It's Okay to Laugh . . . and to Just say "Hi"

Yesterday after church, my friend Jackie said that she'd been reading my blog, and found herself laughing (especially at the post about my cold sensitivity after the Oxaliplatin infusion). Then she backed up as if to apologize, as if laughing at something I've written is somehow not taking my diagnosis seriously. "Good grief," I said, "I want to be funny sometimes, and if you find it that way, good!" Many of you reading this blog only know me through these written words, and perhaps I do come across as serious; when I'm speaking, I have trouble being funny or making jokes, because folks do take me very seriously. I do have a dry sense of humor, so when I see what's funny in this unfunny situation, I try to make the most of it. Please laugh! And tell me any funny stories you have about Cancer World!

The photo I posted here is of our family at Arches National Park last summer, laughing. A stranger took this picture; we found many strangers who offered, or agreed to take our picture while we were traveling. As we posed, Patty would say, "Think Christmas card!" and I would add "No pressure!" I think it was at this point that we all began to laugh. And, we did select this photo for our Christmas card in December.

About saying "Hi," I want to speak to all of you who have not responded to the blog, and who haven't even sent me an email on the side. It really is okay to just say "Hi" after you've read a post; it's not necessary to have something profound to say. If you look on the right side of the blog page, just below my photo, you'll see a little box that says "site meter." I added this feature last month to get a sense of how many people are reading my blog; check it out! It's not a secret.

Today, the meter says that I am averaging 91 views per day. That's a lot! Now, I'm not saying you should "check in" every time you read the blog, or that you have an obligation to let me know you have visited. I just want to say that I'd like to have a better sense of who is reading the blog, and what your responses and experiences are. So, remember, it's okay to just say "hi" in the comment section. (And you can post as "anonymous" and just sign your first name, and not go through any fancy process with blogspot.)

Finally, I want to say that I continue to tolerate the chemo well, and the "sea bands" (see yesterday's post) seem to taking away my unsettled gut feeling and leaving me open for a better appetite. I am still recovering in the nether regions from the stent placement on Friday, but I trust that it will settle down, too. The urologist said he had trouble getting past the place where the ureter was blocked, so I'm really, really glad the procedure is done, and the path of the tumor is blocked instead of the urine.

Today is February 5. In one month and 4 days, my family and I leave for our Caribbean vacation. Sunshine, snorkeling, swimming, and just laying in the sun! Can't wait.

Combating Cancer Loneliness - Meeting Tia!

As you can see from this photo, Tia and I met today at Dana Farber Cancer Institute - in the cafeteria, actually! I wrote about Tia when I wrote about the loneliness of having a rare cancer. And, for the record, Tia's daughter Liana, who was also present at our meeting, says it's not "rare" cancer, it's "exotic" cancer! Patty was there, too, and the four of us talked about scans and kids and cancer. Tia got her results this morning, and the news was good; her latest met hasn't changed in size. My appointment, a second opinion with an oncologist at Dana Farber, was in the afternoon, and I'll write more about it later.

Like ambassadors from Cancer World: those diagnosed with gallladder cancer, we brought small gifts to each other. Tia had a wonderful photo of her son's wedding last weekend in a beautiful outdoor site in Hawaii. We gave her two notecards, each made of art work by our kids. We talked about doctors and scans and living with gallbladder cancer.

So, now I can say that I have actually met someone else with gallbladder cancer! We have in common slow-growing cancer (Tia is 17 months post diagnosis), a fierce will to live, and a hope and faith in the future. Tia is a comrade soul, and I feel less lonely knowing her.

Somehow I feel that this post should be longer, but the beauty of our meeting for me was that it felt like old friends getting back together after a long time, even though we had never met before. The conversation flowed freely, and was mostly about ordinary life, connections in place and time, and a developing friendship. I guess that's all I need to say!

Love, Cancer and Vulnerability

Lately, I've been thinking about the vulnerability of loving a person with cancer. Like many folks who are diagnosed with cancer, after my gallbladder cancer diagnosis I found that some of the folks in my life drew closer, and some pulled away. Those who drew closer have provided amazing emotional, physical, spiritual support for me. And those who have withdrawn are suddenly not in touch and not connected. I don't know whether any of my friends in the second group made a conscious decision to withdraw, or if it just happened somehow. And I don't know how many of my friends in the first group, those who have moved closer to me, have thought about the consequences of their closeness.

