I was about to turn 70. That was momentous enough, but the universe thought to send me an unexpected gift.
I wasn’t immediately alarmed when my fingers detected the swelling in my groin. Casually, I pointed it out to the physio I was seeing.
“Check that out,” she advised.
My appointment was for two weeks later. It was the end of April by the time the doctor examined me.
Like a plank of wood that was about to be sawed—a feeling I would experience many more times in the coming months—I lay down on the hard cold surface under a large scanning machine.
The results came back quickly. “You have lymphoma,” I was told.
I had no idea what having lymphoma meant but those words sent chills down my spine.
It was early May. The trees were putting out a light green canopy over the city. The sky was a brilliant blue but my 70th birthday came and went amidst visits to the oncologist, more scans and the dreaded announcement, “You have to have six months of chemo.”
Was there no natural way to fight this affliction? Did I have to have chemo? The doctor and my children assured me there was no other option. The lymphoma was aggressive. There was not a minute to waste.
The next thing I knew, I was an inpatient at the hospital, stripped of my clothes, draped in a hospital gown, tagged with a plastic band at my wrist, and attached to IV bags that dripped poisons into my body.
I realized then I was beginning a journey offered by the universe.
What did I have to learn from it? I didn’t know but the sense of being on a journey gave me courage. I would have to hone my awareness and stay as present as possible within the maelstrom.
After a relapse the following year, with cancer spreading throughout my body and into my spinal column, it was obvious that chemo and radiation were not working.
I became one of the first candidates for immune therapy for large B cell lymphoma.
Now, years later, the cancer journey that felt so foreign and frightening when it first began, has receded.
What I feel today is a metamorphosis, as if a skin was shed and another version of myself was made possible.
I hope I have learned to accept life and all its challenges, to adapt to changing circumstances. I learned I had the mental strength to keep going.
The journey taught me that I could find small pleasures along the way, humour in the least likely situations, and moments of normalcy in the midst of precariousness.
Routine gave me something familiar to hold on to. For that reason, even when I felt weak, I tried to go for a walk. Perhaps the walk was just around the block, but it gave me, as always, a sense of well-being and a sense of having accomplished an important personal ritual.
Keeping a journal gave me a focus, a creative outlet that, no matter how minimal, grounded me, and helped me to feel connected to myself.
The ‘Observer’ in me grew and allowed me to witness, even to be curious about the catastrophes as well as the miracles that occurred. The ‘Observer’ kept me from drowning in fear. It willed me to stay calm, willed me to nurture faith that everything would happen as intended even when there were no guarantees.
Viktor Frankel coined the phrase, “between stimulus and response there is a space.” * Taking distance granted me some emotional control over the mad bronco ride I was on.
Looking back, I realize that putting my trust and faith in the medical process and its facilitators, physicians, nurses, and technicians, made it possible to stay centered, and to preserve some peace of mind throughout most of the treatment time.
Trusting that the medical interventions would be effective, that it is better to trust than to indulge in despair, allowed me a sense of hope throughout the journey.
Having faith gave me strength, despite the inability to formulate a firm concept for what I felt.
Awareness that life is finite has brought me the ability to focus more fully, to stay more present, and to appreciate the moment to moment as it unfolds.
Will I live forever? No.
But I am grateful for every day, grateful for the miracle of receiving someone else’s blood, the wisdom of the doctors, the caring of family and the amazing research that led to the immunotherapy that saved my life.
*Viktor Frankel, Man’s Search for Meaning
