This was to be my first night at home in my bed. I love Ana Paula's home and care, but I was so excited to be back home with my new organic latex mattress!!!
My aussie friend wanted to do lunch. I didn't feel like going out, so I asked her to bring food over. I had been eating full meals since saturday night, so I did what everyone says to me to do, "Just eat what you want to eat." So I did. I almost never have fried food, yet I was craving Fallefel and she brought it to my door.
I had a prenatal with clients who are a joy to be around. Lots of laughing, lots of chatting. Then I taught a Child Birth Preparation class at night, our first in our new loft space. My business partner, Ana Paula, asked if I was going to let the class know I had cancer.
"Ummm, yeah. This is a 6 week class and at some point they are gonna notice I have no hair!"
It was a very powerful experience to claim my place with breast cancer in front of a group of people, some who I know, but mostly people I have not met before.
"I want you to know that in the past 3 weeks I have been diagnosed with Breast Cancer and my treatment is moving fact. You are currently looking at a woman who has already had one round of chemo last week. I am drawing my strength from all the women I have witness go into the unknown before me to birth their child. I draw from their strength, their courage. And, I know how important it is to have support. Good support. And I am quite lucky, because of my job I know lots of people - doulas and midwives - that know how to give great support!"
This was the BEST class I have ever taught! Even AP noticed the difference.
I explained it like this to a friend of mine... I feel like a piece of Prime Rib, and all the grissle is being carved out of me by the cancer and chemo.
All day while interacting with people at my job I felt clear, connected and right 'on' it. I felt nourished and fed by the work I did all day. I left class alive and inspired and awake!! I was higher than I have felt in months.
And inside I had a sneaking suspicion... I kinda knew if I was this up, I was gonna come down...
So, this whole time my body was emptying itself out. I was having the 'runs', but nothing dabilitating. In my knowledge of medicine, the toxins were coming out of my body and I was very excited. I was staying well hydrated. I was feeling good. And I figured it was a reaction to the first fried food I had had in years: the fallefel and was food poisening of some kind.
Once I got home I checked in with my body. It was still coming out. By 2am, when I had had NO sleep, and he cramping was coming with nothing coming out, I thought the 'poisenous' food has left my body and now I was on the other side.
I called a neighbor for some oatmeal and my first over the counter meds that I have ever owned: Tylenol and Pepto Bismal. I change my docotor's from the am to the pm and thought I would get some sleep and get better. Uhhh, Uh.
Within half and hour I went from bad to worse.... "Yvonne, are you free? could you drive me to my doctors appointment."
Now I know how it feels to be driving to the hospital while in transition. While hanging on to the seat for my dear life, as ever bump in the road was exaggerated, I turned to Yvonne and moaned, "I want the epidural NOW!!"
The only reason I had stopped deficating was that there was nothing left to empty out of me. I was officially dehydrated and I wanted that bag of fluids yesterday!!
I walked in all crumpled over like an old lady from Florida. They even had to get me a wheel chair. I was moaning and groaning to myself. I had sunglasses on and my eyes closed because everything was too overwhelming for me.
When I am feeling good, people know I am feeling good. When I am not feeling good, I don't hide it and everyone knows: I do NOT feel good.
Dr. G's appointment must have been comical from the other side. I was lieing on my side in the fetal position the whole time with my eyes closed stating my symptoms and BEGGING for IV fluids. I had no fever, so the thought was "IV fluids" then home.
NOT!
When I entered the infusion center they did not have a room for me. While curled up on the lounger I literally turned into a quiet but just as angry Shirley McClain from Terms of Endearment: "Where is my IV? I need IV fluids NOW!"
That was the hard part. From the time I walked into Cedars to getting my IV took something like and hour!! I really could have given myself an IV at home sooner. (though Dr. G has made me promise I won't do that).
During that time my body turned on itself and I became one of the 10% of the people who get Neutrapinic Fever.
This is the deal. Neutrapinia is expected. Chemo kills things that are growing in the body. White blood cells are growing, so it kills them as well as the cancer. Even though I had had the shot the day after chemo to increase the white blood cells, my count was not rising as soon as my body needed it. Hence there was something in my body could not fight, and I went down, fast. Was it the Fallefel? or the Iceberg lettuce? or just something that can normally live in my body when I have a good white blood cell count? We will never know. But I do know that feeling like shit was an understatement.
Luckily I was at Cedars when I got the fever and they loaded me up with Anti-bitotics.
Neutrapinic Fever is not good times. The body aches, there is nausea... any little movement created a ripple effect of pain in my body. Even trying to pass gas overwhelmed me in pain.