In the 1980s, two friends of mine were killed while vacationing in the Caribbean. Murdered on the beach, those of us left behind felt shock and horror at their sudden death. This may sound like an obvious observation, but their deaths brought me the realization that when we love someone, two things can happen. They can leave us, through death or dissolution of the relationship, or we can leave them, through our death or a decision to end the relationship. Those are the options, really. It was the first time I was able to articulate the true vulnerability of loving someone, whether it's a friend, an intimate partner or a family member.

In the past, I have been one who withdrew after a cancer diagnosis. My friend Willa was diagnosed with lung cancer almost three years ago, and soon after, we spent a wonderful afternoon eating and talking and sharing stories. She was determined to fight her cancer, and seemed convinced she would win the fight against the cancer. I left that wonderful day with a strong intuitive sense that she would not survive the cancer, and then I had to decide whether to be with her, loving her, but feeling strongly she would not survive, or whether it was better for me to withdraw. I did withdraw, except through cards and emails and phone calls. I didn't see her again before her death in May of 2005. Given that situation again, with my own experience, I would not withdraw, but I would need to decide how to talk with her about my own feelings about her illness. It's tricky.

As a person with cancer who would very much like to survive this illness, I also have a strong intuitive feeling that I am not meant to assume I will survive. I hope, very much, that this doesn't mean the gallbladder cancer will kill me, but the same intuitive sense that told me that Willa would not survive has told me to take this illness very seriously, not to assume that I'll survive. So I do my best not to be in denial, and to take this illness and diagnosis in full awareness of possible/probable consequences. I hope to be here for many more years. But I digress.

Thinking about the vulnerability of loving someone with cancer, I have been thinking about my friends, longterm and new. My longterm, long distance friend Bev has been consistent in her loving attention. When she heard about my diagnosis, Bev called me in the hospital with two things to say: "I love you. When can I come to see you?" Those were the perfect words for me to hear a day or two after surgery, still hospitalized and still reeling from the diagnosis. Later, when she came to visit and stay for a week, Bev sat with me in stunned companionship as we contemplated the diagnosis. "You need another spring, at least," she said, and we both cried. I haven't asked Bev if she's contemplated the intensity of continuing to be in relationship with me, knowing that I have a terminal diagnosis.

I've also been thinking about new friends. I talked with my new friend Sandy about this last week. We've had a developing friendship for less than two years, and we meditate together weekly. Sandy said that she has thought about the vulnerability of being in an ongoing relationship with me, and she doesn't plan to go anywhere. We talked about this and we cried. How much easier, I think sometimes, would it be for her to leave now, and not to wait, not to worry with me as I anticipate a scan, not to worry about where this disease will take me. I don't want to lose her friendship, but I think about this.

And I think about the vulnerability of my family, my family of choice and my family of origin. Because we are family, they may not feel they have a choice, although we all know that family members do sometimes leave when faced with disease, or financial hardship, or the lure of something more enticing around the corner. I think about Patty, struggling with me through the challenges of this disease, and of my children, who are surely too young to lose a parent.

Loving someone with cancer means being vulnerable to loss, to pain, to the struggles the disease can bring. If someone you loved had cancer, would you choose to stay in relationship? Would you move closer, or farther away, or maintain your current distance? Do you know? Could you bear the vulnerability?

Out of Control

Out of control is how the life of a cancer patient often feels. I certainly know the feeling all too well. Did I do something to make my gallbladder cells travel down the mutation road? Am I somehow responsible for getting cancer? Mostly, I think the answer is no, and that I will probably never know why the cancer cells were able to develop in my gallbladder. In addition to worrying about the cause of the cancer, I worry about whether I am doing the right things to prolong my life, in fact I worry and wonder about whether or not anything I do matters with respect to the cancer again affecting the functioning of my body.

