How one simple belief is transforming my life.
The highs and lows of a cancer diagnosis
When was the last time your world turned upside down?
Mine came three months ago. I was mid-flow, midday when the phone rang. An unknown number - thought I’d better answer. It was the warm voice of my surgeon.
“Sorry,” he said. “The nodules in your lungs are growths from the tumour. It’s spread.”
So I put the brakes on. Pulled out the plug. Allowed myself to swim and drown in a landscape with no landmarks.
All the thoughts of death and fear came rushing through. And a game ensued with my mind. Unconscious beliefs were driving me insane. I was trying to remain above it all and stay positive.
Past the initial shock and shut down, I committed my time to healing. Doing whatever was necessary just to be good. In those early days, I went out for walks in the woods. I would find a quiet spot and let the sounds of that place fill me.
Poetry came. As did musings and other things. But most important was my connection. The remembrance of prayer. To live it through my body. To live it committedly as a devotee to Life.
Later the doctor said that they were still on the fence. Whether or not they should give me chemo, or just focus on the bits they can see. After some tests, they decided to cut me open and zap me with some rays of radiation.
Thank fuck, I was relieved. Couldn’t quite believe I might have needed to undergo the rigours of chemo.
And anyway, the doc said, “the treatment will affect your fertility.”
And there it was. At 35, told I might not be able to live something I’d always believed would happen one day.
Needless to say, my partner and I made hay whilst the sun shone. She unplugged her coil and we revved up the engines and prayed for sweet fortune to be with us in our love.
And heavens above… would you believe it?
We’d only gone and done it! Conceived in the Rhodope mountains. The wilds of Bulgaria cradled our love. A little soul from up above, or wherever these ones come from, decided it was time to come into this world and have us as its parents.
And the journey has been topsy turvy since. Really, it comes down to my beliefs. But these are no small things. I’ve been learning that we have some that lurk in the dark of our selve’s that we cannot access alone. And we may not even know they are there, but they shape the very world we live in and know.
So I’ve been digging and mining, working and transforming. All that exists in order to be transformed.
And I’ve begun to make gold. It doesn’t happen overnight. And the way these things shift and turn and morph happens beyond my comprehending mind. But these shifts, they come and I feel them. One happened in a hospital room in Bristol.
The doctor was sat there. The big old machine behind him. He was telling me what I could expect in the next few months from surgery and radiotherapy. And I was sitting there. Just looking at him. His words washing over me. And the thought came. No, the belief — ‘that I’m going to get through this’ (dum dum).
So, here I am. On the cusp of some treatment. 18 months into my journey with cancer. And I’m alive with the belief that I can heal.
And its been a journey, to get here. But I feel it. I can see a way ahead. And this moment in my life is asking me to move and grow. Develop and evolve. Shed and let die all that doesn’t serve me.
And, my-my, how much I’ve moved and learnt on this journey. And how strange to say, once more, that at this threshold, passing into pastures new, I can’t help but feel that my life is just beginning.
