January 8, 2013 | Still Alive!

We had to move. 

And the past few weeks have been a shaky walk to find my feet again. It all happened so fast. The diagnosis, the shock, the decision, booking flights, my sober 21st birthday, going back to our beloved town of Moscow one last time, fainting, forgetting my meds, hundreds of friends coming out on our 'official' last night wearing crazy wigs to send us off. 

It was a tear-stained, messy, joyful night.

The next day - the last day - was ours alone, to relish in the joys we had shared, alone and together, with our hometown over the past three years. Coffee at One World, cheesecake at Bucers, tacos at Casa, gyros at Mikeys, dinner at the restaurant we went on our first date at (we were full!) before watching 'It's a Wonderful Life" at the town's gorgeous, historic cinema. 

We wandered home one last time, hand in hand, new snow falling gently on the bare winter trees lining the streets. We walked up the bright orange painted stairs and all their excitement for our new life together. We crawled into our bed one last time. I'm not sure we even entered our office, or went out onto the roof/balcony, spaces that had contained our plans and dreams, for it was in darkness the next morning we left. 

Under the watchful eye of the flight attendants, we made the long journey to Wellington, New Zealand. The capital city was shrouded in fog when we arrived, adding to our daze (okay, I'm especially dazed) as we wound up to our home for the next while on narrow streets lined by twisting Pohutukawa.  

When the fog lifted, we saw Wellington. From the top of Cluny ave, the sun rises in arrays of reds and oranges and purples over the Orogorongas to the East, journeys over the distant Rimutakas and Tararua ranges perched up the north of the sparkly harbour, and sets over the massive, rolling hills aptly called 'the Skyline'. 

We managed to go up to Taranaki, my homeland, for Christmas, staying in little cabins on the waterfront. What a heartwarming experience it was, to see my dad and his family after all this time...and all this. How wonderfully therapeutic is was to swim in the ocean on Christmas day. 

I’ve missed the incessant pokes and jabs and medication so much that I will begin IVF tomorrow. IVF - a concept I remember learning about in high school science and not blinking an eye to. It’s something that applies only to old women who have left things too late, right? 

It was a surprisingly easy decision to go ahead with the fertility treatment and embryo freezing. Not so long ago, both staunchly independent world travellers, we were would have laughed at such a concept as having children. So, our parents are about to become a grandparents of multiple cold, very well behaved grandchildren. We are currently accepting applications for godparent roles for each of them.

 ***

The sunshine of this sudden summertime and going for small walks are helping me build strength in this precious bit of time while I wait for radiation therapy to begin on Monday.

It’s funny…I actually can’t wait to begin. Of course, It’s no fun being in hospitals and they still get me down in their own strange way, and being in ‘the mask’ is claustrophobic and uncomfortable (breathing deeply and sending my mind to other places being my strategy), but I’m really excited about starting radiation. It feels like such a long wait since surgery, such a long time waiting around with life on hold for this treatment that now looms.

Life is good. 

The Search Begins

Silence encloses me as I lie down to write this. I’ve been putting it off for a while, mulling it over in my wondering mind. I’ve been digging deep into my past recently, beyond simply recollecting my time in Togo, other things, other aspects of my story. 

Since experiencing an initial overwhelming inundation of all things ‘cancer’, I told myself I would wait; I’d just wait until this is all over, and then I would look into it.

Then I would read the books, then I would watch the videos, then I would try figure out why on earth this damn thing got here

…but not now. Now, I’ll just get through treatment and try to live a normal life.

Who was I kidding? Of course I need to find out, and of course I am going to look into it. Someone needs to, and treatment or no treatment, I’m ready to take up the challenge.

“It’s not environmental, it’s not genetic, it’s not lifestyle-related” is all doctors have told me. Previously I thought that those in the medical profession were simply being cautious in not wanting to wonder why I would suddenly, out of the blue, have a tumour growing in my brain. 

However the more I look into things, the more I am beginning to see that doctors are conveniently ignoring important studies and evidence that have been around for years and years. Scholars in the fields of mind/body research, psychotherapy and psycho-neuro-immunology (PNI) among others have produced copious studies with strong evidence toward a psychological-physical relationship from before the beginning of Western medicine. 

However beyond the founding work of Bernard (1865), Solomon (1964), Ader and Cohen (1975) and many others, various cultures and belief systems throughout the world have developed their own viewpoints regarding the onset of disease.

Is there a reason these beliefs and studies have so much evidence and so many adherents, or are these simply mystical lies trying to debunk the medical system?

My gran has always been wise, extremely sensible and thoughtful. She is a devout Christian, and yet yesterday, when I discussed with her the link between stress and physical ailment she wasn’t at all surprised. In her seventy-four years of experiencing it, she knowingly agrees. 

It’s something we all know, really. We are highly stressed for a period of time and, unsurprisingly, we get a cold. We feel angry and tense about something and get an expected sore back. We are suddenly afraid and so our heart pumps faster...but that's all common sense, right?

So why do we stop this train of thought at the simple common cold?

Today I embark on a research project. To research my own cancer. I’ll be asking far more questions than finding answers, and it may be frustrating, scary or time-consuming, but I have to do it. I have to do it for myself, for everyone in cancer wards throughout the world, and for everyone who is affected by or will be affected by cancer.

Visit brainbuzz.org to see what I get up to!