I am not alone in this wondering. On one of the (three) discussion boards for those with gallbladder cancer, Melissa just wrote to me, in response to my posting that I'd had a clean scan in September:

I am glad to hear that your scans have come back clean, I can only wish that mine would have but I am not giving up hope. What type of diet are you doing. I am willing to do what I can to kick this thing in the butt. I went 6 months of treatment and then 4 months clean and my last scan showed that it is back so i am doing the chemo thing again. so if you can tell me what it is that you did that might have helped i would love to hear....... right now I am just so tired of having people tell me how sorry they are and that they have never seen someone as young as me get this cancer..
some words of advise would be great. thanks

My heart has been aching for Melissa since reading the question on the discussion board, and I'm still working on my response. But I know that mostly I'm going to say that I am doing things to try to stay healthy, but I really feel that it is grace that has kept me free of signs of the cancer so far, since the initial surgery. Grace, a wonderful, amazing, awesome gift of ongoing life and work and time with my family and other loved ones. I don't think I did anything, really, to cause this cancer, and I don't really think that anything I'm doing has given me the clean scan results I've gotten over the past months. Don't misunderstand; I'd like to think that I'm in control, and that my actions are having an impact. Don't misunderstand either, and think I'm going to stop doing the things I'm doing, because I have hope that they may be making a difference, keeping the cancer from spreading. And at the same time, I have to admit to not feeling in control of any of this with my actions.

The day I began this blog entry, I read Leroy's blog for November 8, and I was amazed to see that Leroy was also writing about the search for meaning of the cancer, and how out of control we feel with our diagnosis. We want meaning, we want hope, we want to think that we will recover and that life will go on. When we don't have symptoms or signs, or when we are actively in remission, we are hopeful but worried. When we are active with the disease, recovering from surgery or in treatment, we want to know what we can do to get better. We want successful treatment, the right diet, good medical care, recovery. We want something to do to get better, to feel in control, even if in small ways. Leroy has written about this more than once, and Melissa's question to me so crystallizes the issue.

What helps when we feel out of control with cancer? I don't know. I know that my life feels like daily walking the line between hope and despair, between what is known and what is not known, between thinking I could be in control and letting go of the belief I can control my body, between blame and surrender, between opening to healing and recognizing the truth of the cancer still in my body, between envisioning the cancer self-destructing in the sunset and recognizing the medical reality. The lack of an answer, a clear sense of the future, of what path my life will take, is painful and challenging, but it's what is right now, for me, and for so many others with gallbladder cancer. So I'll keep doing what I'm doing in hope that it is helping, and I'll keep hoping for healing.

All in the Same Boat

I mentioned in my last post that cancer affects far more than the person diagnosed. Over the past four months (yesterday was the four month "anniversary" of my diagnosis), I have witnessed and heard about the impact on friends and family. I could see from the faces of friends who came to the hospital how worried they were about me, and I have felt supported and well loved by the reaching out in cards, letters, emails and phone calls of so many in my various communities of friends. Those who have been diagnosed with cancer, or had a close friend, family member or partner experience a cancer diagnosis and treatment have responded with a special empathy. Many of their responses are found in the "comment" section of this blog.

Sometimes, those who are friends but not otherwise or previously touched by a cancer diagnosis personally respond powerfully to the urgency of my diagnosis. One of those is a co-worker, colleague and friend, Julie Baker, who wrote movingly of her response to my diagnosis.

About our common mortality, Julie wrote: "When I think about life and death, I always think about how in reality, there's no secure or definite future for anyone. Any of us could drop dead at any moment for any reason, or for no reason at all. There are no promises or guarantees that we are going to wake up tomorrow, or next week or next year." Like me, Julie is a mother of a small child, her daughter. She shared with me how being a parent had brought her a powerful sense of her mortality. " . . . my greatest fear is that I will not be here for my daughter - selfishly, because I want to be here for every moment of her life, and unselfishly, because I always want her to have the enormous, unconditional love that I believe only I can give her."

About living in the present, Julie writes that "I have decided that even though intellectually, we all know that nothing is certain or guaranteed from one moment to the next, we suppress that thought because we have to in order to go about our day-to-day lives. Most of us would be immobilized - or think we would be - if we confronted the reality of the situation. But maybe that's exactly wrong. Maybe we should all acknowledge it, and not wait for an illness or an accident or a diagnosis to remind us. Because it's true for all of us, whether we've been brought to the consciousness of it (as you have) or not."

