How 'Bout Those Mets?!

"How 'bout those Mets" is what you might say in New York when you're looking to make small talk with a baseball fan, but here in my life it's what I say to every doctor I see. Every one of them has a different opinion about the 2 mysterious findings in the CT scan of my pelvis. Whether or not the fracture and the lytic lesion (which looks like a marble-sized hole with a crust around it) in my pelvis are old or new, benign or metastatic, my treatment remains the same. Since none of these findings pose an emergency we will just use the scans that we have as a baseline and move forward. There's no reason to do a biopsy. "Let go of trying to understand what happened in the past and get on with living," is what more than one doctor has advised. Being a doctor doesn't make it any easier, in fact, I think it makes it more challenging to not get caught up in the rat's nest of thinking about the unknown.

I don't have any symptoms or pain in my pelvis, in fact most of my pain is not where I have bone mets, it's in my joints (almost all of them) and has nothing (directly) to do with cancer.  Joint and muscle pain are the main side effects of my treatment. So, after one year of toughing it out on Arimidex (anastrozole) I have switched to Aromasin (exemestane). This estrogen blocking drug should be equal in anticancer action, and will hopefully have fewer side effects.  It should take about six weeks to know how well it's working.

I was looking for some words of wisdom about living with the unknown and unknowable and I flipped to P.145 of my book,

"The nature of time and “reality” is unknowable, but it is helpful to question the conclusions we have drawn about how we perceive and respond to how we think things are. Suspending a definitive opinion about the way you think things are might give access to a different possible outcome.

When a physician examines a patient with the intent to make a diagnosis, he or she might conclude that something happened in the past that altered the physical properties or functioning of the body. When any of us examine our own lives with the intent to analyze, understand, or have insight about a problem, we might draw the same type of conclusions about the influence of the past. When this type of judgment is made, it tends to get named, labeled, and interpreted. At worst, generalized conclusions are drawn based on it. Diagnoses get dragged around and applied to the present and the future. Identifying with your problem, with something that happened to you, with your diagnosis or pain and using it as the reference point keeps you bound to it—thus keeping the residue of the past in your view of the present and future.

The mechanics of the past may be interesting and useful in order to understand what happened, but we don’t need a map to get back to the territory of the past. We’ve already been there. We want to enter the new territory of the future. Holding on to the residue of the past and projecting it into the future does not leave space for the full expression of the potential held in the future. We can become misinformed and misled about the prognosis for the future by the remnants of the past. Health and the therapeutic process can only be expressed fully if the path to the future is held clear and open for what has yet to happen, to unfold and reveal itself. Health transcends time; potential is always accessible. 

The map of the past is not the territory of the present. The actuality of the future cannot exist until it emerges, and once it does so, it is not in the future anymore. It is an event that has already occurred. Once the action that was dictated into the present from the unfolding future produces a result, the effects of the process exist as an event already in the past. In this view it becomes clear how healing—as a creative act of the organism creating its future—can only happen to its fullest extent and potential if we hold the space for it to emerge and not clutter the field with attempts to fix and resolve the past. The philosophical view of life unfolding in this manner can be seen as more fully expressing itself if the future moves into the present, rather than attempting to fix or resolve the past and move it toward the future." 

I know this last paragraph is somewhat wordy, but read it slowly, one line at a time, and try to feel what happens in your body when you take a breath and allow yourself to experience the present as the space between your past and future without any judgments or preconceived expectations. Instead of plowing ahead into the future, allow yourself to sit in the stillness, and let the events of time unfold, as if the future is approaching to meet you where you are.

Finally, You Can Subscribe To My Blog

I finally got someone to help me activate the "Subscription Feature" on my blog. You can automatically receive an email each time I post an entry, if you don't want to have to check it periodically. Just enter your email in the box to the right.

I have an update brewing, as I sort through all my test results of the past week. Stay tuned this weekend. . .

Join Me In Being Alive & Breathing Together Right Now

I have good news and some not too bad news. The bad news is that I do have a spot of metastasis in my pelvis (in my "sit bone," to be exact). The good news is that there is a possibility that it's not really new. It's most likely been there a while and just wasn't discovered earlier. My first CAT scan last year didn't extend far down enough to show it. At the time they were more interested in looking for cancer inside my pelvic cavity, than outside in the bones around the edges. So when the scan stopped an inch short of my sit bone, no one seemed to think it mattered. This means I have no way to know how long it's been there, and even though I can't feel it, I have a feeling it's been there a while.

This information doesn't really change anything, except my mood. It doesn't change my treatment. It doesn't change my prognosis. A few more specks in the bone don't mean much in the big picture. Regardless of what I think or feel about how long I've had this, my life in this moment is exactly the same.

My challenge in all of this is to remember I'm the same person I was before the CAT scan. This result doesn't change my actual life; it just changes what I think about my life. I had an old Indian teacher who used to say, "Your mind is a bad neighborhood. Don't go there. You'll get mugged."

This is the reality of this disease. It is chronic. It will most likely come, and hopefully go, for the rest of my life, regardless of how long that ends up being. I can't help but want to be special, be a miracle, be an overachiever, be an outlier, and I don't want to feel like a failure or that I am to blame if things don't go as I prefer.

This is as close as I get to positive thinking. I acknowledge my desire to live a long life and to have a chance to re-invent my life if I ever go back to doing something other than caring for myself full-time. I want to have more adventures. I want to be with my loved ones and be a part of their lives unfolding. I want to be of service to people again someday. The intensity of these desires and my longing for life feels like my life force expressing itself. How do I maintain this passion for life and yet let go of what I can't control?

I don't believe in positive thinking because I don't believe that thinking is the way to guide our lives. Positive or negative thinking is still thinking, and thinking is not the most powerful force in us. The harm that's done is obvious when people get caught in repetitive negative thinking, but positive thinking can also make a person blind to that which they really need to be responding. There's a fine line between positive thinking and denial. And regardless of what we think, our unconscious still exerts more influence than our conscious thoughts. I believe that people who say one thing and unconsciously harbor the opposite are ultimately at much more risk of serious consequences, because they are in internal conflict and discord and not in touch with the necessity of the moment.

So I let myself feel the disappointment, the sadness, the grief, but I don't dwell on it. It's like bad weather; it will pass. I try not to let fearful scenarios take up space in my thinking because they are clearly only one possible future. I also try not to dwell on my desire to have my life be mended, because my desires are not reliable either. If I get too attached it makes it harder to cope with not getting what I want when that eventually happens. Inhale. . . exhale. . . It's good to be alive and breathing as I sit here typing on this Saturday morning knowing that you all will be reading this and joining me in being alive together right now.

Quote Of The Week

Here's my favorite quote of the week, from my gastroenterologist,

"Your colon is beautiful and perfect."

The dermatologist gave me a clean bill of health today, as far as my skin is concerned. Growing up in Miami in the days of baby oil sunbathing, I was sunburned until I was 15, so I'm serious about having my skin checked. So far the only diagnosis is terminal freckles!

Tomorrow's my big CAT scan, so it's seaweed and miso with every meal and snack for the next few days. My bone scan got postponed until next Tuesday.

Thanks for all the recent cards, emails, and letters. I'll keep you all posted about the test results and won't make you wait a month for my next entry.

Stage 4 ½ - A Portal To Another Dimension Of Life

A young friend (by young, I mean 30) recently asked me what comes after the Stage 4 cancer with which I'm diagnosed. I didn’t want to tell him that mainstream medicine considers Stage 4 a terminal diagnosis and that death is considered the inevitable next stage. There is no Stage 5. I paused, grasping for words, and an image from the ridiculously wacky film, Being John Malkovich came to mind—the “7½th” floor. In this floor-between-floors in an office building there is a portal into John Malkovich’s consciousness. In a similar spirit, in an attempt to digress from the linear progression of the 7th floor to the 8th, or Stage 4 to death, I’ve decided to rename my present stage of cancer “Stage 4 ½".

I believe I've found a portal to a new stage of consciousness that lies between Stage 4 and oblivion. Naming my chosen alternative to the next stage of this disease seems like a perfectly empowering use of terminology. I love being a pioneer, an outlier, an explorer, so off I go into the unknown, forging my own word for the state or stage I'm in.

Compensation and adaptation is a full-time endeavor for me these days. The nuts-and-bolts of self-care, eating and sleeping well, breathing, moving, meditating, laughing, crying, etc. take up a good part of my day. I like to think that I'm not just coping, but transcending my affliction and transforming my life. I am making up for lost time, lost abilities, lost possibilities, and creating something new from the uninvited imposition of cancer.

On this Thanksgiving weekend, I think back to a year ago and know how much I have for which to feel gratitude. Last year at this time, I wasn't sure I'd live to write another Thanksgiving blog entry. 

