Sit Stay Heal

Pema Chodron tells the story of someone sending her a card in the shape of a doggie bone with the words "Sit, Stay, Heal" on it. I like that. It reminds me of the importance of letting time do its job and heal the wound. So much better if we can rest while that is happening and allow the body to work its natural intelligence without having to deal with multi-tasking unnecessary jobs. Knowing how to meditate of course helps more than a lot. I am able to sit, stay and heal, disciplining the puppy mind, which has the temperament of a monkey, to keep returning to the space, to the mantra, to the breath - whatever tool works to allow focus to take place, awareness to open and Pure Consciousness to be present.

This week saw me back for a visit with my surgeon to remove the main dressing and hear the test results. The news is good. Cancer has not spread to the liver, bones or heart -three places to which breast cancer cells like to migrate. They didn't test the brain, but the thoroughness of my eye doctor took care of that. He looked into the back of my eye for breast cancer relatedness. It was all looking good he said. "All clear" is the sound.
Then not so good news - the pressure in my right eye was up. "Maybe we should start some drops" says the doctor, followed by the observation that he detected some reluctance for me to start drops. Duh - Yes! Because once prescribed, there is an even greater reluctance on the part of the health professional to stop. I offered the point of the stress of the general anaesthetic totally messing with the body's mechanism. Luckily my doctor had had a general anaesthetic himself and had experienced brain fog for 3 weeks. (Me too) So he saw my point, and we are on hold with the drops till the next time I see him. Unless the hole in the eye (trabeculectomy for glaucoma) has grown over, I should be able to get the pressure down with dietary excellence and optimal lifestyle habits.

One interesting observation concerns the over-diagnosis and treatment of conditions. For example, all the tests I did show that there is Degenerative Disc Disease here, a small cyst there, mild scoliosis somewhere else. We start to see the need for parameters around how upset or excited we are going to get over our body health. From the net: "Disc degeneration is a natural part of aging and over time all people will exhibit changes in their discs consistent with a greater or lesser degree of degeneration. However, not all people will develop symptoms. In fact, degenerative disc disease is quite variable in its nature and severity."
Thanks to my diet and lifestyle I have no bodily pain - just the symptoms of a a biological entity changing over time - I liken it to barnacles on a ship. No big deal. Maybe cancer should be viewed in the same light? Somewhere, however, that is a big deal and I recoil from its progress. Life really is a great chaotic happening where nothing really makes any sense, but the mind always searches for it. Again, the joy of meditation to rest in Being.

We still don't know the details of the tumour. Stay tuned for that and the next step. Su-An