"Why am I telling you this? " Julie writes. "Because your blog got me thinking, for one thing. But also, because maybe I hope it will make you feel a little less separate or different. You're not. We really are all in the same boat. In one sense, bizarre as it sounds, you are ahead of the game - you have confronted the reality squarely (like it or not), and you can use that information to make better choices about how you live all the moments of your life. I try to do that, but I constantly fall victim to the crisis du jour, and suddenly it's a week later, or a month later, or a year later. I don't want to look back at some point and have to ask myself why I have wasted all this time. You know?"

Julie's thoughts reflect to me some of what I might have thought a year ago, before cancer. And I appreciate the empathy, the reaching out, the connecting her different experience with mine.

Also, with last week's good news and another two months of breathing space, I find myself losing some of my "edge" about my mortality. Maybe I'll beat this. Maybe I'll live not just one year or two, but twenty. Maybe my cancer took twenty years to get to the place that required surgery last May, and maybe additional surgery really can remove the rest. Since I've already confounded my doctor with my response in the last four months, why not go for more? But can I hope for more and still hold the lessons learned from these past months?

For many years, I attended annual workshops with W. Brugh Joy, whose perspective about life events is often radically different from the norm. He often said "The deep psyche loves contrast." My psyche has been blown away from the events of past months, contrasting powerfully with what preceded this time. Can I keep living in the moment and savoring each bit? Can I truly remember that we really all are in the same boat, living a life that could end at any moment, without notice? When we were traveling to the southwest this past June, to national parks full of ancient rocks (Zion National Park, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Grand Canyon, and others), I felt that I was in geologic time. A rock could fall and take my life at any time. I could live with that then. Now I just want to live.

The Amusement Park - Not!

Since many/most of you reading this blog are friends and family, you already know this, but I need to write about it. Cancer affects far more than the person diagnosed, and even that person's immediate family and caregivers. I suppose that it's true of other acute and/or chronic illnesses, but I haven't had any of those diseases. I have cancer, and it has turned my life, my family's life, and those of many of my friends, upside down. Inside out. Backwards. With a stomach-churning drop in between. A modern day roller coaster ride.

I've written a lot about the impact of the diagnosis on me since I began this blog, not quite two months ago. I haven't written directly about the impact on my family. My immediate family consists of Patty who is my life partner, lesbian lover, Massachusetts spouse, and our two children, Lucy, age 10 and Nathaniel, age 8. Although I turned 59 this summer, I do have a young family, and it has been especially painful to contemplate not being here with them as they grow into adolescence and adulthood. Patty is my anchor, and the one who makes me laugh.

The first time we saw the oncologist, last June, a week past surgery, we waited a long time for the doctor to come into the room, and I was feeling incredibly anxious. "Make me laugh," I said to her, and she did. It was cancer humor, grim humor, very funny to us at the time, but not so good in translation, so I won't try to recreate it. At the appointment, the doctor stressed the importance of starting treatment as soon as possible (although not until at least a month had passed post surgery). After, I would double check my recollection of something he said against Patty's memory. We had taken a few notes, but I wondered about tone of voice, extra meaning, also.

In July, when we saw the oncologist a second time, he said that I looked good, didn't seem to be jaundiced, and probably wouldn't need treatment. We talked for a while about my diagnosis and his proposal for a clinical trial when treatment is needed, and, toward the end, I turned to Patty and asked if she had any questions. "Yes," she said. "Where is the urgency? We came back early from a planned 5 1/2 week trip out west because you said she had to start treatment right away! We could be in Yosemite National Park right now!" I appreciated her directness! He had the grace to admit that his earlier sense of urgency was unnecessary, and to apologize. "Things have changed," he said, because I was doing so well post-diagnosis.

After that visit, we talked about dealing with the slowing down of the pace of the disease from the initial diagnosis, and our new roles. Patty commented that when her job was to visit me daily in the hospital, and then to support my recovery when I returned home, she knew what to do. Now, just waiting, what was her job, she wanted to know. I confessed my uncertainty about this unfamiliar terrain, but replied also that her job was "to love me." "I am," she said, "but I still feel like I should be doing something."

This past Monday, Patty sat with me in the waiting room for the CT scan, watching me drink the barium, then leave for the scan. After, we went upstairs to see the oncologist. He was nice enough to actually look at a few pictures I'd brought of our trip out west, and to make small talk. I wrote in my last post that his review of the scan indicated no need for treatment now. When we left, I was relieved and happy, and so was Patty, but she was also feeling, she said, like she was riding a tilt-a-whirl at the amusement park. First we prepare for this, then that. Something is different, and we are up, or we are down. The shifts themselves are exhausting, even when the news is good.