Those of you who know me and my family are probably wondering what exotic non-turkey item we had this year. (For the rest of that story scroll back down to my Nov 24, 2009 entry and read about our history with alternative Thanksgiving meals.) Since I'm not eating any animal products that ruled out our previous choices of duck, quail, goose, guinea hen, pheasant, emu, ostrich, squab, partridge, ostrich, kangaroo ribs, alligator, crocodile, turtle, frog, llama, elk, venison, antelope, rabbit, rattlesnake, yak, and wild boar.

Since metastatic breast cancer has caused me to have an aversion to animal fat, I started with a vegan version of my stuffing. I replaced butter with olive oil and chicken broth with veggie and mushroom broth. My husband Steve made the bread for it. He just came home from a week at the San Francisco Baking Institute – and he is so inspired to bake. Wow, am I grateful I am not wheat intolerant! I made fresh mushroom broth to use in the stuffing and in the shitake gravy. Most of our ingredients came from our local Farmers’ Market. I mounded the stuffing on a giant upside-down portobello mushroom, stuffed some delicata squash, and then topped it with shitake mushroom gravy. My 18 yr-old step-son Ben made 2 kinds of cranberry sauce. My 16-yr-old step-son Luke made (seriously non-vegan) pumpkin pie, including the crust, which I had to have a tiny bite of, then pass on the rest of it. I made a salad with greens, roasted asparagus, artichoke hearts (I made them fresh, not from a jar), toasted almonds, and a ruby red grapefruit juice reduction salad dressing. Wow! Any carnivore would have agreed this was a fabulous feast. My guys actually made a plain, old-fashioned turkey (with my stuffing) for themselves. Ben can actually claim that he made it through his entire childhood without having turkey for Thanksgiving with us. For some odd reason, this fact amuses me.

Now I need to spend a few days laying low and recovering from all the food prep before my week of CAT scans, bone scans, and other medical poking around, in honor of my 1 year diagnosis anniversary. I expect it all to look good and hope that I don’t glow in the dark after all the radiation. Miso and seaweed are on the menu for my post-radiation ordeal. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki they have found that the people who ate miso and seaweed after we dropped the bomb on them lived longer and avoided radiation sickness. I try to find a food-related answer to many of the challenges in my life. It seems like a helpful and wholesome coping mechanism.

In the meantime, I am curious about my how my life in the realm of Stage 4½ will unfold, not necessarily in a linear progression. I hear the jumble of messages arising from deep in my bones - cancer and life intertwined in my dark marrow. A light cannot shine in such an enclosed space, but a river can flow in the darkness. A message can emerge from this darkness and I can listen and feel for the ripple in the stream of my consciousness. This distant Voice has tendrils that reach out across time and space touching many possible futures. The Voice whispers an as yet unimagined message assuring me that a tendril of my future can find its way to move into the present.

My Internal Parallel Universe of Cancer

I read in this morning's New York Times,

"Perhaps if we looked at cancers using appropriate conceptual lenses, we might find that tumors possess their own anatomy and physiology — a parallel universe to that of normal cells and organs. Such a tumor can hardly be described as a disorganized group of cells. It is a cellular empire, with its own sustenance, grammar, logic and organization. It is a growing being within a growing being."

Here's a link to the entire article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/magazine/31Cancer-t.html?pagewanted=1&tntemail1=y&emc=tnt

What is the appropriate conceptual lens for what sometimes feels like my evil twin? I struggle with the way to view my cancer. Is "my" even the correct term? Does it harm me to think of it as evil? Is it bad to call it "it"? Does it belong to me? Is it actually me since I grew it out of my own cells? Or have I been invaded by an alien? If this cancer is "a growing being" within me, another growing being, does that mean I am its mother? I don't feel maternal or protective of it. In fact, if I had a chance, I'd get rid of it! (Perhaps this is another good reason I'm not a mother. Sorry, Rose - see my Nov 9, 2009 blog entry for that story).

Choosing a conceptual lens feels important to me. I spend a lot of time in meditation, visualization, or what I prefer to call creative imagination inquiring about the nature of my physiology and anatomy, exploring the state of my body as a host for this unwanted visitor, and hoping to find a way to make my internal environment unwelcome for cancer, while being very welcoming for the rest of me.

I have never resonated with battle analogies. It doesn't feel right to spend a lot of time trying to kill my cancer. There might be too much collateral damage. I feel violated enough; I can't withstand any more violence. I tend to be more comfortable with the idea of withholding the unwanted cancer's main fertilizer (estrogen) and making my internal milieu unwelcoming for cancer. How can I feed myself, but deprive my tumors of what they need? I feel like I'm doing this with my diet, my supplement regimen, with hands-on work, with Continuum, with movement and breath, with mindfulness, with acupuncture, and I have sacrificed my own desire and need for estrogen in the pursuit of eradicating or controlling things. So far it all seems to be working.

Jim Jealous, an Osteopathic teacher of mine used to say, "When you find yourself in a rat's nest, don't play with the rat." I'm minding his words, and attempting to address the atmosphere or the environment in which the rat lives. Maybe if I turn on all the lights and air out the nest, the rat will choose to leave.

Until this morning I never considered my cancerous parallel universe from this particular angle. I have to admit it's a bit frightening. But it feels like time to be courageous and go on a new reconnaissance mission. I need to more deeply understand the sustenance, grammar, logic and organization of this growing being within me.

The following paragraph can only be understood by my fellow sci-fi geeks. If you want to understand what I'm talking about, you'll have to watch Battlestar Gallactica (2004 - 2010), starting from the pilot episode and watch all 5 seasons in order, then begin watching Caprica. These must be watched in order, in order to understand the story.
This is where my lifelong love of science fiction pays off. Exploration of inner space is far more vast than of outer space, but requires a similar ability to face the unknown. I have a seemingly unlimited source of inspiration with which to enter this exploration. It's not Star Trek's "final frontier." It's a little more like Battlestar Gallactica where the aliens and the humans look alike, and as it turns out, the aliens stem from the consciousness of a 15 year-old girl named Zoe corrupted by an experiment gone awry. Are the Cylons really the cancer of the human race or their savior? BG was not about battle; it was about adaptation and the making of peace, the co-existence of humans with their shadow, and about the birth and evolution of something new. (BG stands for Battlestar Gallactica, not Bonnie Gintis. . . but maybe we're not that different.)

A Continuum dive is a lot like an episode of VR5 (1995), where the virtual reality turns out to be not so virtual. When Sydney enters the VR of the unconscious, things changed, and when she hung up the anachronistic phone, and passed back through the portal into the present, all of so-called reality was altered. (I'll pass on the conclusion of that series where she gets lost in VR9. I plan on coming back!)

I am on my last day of a week-long Continuum Teachers' Retreat. We have our last 5 1/2 hour dive today. I know where I'm going. . . deep into the cellular empire of the growing being within my being to discover what I need to know to co-exist, co-evolve, adapt, or find an as yet imagined way of thriving into the rest of my life.

Words of Wisdom Are Still Cooking

It's been a month since I posted an entry and I know people are wondering what's up. I've been getting phone calls and emails from many of you who are concerned. I'm doing okay. There's nothing (new) wrong. I'm on the painfully slow boat to recovery, which is still moving in the right direction. The words of wisdom of my next real blog entry are still cooking. I haven't been motivated to write for anyone other than myself.

Here's the current events summary:
Steve and I took our first vacation in 2 years. It was amazing, especially for Steve.
My 54th birthday symbolized a profound passage into this next phase of my life, in which I live beyond the temporal field of my mother, who died at 53. (See September 2 for the story about my mother.)

I am off to a Continuum Teachers' Retreat next week. I long to be immersed in that field, especially the middle 3 days of the retreat where we go into silence. More organizations should conduct professional development in silence. It's the most fruitful way for me to deepen my practice.

I will try to get some words of wisdom on paper before I enter silence.

My Fluid Body Yearns For A Stronger Container

I like to think of the body as a fluctuating, fluid event, rather than a fixed object.  However, this crazy cancer is challenging my ability to stay connected to my fluid identity. I have devoted the past 15 years of my life to Continuum practice and the frame of reference that accompanies this has enriched my experience of life, kept me sane and feeling whole when nature-gone-awry has caused me to (temporarily) feel somewhat deranged and coagulated.

There always needs to be a balance of freedom and stability. Putting water (freedom) in a glass (stability) makes it far more useful. The same is true for the living human body. There is a balance of freedom and creativity that needs to be held within a meaningful structure. We all have different needs at different times, and the balance point between the 2 modes of being is not always in the middle. Some people tend to be energetically diffuse and chaotic. These people thrive with a little more structure. I, on the other hand, have no problem being grounded and linear, so I thrive in a more unstructured environment. Everyone needs some of both. 

