There Are Words in Me Still

Creative Souls Meeting: December 13, 2019

The Friday Before Treatment Begins

So good to listen to my friends and their struggles. Mine become consuming. That medical treatment vortex is pulling me in deeper as I wade through the to-do list and the treatment protocols, getting ready for the full-time job of patient and being patient and riding the new wave of chemo/radiation starting Monday. At least according to the latest of my stream of in-coming medical phone calls.

My honey Ron wore his Santa’s elf cap this morning as he connected the lights on the Birthday and Christmas trees to get the house festive for a weekend of Before.

It feels so right to stop work despite my financial qualms. Sometimes I overdo and over-extend. (In counseling that’s not the best way to help people anyhow.) But identity is hard to let go of; work is where I am competent and skilled and loving and able to shepherd significant change.

Initially I was reluctant to admit unwellness. I spoke of it in the third person, “The doctors say that,” or, “I’ve been given the diagnosis,” not recognizing or owning the cancer as mine. But now I feel a pressure seeping into me, announcing itself in need of attention, in need of the treatment that will make it unwelcome.

Now I must attend to the way I will receive the support of the chemistry and physics, (two classes I’d missed), that will disrupt cell replication. Targeted as best it can be. With fallout. My job: one foot in front of the other, letting go of the superfluous, the unnecessary, the extra – all the stressors I can do without. Instead: summoning the life force, the spirit, the love, the support – whatever is needed to keep one breath coming in, and the next out. Because it ain’t my time yet.

My sense is that I am about to climb a mountain that will take me to the next part of my life. I am staying alive for Ron, because I can’t do that to him. Staying alive because this vast force of medicine, western, eastern, astral, is focused on helping me do just that.

There are words in me still to come out. The writing side of my purpose has increased in strength and clarity over these past years. I’ve spent my life learning healing. Now I’m developing the voice and ability and channels to do the writing.

This mountain I am climbing has a different view from the top, from the other side. One I don’t know and can’t see from here. I do know each fear needs facing squarely. The fear of pain, of incapacity, of physical loss, of identity loss, of financial loss. All that will be journeyed through. I just ask not to lose my Ron at my side. Not yet, not for a long long time. With Ron I can make it through to the other side and will see what words will come.