The Irony of Moving Forward

I went to the Ophthalmologist yesterday to assess my bulging eyeball.  Why is my eyeball bulging?  Well, I have Graves’ disease-an autoimmune disorder found in hyperthyroid patients.  I don’t have a thyroid anymore, but the autoimmune disorder still exists.  The biggest symptom of Graves’ disease is the eye bulging, occurring due to swelling of the muscles holding the eyeball.  The inflammation can cause constriction of the optic nerve, causing loss of sight if not treated.

The good news, my vision is 20/20!  Beautiful sight!  HOWEVER…my eyes are under attack.  My vision is impaired at every angle but straight ahead, due to the swelling of muscles, and constriction of nerves.  There are no corrective measures that can be taken until my condition worsens.

This is one of those “listen to your body” moments.  My body is literally telling me to not look back.  Do not look to the heavens, or down at your feet.  Do not look beside you, to see who may be there.  Keep looking forward.  Keep moving forward.  If I must look above or behind, I must turn my full self to see it.  I must pay full attention, face head-on the life around me.  I can’t think of a better way to be fully present.

I hear you, my beautiful body.  Thank you for working so hard.

To Where I Am

Today, I am wrapped in a blanket, sitting in my office full of windows, contemplating where I am.  Where is the present moment?  What lies within it?  How does this moment, impact the next, and the next, and the next.  I realized I am spending the present moment contemplating what the next moment will hold, and bleeding this contemplation into the next moment, and the next and the next.  Ahh….the essence of anxiety and/or excitement.  Anticipation.

As a healthy person, I was present, and forward-seeking, working in the now and in the future, to clear the path.  I embodied no sense of time, I could just bask in existing.  I pursued whatever I wanted, and loved every second of it-even the hard parts.

As a person, tagged with labels of Cancer, disease, dysfunction, a person with more pill bottles by her bedside as weeks progress, basking in my existence means basking in mortality.  It is being keenly aware, the clock has begun ticking (even though it always was).  It took less than two years, for cancer to strip away my identity, sink its grip deep into my flesh, and begin feeding on my body, mind, and soul.

As the cancer is waging war, my body is making steady work of loosening its grip, at the cost of other organ systems, taking up extra work to ensure I can function each day.  I love my body more today than I ever have.  It is working incredibly hard to sustain me.  For this work, maybe time, nor identity, nor existence matters.  Maybe being present is really just showing up for myself, and what I need at this moment to support the process of healing.

To now, to where I am, I need a nap. 🙂

The Day I Reached the Bottom of the World

April 15, 2018

The cancer inside of me has been a resident of my body for over 7 years, quietly raging war….until 2016.  I suddenly found my physical and mental state destroyed by dark forces I couldn’t recognize as part of myself.  I would spend another year and a half, reaching lower lows,  while disease became my voice, my conscience, and the puppeteer of my body.

These early journal entries become sparse as time passed, but these early entries validate what I didn’t yet know, and what doctors would continue to overlook.

February 20, 2016

My soul is screaming, I hear it, and there is some other power that has hold of me.  It is a darkness, while always fascinating, terrifying and never something I would logically explore.  Have I been so denying of the dark, I don’t recognize it as my own?

I have never let go or given in to the dark.  I have never just let it all out, whether it be screaming, breaking things, etc.  I have always have chosen to divert that energy to positives.  I find myself at a place now that the positives seem out of reach. I can see reason, but am powerless to attain it.

Today, I see this reality as an option, not a given.  I can allow myself to be swallowed by death, or I can choose to emerge. Find the drive that has always been there.  The one that has driven me to make some the most difficult yet instrumental changes in my life thus far.  More importantly, learn to embrace the dark.  Recognize it.  Keep it close, and be responsible with it.

I am pure love.  I am a conduit for the white light.  I’ve got this.

 

February 21, 2016

I am seemingly happier.  It is cloudy and fuzzy.  I still lack focus and have delayed fine motor skills.  I find myself getting anxious about the boys coming home.  I have to stay strong and dig deep.  I need my soul to take over.  Please, take over.

February 23, not 22, 2016

Apparently, I missed a whole day somewhere.  Letting it go.  I am coming back from this.  I’ve got this.  I love life.  I love everything that comes with it.  I can’t wait to move forward from this place.  I have everything I could want in life and more.

It’s not my time, I’m not going.  I am moving forward from this, doing what needs to be done to get better.

February 25, not 24, 2016

Again, a day behind.  I am clearer, less fuzzy, and want to listen to music.  All good stuff.  Still feeling out of control of my impulsive decisions.  I seem to think western medicine is necessary, but the spiritual part of this, which I suspect is the biggest piece is yet to be explored.  I have fear here, but I am ready to face it.  Ready.  Ready Ready.

I call upon my soul, my spirit guides, guardian angels.  Please help me find the way.  Help me find the way out of this.  What is my direction, where I am meant to go?  Here is where I need to be now.  No doubt.

 

 

 

 

Stormy Middles, Joyful Outcomes

Today is a stormy day.  The sky is dark and breathing with rain.  The wind gusts and the trees dance.  This storm is leading to something.  It is leading to the outcome of new life.  From bug to flower, bird, to bunny, creation is heavy in the air.  This storm’s outcome is nothing more than nourishment needed to bring about the spark of life.  It is truly remarkable, and brings me great joy and fills my heart with love and life.

I focus then at a single tree, swaying and swirling, just going with the flow. This tree took root and grows, powerless to everything around it.  It can’t protest the weather, its limbs being trimmed, birds taking residence, or bugs penetrating its very core.  

Power matters not.  It seizes opportunities of sun and rain to grow into the earth, outward and upward.  The essence in its powerlessness, is the essence of altruism.  I could look at this tree as my lungs.  It takes my out-breath, and creates the in-breath that sustains my life.  It is my air without acknowledgment, without reward.  The birds grow their families, feed from its fruit, and there is no thank you given. 

I can be like the tree.  I can go with the flow, allow powerlessness to be power, and know the outcome is nothing but the simple joy of existing harmoniously, and symbiotically with where my roots grow.  I can reach ever outward, and upward no matter the stormy day.

This is Great News!

March 23,  2018

2nd Scan Results

 

The good news:  Your cancer is smaller and there are increased areas of concern.  You’ve come a long way, and so we are going to say this is great news!

What?!

No part of me found the news today good.  There is still cancer inside of my body.  I still feel like shit.  I don’t even want to talk to anyone about it, because, I can’t see the positive today.  What is the positive in having a cancer diagnosis?  That you may get rid of it?  My family and I get to live a “normal” life when and if this is all over?

This illness has wrecked my identity and my life.  It has stolen years, and time.  Maybe in hindsight, I will feel differently, now I am just mad.  I am mad that my body is sick.  A body that is working so hard for me, trying so hard to push through.

It is hard to look at my kids today.  I feel like I am failing them.  My wife has been at the bar for the last six hours because that’s all she could think to do to deal with herself at this moment.  I am failing her too.  We are all scared and running when I think we need to stand up and stand our ground together.