In my never-ending quest to understand embodiment, especially my own, I have embarked on a new “exercise” regimen. I put the word “exercise” in quotes because the activities I do that might be called “exercise” are usually somewhat unconventional. I rebel against excessive form. Whether it is yoga, Tai Chi, Chi Gong, or Zumba, I can't stand having someone in front of me telling me what to do. I'm just not a good follower. But due to my extreme circumstances I have had to branch out, receive help, and add some physical exercise that's a bit more "mainstream" to my Continuum practice. I need to summarize a bit of history, so that you understand my context and condition.

I spent most of November, 2009 through February, 2010 lying down. My only form of physical activity during that time after I stopped working was quite subtle. I spent a great deal of time in bed doing meditative, creative imagination/imagery-based Continuum dives. I was in too much pain to move very much, and I was unable to rest in any position other than flat on my back. I would bring my attention to my breath, and attempt subtle wave motions throughout my body. But mere breathing was excruciatingly painful. I couldn’t focus on spinal motion, because it disturbed my tumor-ridden sternum, ribs, and clavicle. My hide-in-a-cave-and-don’t-move survival mechanism immobilized me. To top it all off I was petrified (literally hardened and immobile) of fracturing something. My doctors had warned me to not cough or sneeze or roll over in bed because I could easily fracture one of my diseased bones.

As I began to respond to all my various forms of treatment (removing my ovaries, taking an aromatase inhibitor to inhibit estrogen production, acupuncture, various supplements, hands-on work, meditation, etc.) I began to be able to do simple things, like taking a walk. By the time late January rolled around I began to panic at my degree of deconditioning, but I still couldn't do much about it. Walking and subtle Continuum weren't enough. I didn't yet realize that I hadn't hit the bottom of my atrophic decline.

It really wasn't until about a month ago that I fully got how much physical ability I had lost. Part of the 25 pounds I have lost is muscle. By April I realized that in addition to being immobilized by pain, I had developed pain from weakness and lack of support. I didn't have the strength to lift my arms over my head. My knee pain and difficulty getting out of a simple chair was in part due to my wasted quadriceps muscles. To make matters worse, joint pain is the most common side effect of Arimidex, and I have a whopping case of it: neck, back, shoulders, hands, hips, knees. Thank goodness my feet and elbows have been spared, but that's about all. With all my medical knowledge and understanding of how the body works, I couldn't believe this was happening to me.

I'm not sure why, or if understanding even matters, but it took until mid-August for me to really get what I needed to do. Perhaps it wasn't until then that I was able to do what I needed to begin the climb out of my predicament. Even if I had understood what was happening a few months earlier, I'm not sure I could have done much about it.

What I realized last month was that I was suffering from massive atrophy and deconditioning. Since it happened in a very specific way for a very specific reason, I needed to address it in a focused and specific way. I am normally not a reductionistic fan of isolating muscles, but I have come to understand that this is exactly (part of) what I need. I have begun doing what I used to think was dreaded, linear, and repetitive; I am riding a stationary bike, using a stair-stepper, and an elliptical trainer. At first, I could only go about 3 minutes. It was painful and exhausting, but I realized the only way to get over feeling this way was to do it and move through it. I committed to riding 3 minutes, 5 times a day, and by the end of a mere week, I was able to go 6-8 minutes at a time. It has taken a month, but now I can go 20-30 minutes at one stretch. My entire body, particularly my knees are feeling considerably better.

During this past month I sought out the help of a physical therapist who helped me hone in on my rehab needs. I began strapping on wrist and ankle weights and doing some mainstream  strengthening exercises. I got a pole (a broom stick with the broom detached) and at first had to use my decent arm to help lift my useless arm. After a few weeks with the pole to guide my arm up, I was lifted to the next level of new-found abilities, even if my hands were buzzing from holding on to the pole. I do love good exercise toys, so I've enjoyed playing in the PT gym.

Since I can't handle too much structure, as soon as I was able, I began making up my own exercises, doing "made-up Chi Gung," and turning all my exercises into a Continuum Jungle Gym Dive. (If you don't know what this is, get my book and read Chapter 7 and go find a class.) Isn't this what it's really all about anyway? Isn't this (part of) what Continuum is - following inherent movement and allowing it to guide you? I follow my own Chi and allow it to move my body, which unlike a mere month ago is now a bit more able to move where the Chi wants to go. I used to think this "made-up Chi Gung" was a goofy rebellious activity that I invented, and then I met a master of Ba Gua (a Chinese martial art) who said that this was the ultimate practice of this art.

I think part of what helped me during the past year was my ability to lie there on my back and imagine myself, like in Avatar, moving painlessly and gracefully. I would fade in and out of my pain-ridden, half-sleeping state imagining myself running through a forest, swinging through trees, swooping down a mountain on skis, ice skating on deep edges, or swimming like a dolphin under water. The power of our creative imagination can keep the body going when we are unable to go there in the literal physical sense. This is one aspect of the bridge that Continuum creates that allows people to access to healing.

I have devoted the past 15 years of my life to a very unstructured Continuum practice and now I need to integrate a bit more focused, structured rehabilitation into my self-care. I can't do one without the other. My fluid yearns for a stronger container.

Strengthening Bones By Squeezing Their Fluids

In preparation for my next entry, here is a NY Times article that discusses something I've always suspected about the way bones behave during exercise and movement:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/phys-ed-the-best-exercises-for-healthy-bones/

In my book (pp. 179 - 183), I discuss how using your bones creates forces of stretching, pushing, pulling, twisting, compressing, and bending. Every time you exert any influence or pressure on a bone there is a corresponding change of shape and an accompanying electrical charge, called the "piezoelectric effect." This influences the bones to remodel to accommodate the motion and weight distribution that they are being asked to support. Connective tissues will thicken where support is needed and thin where they need to yield. Minerals will be laid down to allow for support in areas of strain and weight bearing. This is generally how bones are thought to be strengthened by weight-bearing exercise.

This article explains how during the movement of exercise, bones bend, and fluids are squeezed from one part of the bone matrix to another. The extra fluid inspires the cells bathed with it to respond by adding denser bone.

I've been wondering how this applies to my tumor-filled bones. Pain in my sternum, ribs, and clavicle initially immobilized me and prevented me from exercising, but now I think I have more fear of pain than actual pain (I'm talking about the pain in my chest; I still have actual pain in my hands and several joints.) Do I want/need to stir up the matrix of a tumor-filled bone? Will this help my immune system have access to the tumor to break it down? Or will squeezing the fluid through the cancer infiltrated matrix potentially spread it? There is no medical expert who can answer this question, so I just have to live into the answer as I act according to what feels right to me.

Making Sense With Stories

Nothing happens quickly in my life these days. I’m on a slow boat out at sea with no view of land and I can’t tell if I’m moving. I’d go mad if I tried to figure out where I am, so I surrender to the pace of how life is right now, and let go of the need for reference points.

I have nothing new to report about my physical health.

In this limbo where I live these days I feel compelled to tell stories: stories of my childhood, stories about my family, stories about people I've known and loved, strange things I’ve seen and done. Since I can’t make sense of my actual life, I enjoy making sense of the stories I like to tell about my life. I love to find a thread of connection and weave it through multiple scenes.

I’m particularly interested in stories about my mother. She is a mystery to me. Gone nearly 32 years, I’m not sure if I remember her or if I only remember the stories I like to tell about her. I’m not sure if it matters which it is. Whatever the case might be, I enjoy memoir writing, so here is my latest:

My mother called out from her deathbed, “Be sure to get something to eat before you get on the plane,” as I exited her hospital room for the last time on the way to the airport. I assured her that I would, and I realized that this would probably be my last exchange of words with her. She would die a few days later from the ovarian cancer that had ravaged her for the past 5 years. We began and ended our life together with great concern for nourishment. I've been trying to get enough nourishment for "the long ride home" since that day.

I was 21 and living in New York City, pursuing the adventures of an urban college student and finding exotic odd jobs. To finance my education I searched for work that fit my school schedule. I was a pioneer of dinner-time telemarketing, selling cremation packages to complete strangers over the phone. I drove a truck around Manhattan delivering newspapers and magazines to newsstands. I was a waitress in a restaurant that was a front for selling cocaine. I had nothing to do with the drug deals, but I benefited from the large tips that were often left afterwards. I race-walked the city streets for a foot-messenger delivery service. I worked for a Catholic hospital, who had me removing stamps from envelopes with a clothes steamer so that they could be re-used. I volunteered as a subject for medical, dental, and psychological experiments at Rockefeller University that were well-paying and (relatively) non-invasive. I couldn’t bear the thought of a mundane job.

