It’s been a while since I blogged – a while taken up with the second of the allopathic therapies I have chosen to eradicate this cancer from my body – radiation.
The whole month of August was spent in daily drives to the hospital where I lay on a slab, half naked, arms above my head for 10 minutes at a time. The technicians were professional and caring both; the treatment, like chemotherapy, comparable to nothing else in this life. But that is where the similarities end. Where chemo made me crazy, radiation left a fatigue so deep – bone deep – that all I wanted to do was rest. And not just the body. After treatment, there was no interest in, well anything. It was a very strange time. I had a short window every morning where I could, if I wished, be pro-active about something, anything, but after that, forget about it!
The good news today of course is that it is over. The two big allopathic treatments are now over. Mind you, the effects are still in the body and will remain so for a long time, but the actual hospital visits are over. This is a major achievement. My radiation oncologist was pleased with whatever results he saw. I’m pleased because I am still alive. The philosophy I now adhere to is to live each day as if my last. This approach, not new by any means, but now to the forefront, became clear after watching the movie – ‘A Single Man.’ It’s the dramatisation of a Christopher Isherwood novel about a guy who loses his beloved to Death. This event causes enormous sadness and grief, with pain too much to bear, so he decides to end it all, but not until the evening of the day. His last day is thus spent with great awareness. As it happens, it is so full of joy that when he comes to do the dastardly deed, he changes his mind and decides to live. Fate then plays a very bad joke and sends a heart attack to catapult him into the next world, but the point is taken. That moment of release, so called death, which Abraham says is like taking off a tight shoe, is not in my control. So I live this day as if my last, and wow, what a wonderful day it is.
Having stayed the course since the beginning of the year, having undergone surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, I now take a short vacation, some time away, to reflect and create the next step – Part Two of the Healing Process. This will be composed of complementary therapies – more effort from my side for sure, but what price life, real life, where I can live all the days of my life.
Back in a few weeks, till then, happy days, Su-An
p.s. and somewhere I really don't want to go - while my hair is slowly growing on the head, it is also reappearing on the face in the strangest places. Hormonal disruption or what!! Aye aye aye - I am taking the soft approach and giving it some time to balance out before any intervention.
