Unravel Cancer: Experiences with family battling cancer: Body

29 July 2009

23:30 Body

Your body doesn't lie. When you get sick, it means slow down. When you are anxious, it means pay attention, and when you are fearful, it means be careful. Injuries, illness, breathing, crying, and even farting, give us information to better live our lives. The body is a guide, offering non-verbal data on modifying our habits for survival.

My body is in the midst of some kind of baffling transformation, or just plain weirdness. Yesterday afternoon & evening a very good old (I mean...as in time, not age. No, really!) friend and I hung out. He was in town from Europe, also to care for an elder parent who lives in the area. We had so much frickin' fun! We went to a cemetery!

Don't knock it til you try it, especially the older ones. The monuments were super beautiful - we even saw Ghiridelli's. And the view of downtown Oakland & SF from the hill was spectacular, even with the fog.

Anyway, the point of all this gruesome blather was to say that I started to conk out at about 9PM. We bade our farewells for about an hour and a half, and I finally made it to bed (after blogging of course) around 11:30PM. When I woke up this morning, it felt like someone ran me over with a backhoe. Although I had my laptop, I shlepped to work anyway, cuz I had a meeting with the boss, and was leaving early for a massage appointment.

At said appointment, I passed out on the waiting room couch, from being pooped beyond all exhaustion. While there, I started to talk about the challenges of recent months. I hadn't seen my massage lady since before I left for Denver.

On the table, we discussed a possible Vitamin B deficiency, and then she went to work. Besides cranio-sacral therapy, she also gave me some acupuncture. Holy crap, those needles hurt. But, they really did the job, and gave me the energetic juice I needed.

I learned more about the right side/left side connection as mentioned before. Sitting here now typing, I'm recalling what the released pain in my right leg at the top near the buttock was - a severe hamstring pull from running. The 2nd day in Denver, I ran almost 5 miles, and nearly killed myself. The next day my right leg was in so much pain & could barely walk. And I had perpetual cotton mouth from not drinking enough water. However, running at 1PM in the afternoon in blistering hot Denver with no water had no contribution to my ailments whatsoever. Only fools do such things...

As I was saying, the bodyworker and I began to talk about many of the things that have gone on in my life: the fear of my mom pushing herself to recover quickly & hurting herself, the sadness that my cancerous brother & I don't get along very well, the sadness that my healthy oldest brother and I really don't get along very well, the sorrow of seeing my cancerous brother go right back to his drinking habits after his treatment was done, seeing my mom suffer under the poor treatment of her by my sister-in-law, and many many other things.

Finally, my body began to relax. But, it was resisting it. Out came yet another flood of tears. The disappointingly familiar grief of last week's dark days came back. It was such a mixed blessing. On the one hand - it was good to get some relief from my physcial pain. But, on the other hand - it was a drag to be sad again.

And so, my body keeps telling me what my mind does not want to accept - I'm grieving. But, I don't even know what for! They're not dead yet... So far its just a flesh wound. Yet the grief, mixed with despair, melancholy, and sadness crept over me like a grey, lifeless mist, just as the fog rolls in every evening at sunset. Fundamentally, I know there is a silver lining, just as the top of the fog where the sun shines, is bright & happy. You see it every time you fly into the Bay Area. But, once your plane has descended through the gloomy fog layer, it's a Crayola Crayon grey, although not as easy to handle. As a crayon is. Right.

Before leaving in June, I cried oceans of tears. My pal last night & I were talking about being a victim and martyr, and how we both wanted to avoid that in our writing. I was concerned about writing too much doom & gloom on this blog. Plus, it feels good to stay positive. But, truly being gentle with myself & loving myself means accepting where I'm at every day. That includes tears, grief, and physical limitations. While I don't cry everyday for my brother and mother anymore, I do cry from the heavy weight of the grief on my back. It's like I'm carrying a single block of granite from a quarry. I so desperately want to put it down, but don't know how.

So, while the tears are mere streams compared to the recent past, they come because of the grief. When the burden and pain get so bad, my body reacts by crying. When the burden of grief gets so cumbersome, my body stifles the energy to go out and do the regular things I do.

This body thing is something else.

All in all, the bodywork was beneficial, though, because at least the grief is not being shoved down to a numbing depth where it'll manifest in my own cancer in 15 years. No thank you very much - don't want to walk this yucky path, no matter how nobly my mom may do it.

And so it goes, my self & my body awareness ever unfolding, and my tears telling me stories of internal universes.

Take it from me, kids - be kind to your body.

Breathe.

I'm a 30-something professional woman who's mother & brother were both diagnosed with Grade 3 Astrocytoma tumors within about a week of each other. My mother's tumor is in her brain, and my brother's tumor is in his spinal cord, causing him to lose feeling in his arms & legs. These writings are about my experiences dealing with them, coping, loving them, loving myself, and living my life knowing that they are both dying. I hope you find inspiration and courage from my writings to help you get through whatever is going on in your life.

Lady Vroom

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