In 1978, the year my mother died, I was studying psychology and neuroscience, and working in a hospital managing the admissions and outpatient billing departments by day. By night, I frequented music clubs: CBGB, 7th Avenue South, Sweet Basil, Max's Kansas City, The Bottom Line, and The Bitter End in search of the cathartic and inspiring effects of live music that I so desperately craved.

I discovered the dress rehearsal schedule at Lincoln Center and roamed the complex of Avery Fisher and Alice Tully Halls, The Metropolitan Opera House, and The Julliard School yearning for a free taste of the week’s performers. It wasn’t entertainment I wanted; it was medicine. Experiencing live music penetrated my being and connected me to something greater than my seemingly small, suffering, barely post-adolescent self. I desperately wanted to soothe my tortured soul.

My mother entered Julliard in 1942 to study opera. In addition to the classics she sang 1940s girl-group pop songs in 3-part harmony. She sang jingles for radio commercials. She played the piano, the upright acoustic bass, and the glockenspiel. She had a flare for drama and effortlessly exuded the tragic personas that characterize most operatic roles. Throughout my early childhood she would intermittently and quite unexpectedly slip into character. She might fall to her knees on the kitchen floor and break into an aria from Madame Butterfly after burning a spaghetti sauce. Breaking a dish in the kitchen sink could drive her to burst into a lamenting passage from Carmen. Finding an empty box of cereal she once belted out, “No more rice crispies. . .” to the tune of Pagliacci.

The war came and ended her musical education. There was no money for tuition or for the train she needed to take her from her home in Spring Valley to New York City, just 30 minutes to the south. Everyone was joining the war effort and she took a job at Camp Shanks, an army base near her family home. It was there in 1944 that she met my father. Post-war marriage and motherhood precluded her singing career. She became a caged bird.

I couldn’t carry a tune, but I could perceive music and all its nuances, and I relentlessly searched for opportunities to be immersed in musical performances of all varieties. I discovered the free chamber music at The Metropolitan Museum of Art every Friday evening. If there was a free concert of any sort, I was there in a heartbeat. I am a sucker for a schmaltzy Broadway musical, but couldn’t afford the ticket price as a starving student of the late 70s. Security was lax in those days, and I discovered that I could lurk around theater entrances at intermission and sneak into the second half of shows, which always offered the best and most cathartic and cheesy songs in the grand finale.

The day before my mother died (somewhat unexpectedly) I traveled to Philadelphia to accept an offer from my cousin Rick, a dentist, to extract my impacted wisdom teeth. I awoke from anesthesia to gauze packing in my mouth and the news that my mother had died. I spent the night at my cousin’s home and they took me to the airport in the morning with a baggie full of extra gauze pads and a bottle of pain killers. As the flight took off I could feel the pressure rising in my gums. I bit down hard on the gauze to stop the bleeding, but I couldn’t compete with the change in atmospheric pressure. I began to bleed profusely from all 4 incisions. As soon as the fasten-your-seatbelt light went out I got up to run to the bathroom, and blood poured down the front of my shirt. The flight attendant who met me in the aisle screamed and fainted. Passengers around me began to panic and pandemonium ensued.

I cleaned myself up as best I could and a more composed flight attendant fetched me some ice packs. I landed in Miami 2 hours later looking like a boxer who lost the match.

I arrived at my mother’s funeral after an emergency visit to an oral surgeon who did his best to help patch me up. I was drugged with Vicodin and nauseated from antibiotics on one of the worst days of my life, and I had to get back on a plane to return to work and school the next day. My mother was dead at age 53 from ovarian cancer, my ravaged mouth was swollen and infected, and I had no way of getting something to eat before the long ride home.

One Year of Feeling It In My Bones

It’s a year today of feeling it in my bones. On the eve of August 14, 2009 we sat watching the film Julie and Julia and I wondered what I had done on my giant gym ball that afternoon that made my ribs throb.

In my reverie concerning the experience of “feeling it in my bones” I have encountered many interesting questions. Many have asked me if I think it is ironic that as an Osteopath I developed cancer in my “osteons.” Have I taken Osteopathy too literally?

Osteopathy is not about bone disease. It’s not in question that “osteo” is the root of the word “bone”, but the origin and meaning of the root of “-pathy” is open to some interpretation. Pathos or the Greek root, patheia is usually defined as “suffering” or “feeling” and therefore is at the root of many words that describe diseases. However, there is another implication of its root meaning. Pathos involves the expression of a feeling, and implies the communication of a felt sense that overrides thinking. Pathos is the commitment to a heartfelt, fully-lived life. I find this interesting to ponder as I search for a meaningful story to deepen my exploration of having bone tumors.

My Osteopathic teacher Jim Jealous used to say, “Healing is not about self-improvement; it is about self-expression.” This is not a new-agey proclamation about emoting or spewing feelings in a self-absorbed way. Self-expression is something an organism (this includes people) does all the way down to the cellular level and beyond to the sub-atomic realm. In our cells, in our fluids, and in the spaces between things there is a constant rhythmic fluctuation and change of shape that requires the stuff that makes up our bodies to be in constant motion. There is the constant motion of inhalation and exhalation, as well as a plethora of other primary motions that are inherent to all life functions. If our nature as living beings is to manifest movement as the reflection of metabolic life process, then this is the self-expression that is crucial to health and well-being. This moment-to-moment activity of life is what needs expression for there to be health, healing, adaptation, and resilience.

It is curious that I wrote about this process from the viewpoint of bones many years before I had pathology in my bones. The following is an excerpt from my book, pages 175 – 179.

There is a general assumption in physiology and chemistry that open systems with higher water content are in greater flux. The presence of water that is free to move creates rapid and constant interchange. This is a fundamental principle in mutability. Since bones have relatively low water content (about 20%), they take longer to heal or change as compared to the so-called “soft tissues” like muscle and fascia, which can be up to 85 – 90% water.

The relatively fast response of muscle, fascia, and other soft tissues makes them sensitive to the physiologic changes that accompany emotional reactions. Most people would agree that their myofascial structures are more emotionally responsive than their bones. What you find when you direct your senses into your muscles is less predictable than what you sense in your bones. The feel of a muscle can change from one instant to the next. Bones do not tend to noticeably change from moment to moment, or even from day to day, as muscle and fascia do, endowing bones with a sense of slowness. People who tend to feel their emotional reactions as tightness or soreness of their muscles don’t usually sense this same emotional response in their bones. The tempo and density of bone are so different from that of muscle and fascia that the style of sensing has to be altered to gain access to a bony impression. If we adjust the density of our attention to match the density of what we want to sense, then bone could be experienced as grounding, reliable, or predictable. Language reflects this deep sense of knowing, as when someone says they can “feel it in their bones,” as I did after my momentous Osteopathic treatment in that summer of 1974.

Is the Name “Osteopathy” a Misnomer?

When I first heard of the Osteopathic profession I didn’t understand the meaning of its name. It’s a mystery to most people how Osteopathy got its name, when the profession doesn’t necessarily have a primary focus on treating the bones. “Osteon” is Latin for bone, and “pathos” means “to suffer.” One might assume that we are “bone doctors,” but the origin of the name runs deeper. Andrew Taylor Still had a deep connection to the study of all anatomy. He asked us to begin with the bones, but he never expected us to end there. His request was meant to create a structure to approach the study of the living human body, like a scaffold or a skeleton. He never meant to imply that we should exclusively treat the bones of our patients. He described the purpose of adjusting bones as a means to give freedom to the movement of fluids and open the space for the body to function better and heal itself. Still began his study of anatomy with the bones, and he found that it led him to the rest of the organism by what he called “connected oneness.” He was driven to learn every detail of every attachment, and then to follow all the structures that ran through and crossed those bones and attachments, until he had explored every inch of all the anatomy of the body and pondered its function. He waxed poetic, acknowledging the connection of the study of anatomy to the deep esoteric mysteries of the universe as he proclaimed, “To know all of a bone in its entirety would close both ends of an eternity.”

In my early studies of Osteopathy, I found myself struggling with the feeling that the name was a misnomer. It felt as if there was a bone inappropriately stuck in the name of my chosen profession. I hadn’t yet read Still and learned to appreciate his exploration and use of the term. I was a student who immediately found resonance with sensing membrane and fluid more easily than bone. Now I appreciate the subtle variations in the texture of attention necessary to cultivate awareness of all aspects of embodiment. It is ridiculous to proclaim the importance or sacredness of any one type of tissue, body segment, or system that is part of a unified whole.

