Glad to see 2009 go

Here I am - on New Year's Eve - for once - alone - and I welcome it. I am surrounded by candle and xmas lights, music that fills my heart full of hope, and my eyes shine with my own happiness. I have banana bread baking in the oven, took a nap with my beloved Soma, and have movies queued up for the evening.

As twilight falls and the witching hours draws closer I will take on of my shower/baths and wash away 2009. I will have a new skin to grow into for 2010. As a wash away 2009 there are things that will stay with me, the new friends I have, the strength, courage and wisdom I have found and most especially the love that I share with others.

I feel happy tonight. I feel strong. I feel hopeful for the future. I am positive. Tonight I am not going mourn what has been lost - as most of you know I have done enough of that already. Tonight I choose to being in light of Love, hope and courage.

So, I give myself and everyone else a Very Happy New Year with all the Love and Hope that come from the future.

The unpredictability of medical tests

Okay - so the endoscopy found what it was looking for - but it seems it has found other things as well. Duodenitis. I have already looked it up - not that it helped much. So it is another thing to talk to the gastroenterologist about. But that isn't my point right now. My point is finding something else wrong with me. I am sorry not be uplifting tonight. While this doesn't feel like a big blow - it is very disappointing to keep finding things wrong. I feel like with every test or xray or doctor visit something else will be found wrong. The disappointment is that it feels like my body is failing me in little ways. And right now that is a little hard for me to take. I think "so what is next - what next will they find that is wrong"

So my brain is thinking this - but in the same though - or right after it - I say to myself "look at the positive" - even just that makes me feel better - I choose to look at the positive. That I can walk - that I exercise - that I have have a curious mind and read and look to learn new things - that I keep busy and stay connected to friends and family. The positive is about doing things that make me happy - even small things like watching xmas lights and listening to music. Part of this process is being in the moment - but it is also choosing - choosing the positive - to think PINK and Lady Stardust - and Earth Grandmother - and this positive is like a fight response for me (for you must understand that most of my life I have lived with the glass half empty - where as now I choose to look at life's glass as half full).

So there you have it - from "heavens - what next" to "I choose the positive"

Thanks to the nurses and sisters

I had the endoscopy today and thank heaven for the nurses. All that I met today were nice and reassuring. They were most helpful through the entire process. Now all I have is a sore throat and a little tired. They even helped me through my hysterical fear of having IVs put in.

Thanks to Cathy for being there. It was so much easier and reassuring having someone accompany me all through this.

So, off to finish watching a movie and then to sleep.

Family

One of the lasting memories for me of this visit home will be most of my brothers and sister gathered around me, holding my hands, giving me hugs, whispering encouragement in my ears - while I cried a little about all that is going on. If I was in any doubt of their support, this scene put that doubt to rest and it gives me reassurance that things will work out okay. Even my father, who can be very logical about most things, even held me and said he understood my fears. These small things are so special to me - and I hold them very dear to me.

And now to have my Soma wanting to curl up on me and purr in ear, to use me as her knitting cushion almost makes my heart burst.

After Christmas stupor

Thank heavens for the rain today. It allows for a quiet day to recover from all of yesterdays family and feasting. I got up this morning and just stared out the window for a little while, watching the rain making ringlets in puddles. I am looking forward to a day of reading, movies and a little more family. I will say it does feel good to be somewhere where I know I am loved and I love just as much back. Where I can cry and loved ones don't try to fix it, where they just hold and let me get it out. Where I can talk about this and not quite so scared. I am so very grateful for this.

I am still shock by my reaction when other people, strangers, talk to me about this. I know there are many who I don't know who are praying for me - but somehow when I meet one of them it all of a sudden feels intrusive and shocking to me. It feels like I have no control who knows - giving up a little of the control again. But in talking about it - I want to talk about things when I ready to or share it when I ready and these situations push me out of my comfort zone. This experience in many ways is pushing out of comfort zones of all kinds and in all kinds of directions.

Happy Solstice!

A request has come in for something uplifting - and tonight that I can do - happily!

