6-20-2010 Update -- The Joy of Cancer

6-20-2010 Update – The Joy of Cancer

Well, today is the one year anniversary of when Nancy told me that the funny redness of my breast sounded like inflammatory breast cancer. When I looked on the Internet, I knew in the pit of my stomach that she was right. I had cancer. And an aggressive one, at that.

As I have entered this one-year anniversary season, my emotions have been flip-flopping almost as wildly as they did when I was first approaching this diagnosis. Most of the time I have been frankly depressed. Unbelievably sad. Nostalgic. Angry. And of course some “anxious” thrown in there––especially when I think about what I had to go through with my treatment (and team) in the past year and contemplate having to go through anything remotely resembling this again (God forbid!).

On Friday and Saturday I went to a cancer survivors’ summit in Charlotte. While there, I was reminded of something that I had not thought about in a long time. I don’t remember whether I’ve mentioned it in my blogs before. Probably not. It’s kind of odd and, frankly, a little embarrassing. But here goes:

Shortly after my diagnosis, a friend told me that his spirit guide had offered to heal the cancer. Physically heal me. The friend said he’d seen it happen before, when his guide had felt moved to offer healing to someone, they had accepted the offer…and it had happened. The person had been cured. The guide doesn’t always offer this, said my friend, so it was noteworthy that he had offered in my case.

You would think I would have been ecstatic, right? That I would grasp at this like a drowning woman to a straw? I had already asked for, and begun receiving, prayers and healing energies sent on my behalf. And I was very grateful for them. Yet my reaction to this friend’s offer from his guide, oddly enough, was more along the lines of “Oh, no!”

I knew, for reasons I could not explain, that I did not want physical healing at that time. Maybe later…but not right away. I knew, for reasons I could not explain, that there was something for me, in this experience of cancer that I was about to have. And that receiving a physical healing so quickly after my diagnosis would short-circuit that thing that was waiting for me to discover it. Or learn it. Or whatever was going to happen.

So I thanked my friend and asked that his guide heal me, indeed, but from the inside, out. In the soul and the psyche first, in the heart, before the body.

I guess maybe the difficulties I’m having as a cancer survivor belie the idea that the guide’s healing worked as I asked for it to! I seem to have healed on the outside (the body) and am working now on healing the inside (the spirit).

More importantly, remembering all of this reminds me that, in some way and for some reason that I still cannot explain, I asked for this. I needed this. There is something *for* me, in this cancer experience…whether it is over, now, or whether this is just an intermission in a longer drama.

I’m supposed to be getting something out of this. There’s something meaningful here for me. Something positive. Something worthwhile.

I don’t know what it is, yet, but I need to keep looking until I find it.

I’ve got chemo brain, so I’m not as detail-oriented and quick to learn as I used to be. I am much more easily fatigued than I used to be, so I can’t run as far or as fast or get as much done as I used to. I have aches and pains in my body, now, that I never used to have, so I can’t do all of the same things I used to do. And I have these layers of trauma and anxiety and depression to work through. These are the legacies of the last year of my life.

Still, I need to keep looking until I find it. The pony in the manure. The pearl of great price. Call it what you will.

One year ago today, I asked for the journey; I accepted the challenge. It’s not over, yet. There is something unique to me, waiting for me just around the corner, just over the top of that hill….