In and Through the Body

Up until the cancer conundrum began ten years ago, I had always been absurdly healthy. My one hospital stay was when I was born. I sailed through my two pregnancies without even a split second of morning sickness, heartburn or swollen ankles. My kids were both born at home, brilliantly healthy.


I remember having a conversation with my mentor, Lalitha, about that years ago. She said that that was a good thing because in the Western Baul lineage-- spiritual work is pursued "in and through the body." She proceeded to tell me wild and wonderful stories of people's bodies being "on the line" as they pursued their investigations of the unknown.


It never occurred to me--that day or any other day--that part of my evolution as a human being might involve having body bits removed. It did not feel like a spiritual experience to stop nursing my daughter in order to have a breast biopsy, followed up quickly by a lumpectomy, a mastectomy and an oopherectomy. It was a truly terrifying time. My kids had just turned three and five. On top of all the surgeries I had radiation to the chest wall as the cancer was locally-advanced and had invaded the chest wall. I was given a 50% chance of survival. As an aside, "survival" in the world of oncology is a time frame of five years. Needless to say, I did not feel reassured by those stats. It took me three or four years to really start to feel well. The hardest thing to overcome was having my ovaries removed and being surgically thrown into menopause. I had been warned that the side effects were more brutal than chemo but I also believed that it would be worth it...that it could save my life to radically reduce the amount of estrogen that my body could produce. The fabulous thing is that I did overcome it. My body adapted and I was healthy and happy once again.

One of the things that I did to recontexualize my experience was to have a kick-ass tattoo of a yogini inked over my mastectomy scar--a not-so charming railroad track of staples that were used to join the tissue back together. I also discovered that there is an ideal pursued in many Eastern traditions of union between the divine masculine and the divine feminine--a balance of the energies of shiva and shakti. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that in art--be it paintings or bronze, this deity--Ardhanarishvara--is always depicted as half man/half woman and that the male side is the right side and the female side is the left. It didn't make me feel any closer to enlightenment to discover that my body now had exactly that form but it does intrigue me and--on lucky days--inspires me.

I had my annual follow-up with my oncologist in May 2008 and casually mentioned a little cough I'd been having (slightly tearfully which I guess means I actually knew what was up) and on the spot she had me go up for a chest x-ray just to rule out any recurrence. She said that I could come back with the x-rays and see her again. I have mentioned how fabulous she is, right?

The chest-x-ray indicated that there was a recurrence and a CT Scan was ordered to confirm. Not that there is a good time to get a cancer recurrence but this was definitely not good timing. My son was moving back to Canada to live with me and his sister after 3 1/2 years of living primarily with his Dad. I had a huge jewellery show coming up. I was basically asymptomatic so I decided just to tell a few of my intimates, make my diet sparklingly clean, start seeing a naturopath who specializes in cancer, up my exercise, receive more acupuncture treatments and hang tough.

Just days prior to my son Zack arriving in Vancouver I ended up in the Emergency with what turned out to be a very dangerous amount of fluid around my heart. I had it drained and hightailed it out of there as quickly as I could to get ready for my son. I went to see my oncologist the day before Zack was due to arrive and she took one look at me and sent me upstairs for a chest x-ray and then gave me the bad news that I needed to be admitted into the hospital to have an operation to prevent the fluid from building up again around the heart. I was in the hospital for 8 days and left 12 pounds lighter and feeling like a little, old granny with advanced heart disease. I thought that that was it, that I would never be able to ride by bike on the hills near Spanish Banks or up at Whistler. My friends and my kids were terrifically supportive and little by little I regained my strength and stamina to the point that in two short months I was back cycling up steep hills. I was insanely grateful for my body's strength and stamina.

My buddies have been reminding me of all of this as I await the chemo assault. I have an incredibly strong constitution--notwithstanding the rather paradoxical fact that my body is trying to kill itself--and I can and will get through this latest in-and-through-the-body opportunity. My aim, of course, is to do more than just survive chemo. My aim is to actually eke out some kind of insight-rich experience . That said, I forgive myself in advance if I just manage to endure it with a minimum of whining and poor-me-ing.