In the experiences I had treating my patients Osteopathically and attending to myself through Continuum, I discovered that the bones are quite interesting, offering vast opportunities for exploration. Each bone I observed had a unique shape and texture. There are movement patterns within individual bones, in addition to the movement that occurs in the relationship of one bone to another. I began to differentiate between what is “normal” and what anatomic variations develop to accommodate the way the body is used. Some of what I noticed was the remnant of trauma. An old fracture will alter the anatomy of the area involved. There is often a swath of the bony equivalent of a scar that results in an altered density within the bone itself, as well as scar tissue in the periosteum surrounding the bone and neighboring soft tissues. This creates a dissonance in the relationship of a bone with the other bones and tissues around it. A bone cannot have a balanced relationship with the bone next to it until it has a balanced relationship within itself. This is a basic tenet of Osteopathy that has been expanded by the teachings of Sutherland, Becker, and Jealous. There are many approaches to treating the body based on various interpretations of this law of nature.

Not only do I have a commitment to a heartfelt, fully-lived life, but I have a tumor in my sternum that literally presses inward on my heart, constantly reminding me. With every breath I can literally feel the imperative of my life to yield and adapt to living with cancer. I am certainly open to the miracle of having this reminder recede and disappear, but in the meantime, I am learning to co-exist and not allow fear of the unknown to dominate my life and squelch the self-expression of my life’s breath.

As I enter a new year, which may or may not be consumed with “feeling it in my bones” I wonder what lesson comes next. Can I stop wishing I could return the “gift of cancer” to Macy’s for something like a nice blouse instead? Must I continue to explore knowing my bones in their entirety to understand what it might mean to close both ends of an eternity? Is there some aspect of self-expression that has yet to surface in my healing process? Can I learn to rest in just “being” without needing to understand or imbue meaning? Can I let go of needing a plan for my future, as if having a plan assures a particular future?

As I approach my 54th birthday in 5 weeks, I enter the uncharted territory of a life that is longer than my mother’s was, in peace and equanimity. It will be a blessing and a gift if I can answer any of these questions, as it will be if I can let go of them and just encounter each breath and appreciate life however it may unfold.

Some Good News While You're Waiting For My Next Entry

I have been unable to focus my energies on public writing. Hence, the lack of an entry for a while.  But I do have good news that I want to share; My bone scan on August 3rd showed no new cancer. The tumor markers that are measured by blood test are also way down to normal again. The old tumors will continue to light up for a long time, even if they are shrinking. I know they are still there. I can see and feel them, but they aren't growing or spreading. They shrank quickly in the beginning and I assume they are continuing to do so. The bone scan really only tells us about spread, not about the state of what's already there. 

Can you believe it has already been a year since this ordeal began? This is particularly good news as I approach my 1 year anniversary and as I approach my 54th birthday on September 26th, when I will have lived longer than my mother. It will surely be a Happy Birthday!

Slow-Motion Flow Of The Unnamed & Invisible Stuff Of Life

My long, slow, lesson in patience seems to ooze rather than flow. I have the sense that if I could view my life in fast-forward, I would see that the ooze is truly a slow-motion flow and that I am moving in the right direction. I have never experienced such a prolonged and slowed down tempo. Along with this (unwanted) lesson comes the development of a new perceptual field with a rate and rhythm approaching glacial creep.

My right hand is healing, but extremely slowly. I am regaining strength after the surgery, and some sensation, but I still have 1 1/2 buzzing fingers and a limited ability to hold things like pens and silverware. I am quite adept at lifting mugs again. Putting my hands on people in a meaningful way feels like a lifetime away. It will be many months before I really know the fate of my hands.

I have a sense that cancer is receding into the background. I have to rely on an internal sense of things because what I have is so hard to monitor and measure. To really see it, we would need to do another CAT scan, and I have had way too much radiation exposure from the CAT scans I had in the beginning of this ordeal. My curiosity does not warrant more radiation. An MRI might show the shrinkage of my breast and bone tumors, but I need an MRI with contrast, which requires an injection, which is hard on the kidneys. None of my doctors think it's worth the potentially bad effects of these test when it seems like I'm doing better.

By "doing better" I mean I have less pain and the visible lumps in my sternum and clavicle are much smaller. 7 (yes, count them - 7) doctors could not feel the breast masses when they were at their largest, so I can't rely on my physical palpatory skills to feel them either. I can only tell you that I "sense" that all the tumors are shrinking. I also have 2 tumor markers that are measurable with a simple blood test. These were nearly down to normal (after being 3-4 times normal) on my last blood test. I'm due for another check of those next month.

Paracelsus (1493-1541) seemed to be speaking of this phase of my life and education as both a patient and a physician when he wrote,

“The physician should speak of that which is invisible. What is visible should belong to his knowledge, and he should recognize illnesses, just as anyone who is not a physician can recognize them from their symptoms. But this is far from making him a physician; he becomes a physician only when he knows that which is unnamed, invisible, and immaterial, yet has its effect."

Through this ordeal, I am becoming something or someone new. I am learning to perceive the unnamed, invisible, and immaterial stuff of life in excruciatingly slow motion. It is a revelation.

Radical Rest - A New Way Of Caring For Myself

I have received a deluge of emails from those of you who are most curious about why I haven't posted an entry for 3 weeks. Let me begin by assuring you all that there's nothing (new) wrong. The breast cyst aspiration went really well and proved that it was totally benign. No one has any idea why such a large cyst formed, but it seems to be fine now. As far as I can tell, my cancerous breast tumors and bone metastases continue to shrink. My hands are slowly healing. My kidneys and liver are managing to do their job of detox and elimination without further deterioration. My blood pressure has stabilized and I'm sleeping well.

I have been needing a level of "radical rest" that is unprecedented in my life. I yearn to be carried by the delightful feeling of coasting - moving effortlessly with the momentum that is there, not having to exert energy to create the push to do the next thing. I am exhausted and learning to surrender to a cycle of rest that is deeper than I've ever known. I've needed a rest from writing and from the feeling that someone is expecting something from me.

When I think back through my life, I inevitably end up considering somewhere around age 6 as the last time I felt rested. How could that be?!

Prior to this past 8 months that I have been off work and dealing with cancer as my more-than-full-time job, I was in private practice for the previous 23 years, with barely more than a week off once or twice a year. Three times in that 23 years I took 2 weeks off, but I didn't spend the 2 weeks resting or doing something "vacation-like." I'd go away for 5 or 6 days and then spend the other week at home taking care of some project. I used to be so misguided that I'd count conferences as vacation.

In my "spare time" I wrote my book. I awoke at 4 am for over a year to get some quiet writing time before everyone got up. I used "vacation time" twice in that period to spend a week somewhere writing 14 hours a day.

I took 3 months off when I moved to California, but I hardly rested. I moved my home and my office 3000 miles and had to set up a whole new life during that time. I spent the first year flying back to New York once a month and working for a week. Gold Status on American Airlines is a poor replacement for rest.

I was a student for decades before that. I began college in 1973 and worked either part-time or full-time during the 8 years it took for me to get to Osteopathic Medical School, where I spent another 6 years completing that task. I was on-call my last night as an Intern at Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn. In the morning when I completed that wretched phase of my training, I went to the roof of the hospital and burned my white coat. Upon returning home at 7 am on July 1, 1987 I packed a truck and moved to Woodstock with Carol, where I immediately opened my first office and worked as a carpenter's helper for the guy who fixed up the house we bought with a $4000 cash advance from a credit card.

My first summer job was at age 12 in a cabinet factory. I counted the screws, nuts, bolts, and brackets that came with a self-assembled desk and bookcase, put them in plastic bags, and stapled the bag to the underside of the desk. During the school year I worked for my father helping with the bookkeeping for his kitchen remodeling business until I left for college.

As I work chronologically backwards through my reasons for feeling like I desperately need a rest I get to this period from ages 6 - 12, where I was just an elementary school student without a job. It was during this time that my mother's health began to go downhill. She intermittently spent days to weeks at a time in the hospital and I was called upon to take care of her and other things at home. She wasn't diagnosed with cancer until I was 16, but had an endless stream of gastrointestinal, gall bladder, and pancreas problems. I was overburdened with emotional and household responsibilities.

What a sad portrait of myself, rest-deprived for nearly 47 years. I can't help but think of all the people who grow up in extreme poverty or in a war zone and are severely traumatized and neglected in addition to their lack of rest. I am almost embarrassed to be complaining, but I remind myself that comparisons don't help anyone. We all have a right to feel whatever our circumstances dish out to us. I hope I can honor the path I've been given and surrender to the need for rest. It is such profoundly satisfying medicine. I know I will emerge from my "healing cave" with a whole new view of purpose and meaning in my life and find a way to share it with others while simultaneously living a new way of caring for myself.

Consider the benefits you might gain from finding your unique form of radical rest and self-care. Don't wait until your system forces you to do so, or decline and death might come first. Anyone able to read this has a choice.

