Outliving Cancer: Year 19

This week I have a special gratefulness: I’ve outlived my cancer diagnosis for 19 years! Being able to say that, I feel a sense of triumph and jubilation inside of me. I have beaten the enemy! Conquered the odds! Annihilated evil cells with their claw-like appendages that tried to infiltrate the very tissues of my heart and lungs! I’m alive, healthy, and well, so take that, you evil blight!

Okay, so now that I’ve admitted feeling like I’m some sort of winner in a dreadful war which really has no ‘sides’, against a tricky disease for which there is no proven cure, the truth: what helped me live with, and I believe, outlive, my cancer diagnosis was, well….LOVE. Yes, love. Not images of “winning the war against cancer” as mass media hype would have us rally ‘round, not the power we think hatred and resentment has over a condition we did not ask for, nor activating anger-energy to “survive”; no, truthfully, it really was Love.

The irascible Dr. Phil of TV show fame says there are “ten defining moments” in our living history that enter our consciousness with such power that they transform and lead us to become the core of who we are. Positive or negative, they help us to uncover our authentic selves. Although I personally find his bravado persona and Hollywood tactics highly annoying, I must admit there is merit to this concept. Indeed, one of my own ‘defining moments’ arose during the tentative time of undergoing cancer treatments, and led to a personal antidote for dealing with the unfairness, the angst, and the unpredictability of living life - with or without the frightening disease we call Cancer.

Since my surgery for Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma was considered “unsuccessful” (i.e, there was too much tumor in fragile places to “get it all out”), chemotherapy and radiation were next in line (ugh!). I decided to employ Guided Imagery, and being the curious fact-finding maven that I am, read the literature-both lay and scientific. It appeared the most successful images were fighting soldiers or sharks killing off the evil cancer enemy, but I cringed every time I tried to do it.

I attempted to switch to a friendlier, Pac-Man bubblehead figure gaily chomping away at the tumor next to my heart, but it still felt too predatory for me. Either way, someone got annihilated.

At the time I didn’t think to dredge up the great east Indian or Hindu deities with their legendary wrath and power against evil (they have many): Shiva The Destroyer; Durga, Slayer of Demons; or Kali, the omnipotent, dark-side representation of Shakti, the Supreme Destroyer of Evil! But even with my connection to yoga philosophy and practice, I don’t think Kali’s garland of skulls or Shakti’s ten mighty arms full of lethal weapons would’ve worked for me.

So, what was the “defining moment” that spun me around? It was the question:

“How can I hate a part of myself?”  

Like it or not, the cancer cells that were rapidly proliferating inside my mediastinum and poaching the territory of my pericardium, invading my lymph, and diminishing my ability to breathe, were a part of my body, originating from my own cells, and I couldn’t bring myself to hate or kill my self. The defining moment was the recognition that I loved my self. Just as I was, and that meant cancer and all.  I was more akin to the Japanese Goddess of Mercy and Compassion, Kannon, not a wrathful avenger who could kill something perceived as ‘the enemy’!

So what did I do?

I began to wonder, since this cancer is a part of me, what if I could view it without fear? 

What if I asked it what it wants, and what the heck it’s doing here in my body? What does it need?? Since at the time I was too fatigued to do much other than lay around and do yoga in my mind anyways, I meditated on this for a while. I decided to let my own spontaneous imagery arise and do what needed to be done.

“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.” ― Mary Oliver

I met with the “horrible lump”, and looked it straight in the eye (so to speak). And, I saw this “evil thing” called cancer as simply looking for a way to survive, with a desire to be nourished, radically accepted, to have freedom to be itself.  It could not help the way it was manifested, it was not a monster. In fact, the mutation was completely out of it’s influence, perhaps starting out as a healthy cell that was impacted by a gram here or there of inhaled toxic air pollution, or traces of agricultural poison in the food grown by conglomerations that I unwittingly consumed over the years…I saw a poor creature, feared and hated, who didn’t like being a drab blobby parasite…an entity that wished it was as beautiful as vibrant glitter colors; all it wanted to do was to grow. And so, I told it I could let go of the image and emotions that I was holding, that it was okay to become what it dreamed of, to become free, and exist in a world where even something we call malignancy could be loved.

“Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

With your one wild and precious life?” 

― Mary Oliver

The next thing that happened in this imagery scenario, was that I saw my tumor turn into colored glitter, and each tiny fragment began to liberate itself away from my body, free and floating up towards the glittery stars in the night sky, far off into another, more loving dimension. I cried, it was so beautiful to witness that freedom and movement towards Love.

From this imagery, I became certain that I would be fine and that my cancer was gone. I proceeded through chemo and radiation because the hard evidence showed it would improve my chances for avoiding recurrence, and because it was impossible to safely biopsy, but inside I didn’t believe I needed it. Somehow, I knew I would not die from that cancer (but I sure didn’t want to get it again!) And, because I knew just as I was not specifically responsible for getting cancer, I was not so powerful that I could claim to cure myself with a little imagery. There are many mysterious, synergistic energies in play.

I encourage you to garner up your own interactive guided imagery for healing (for cancer or not), and to consider working with non-violent imagery, and let me know what unfolds. And, stop for a moment today, to feel and appreciate your body; and fall in love with, as Mary Oliver (one of my favorite poets) says, “the only life you can save.”

I saved my original drawing of the imagery :>)