As we talked this week, we finally found an image that works for where we are now. "I feel as if I've been sprinting and preparing to keep sprinting. It's really tiring." Patty said. "Things have all happened so fast. Now, almost four months post your diagnosis, I guess I need to think of this as a marathon, not a sprint any longer."

Sports metaphors aside, as I drafted this post and talked with Patty about how to represent her role in all of this, we noted with irony how often images from the amusement park speak to our experiences. The images of roller coaster rides, the tilt a whirl, the"mad teacups," even the merry go round, keep coming to us. Why do we in our culture like these rides? Is it a chance to face our fear and conquer it? Well, the amusement park assortment of rides that makes up cancer definitely brings up our fear, in a real and palpable way. Still, I wish we could get off the Cancer Ride.

"Today is a good day to die"

Please don't panic! I'm not losing my will to live, or contemplating the end, I just had another epiphany today in what may feel like my ongoing litany of living in the moment.

For those of you who have responded to my blog, by posting a response online, or by emailing me, I value the way you are reflecting back to me what speaks to you in what I have to say. Whether or not you are struggling with or have struggled with a cancer diagnosis, or whether you are or have been a caregiver to someone with cancer, whether you are someone who has stumbled on my blog and found it has something to say to you, or whether you are a friend who loves me, I thank you for being part of this online conversation.

Today was a stunningly beautiful late summer day in Boston. The sky a perfect blue, with wispy white clouds providing contrast. The air was warm in the sun, cool in the shade, comfortable with short sleeves, and invigorating to walk in. And walking I was, around 2:00, from Beacon Hill to Back Bay in Boston, to a dental appointment. (Since I like my dentist and was just going to have a fallen-out filling replaced, I had no dread about the appointment, just a sense of purpose.) And, I am moved to say, it was just such a perfect weather and sky day on September 11, 2001 in Boston, spurring memories of that day. Still, moving my body, seeing the interplay of light and shadow on the ground from trees and leaves, I felt transported to a state of pure joy. It was a moment, a moment that reminded me of this line: "Today is a good day to die."

The first time I heard someone say it and mean it was during a two week canoe trip with 15 other adults on the north-flowing Harricanaw River in Canada, about fifteen years ago. We were more than halfway through our wilderness adventure of canoeing to James Bay, and one morning we awoke to a sandy river beach, a gorgeous blue sky, and a perfect temperature. One of my fellow travelers, Terri, said, "Today is a good day to die." I didn't initially know how to take his comment, but then I got it. We were challenging our bodies, experiencing terrain new to us, living in the moment. We were in the right place, at the right time, and our trip was beginning to flow like the river. If our lives had ended that day, we could have died happy, knowing we were living in the moment and doing something we loved.

As I thought about sharing my insight from this afternoon, I worried that some of you, my friends, might panic. I briefly considered the title of "This moment is a good moment to live, not die," because it was a feeling of the moment, but the title definitely lacks punch. When I left the dentist about 90 minutes after my "moment," the air was cooler, the sun not so bright, and though I hoped that the feeling of perfection would return, it didn't. Because I think that it's not really about "perfect days" [for dying, or for living], but rather about "perfect moments" for living, and for realizing that, in those moments, we can be transported beyond our ordinary selves. In that moment this aftenoon, I felt the rightness of the day and my place in it. For that moment, nothing else mattered. Even cancer.

Resting, Truly Resting

On this Labor Day weekend, I'm thinking about resting and not laboring. It's become a cliche in our culture to talk about how busy we all are, and like many cliches, it's largely true. Many of us find ourselves going nonstop from morning until night, and then collapsing in front of the television, which can shift our focus, but isn't truly restful. One thing I have read in many essays, blogs, and books, is how often a diagnosis of cancer causes us to re-examine our lives, and how we spend our time. I have joined those numbers over the past three months as I recovered from surgery, took family vacations, and contemplated how I choose to live my life, including time to rest.

In his blog, Leroy Sievers doesn't talk much about the spiritual aspects of dealing with cancer, but in his August 9 post, he did ask his readers for "new tricks." He was seeking new ideas for getting through the day, making life with cancer more manageable. He received over 100 responses to that post, and I think it's because his question so resonates for those of us with cancer. And, even without cancer, we can all ask how we want to make our lives work better.

