on each other.


Housebound with your pain and suffering, we never got to church again.


Tomorrow, alone, I will write another word on another stone,

Expressing my dream for the year to come,

Holding your memory gently in my heart.



CAREGIVING WITH CANCER January 18, 2009

My friend wrote about caregiving

Before her husband’s father died of cancer.

How she’d seen the cancer as the enemy, the captor.

How she’d felt imprisoned by its whims,

Its power to destroy.

How she’d felt helpless.



Her words brought back to me those years

In which we sought aliveness

Even when your cancer ruled.

Dictator, Cancer bowed us down in weariness and fear,

Caged us in the house, inflicted pain capriciously.

We fled before its wrath like refugees, afraid.

I remember weeping with a counselor, and she,

Unaware of how we shared this road, scolding me

For “acting as if I was the one with cancer.”

I’m glad the cancer is now gone,

But even in its frightful, icy grasp,

I treasured every moment spent with you.