Another "Feng Shui And A Few Broadway Shows" Moment

I'm still struggling with typing, but I have a great story to tell, so I'm typing it gradually, resting every few lines. 

I also have another fabulous Op Ed column from today's (Sunday) New York Times that has an inspiring view of cancer, life, and what everyone can do about it. I have pasted it in at the end of this blog entry.

I had a horrible morning yesterday. I woke up at 4 am and started crying. I could not get moving. I was not in horrendous pain but so many parts of my body were uncomfortable, I just couldn't find a resting position that didn't make something feel worse. My knees were throbbing, a side effect from Arimidex, the estrogen blocking drug I take daily. My right hand was probably doing well for being 20 days post-op, but that didn't feel too good. I had aching in my palm, forearm, and 2 fingers. My left hand was flared up and buzzing from working too hard to compensate for the disability of my right. My neck and upper back were tight and spasmy. And to top it all off with one more thing, I have developed a big (size of a very large lemon) most-likely-benign cyst in my left breast. I am off to Stanford tomorrow to have it aspirated and drained.

I knew I'd feel better if I got up and did anything: go for a walk, ride a stationary bike, lie on my slant board and just change my relationship to gravity, take a bath, do a Continuum dive, even watch a movie. But I couldn't break the spell of inertia and whinyness (is that a word?) . . . until my friend Carole called from the theater in LA about to see A Chorus Line.  

For those of you who don't know, I am a sucker for a schmaltzy Broadway musical. As a starving student in New York City in the late 70's I sneaked into the second half of almost every show on Broadway. Security was lax in those days, and I would lurk around the doors during intermission and slip in to catch the second half of any show, which always has the most cathartic and cheesy songs.

I happen to know every word to every song in A Chorus Line, one of the few shows I saw in its entirety, with the original cast, shortly after it opened in New York in 1975. I even know the words to the songs I don't like. So I pulled out the CD of the soundtrack and played it beginning at 2:00 when Carole and her friends (including Gael, for all you Continuum folks) were simultaneously watching the matinee.

It felt as if a cloud lifted, a cloud I've been lost in since last July. I sang along, rolled on a ball, and danced around the living room for almost 2 hours. I lifted and moved both arms for the first time in months. And when I was done I wept, more from relief than grief.

I was exhausted and propped myself up in bed, finally able to find a position of comfort, when Steve called from San Francisco where he is for the day with an old college buddy about to see In The Heights, another Broadway musical. It won 4 Tony Awards in 2008 and is now on tour. I went directly to the iTunes store, downloaded the soundtrack, and waited until curtain time at 8:00 so I could watch another musical simultaneously with a loved one. How often does a person get a chance to do this twice in one day?!

It turns out In The Heights is schmaltzier than A Chorus Line. I read the liner notes and all the lyrics and laid in bed listening and singing along to the soundtrack until Steve called to say how great it was after the show. I slept for 10 hours without any "sleep aids" and woke up feeling amazingly different. Something has shifted that I just can't quite name.

Now I'm off to Beth's monthly Continuum class. Could the flow of events be more perfect? Yes, Donald, it's like another Feng Shui And The Tango moment!

Here is the NY Times Op Ed piece you must read. Then find something in your own life to reflect upon, or else just put on some music that makes you sing and dance.

A Scare, a Scar, a Silver Lining 

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF 

Published: June 4, 2010

My doctor’s call came early last month just as I was completing a column noting that 41 percent of Americans come down with cancer. That statistic felt as remote as a puff of cloud in the stratosphere — until my physician, Gary Raizes, gently began to break the news to me that I had a tumor in my right kidney.

The result was a grim monthlong whirlwind of doctors’ visits, medical tests and furrowed brows. The doctors agreed that the odds were 10 percent that my tumor was benign, 90 percent that it was malignant. I had no option: surgery was essential.

My built-in optimism was shaken when I read that five-year survival rates for kidney cancer are less than 50 percent.


Ten days ago, I had a three-hour operation. I lost 10 percent of my right kidney, along with a tumor a bit more than an inch long. Afterward, I felt as if I’d been hit by a truck, and I gained a six-inch scar that won grudging admiration from my hard-to-impress teenage kids.


And, boy, did I feel lucky!


The main reason that kidney cancers are so deadly is that they are typically discovered late. My tumor was discovered early only by accident, through a CT scan ordered for another reason entirely. I confess that I had been committing thought crimes against the physician who ordered the scan, Mark Fialk, wondering if it was an example of out-of-control testing — and now I felt that Dr. Fialk might have saved my life.


But I also felt lucky in another way.


This is trite but also so, so true: A brush with mortality turns out to be the best way to appreciate how blue the sky is, how sensuous grass feels underfoot, how melodious kids’ voices are. Even teenagers’ voices. A friend and colleague, David E. Sanger, who conquered cancer a decade ago, says, “No matter how bad a day you’re having, you say to yourself: ‘I’ve had worse.’ ”


Floyd Norris, a friend in The Times’s business section, is now undergoing radiation treatment for cancer after surgery on his face and neck. He wrote on his blog: “It is not fun, but it has been inspiring. In a way, I am happier about my life than at any time I can remember.”
I don’t mean to wax lyrical about the joys of tumors. But maybe the most elusive possession is contentment with what we have. There’s no better way to attain that than a glimpse of our mortality.


My surgeon, Douglas Scherr, said that his patients frequently derive additional satisfaction from life after a cancer diagnosis, and at least for a time are more focused on what feels more important — like families.


In contrast, none of us want this for an epitaph: “He sweated many weekends at the office, ignoring his family but earning a huge bonus.”


As regular readers know, I’ve written frequently about suspected links between chemicals and health. In my own case, I can’t help wondering if there might not be a connection as well.


I grew up on a sheep and cherry farm in Oregon, and as a kid I helped mix the pesticides in the sprayer. Dogs on the farm have often died from cancer, and some have had unusual kidney cysts and deformities. Could the orchard pesticides perhaps have some impact on kidneys? Nobody knows.


After four days in the hospital, I spent a week recovering at home from the surgery. As I was finishing up this column, the pathologist’s report on my tumor finally came back. Dr. Scherr told me that my tumor turned out to be an oncocytoma, which is benign. Astonishingly, against all odds and expectations, I hadn’t had cancer after all. My wife tells me she no longer feels sorry for me, and I’m beaming.


So today I have an impressive scar, a bit less kidney, a big bellyache, and far more appreciation for the glory of life.


My hope is that when you put this column down, you’ll think about what you can do to reduce the risk of getting an ominous doctor’s call like mine last month:


Stop smoking and avoid secondhand smoke. Slather on sunscreen and avoid tanning salons. Avoid charred meats. Check yourself over for lumps, changes or irregularities, whether in breasts or testicles or skin, and consult a doctor if you have doubts. Try to microwave food in glass or ceramic containers rather than plastic. Toss out plastic food containers that are marked 3, 6 or 7 at the bottom (unless they say “BPA-free”). Buy a radon detector to check radon levels around your house.


And, believe me, it’s never too early — cancer or no cancer — to start appreciating our wondrous world, instead of disparaging its imperfections.

Feel The Buzz

My recovery from hand surgery is going well, but typing makes my fingers buzz. So please be patient and I will return with many inspired entries as soon as I can.

If laughter is good medicine then I should be cured after the visit with my brother and sister-in-law. We had a riotously hysterical time (and made a scene at Nepenthe's in Big Sur that involved half the people on the back deck laughing with us - you had to be there!)

Okay, so many of you have asked, I will tell. The inane things I watched last week that made me laugh were the old Kevin Kline and Meg Ryan movie "French Kiss" and the episode of the British sit-com "Extras" with Ricky Gervais & Kate Winslet. It's available from Netfix - but only watch the episode with Kate Winslet, the others are nowhere near as funny.

I'm off to Aptos High School Graduation. My step-son Ben graduates today!

Stay in touch; I'll begin writing again soon.

The Handless Maiden's Brother & Some Good Food

The spell of the Handless Maiden is unfolding. My cast is coming off in the morning, and so begins the road to recovery. I will be doing some mainstream hand therapy along with my own set of exercises, dives, micromovements, and a variety of other tricks. A whole team of people will do various forms of their-hands-on-my-hands. I have minimal discomfort and the numbness is already about 60% better. The surgeon told me not to expect full recovery for 3-6 months and I'm already well on my way!

My brother and sister-in-law are coming (from south Florida, where I grew up) tomorrow for a 4 day stay. I'm looking forward to long days of hanging around the kitchen table telling stories and drinking tea. We will most likely venture out to some of my favorite local spots, but I'm mostly looking forward to just being together.

I'm bursting because of the difficulty typing/writing. I'm writing in my imagination, and hoping to get some of what I think about down on paper before it fades away. Please hang in there with me, and give me a few more weeks, and I will have some juicy blog entries. My hands need more rest. Typing is slow and I can't hold a pen yet.

