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.