First lets start with celebrating the Winter Solstice - bring light back to the earth on the longest night of the year. And for me in NYC it is a cold and snowy one. I celebrate quietly with wassail, classic christams carols - even me singing some of my favorites like "In the bleak midwinter" or "Lo, a rose ere blooming" or "The Coventry Carol", lots of candles blazing, and christmas lights twinkling. And most important I have a full, loving and joyous heart that delights in both the light and the dark. I feel great hopefullness and love - and I cat nudging me for attention.

So this short day and long night was good in another way. It feels like things are moving after 3 weeks that seemed like a lot of waiting. Moving things a little forward by scheduling a test feels uplifting to me - movement versus inertia. I am glad I got the endoscopy scheduled for next week - while I am on break from work. And so tomorrow I have to follow up to make sure things are in place - pre op tests faxes, appointments changed, and made - this leaves me feeling very positive, calm (for now) and very hopeful. This is the second sign of hopefullness for me and that is good.

So now - Soma and I will sign off and sit and enjoy the carols, the xmas lights and the dark and be happy

trying to stay strong

Well, I have to suck in up. I have to get up early in the morning (me a night owl) to excerise. If I don't do it then, lately it doesn't get done. I can't afford to not excerise because I helps my anxiety by moving that nervous energy and ending out those feel good endorphins. It also helps keep my blood pressure in a normal place. I have found that excersising right before a big doctor's appointment - my blood pressure stays good and that will be key for a good surgery - so my GP tells me. So I have to suck in up and do in the morning. Doing it in the morning means it gets done no matter what happens during the day, and if I have a doctors appointment - I know I have done something to move that anxious energy.

On another side - work
well I and one of the directors are working to figure out what I can do while I am recoverying to work. And all of a sudden I felt out of loop - or will be out of the loop - and that feels like another fragile thing. Especially since work for me is so site specific. It is another one of those layers of letting go - hoping for the best but also feeling like things are shifting beneath my feet and I don't have time to find my balance sometimes.

Well on a lighter note - I hope we get snow this weekend!!! The are talking a possible blizzard on Long Island - and I love on Long Island - get that camera ready.....

Dis - ease

I think it was the feminine theologian, Mary Daly, who introduced me to the practice of splitting up words to get back to their orginal meaning or even redefining the word in a new way.

Well here is one I have been thinking of dis-ease. So of course I got to my Websters dictionary. Dis-ease: 1.any departure from health; illness in general 2.a particular destructive process in an organ or organism 3.any harmful or destructive condiction, as of society.

Well I might, for Mary Daly's perspecitive also add dis-ease - as being something troubled, not at ease with. In my case it is dis-ease with my body - yes all the disease with the traditional definition going on - but also stress is starting to show up in little ways that leave me feeling very much broken down and rather fragile. I keep telling myself my little mantra "I love me, others love me, love my body, think pink" which helps me try to focus on the positive, but that can be hard when I feel so fragile and vulnerable. I guess part of my definition of dis-ease is that feeling fragile and vulnerable and not at ease with what is happening with my body.

my little vision of hope

Well, I have had a stretch of good days. It started with Friday and lasted until this morning - for now I call that a good run.

This stuff just trips me up sometimes - I have been getting a little down because it feels like my body isn't working right - the kidney stones - a tumor - a soar neck and other little things probably cause by this added stress. So I crying on the subway this morning - reminding myself to Love me - think pink - love me - think pink.

And then as I was coming out of the subway an image flashed in my mind - me laying in a hospital bed - after sugery - and someone was holding my hand as I just am waking up - I thought immediately of Whit - thought the image was more feeling that sensation of someone's hand in mine - squeezing it - but I am not fully awake - and me making a half hearted drowsy - but very grateful smile. Now this little flash is a great comfort because it says to me I will come through the surgery okay and there will be people to be there to hold my hand on the other side. This for me is my first real sign of hope that things will work out - and I am going to hold on to this image - dearly.

The wheels of medicine move slowly. I got to see my GP tomorrow to bring her up to date and I see the gastroenterologist Monday to talk about doing an endoscopy - I am gathering my scans now.

Scottish Pubs

If ordinary nights out can be magical - this night was it. It started with the prefect subway trip. Those who are NYers know what I mean - getting to the platform just as your train is pulling in and then when trasferring across the platform to another trains - there again the train is just pulling in.

