This is the longest I've gone between blog posts. What a year! We all have stories from the past year about how we were distracted from our usual priorities. Our lives have all been touched by something: Covid, cancer, Zoom calls, or some other ordeal. I hope to get back to writing more regularly in the coming months and I hope sharing my experience enriches all of our lives. We are in this life together!
I had my follow-up PET scan yesterday, and it looks like I definitely have a trend of new cancer growth in my bones.
For those of you who don't know about PET scans, here is a brief explanation of the value of the information they provide:
PET scans create an eerie picture, a strange mix of light and dark patches that construct an impressionistic image of the body and show which clusters of cells are behaving like cancer. The increased metabolic activity of cancer cells glow brightly in contrast to the dark, relatively less active healthy tissues. A CAT scan is included as part of the PET scan and can be likened to a 3-dimensional x-ray. It shows detail in bones really well. Together, these 2 scans show me where there are new concerns.
I have cancer growing in some lymph nodes and multiple bones: ribs, sternum, sacrum, hip, and several vertebrae (C4, C6, L2). The scan shows a mix of previous spots lighting up more brightly and a few new spots. Mysteriously, there are some old areas that look better than before, and I'm thrilled to know no organs are involved. No one knows what these conflicting results mean, but the fact that I have new areas, some described by the radiologist as "worsening areas of severe bony destruction" tell me that it's time to change my course.
I am not ready to let cancer take over in my bones, so I am going to switch to some new mainstream treatments and see if it can slow things down. Since I have so many friends who want the medical details, here they are: I will change my estrogen blocker to an injectable form called fulvestrant (brand name Faslodex) and I will begin taking an oral treatment called palbociclib (Ibrance is the brand name). This treatment inhibits the formation of a protein (CDK4/6) and slows the growth of the type of breast cancer that I have. It's considered a "targeted therapy" and has far fewer side effects and collateral damage than conventional chemotherapy. I will have to monitor my white blood count, but I won't know about the side effects and the change in the quality of my life until I start taking it and see how it affects me.
I'm also considering a mini round of radiation (less than 5 days), just for pain relief. It won't change the course of the disease, but it's quite effective for bone pain. I will do anything to avoid taking pain meds. I detest the way opiates make me feel and I can't take anti-inflammatories because of my polycystic kidneys. It would be a sad joke to survive cancer and end up in renal failure needing dialysis because of a handful of ibuprofens.
I will continue all my other "alternative and complementary" treatments and practices. I have seriously increased my devotion to both Continuum and meditation practices.
I've known literally, in my bones, that this has been happening for almost a year. I've explored so many ways of being in relationship to this process, hoping it would shift...and it hasn't. Although I certainly don't like what's happening, I accept it. This is just what human bodies do sometimes. It's not personal, even though it's happening to me. I will continue to take good care of myself, as Darlene Cohen used to say, "because I yearn to be cared for" and not because I think I can control the outcome.
The illusion of control over certain health outcomes can become a toxic motivator. The alternative world is just as guilty as the mainstream world in offering simple pseudo-solutions. Do the purveyors of this so-called healing advice ever wonder what happens to people in the time of their decline and on their deathbeds when they might have gotten the wrong idea that they failed?
Too many people die thinking or feeling that they didn't try hard enough, take the right supplements, eat enough vegetables, do the right ceremony, go to the right kind of acupuncturist, expose themselves to some magical electromagnetic frequencies, avoid the wrong electromagnetic frequencies, or see the right shaman or therapist. I am done being tempted by that thinking. I've always thought that what you do is not as important as the consciousness with which you do it, but I don't think I completely believed it until now.
There is a view of life where choices seem to matter and cause and effect seem to be evident. I know I feel better if I eat a certain way, move my body, sleep enough, avoid too much alcohol and ice cream. If I break a bone, I want it "fixed" in a cast so that it can heal as well as it can. This gives us the wrong impression when it comes to the length and breadth of the span of the living human body. We cannot control the big picture. All living things die, and when it's time for that to unfold, I imagine (and hear from others who have spoken to me from their deathbeds) that it's a bit like being on a runaway train - you just have to surrender. Living in a body moving towards death has its own momentum. We can tinker with the surface variables, but we can't control the underlying process of unfolding.
For you folks with a Continuum vocabulary, the cause and effect that seems evident in the Cultural/Personal Anatomy is less so in the Primordial/Biological Anatomy, and dissolves completely in the Cosmic Anatomy, where life and death are not separate. We develop a perceptual habit of seeing life and death as separate, but they are just different states that can be appreciated along a spectrum, or "continuum" of our existence.
For those of you who might be a bit uncomfortable or squeamish right now, let me quote Monty Python, "I am not dead yet!" I am not announcing my imminent death, but you Python fans might be thinking, "But no one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition!" You are right. Since I can't predict when I'll die, I might as well begin preparation so that I can move as gracefully as possible through this phase of my life. The process that's moving through my body is moving at the speed of a glacier. I am, however, becoming acutely aware of the process in a new light.
A teacher of mine once asked, "When you're on a leaky boat way out in the ocean, are you going to identify with the boat or the ocean?" I feel like I'm patching up the leak in my boat because I love my boat and I love the people in my life. I also know it won't last, and that's ok. My spiritual practice is dedicated to my love of the ocean, not the boat.
The only thing that I know is of value is my own presence and awareness as my life unfolds. That can be refined and I can continue to live in deep inquiry regardless of what cancer is doing in my body. That is where I choose to put my attention. We don't always get to have what we prefer, but we can choose how we meet what's happening.
In case you missed it, in 2017, I wrote an article, "The Continuum of Uncertainty." It is based on conversations I had with Emilie Conrad, the founder of Continuum, at the end of her life. I reread it this morning and was surprised by how it reflects what I am experiencing now, only now I get it in a whole new way. To read what I wrote, check it out in the newly launched Continuum Media Library:
Thank you for being in my life and making this leaky boat ride so fabulous,
Bonnie