True rest, I think, can be a spiritual discipline, and many spiritual discplines can help us truly rest. Many of us churchgoers know that the words "sabbath" and "sabbatical" derive from a Hebrew word for rest. The sabbath is intended to be a time for rest and reflection, but I think none of us need to wait for one special day of the week to rest and rejuvenate. So, as I have been contemplating how to change my life, to slow it down, to find more rest and rejuvenation in my daily life, I have been contemplating spiritual practices and how my living and working space can support stepping out from the busy-ness of daily life.

Meditation and Centering Prayer. For many years, I meditated regularly, but after the birth of my (now 10-year old) daughter, I found it hard to maintain, and stopped meditating. Two years ago, I returned to a regular meditation practice, initially just one day a week, and, when I was joined by a friend in that weekly meditation, it became a grounding highlight of my week. Over the past few months, I have chosen to return to regular meditation. For me, meditation is a time to sit in silence and to listen for the voice of God. Some days my mind is very busy and I need to bring my attention back again and again to my mantra (a simple sying that grounds me in God's presence), and some days I feel truly lifted out of my busy mind and into a spacious and holy place, if only for a few moments. I believe that the spiritual discipline of meditation is a powerful tool for deep rest.

Sacred Space. I have always tried to maintain some space in my house for sacred objects and photographs of loved ones who have died. I have added a new sacred space this summer in a corner of my bedroom, a small table covered with the first silk scarf I painted containing images of water and sky, and then laid with a candle, a smudge stick (for cleansing the air), a few crystals (because they are beautiful and can absorb energy around them, I believe), and a few special books. I also lay on the table a strand of beautiful prayer beads and a pocket angel with the word "Harmony" on the back, given to me by my meditation friend. Just looking at the table grounds me, and sitting next to it in meditation creates a corner of grounded, quiet, sacred energy.

And, when I meditate I can wrap myself in a colorful hand knit prayer shawl, made for me and prayed over by loving friends.

Sacred, Spiritual Reading. Whether it's the Bible or something written more recently by a spiritual teacher, reading about the inner world, the world of spirit, offers me the potential for grounded, healing thoughts. I am going to be writing more later about some of the books that have moved me, but for now, I want to mention a pamphlet sent to me by a professional colleague and friend who is a cancer survivor (Thanks, Elizabeth!) entitled "How to Survive and Thrive in the face of a life-threatening illness." A healing group from her church put together a lovely booklet with personal stories and reminders about things that can be healing; prayer, dreams, loving companionship, spiritual reading, living in the moment, art, and holding hope. This book just arrived in the mail yesterday, but already it has spoken to me powerfully of the commonality of our struggles with cancer, and the power of spirit to mend us, spiritually and, sometimes, physically.

Reiki Energy. Five years ago, I was trained to be a Reiki healer, which essentially means trained to channel this energy. I'm not going to try to explain the process here, but I do want to say that I feel the energy fill my body when I open to it, and that I do believe Reiki opened a channel to universal healing that is available to all. (That may sound a little strange to you if you have had no experience with Reiki, but I am speaking for myself and what I know.) I am grateful to the friends who have asked me if they can channel Reiki energy to me from a distance, and I would not hesitate to seek a Reiki healer for hands-on work if I felt in need.

As I come to the end of this post, and look at where I began, I wonder if this all reads like a lot of work, and not rest at all. Setting up the routines and making the time for it may feel like work, but once I am in the rhythm of attending to my need to rest and rejuvenate, then each of these offers solace, peace, rest and comfort. Taking care of myself doesn't have to be work, but it does require intention and attention.

First Encounters

For anyone reading this post, here's a warning: I'm not feeling cheerful tonight, and I am feeling that Cancer Sucks! (A good friend actually gave me a little bear with those words, and it sits by my favorite TV watching chair. Good to have when I'm in this kind of mood.) Now that I have that off my chest . . . I had thought my next blog would focus on the spiritual aspects of my diagnosis, but I'm not feeling "spiritual" tonight.