All of this got me to the Scottish Pub on time! But the magic doesn't stop there. The ale with heather and honey golden liquid to float along for the evening. Scottish food - lamp sausage roll, neeps and tatties, and yes even Haggis that was delicious! Bagpipes playing christmas carols - sending shivers down my spine. And most important, interesting people to talk to - just sharing this warms my heart and makes me feel like the first candle on the first night of Chanukah.

This is simple magic....

Exposure/Shame/Vulnerability

I have to confess - I struggled sharing this post with all of you - I talk about being in a place most find uncomfortable - including myself - but I thought not sharing it was some kind of act of cowardice. It put it out there - and bring it to the light - brings it out of hiding where one can know if for what it really is - if nothing else then honesty.


Heavens - this is complicated.

So start at the beginning - which for this is trying to figure out how I am going to sustain myself over two months while I am out of work recovering from abdominal surgery and have no income coming in - well very little from short term disability.

It is exposes one of my vulnerabilities or to me a personal shame - my finances. My shame comes from not living up to what my parents taught me - that I have never been really good with money. Oh - I pay my bills and such - but I don't save or plan for the future. I am feeling this vulneraility very acutely because I have to ask for help to get me through my recovery and I am afraid to ask to expose my vulnerability. Maybe my pride is getting in the way of asking - because I have a feeling I don't know how to ask for help. Maybe it is a fear of completely falling apart and losing control.

Dealing with this tumor has exposed me in many different ways. From my finances, to my health - two important things that make life work - but it has also exposed my vulnerability about of independence and struggling asking for the help I need. I don't like thinking of myself as needy. But right now my neediness is being exposed and that too is uncomfortable.

I think being single and having no one to fall back too makes all this vulnerability seem to feel more acute. Maybe it would be different not being alone and maybe it wouldn't - but for me right now this is one of the hard things to bare. Living alone it feels like I have no protection when I am in a very vulnerable spot, and that is only because I can't fit you all in my little apartment.

I also want to be clear that I am trying not to lessen the help that has come from dear friends, already, and that I trust will continue. I know I have complained about doing this alone when I know I can't do it without you and complain about not having someone to fall back on in the middle of the night - many of you have offered to be that shoulder I can cry on and I have cried on them - and there are those who I cry to over the phone at 7:30AM in the morning or at midnight - and I deeply appreciate you being there - please don't let my complaint misconstrue my deep love and appreciation I have for each of you in your efforts to help me. All of you are special blessing to me and I know that our relationships have deepened because your help and caring.

It is hard sometimes to be positive and hopeful when so much of me is being exposed and feels vulnerable and unprotected, and the tenuous nature of life is much more apparent to me.

This is why the little things like being in my home, with my cat Soma, my music, yule lights, books, movies - being in my sanctuary is so important to me - and helps me get through this. And to find those moments of awe in a day that keep me connect to the spirit and quiet grounding. And you are not the little things - but warm caring people who help as well - help keep me grounded and going.

In the Bleak Midwinter

Over all a good day -but.....
I have also been all over the place
It is dealing with all the little details - seemingly by myself
Now I have you guys all helping me along in special and important ways - but i have to do all the grunt work and there is something in me that rebels against that. I know this is the part of me that really tired to taking care of everything on my own and deeply wishing I had some with me when I do need to cry to have a shoulder to cry on and a hand to hold - not just at doctors offices, but at night I want to completely fall apart.

Today was a day of exposing another vulnerability - my finances - and trying to figure out how to keep life going and bills paid while I am not getting a pay check when I am recovering from surgery.

I guess I find it hard to reach out when the lonliness and scaries get to me - I is hard for the independent me to admit I have reach out - I don't like feeling needy and yet I am - and yet I complain about my independence - oh to find the balance between the two. And I get more easily upset struggling between the two.

Then comes In the Bleak Midwinter on my ipod - one of my favorite yule carols - along with Low, How a Rose ere Blooming
It seems these carols in particular send me somewhere else - a quiet place maybe a small snow dusted glen of pine trees with the cold wind softly brushing past me. And tonight I have been watching the Nutcracker - I love Tchichovsky's music - which always cheers me up and I get what I call my positive fight back.

Gratitude

I had another rough day at work yesterday feeling overwhelmed by everything and following up on doctor stuff. At the end of the day I finally rallied. I think talking to my boss about some of the planning steps I am taking and helping him to think how to get through this from a work/coverage prespective really help.

