No news is good news! Everything is humming along smoothly. The energy healing has removed my death panic, I’m pretty used to the side effects from the drugs, and I’m basically feeling great.
My healing practitioner (they guy curing my cancer from the Bay area in our weekly phone calls) talks about the difference between being afraid to die, and wanting to live. I have no fear of death – I’ve come close, and I can assure you, it’s not complicated or traumatic (at least in my case, heavily medicated after my brain aneurysm surgery). I’ve been thinking about that lately – I never knew, when I was going through it, how terrible my situation was and how a good outcome, let alone the perfect outcome I experienced, was unlikely.
Bob told me about a podcast he listens to (Sean Carroll’s Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas), and specifically about episode 279: Ellen Langer on Mindfulness and the Body. As an energy healing skeptic, I was impressed that Bob connected the dots. Also, Bob is much more inclined to consider something if a famous physicist is giving it space on his podcast. There are many interesting concepts in this episode with Dr. Langer, including re-defining what’s “possible.” Assumptions we have may not be absolute: in her example, we all know that 1 + 1 = 2, right? But what if you have one pile of sand, plus another pile of sand; put together, you still have one pile of sand. In the case of my aneurysm, no one ever told me how dire my situation was, so I just went about healing, with the assumption that I would get better. Did that ultimately affect my outcome?
And now, if I believe that this cancer will not be my demise, could that be putting my mind and body in a position to be most receptive to healing?
I can tell you that being entirely lucid throughout the cancer diagnoses has not worked in my favor. It did not stop me from asking Dr. Google how long I’ll live. Or incessantly asking my doctors the same question. My doctors always hedge on an answer. Because ultimately, they don’t know. They have no idea. The energy healing sessions have somehow helped me cross over from a stance of being thoroughly fucked to living with the possibility that this is just another overcome-able obstacle.
It has not been an easy transition to open up to this hope, this possibility. (Words I'd also use to describe the Harris/Walz campaign.) Some people might find this assurance in religion, but since I didn’t get the Jesus gene, I needed a different approach. My Minneapolis oncologist, tired of me trying to trick her into giving me a death timeline, finally said, “How do you feel, right now?” Well, other than this cloud of impending doom, I’m 100% fine. She suggested that I should perhaps just keep doing that. I have moved from a response of “EASY FOR YOU TO SAY!” to, “Sure, why not?” I can tell you my day-to-day life is about a million times better without the shroud of death. So much so that I’ve just been living it, with nothing notable to write updates about.
My Chinese medicine doctor treats the symptoms that are in front of him, at that moment. He suggests ways I can reduce stress and increase energy: “hot water soak feet”, spend at least a little time in the sun each day, and if I can’t manage to go to bed early, that can be balanced by afternoon naps. The brilliant chef who cooks food for us was out of town for a couple weeks; that was borderline disastrous, as we’ve lost all ability to feed ourselves. I ate a lot of Cheerios. That’s ok, because I like Cheerios. When the chef returned, Bob remarked how incredibly good he felt only eating delicious, healthy food again (that includes vegetables). We had a Mayo infusion trip shortly after we were back to clean eating, and Bob inexplicably picked up five donuts and a Red Bull at the Rochester gas station as we were arriving in town. You know what doesn’t make someone feel good?
Don’t try to think too far into the future; the future is uncertain even without a cancer diagnosis. And definitely don’t let worrying about the future steal time away from a really solid, productive, interesting and feeling good present.
If you’re interested in learning more about the energy healing situation, let me know. There’s another workshop coming up with the founder – if you’re into it, I recommend checking it out.
Also, the aurora were astounding last night. We were out at the end of our dock, listing to loons call all around us, catching glimpses of the Perseids. Pretty great.
