Inchies

I did these for a Yahoo group swap. They're one inch by one inch. It was fun!

May

Decisions, decisions

Here's an article for you, from Wendy Harpham, a physician who has long been dealing with lymphoma. (Click here for the article.)

I've decided when I face sweet Dr. Schauer, my oncologist, and he has to utter the (for him, as well as me) painful words telling me I've run out of options, I will simply ask him if I can be a high as possible from then on. It's reasonable, don't you think?

(Is she serious? Whaddaya think? Maybe it's just a toxic muse. Had chemo today, after all.)

Having serious stomach pain, which the onc thinks is gastritis due to the chemo. He suggests the possibility, if my scans are still negative next time, of going off chemo. This is scary as hell for me. The first genuine weighing of quality of life against length of life. Dr. Schauer has prescribed another stomach med for me, in hopes the bunch of them together will give me some relief. He has also faxed a referral to the Brownstone Gastroenterology Clinic, which accepts Medicare and Medicaid so that I can see someone before I blow a hole in my stomach.

John is surprised that I do not complain, as he does. It just doesn't give me any satisfaction.

The pain in my stomach has given me the first inkling that I might actually choose QOL in the end.

With metta,
May

I'm having one of those nights. As usual, I've taken enough sedatives to put a Clydesdale to sleep, and I'm wide awake.

These are invariably transformative nights that come after a period of mood swings and general craziness. If you've read my last couple of posts, you know what I mean.

The thing that really confuses me is that my sense of humor seems to be taking a long nap, and is possibly at this point comatose. I've always called on humor for perspective in my life, and now I don't seem to be able to do that. My blogs are boring and my social life is humdrum. I feel like putting on a clown face and seeing if I can make others' reactions make me laugh.

Letting go. I used to feel something like contempt for the AA saying, "Let go, let God". Now, I'm not so sure about the God part, but I sure do know that I've got to let go. It's the only way I'm going to stay sane, and that, to me, means not being overcome by the old beast of depression, or worse, addiction.

I don't expect to drink--not that most people do. But I really don't think that's the danger. I think the danger is becoming addicted, again, to the emotional patterns that make me miserable. They still afford some degree of familiarity, and therefore a weird sort of comfort. That means I can choose: misery or facing the demons. I don't feel very courageous at the moment, or very clear on how to do the latter.

I'm planning on going back to a regular spiritual practice. While spiritual seeking is a worthwhile activity, it's not one that brings me back into harmony with the truths I've found over the years. Only a ritual practice of some sort will do that.

I splurged and ordered a Persephone statue for myself. I am setting up my altar upstairs so that I will be reminded daily to face my inevitable end. This is not morbid. This is where I am in life.

I might even get a bumper sticker that reminds me to let go. If I let go, Mother Earth will take care of me. If I empty myself, I will be filled.

With metta,
May

Well, Ann, whom I spoke about in my last blog post, died yesterday, in peace at home.

The funny thing is that I feel better today. I feel sad for Ann's family and friends, but I think I've let go again. I just said to myself: it's okay if I don't live another five years, or a year, or five months. I'll just live while I'm alive.

Why can't I let go like that at will?

I hate hope.

A woman I met at the Breast Cancer List's get-together in Boston a couple of years ago has just entered Hospice. She had recurred with liver metastases shortly before I did, and had a long remission, just as I did. She responded to Herceptin, being positive for the Her2neu oncogene, just as I am.

It can happen so fast.

The problem with hope is that I'm not paying attention to living. And when I get news like this, I get depressed.

It's hard to plant a perennial garden when you know you may not see it bloom next year.

Yes, I'm angry. And sad for Ann, and for myself. And scared.

My other blog

I have a new blog. This one is a poetry blog called Earth Poetry.

Even if you're not into poetry, I'd love it if you'd visit today. I put a new poem of my own on it, and I'd love it if people left comments. Click here to see my poem, called 'Psychopomp'.

I am still having a rather hard time living with the uncertainty of metastatic breast cancer. Yesterday, however, I got to spend some time with my old friend Pat J. (No, she's not old--she's younger than I am :-) ) I hope she had as good a time as I did, at Harkness Beach in Waterford (Connecticut). I must say she was much more enthusiastic than John about my penchant for collecting nearly invisible shells!