Keeping Body and Soul Together | NZ Listener 2007

"In Christchurch, Dr Brian Broom is concerned at a very personal level with the question of why people get ill. Broom trained as a doctor, then gave up a career in the Christchurch School of Medicine to retrain in psychiatry. He had become frustrated at the way clinical medicine compartmentalised mind and body. The author of the recent book Meaning-Full Disease, he sees psychosocial effects at work every day in his work as a doctor specialising in allergies and as a psychotherapist. Broom finds that many of his patients' physical complaints are related to their "story" -the emotional upsets and traumas they've experienced. As a doctor and psychoanalyst he is able to take an integrated approach to his patients' illnesses. "If you look at the biomedical factors and the emotional factors you get a much better [healing] response." As an example, Broom cites the condition of urticaria and Babc angioedema (weals and swellings). "In the 19th century ecc physicians used to call it 'angio-neurotic edema', but in the 20^th century the division between physical illness and mental illness became cemented and they removed 'neurotic'. As a result angioedema has been very difficult to treat because allergists contend that urticaria is not a psychosomatic illness but a physical illness; but most [cases] don't have a discernible allergy sitting behind them." READ MORE...

Cancer and Coming Home

There are seven splotches of blood perched on the mint green chalk-paint walls surrounding us. My bed is a mat at the base of a large slat bed, falling apart, on which two girls slept under a blasting fan. I know, the fan keeps many of the mosquitoes away, but I can't sleep with air buffeting it's recycled-warm-but-slightly-cooler air on my face. And so here I am, down here, suffocating with the mozzies, their red, itchy dinner remains lining my arms.

I fall asleep each night here, earbuds stuffed in my ears, eye mask concealing tears. “Draw Your Swords” by Angus and Julia Stone. Every night. Loud. I should be sick of it, but it sets me free into my aching imaginings.

I see them snakes come through the ground

They choke me to the bone

They tie me to their wooden chair

Here are all my songs

'cause you are... the only one....

I miss him so much. I've been wrenched away from my life. My life that I've spent so long creating and destroying, and creating again. My heart is pitted against my head, constantly. I know I should just enjoy this experience, I'm learning a lot. I know it's only three months. I know not many people get the privilege of living and working in Togo, experiencing another culture so first hand. I know I should meet more villagers. I know I should be okay with the hissing and mocking, as they know no different. And it's a 'different culture' – tread gently, smile, it's all perfect in it's own way...

And yet the tears still dry under the salty eye mask each night, as my heart longs for home. My heart doesn't like the men's hissing, my heart doesn't like the kids running after me screaming “white person.” My heart doesn't like being stuck inside concrete walls with American students, and it's not comfortable with the snakes that slither in front of my bare feet in jandals. My heart aches for home. What is home? It asks me, over and over. It's with James. I know it. But where? My head tries to tell me anywhere we are, but it doesn't quite feel right. The girls up on the creaky bed, they get to go home. Everyone else gets to. We fly back to Idaho. Yes, I miss that place more than anything, but I haven't been home in years. More tears.

***

Chills ran up my spine when I was talking to mum the other day. On Saturday night, while James and I were at a 'Castaway' party at our friend Joe's house, she had dinner with a couple she described as 'wonderful' and intelligent'. The man, she told me, was rather an expert in mind-body connection with disease. They talked cancer. (Should cancer have a capital C?) Mum told him about how my tumor started growing in Togo; “she had a different/reduced diet, a completely different climate, was on her cellphone internationally often...”

“But how did she feel?” he asks.

***

Aden was down this weekend, he was talking to my cousin Steffi, also visiting, about cancer/Cancer. “Everyone has cancerous cells growing all of the time,” he said. “It's just that sometimes our bodies, for whatever reason, suddenly aren't able to fight their growth.”

***

“Well, she missed James a lot,” my mum told the man. “And she missed me, and New Zealand...”

“And now she's back, isn't she?” he smiled. “She's home.”

Brain cancer is one of the cancers with the least known causes. I've been repeatedly told that there is no reason, that it just spontaneously occurred, that it's not genetic, not environmental, not cellphones, not dietary, not this, not that.... now I don't know anything either. I have no idea. But what I do know is that when the cancer was multiplying its little cells, my heart was conflicted. Deeply. There was a crevice between my heart and my head. I felt lost. I was pursuing success, was going to head straight into getting a PhD, was going to be a published author within the year....etc. I had no plans to ever come back to New Zealand to live. I wanted to fix the world, and its pain weighed heavily upon me. And I also know that now, my heart and my head are at peace. I feel joy emanating from my inner being. James and I have a sense of constant growth together, he is happy in a wonderful job, I have reconnected with my family and homeland. I have kept in contact with my loved ones back in Moscow, and my love for them has not faded but grown. Even the most menial tasks are beautiful. I no longer need success, but am happy if it comes along from doing what I truly want to do.

No matter if this is related to cancer or not, this is something that I wish for all people. To give up the conflict, to reconnect our heads and our hearts, to go home. There will always be things that we feel society wants us to do to be successful, but we will never taste happiness unless we are at home in ourselves. After I've treated the remaining cells, I'll begin delving deeper into the reasons for it's existence, but for now, while we 'have no idea,' I want to share this story with you in the hopes that you don't have to get cancer to feel the peace that it has brought me.