In 2004 I was diagnosed with a lymphoma related to my bone marrow and blood. It is a sort of hybrid disease, so I have a hard time knowing just what to call it. On the diagnosis/payment sheet my oncologist/hematologist fills out each time I visit him, he can't decide which box to check to describe my condition to the insurance folks. "What do I call you?" is his usual wrap-up question as he looks at the form that gives him 70-80 options.
In late April I started chemotherapy again. This happens every few months when the disease "eats" enough of my healthy blood cells that low blood counts diminish my energy. This is the fourth time since fall 2004 I've gone through this process. Each time in the past one particular chemotherapy has knocked down the cancerous cells and enabled the healthy cells to be replenished.
This time, however, the lymphoma resisted this chemotherapy. After six weeks of treatments, tests, and biopsies, I'm at a "start over" place. I must start a new course of treatment immediately, a more aggressive process. And this process, say my medical professionals, will likely take 4 - 5 months.
So over the past two days, since learning about this new plan for dealing with the disease, I've considered what my life is like in the midst of this time. My temptation, while in the midst of treatments, is to count the days to their end. This April and May, I scrubbed my calendar in order to give my attention fully to my body's healing. Others stepped in for me to cover my responsibilities. Early in the treatments, I picked up a virus, which necessitated staying home, away from crowds and the possibility of further infection. All the while, I was counting down the days to the end of the chemo treatments, working from home as I had energy and focus to do so. It was something like biding my time, paddling to the end of the treatments. I was treading water, waiting for June and the end of treatments.
But now I feel like I'm in a different place. Now I'm looking at 4 - 5 months. I really didn't have 6 weeks to waste, to "bide the time." Now I'm even more aware that I don't have 4 - 5 months to waste. To simply float along until I'm at the end of this process means that I lose 4 - 5 months of life that I'll never get back.
So into my prayer over the last two days I've brought this question: "How am I invited to live as I go through this process?"
"What does it mean to live my one wild and precious life, even as I have three different kinds of chemotherapy in my body, mixing with steroids and antibiotics?"
"With those drugs inside me, is it even possible to live my life? Or will I be living the life of the drugs?"
"What does 'living life' look like for me while I'm living this very real-life situation?"
I don't have answers. But I do know that I don't have 4 - 5 months to waste. I tend to think of living, really LIVING, as exploring, moving, going, doing, traveling, discovering, teaching, producing. None of those things will be possible, I'm guessing, over the next several months. So in what other ways am I invited to life, to the full life of the soul, the authentic life I've been given to live?
That is my challenge, my invitation, over these months. I'm reminded that none of us have a moment to waste.
1 comment:
Not in the same life context, but there is an overlap in my process to your thoughts here, though of a different kind of healing and how I get temporally dislocated from the now, which for me is an unliving. I am called in the process of my healing to dwell in the now and not to wait to be healed and whole to live.
Here is the work (from my journal, two excerpts) God has been doing with me this past week
1
"Where is it that I dwell? The gift of this place and time overwhelms my physical senses--the drifting scent of the forest floor, the songs of the bullfrogs, crickets, and birds, the colors and textures of the forest, glades and glens, running and still waters, the heat of the sun's touch on the nap of my neck, the moist touch in the shadows of the trees, and the chill of the moon's long goodnight along my spine. The physicality of this place brings me back into my body, back into this now moment. And now is the only home I am called to dwell in. There is no health in dwelling in the past for it is not a home. There is no health in dwelling in the future because no one lives there. The only home to dwell in is the presence of now. All other dwellings are a type of unliving. Where will I dwell today? I want to dwell in this place of now. Today it is my home. Now is a gift I must be present here to receive..."
2
"...Currently i am sitting in the shade (Connecticut, I-park artists enclave) on ~450 acres of farmland that has gone back to natural habitat. The owner decided it was too beautiful to just keep it for himself alone, so he has opened it up to share with six invited artists of image, object, word or sound each month who come to work and be revived and inspired in this environment. Early each morning I hike down to a beautiful pond, sitting at the end of an artist made pier, I listen as the bullfrogs begin to sing as the sun first warms. I watch the pollen drift slowly across the still black silent surface. I hear the gentle breeze pass high over head as it dances and rustles through the tree tops. There are so many fresh smells new with each passing day as the differing flower strains come into bloom according to their own time. I sit here in stillness and quietness for a couple of hours and listen, hear, smell, gaze, think, write, and meditate. If I sink too deeply into my grief, God uses all these physical things to pull me back into my body, back into this present moment to show me again all the gifts She (wink) has given me.
It is exactly what I needed to refresh my soul and allow grief to finish its deep work in me as I am moved towards the threshold of something new, something different. I could never even begin to express my deep gratitude for the gift of this place and this time. It heals me again and again each morning. God has repeatedly these past two years shown His unfailing love to me in ways i can understand. He heals me with all these gifts."
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How did God know this is what I needed? That I needed something to help me come back into myself, back into the present, from my grief and the physical presence of some spaces help me with this...help me to dwell here and now? How is that i might be significant enough for him to gift this to me in spite of my frailties, wrongs and weaknesses? He has shown me unfailing love. How can that be?
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