It's fascinating to talk over such crusty old times--I mean, we're talking almost 55 years ago here! It has the feeling of working muscles you haven't used in a long time, which to me feels really good. Pat and I share a history that I don't really share with anyone else except maybe my cousin Rachel, but that's a whole different ball of wax, having to do with the Jehovah's Witnesses (dysfunction, anyone?) and the sort of strange relationship our mothers had as sisters. Anyway, after visiting the beach Pat and I went up to tour the gardens around the old estate. I don't think I'd seen them in the spring, just in their full bloom in summer. Much of the garden area has plantings from many decades ago, so it's a different fashion than modern gardens. So that was fun.

Anyway, I lived in the moment yesterday, and it was a good day!

With metta,
May

The one that got away

Missed a great photo op yesterday :-(

John and I went to Paul's and Sandy's, a local greenhouse, to pick up (we hoped) an apple tree for his birthday. Of course, we had to wander and look at all the plants. (We ended up coming home with about half a dozen things, including 3-packs of garden veggies to plant, but no tree.)

When we got to the herb section, we found a large black cat sitting across a couple of plants. We had already spent a few minutes fussing over his tortie pal, so we had to spend a little time with him.

After we finished petting and cooing at him for a while, I wondered out loud to John what plant he was squishing. You've probably guessed it--it was catnip. If I'd brought my camera, I would have had the perfect shot of him surrounded by plants with large "CATNIP" signs.

That's why photographers should always carry their cameras!

May

The Garden Song

The mayflies are swarming, we've had both sun and rain today, and I want to give you one of my favorite songs. It's blurry, but it's really David Mallett.

You CAN teach an old b........

Something very exciting happened to me this weekend.

I learned how to use the TV remote.

No, I'm not a Luddite. I just don't care much for TV. I went well over a decade watching virtually no television at all (unless I was stuck at one of those places where you can't avoid it). It just got stupider and stupider until it seemed like a terrible bludgeoning of valuable time ("As if you could kill time without wasting eternity", as Henry David Thoreau put it) and I simply stopped watching it.

Mostly, I think it's even worse now. Those things they call "reality shows", for instance, as if most people actually act like that. And we should not be embarrassed for them.

With my current fatigue, however, I'm finally giving myself permission to do some stupid things to get through the hours when I'm too tired and spacy to even read. One is to watch some TV. At first I developed a fondness for the basketball games of my alma mater, the University of Connecticut. Then I started watching Animal Planet because I was so disgusted with Homo sapiens (that guy who established Chimp Eden is a mensch!). Now--and I would have bet my life twenty years ago that this would never happen--I've become a Red Sox fan (go, Manny! All right, big Papi!), even though baseball games are about as speedy as labor. I do enjoy watching the spitting habits of these stars (click here to read a post from my old blog on that subject) but I've also actually become interested in the game itself. I'll even concede that it's not just the sport of rednecks with beer guts--it actually seems to take some athletic ability.

Next thing you know I'll be watching the New England Patriots.

But about the remote thing: as I said, I'm not a Luddite. I'm at least as good at computer stuff as the average person, and I do own a cell phone. I just stubbornly refused to learn how to use the TV remote, for fear it would turn me into a couch potato. I did do an awful lot of sitting today (all those nature shows, after all), but I'm not an addict yet.

Yet...

Tanka for Mother's Day

A moment of grace
5:00 a.m. on Mother's Day.
It's May; flowers will bloom.
A blessing to all mothers
And all long-suffering children.



It's 5 a.m. on Mother's Day, and I can't sleep. Mother's Day has long been one of my least favorite days of the year, a day when I am tortured by all kinds of feelings, not logical, but a mix of guilt and blame and fear.

I truly don't know how I thought I could be a good mother, given my background. I tried, to the point of almost not surviving, yet didn't do nearly enough to protect and nurture my children. I did not feel whole, and passed that sense of deficiency, the sense of not being good enough, along to my children.

I can still love them and try to help, but I can't (won't, I guess) put my life on the line. With the cancer, I am so tired and stressed, I can hardly get through a "normal" week.

Yet each day is beautiful. The flowers do bloom, as we know they will, while waiting impatiently (and with an odd uncertainty) each winter. In our distant past, that uncertainty was so deep that we felt we had to placate the gods to ensure each season and our concomitant survival. We are starting to realize again that we must do that, for help in healing our sad and suffering Mother Earth.

Let Lady Gaia, Mother Earth, and Wakantonka, Father Sky, be with us as we take this new journey. Let us regain a sense of our wholeness with the Earth and her Universe. Let all who come with light and with love work together to preserve the beauty and wholeness of the earth. By all that is above, by all that that is below, by all that is within, so may it be.

Blessings,
May