When I do just about anything for the first time after my cancer diagnosis, it can be stressful. This week I went back to work. I have been on break for the summer, and I had meetings this week, and next week I resume teaching. So, for the first time since my diagnosis, I returned to my office. It's actually full of boxes, because I'm moving to a new office over the weekend, and my graduate assistant packed my office, but I got to sit there and say good-bye. And I got to remember that when I was last there, I had funny itching and orange urine, so I left and went to see my doctor. From there, it was a quick trip to the ultrasound, then the ERCP, then 10 days of hospitalization, major surgery, and my diagnosis. More than three months ago, and it feels like an eternity. Today I walked familiar streets in Boston, and remembered that the last time I walked them, I didn't have cancer. Or rather, the cancer was in me, and I didn't know it. I wish I could return to that pre-cancer innocence.

As summer ends, I am seeing friends and work colleagues I haven't seen since spring, and I wonder whether or not they know about my diagnosis. Some folks know I was "sick," but don't know the details. "How much do I feel like sharing in the moment?" I have to ask myself. The news was so bleak in May that I wasn't sure I would still be alive to see Sept. 1, so I told a lot of folks about the diagnosis then. Now, some days, I feel that overwhelming one more person with the poor prognosis for this disease is more than I can stand. I can feel their energy sink as I talk, and then my energy sinks, and it feels as if there is nothing else to say. And it is exhausting.

Next week, I'll teach my first classes, talk with returning students, meet new students, see more folks I haven't seen since spring, and unpack the boxes of my office stuff in my new office space. And again, it will be exhausting, but then this particular set of "first encounters (since the cancer diagnosis)" will be over, and life can go on. And I'm grateful that, for the moment, life is going on.

And, if you are reading this and you are one of the friends or colleagues I saw yesterday, or today, or that I see next week, don't worry about talking to me, or asking me how I feel. It's my job to figure out how I want to respond to questions, and I always appreciate the concern and caring behind those questions. So, do ask, and know that Cancer Sucks!

Cancer: Call it enemy, or call it friend?

In his blog earlier this week, Leroy Siemens examines a posting from a mother who asks whether or not her daughter, who died from cancer, has "lost" if the fight for life against the cancer is a "war." Of course, he points out that we would not stigmatize the now dead cancer patient by saying they "lost the war," but so often those with cancer and those writing about cancer describe the fight for life as a war, a battle, a fight, and those fighting for their lives as warriors. I'm not entirely comfortable with this language, this image, although I certainly want to continue living, which would mean "winning the fight" against this gallbladder cancer.

A longtime friend who has had several different cancer diagnoses, including breast cancer, wrote to me soon after my diagnosis, and encouraged me to make ffriends with the cancer. "It is part of you," she wrote, "so why not make friends with it?"

Similar language is expressed by Dawna Markova in her book I Will Not Die an Unlived Life, where she describes her survival from a cancer diagnosis many years ago, and her discomfort with the "battle" language so typical of describing a fight for one's life following a cancer diagnosis. She writes:

When cancer first came into my life, people all around me treated it as the enemy. I was told I had to join the medical team and we'd fight together to defeat it. This was the wrong thing to say to someone who was the last one to be picked for any team. I was much happier sitting on the sidelines and encouraging the other players. I was totally unskilled at defeating anything. So, I secretly went my own way and decided that I was free to choose the meaning of the healing experience. I decided I would develop a friendly relationship with the cancer, which was something I was good at.

However, Markova does not go on to say how befriending the cancer helped her to heal from it, to move past it, to have it not take her life. Rereading this passage, I can see that one way would be to put the emphasis on "healing," not on cancer. I can also see a "lessons to be learned from the cancer" aspect of befriending it, but I don't see how that can lead to healing of the physical body. So, perhaps a part of me does want to "beat" the cancer, because I can't see how I can continue to live as long as it is in my body, and the doctors tell me that they know of no way to kill gallbladder cancer. Again rereading Markova's words, I am reminded of my competitive nature, my desire to excel, to do a thing well. But, more than being a "good" cancer patient, I want to be successful in my intense desire to have my life continue, and not to have it end with this cancer.

Battle image or friend image? Which has the potential for more healing, for me in this situation? I feel that I need to hold this question in my heart and see what answers come. While I wait for those insights, I am interested in the experiences, thoughts, impressions, wisdom from those reading this blog. And, perhaps I should call my friend who befriended her cancer and ask her how she did it.