Last night I emailed some questions to the surgeon that I didn't get a chance to ask last Wednesday. As much as I didn't want to send that email I am glad I did. Now to get the answers - that scares me to - but needing to know and becoming more knowledgeable about the process and its variables will out weigh any fear and ultimately be a help to me in calming bigger fears.

So after this rough work day I went home and did my homework for a small group I am in - it is about gratitude. One of the exercises asked to list 25 things I am grateful for so here goes.

Soma - my cat
Music
Quiet
Sister
Mom and Dad
Brothers
Friends - especially those who are helping me out in every way
xmas lights
a place to live
food
Community
winter
Lady Stardust
Grandmother Earth
Love
the tumor
clothes
blogs
email
the ability to find awe in the simplest things
flowers
trees
starry nights
The Moon
Seeing Scotland, New Mexico, Maine, Yellowstone
Phones
Photographs
Books
evening twilight
an understanding boss
celebrating my small triumphs
to have 5 senses - maybe 6

Love

When I fill my self with love - self love and can connect with the earth and elements then I feel like I can conquer anything in a great spiritual way. Thanks to music and rain and christmas lights that all help my soul sing.

facing fear

I find myself not wanting to go to sleep tonight afraid of what bad thing might happens next. I don't know if this is usual in my situation, but it challenges me to face my fear and to find ways of conquering it. When facing this fear - it is the loss of control in life - which for most of us really is an illusion. We like to think we are in control - but we really aren't - it is just the thinnest of delusions.

Now, I am not here to tear down those things that get us through everyday life - what ever they are - rather for me I find I have to face it and find away around it or through so that I am not afraid - the words of the 23 Psalm come to me "Lo, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me" and this phrase comforts me because I do feel like I am walking through this valley. I can't go around it, find an alternate route or take a detour, I have to walk through it. But I also find that facing my fear is a challenge to me - that I do have another of acting and thinking about life where fear doesn't control me. Now most of you know that I am not christian, so I don't turn to traditional religious expression - at least I don't think of christian teaching as having taught me, even with my Masters of Divinty, to live in the moment - to live in the here and now - in the present - if I am correct I have gotten that teaching from Buddhism.

Now I am not saying I don't believe in the power of prayer and that I don't draw some hope and solice from different religious traditions - among them the teachings of Jesus and some of the great words of the Old Testament - but for me to face my fears - I am finding that refocusing my energy and my thoughts on the present - since that is all we really have right now - this very moment - helps dispell my fears and allows me to keeping going day to day. If I call on Buddhist teaching and images of the Goddess, the 23rd Psalm, and opening my soul to Winter - to fill me with hope - then I choose to use those tools to dispel the fear and to keep me positive from one moment to the next.

My fears are those things that might happen and can't control - But in this moment I can dispel that fear by not focusing or dwelling on the might happen - on a future of what ifs - I can choose to focus on this moment and let meself dwell in the moment - sink into it with revelery - and see its quiet power and not be afraid.....

being grumpy - even angry - well at least annoyed

Okay - maybe this is one of those times when I bitch and complain, so please just bare with me...

Well, finally a doctor said it - cancerous - everyone else has been dancing around the word - using everything like malignant, benign, tumor - but not saying the word cancer or it's adjective cancerous.

Well, I decided to look cancer up in my Webster's dictionary. Yes that big fat book full of words and their meanings I keep on my book shelf next to that other wonderful book - Thesaurus - and various poetry books I use for ryhyming.

So - here is their definition: (a)a malignant tumor (which mine most likely is - thought we won't know until the biopsy is done)of potentially unlimited growth that expans locally by invasion and systemically by metastasis (b) an abnormal state marked by such tumors (c) and enlarged tumorlike growth (d) a disease marked by such growths

Okay - so like death - we got that out on the table. I don't know - I am just a lay person and no doctor - but with all the other words being used all this sounds like cancer to me - so like death - lets say, use the word - take the fear away from it. Lets stop all this pussy footing around and stop avoiding using the word. I understand that as doctors and as such scientist - they don't want to label anything until they have proof of what it is - I grant their point of view - it just takes longer for them to say it - if they ever do.