"Drugs. What drugs to you have? Please, something, anything for the gas, for the pain: PLEASE!" This is when I came to fall in love with Ambien, as the only answer was to lie still and limp.
That night I had one of the kindest nurses. She has worked in Oncology for a while and had seen this before. "Your body is in extream pain while the white blood cells are down, and as they rise back up again, you feel yourself again."
By the next morning my WBC were back up and rising. Even though I looked like a truck had run over me sideways and then backwards (as proof in the p
hoto) by the evening, it is as thought nothing had happened at all.It seams as though I need to be hit over the head to realize I am no longer the person I was before cancer. Meaning, before cancer if I was tired, I would over-ride it and think, "Hey, no big deal, I'll sleep tomorrow." Now, with chemo, I have to keep checking in with my body and sleep when I feel tired.
Before cancer I was able to give generously of the healing energy running through my body. Now, with chemo, the golden healing energy running through my body, is for me and my healing. It is not to be used to 'teach the best class of my life'.
I am being asked to practice what I preach. Day after day I tell mom's, "Your job is to listen to your body. If you feel tired at 36 weeks, you need to go home and sleep." Until today, I did not fully understand that concept. I didn't understand how confusing that simple statement can be, because with cancer and pregnancy a lot of time is spent trying to figure out, "Whose body is it that feels this tired/shitty/nauseas? Coz it ain't mine. Mine always feels (insert your word of choice here) "
So what am I resisting??? Why did I go down to depths I have never experienced before? What is the lesson here for me???
I'm not scared of being perceived as weak by others. I know in my core that a true show of strength is being able to name ones true feelings and being vulnerable in that place.
I know how to take care of my body. I take plenty of days off to sleep, eat organic, meditate, cleanse... I have the skills to feed and nourish my body.
I do not skip over the place of having gratitude for all my body does. I spend a lot of time taking care of myself and having gratitude for the gift of health that has allowed me to get here and be good at my job.
So what is it?
What is it?
W h a t i s i t ?
It is the word "sick". I don't like the word sick. I am not sick. Never have been sick. And I am not sick now.
To me, 'sick' means that there is something wrong going on in the body that I am a victim of and that needs to be fixed.
To me, 'sickness' is a limitation. And I am definately resistant to limitations.
But there is something else. I can taste it. Feel the edge of it.
Ah, it is my judgement that if I am to stop and really listen to my physical body I will slow down somehow. If I actually listened to my body's every tired whim, there is no way I'd be a midwife. If I slow down, then the information coming in will slow down! my learning will slwo down! My spiritual growth will slow down.... and on and on and on.... I have a belief that views my body as limiting my life in someway.
And now, I am being called to put my physical body first. I need to check in with my physical body before I do anything! What the fuck? Did I miss that chapter in the spiritual books? I don't think that Amma stops hugging people because she gets sick. Isn't preventative health regimes supposed to work? Can't I control my physcial health so I can be a spiritual 10?
How am I going to exercise if my body is physically tired? How am I going to meditate if I need to sleep? How am I going to work if I can't stay awake at ungodly hours?
My whole structure of my life is in full gratitude and understanding that my strong physical constitution is a gift, and I was not monopolizing that gift! I was happy to share the gift.
But as usual, my path is one that can not be planned, counted on, or looks even close to what I thought it was going to look like.
And now the clarity comes through like a knife, cutting away at my old beliefs and asking me to hold them, love them, embrace them. In the way that every child is deserving of love, even those whose innocense causes external turmoil in their wake, I am being asked to love my physical body, whose knowledge of wholeness and health is creating visceral physical pain and lethargy. I am being asked to let go of my judgement of what health and healing look like and embrace God's greater vision for me.
I did not end up with cancer, chemo or neutrapinic fever because I have done something wrong. In the same way that God has created physical joy, God has also created physical pain. The Universe did not create cancer, chemo and neutrapinic fever as a form of punishment. And I am definately not being punished by Spirit.
I might be tired and have a low white blood cell count, but I am certainly not a victim of any of these facts. These facts are a sign that my body is, always has been and will continue to be talking to me and demanding health over dysfunction. And I, in my human-ness may not have the answer not only now, but ever, as I continue to be on a 'need to know' basis (and right now I don't 'need to know'). My job is to listen to this present moment and hear!
My body is whole and healthy, and healthy can sometimes include being tired and in pain.
And as I begin to embrace this place I judged as limiting, I can feel the struggle dissipate.
I am mearly a human being that is learning that physical pain and a physical body is not a limitation to physical life nor spiritual growth.
And I am learning the hard way, coz "ouch" - THAT HURTS!
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