Here is a link to another one of those amazing, informative, and inspiring talks from the TED Conference this year, entitled "Can we eat to starve cancer?"
http://www.ted.com/talks/william_li.html

In addition to Dr Li's list of anti-angiogenesis foods, here's a list of foods that are known to be anti-cancer (for you science nerds, via inhibiting nuclear factor Kappa Beta):

almonds, anise, basil, black pepper, caraway, cardamom, cashews, chili peppers, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cumin, fennel, fenugreek, fig, flax seeds, garlic, ginger, gooseberry, holy basil, lemongrass, mango, mint, mustard seeds, nutmeg, onion, oregano, parsley, pecan, pomegranate, rosemary, prunes, saffron, sesame, tamarind, and walnuts.

Reference: Aggarwal, B. and Shishodia, S: Supression of the nuclear factor kappa beta activation pathway by spice derived phytochemicals: reasoning for seasoning. Ann NY Acad Sci, Dec 2004; 1030: 434 – 41.

Whip up something with a high "Yum factor" as Rebecca Katz, author of "The Cancer Fighting Kitchen" says. Check out her fabulous book:
http://www.amazon.com/Cancer-Fighting-Kitchen-Nourishing-Big-Flavor-Treatment/dp/1587613441/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274842609&sr=1-1

On Ice

My surgery went very well and I am resting comfortably with my hand wrapped in a bandage with a built-in circulating ice bath. Ice water offers fabulous pain relief! The anesthesia hasn't totally worn off yet, so I'm bobbing and weaving as I type with one hand and let you know I'm okay. I’ll be back blogging when I can resume hunting and pecking with a few more fingers.

Thanks so much to all of you who emailed, called, prayed, or did a little dance for me today. There are too many to reply to you all, so please accept my heartfelt gratitude to you all as a group.

Steve is making me laugh & is cooking something with those little green French lentils. Yum!

I spent a while in the waking part of my day listening to more of Clarissa Pinkola Estes' "Theater of the Imagination." She is so entertaining and inspiring. But tonight we will watch a movie that is so inane that I'm embarrassed to tell you. Silly comedy is good medicine.

I'm "on ice" until the dark night of the Handless Maiden reveals its next phase.

The Handless Maiden Explores A Path To Healing

I am writing this entry on the eve of my wrist surgery, with great difficulty navigating the keyboard. I'm sorry about the lack of entries, but it has been so hard to type with my fingers oscillating between numb and electrically buzzing. My hand is so swollen; instead of fingers I have sausages about to burst their casings. Relief is coming soon.

Many of you have contacted me with all sorts of advice on different therapies and treatments. You should all know me well enough to know that I have tried everything - every form of Osteopathic treatment, many types of massage and tissue release, applying therapeutic lotions and soaking in potions, acupuncture, homeopathy, Continuum, micromovements, sounding, electrical stim, ultrasound, herbs and supplements, Chi Gung, other energetic approaches, exorcism, meditation, infra-red, cold laser, visualization, and much more. This is not mundane carpal tunnel syndrome. This is a situation made unworkable by the tenosynovitis side effect (inflammation of the lining of the tendons in my wrist and the lining of the joints in my wrist) caused by my estrogen-blocking medication. I accept that I need the medication to block the estrogen that feeds the cancer growth, and I accept that I need external help to create some space to prevent nerve damage in my precious hands. I feel confident that this is the right thing to do and that this is the right time to do it.

I am using this "opportunity" to explore the age-old fairy tale of The Handless Maiden. My Jungian friends explain the deeper soul level meaning that helps me transcend the grief of  having lost the subtle sensing and depth of my relationship to my hands.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés presents a fascinating analysis of the tale of The Handless Maiden,

"The Handless Maiden is about a woman's initiation into the underground forest through the rite of endurance. The word endurance sounds as though it means to continue without cessation, and while this is an occasional part of the tasks underlying the tale, the word endurance also means to harden, to make robust, to strengthen, and this is the principal thrust of the tale, and the generative feature of a woman's long psychic life. We don't just go on to go on. Endurance means we are making something."

I am making another pair of hands for myself, and this will in turn lead me to a new life. I am being as creative as I can as I dissolve and reform a new body that is capable of carrying me into the next part of my life. I yearn for a rest, but it's not time yet to be done with this enduring.

My surgery is Monday at 9:30 am Pacific Time, if you are inclined to enter the field and send a thought or prayer. Steve is taking me, bringing me home, and taking Tuesday off to be with me. I have people lined up to help me out for several days. I'll have Steve post an entry on Tuesday to let you all know how I'm doing.

Here is a poem that my friend Mary passed on to me that I find profoundly comforting.

Blessing The Boats (at St Mary's)

by Lucille Clifton from Quilting Poems 1987 - 1990

may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back 

may you open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that

Cancer & The Environment

I am struggling with painful, numb, and buzzing hands, and cannot write one of my usual poetic, philosophical blog entries, but I had to make this info available to all of you. 

I am doing fine otherwise. My monthly check-up at Stanford last Wednesday was "uneventful," which is a dream come true for someone with cancer. My hand surgery is happening May 17, so writing is going to be a challenge for a bit. Please hang in there with me and keep checking my blog. It cheers me up when I log on and see how many people have read it each day (it varies from 35 - 250!)

I am providing you with 2 things: an article from Thursday's NY Times about a report published by the Cancer Panel that advises Obama on health policies. I also pasted a link to the actual report. My friends at Commonweal had a part in this project. Please consider supporting their quest to heal both individuals and the planet: http://commonweal.org/index.html 

Here's the actual report:
http://deainfo.nci.nih.gov/advisory/pcp/pcp08-09rpt/PCP_Report_08-09_508.pdf

Here is the summary article: 

New Alarm Bells About Chemicals and Cancer

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: May 5, 2010

The President’s Cancer Panel is the Mount Everest of the medical mainstream, so it is astonishing to learn that it is poised to join ranks with the organic food movement and declare: chemicals threaten our bodies.

Skip to next paragraph

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Nicholas D. Kristof

On the Ground

Nicholas Kristof addresses reader feedback and posts short takes from his travels.

The cancer panel is releasing a landmark 200-page report on Thursday, warning that our lackadaisical approach to regulation may have far-reaching consequences for our health.

I’ve read an advance copy of the report, and it’s an extraordinary document. It calls on America to rethink the way we confront cancer, including much more rigorous regulation of chemicals.

Traditionally, we reduce cancer risks through regular doctor visits, self-examinations and screenings such as mammograms. The President’s Cancer Panel suggests other eye-opening steps as well, such as giving preference to organic food, checking radon levels in the home and microwaving food in glass containers rather than plastic.

In particular, the report warns about exposures to chemicals during pregnancy, when risk of damage seems to be greatest. Noting that 300 contaminants have been detected in umbilical cord blood of newborn babies, the study warns that: “to a disturbing extent, babies are born ‘pre-polluted.’ ”

It’s striking that this report emerges not from the fringe but from the mission control of mainstream scientific and medical thinking, the President’s Cancer Panel. Established in 1971, this is a group of three distinguished experts who review America’s cancer program and report directly to the president.

One of the seats is now vacant, but the panel members who joined in this report are Dr. LaSalle Leffall Jr., an oncologist and professor of surgery at Howard University, and Dr. Margaret Kripke, an immunologist at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Both were originally appointed to the panel by former President George W. Bush.

“We wanted to let people know that we’re concerned, and that they should be concerned,” Professor Leffall told me.

The report blames weak laws, lax enforcement and fragmented authority, as well as the existing regulatory presumption that chemicals are safe unless strong evidence emerges to the contrary.

“Only a few hundred of the more than 80,000 chemicals in use in the United States have been tested for safety,” the report says. It adds: “Many known or suspected carcinogens are completely unregulated.”

Industry may howl. The food industry has already been fighting legislation in the Senate backed by Dianne Feinstein of California that would ban bisphenol-A, commonly found in plastics and better known as BPA, from food and beverage containers.

Studies of BPA have raised alarm bells for decades, and the evidence is still complex and open to debate. That’s life: In the real world, regulatory decisions usually must be made with ambiguous and conflicting data. The panel’s point is that we should be prudent in such situations, rather than recklessly approving chemicals of uncertain effect.

The President’s Cancer Panel report will give a boost to Senator Feinstein’s efforts. It may also help the prospects of the Safe Chemicals Act, backed by Senator Frank Lautenberg and several colleagues, to improve the safety of chemicals on the market.

Some 41 percent of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, and they include Democrats and Republicans alike. Protecting ourselves and our children from toxins should be an effort that both parties can get behind — if enough members of Congress are willing to put the public interest ahead of corporate interests.