Well, the surgeon finally did - and yes it is a big shock to finally hear it - a big shock. While you might think that a doctor saying what I have been thinking and feeling for weeks might be a relief, in the case of cancer I now know the shock even harder - he has confirmed my worst fear along with trying to give me the best hope. Even though I advocated taking the fear of the word away by using it honestly and openly without fear, the word cancer is still a scary word.

Which leads me to may next complaint - or maybe it is just an annoyed reaction to loved ones - none of you included - who think things are fine and don't in the slighest way comprehend the shock the idea of having cancer become all of a sudden very personal and very real in my life.

Now granted - cancer is no longer an automatic death sentence and I take solice that I know I will come through my situation healthy and stronger then ever. But right now - this evening - I can't help but feel now set apart because of what I am dealing with. Only other cancer survivors really know what it is like to go through this. And thankfully I have friends who have survived cancer and whom I can call on for a reality check. And I know that there are other resources and networks out there that I can tap into if I need to. But what I can't abide right now is others thinking that things are okay with me - they aren't - and they aren't likely to be for sometime. I may look to you like everything is normal and that I am trying to keep my life that way as much as possible - but don't let that facade fool you. I am in a fight right now - going to doctors, making appointments, having tests - are now a normal part of my life - sometimes this even take precedence over my work and everything else in my life.

It feels like a set back

Or at least that I am stuck kind of standing still. I thought that the kidney stone issue was resolving itself - but it seems not. There are still stone in the lower urinary tract. The next step for the GIST is to have an endoscopy with a biopsy, which I will work on scheduling in the next couple of days.

I guess it really feels like both being stuck and overwhelm with all I have to follow up on. I know all these tests and doctors appointments are important but all of this is wearing my emotions very thin.

I think I am also disappointed because I thought I would come out of todays meeting more able to create a plan and I can't - I still have to wait.

I know this is unrealistic, but I wish sometimes that someone could take this out of my hands and just walk me through it - tell me where to be and go and I just show up and have it done.

How I chose to walk this journey

Even in this very scary journey I am not scared or anxious all the time. I do have series of day when I am not scared or worried. I do have my moments and occastional days when things are really overwhelming like today and tomorrow and along with long walks and meditation I have drugs that help cut the anxiety. I am comfortable with the way I am handling this and I have, despite the scaries, a certain calm center in me where I feel assured all of this will work in its strange mysterious way - and sometimes I have to give up control to that mystery. I go back and forth, but more and more I am living in the moment and allowing that mystery to be. Allowing myself to live in the moment allows me to have lots of graditude for all the quiet and beautiful things around me and the wonderful family and friends I have who support me. I am always looking for those awe filled moments in each day - those time when I can mysteriously connect to the Universe, to the elements and four directions - to my helper and Goddess. I am also very much aware of trying to keep my 'normal' life going as much as possible - doing my scottish stuff and connecting with my UU community - and keeping the work going - all these things are kind of distractions that keep my mind engage elsewhere and keeps life going with all this craziness and uncertainty around me right now. I am using all kinds of tools to keep me grounded and centered and positive. I have found through my experiences that though I have times when I freak out and go into shock and cry a lot - that if I let my process happen - that if I go through it - I usually come out the otherside okay in a few days and I just trust that process. I am not letting this tumor take over my life. It has certainly changed it but I am not giving in to it and all the fears that can go with it. Lets work this a step at a time and I will take care of myself as I need to and I, along with help from my friends and family, will get through this. I write all of this not only to reassure you about how I am doing, but also, by writing it down crystalizes my ideas and thinking about how to handle this.

Scaries setting

Yes - I confess, the scaries are setting in before tomorrow's meeting with the surgeon. So, I am working from home day.

I just took a nice long walk to try and work out some of that anxious energy. It is a gray chilly day - one that love - especially for long walks - and one of the comforts for as I can open my soul to winter and feel the comfort of the quiet, bare landscape, even among the apartment buildings of Queens, and the cold wind fill me with clear bright calming energy. On these long walks those scaries go away and I feel like I am part of the universe. I wish I could spend all day out in the cold and even more spend it someplace more in nature like by the seaside or in the woods or a meadow - until I have to go to this doctors appointment.

Today will be a day of doing little tasks - what do I need to do now - living for today moment to moment.