One reason for concern is that some cancers are becoming more common, particularly in children. We don’t know why that is, but the proliferation of chemicals in water, foods, air and household products is widely suspected as a factor. I’m hoping the President’s Cancer Panel report will shine a stronger spotlight on environmental causes of health problems — not only cancer, but perhaps also diabetes, obesity and autism.

This is not to say that chemicals are evil, and in many cases the evidence against a particular substance is balanced by other studies that are exonerating. To help people manage the uncertainty prudently, the report has a section of recommendations for individuals:

¶Particularly when pregnant and when children are small, choose foods, toys and garden products with fewer endocrine disruptors or other toxins. (Information about products is at www.cosmeticsdatabase.com or www.healthystuff.org.)

¶For those whose jobs may expose them to chemicals, remove shoes when entering the house and wash work clothes separately from the rest of the laundry.

¶Filter drinking water.

¶Store water in glass or stainless steel containers, or in plastics that don’t contain BPA or phthalates (chemicals used to soften plastics). Microwave food in ceramic or glass containers.

¶Give preference to food grown without pesticides, chemical fertilizers and growth hormones. Avoid meats that are cooked well-done.

¶Check radon levels in your home. Radon is a natural source of radiation linked to cancer.

•

Gentle Re-entry

Returning home from Commonweal (http://commonweal.org/programs/cancer-help.html) today will be the first step of a new sacred journey. This is where the real "work" of the retreat begins. How do I infuse my life with the miraculous unfoldings that began at this retreat? I will need to live into this question and discover the multifaceted answers.

I want to let you all know that I have had the most amazing week of my life. Steve is coming to pick me up today and we will have the 3 hour drive home together to "debrief."  I feel quite vulnerable, like a newborn with very thin skin. My inquiry and the revelations of the week will manifest through this blog, but it might take a little while for me to begin "public" writing again. So please be patient, and then wait some more, as an old teacher of mine used to say.

I am getting very serious about my writing practice, and most of my writing energy has been either private or part of something that is not ready for others to read yet. I will be deepening my writing process 2 weekends from now when Deena Metzger comes to town to offer a workshop.  If you're curious about who she is and want to have an inspiring evening, come to Capitola Book Cafe to hear her do a reading on Monday, May 10th. Here's the info:
http://www.booksite.com/texis/scripts/community/eventdetail.html?sid=4892&cal=2&eventid=4bcdee683c

I am so incredibly grateful for all of you who read my blog and have contributed to my healing and well-being with your heartfelt prayers, thoughts, and wishes.  I look forward to blogging for you, seeing you, talking with you, and having some big hugs in the not too distant future.

My Course Was A Great Success, My Book Is Being Published In Italian, I'm Off To Commonweal, & I'm Diving & Rolling With The Tumbling Waves: Life Couldn't Be More Rich!

I have been resting intensively since my return home last Sunday from my amazing course in San Mateo. I don't know how I managed to muster the energy to teach for 4 days, but I did it with gusto.  It was such an inspiring course for me, and affirmed my commitment to teaching. And now I am taking a few days to recover.

I had an inquisitive group of 18 Osteopaths who followed me into the depths of the material and then courageously explored their own territory. It is profoundly satisfying to offer the course that I wish I had had an opportunity to take when I was a student.

Three of the course participants were Italian Osteopaths who are involved in translating American Osteopathic texts into Italian. (The other 15 were from all across the US.) They will be translating my book into Italian and publishing it in Italy. They have already done translations of books by William Sutherland, Rollin Becker, and Viola Frymann! I am so deeply honored to be in such distinguished company. I was so moved to meet them and I enjoyed their presence and contribution to the group tremendously. It is incredible to meet people from far away, who speak another language, but who completely communicate and understand the language of Osteopathy.

I am off to Commonweal this Sunday. My friend Mary is driving me up to Bolinas (about a 3 hour drive) and Steve will join me for the grand finale lunch where the 8 participants in the retreat invite loved ones, and then we will drive home together.  I am ready to explore my life, health, and consciousness from some new and unexpected perspective. If you are curious about the program, you can check it out at: http://commonweal.org/programs/cancer-help.html

Two of the fingers on my right hand have felt like buzzing sausages for more than 6 weeks, and intermittently all 10 fingers and my palms get numb, tingly, and painful. My oncologist confirmed this week that it is probably a side effect of my anti-estrogen drug Arimidex. Some of the most common side-effects include bone and joint pain and swelling. My pre-existing tendency to have wrist problems has made it re-surface during this vulnerable time. Years ago I chose to give up gardening and other hobbies that stressed my hands, so that I could save them for practicing Osteopathy. But now, the side effects of the medication have caused me to decompensate. I will take it easy, wear my hand brace, and wait patiently until May 17th when I will humbly have surgery to open up the space for my median nerve to function properly.

Life is quite rich. I am learning to dive and roll with the tumbling waves.

ti abbraccio, arrivederci,
Bonnie

Connecting More Deeply To Breath

I believe that our relationship to our own breath is so important that a good portion of my book is devoted to the subject. I am always looking for new ways to experience all the nuances of my breath. Fully engaging the breath leads to one very important thing that is both a blessing and a challenge; it augments sensation in the body. That's why we hold our breath when terrified or traumatized. It's a great survival mechanism during an emergency, but I don't want to live my life as if it were an emergency.

When we attend to our breath, we tend to quiet those pesky voices in our head that comment on everything and make us suffer unnecessarily. In a previous entry, "Waiting For Godot And A CAT Scan" on February 9, 2010, I told you that I call the voices in my head, "The Editorial Board." Thinking about the past or the dreaded future usually causes more suffering than feeling what's actually happening in the moment. Breathing is the best way to shift from thinking to feeling. When you take a deep breath when feeling something painful, it may increase awareness of the sensation in the moment, or it may help you relax and cope and make it not seems so bad. The most important thing breathing does is quiet the voices in your head that make you suffer far more than the sensation. When we can't breathe through a medical procedure, it's a good time to choose anesthesia. When you can't breathe through a situation in your life, it's a reasonable coping mechanism to temporarily blunt your reaction to it, but it's not a way to live all of life.

How do I commit to a life of authenticity, of being precise in thinking, feeling, and action, when there's a part of my life that I don't want to feel? If we prefer to live fully, then we must accept the consequences of the whole experience. Sometimes we feel things that are awe-inspiring, and sometimes we have to endure feeling things that we would prefer to avoid. We don't always get a choice.

It's easy when things are going well, but how do I stick to my commitment to live life to its fullest when I am faced with a life-threatening disease, when my future is imperiled, when my material security is at risk of dissolving, and when everyone and everything around me is stressed to the max in order to cope with the unreasonable demands of cancer?

In an attempt to connect more deeply to the healing potential of my breath, I have embarked on learning to play the didgeridoo. It is not only amazing and fun to play, but afterwords, it is incredible to feel the reverberations in my body.

My friend John in The Netherlands plays and sent me this video of a great woman player named Lies Beijerinck:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thQep6kxIOw

If you're interested in more information about the didgeridoo, including the study that was done showing it helped cure sleep apnea, go to:
http://www.laoutback.com/didgeridoo/shop/store2.htm

And in the meantime, if you're not into learning the didgeridoo, perhaps you could sing in the shower, hum more often, or come to a Continuum class to cultivate your relationship with your breath. Go to http://www.continuummovement.com/cm-classes-wkshps.htm to find a class in your area. 2 mainstream scientific studies have shown humming to be as beneficial as antibiotics in the treatment of sinus infections.

Just devoting a moment to noticing your breath will begin to change it. You don't need to do anything fancy - just attend to your own inhalation and exhalation and something will begin to shift and balance.

Floating In The Field Of Fabulously Functional

I've gotten so much great feedback on the term I synthesized in my last blog entry (April1), "Fabulously Functional." This is what I yearn to be. Yearning is the voice of the life force moving through us. At least it is for me. I hope it is for you too, because it is the most reverent sensation in the body. If you don't feel yearning, then yearn to feel yearning, and maybe it will come.

I want to float and undulate, to suspend and gain momentum, to move through the nooks and crannies of what physically contains my life, to slow down and be Still. I desire rest, unlimited open attention, and to feel the longing to be fabulously functional in every cell, tissue, space, fluid, and field of my body. "Continuum people" know what I mean, and for those of you who don't, you might want to go to a Continuum retreat or read my book.

This is how I navigate what presents itself to me right now. Many great teachers have used a version of this story. My analogy is not original. I'm in a boat on the ocean, and the boat is leaking. I identity with the water, not the boat. I have much more in common with the water than with a broken-down boat. The forces within the fluids will carry me through this. And I will be with myself, yearning, as we move.