Reclined on the covered balcony 15 floors up with my healing scarf and polarized sunglasses. ~bliss~
July 11th, Facebook post, ocean respite
Category: deathwork
Jun 27, Facebook post
Comments will be deleted, no energy to answer
Yesterday was 1st round of curated for my genetic makeup and this particular type of undiffererntiated adenocarcinoma more commonly known as smoker’s cancer. It was far shorter time in the infusion chair. Both Samantha and I were moved off center by the rapidly changing meds and potential side effects we’d mentally prepped for. All changes were great changes and a bit disconcerting all the same.
New meds were shifting up until they entered the infusion port. It was wild. Good, but wild.
I wish I could talk sense about it, but that will be. I’ve been trusting Hillman Teams, built on cutting each research and results who’ve all kept their humanity and turns it towards you.
The port was a success. Some MCAS itching from adhesives because I believe MCAS wants to be a continual reminder that if not the med for it that has cleared up other things who knows when my brain would have found a way to get me to listen. I do not know how far into the future for other humans, but one my messages from the Ether has been that whatever they decide to name this style of mast cell fuckery that’s quickly responded to by cromolyn sodium, it is one of built-in DNA markers that can slow, stop, clear, and warn of certain types of cancer.
Life is weird y’all in the best of ways.
I don’t Google this type of cancer. I’m not anyone’s stat while I’m alive. Dr. Rhee and my lead doc Dr. Malhotra are fantastic.
I’m grateful to the lifetime of spiritual practices that taught me how to untie the hands of the Universe with my small expectations, and so much more that I’ll be happy to talk about later.
Fatigue from the pinpoint radiation is settling in. Many meds to allow this process to do its thing. Sleep hard, wake hard, eat 34000 small meals a day. That number is an exaggeration, but feels accurate.
Falling back to sleep. Take heart, friends, we’ll talk real talk soonish.
All is well, all is well, and all manner of things shall be well. ~Julian of Norwich
Again, all healing energies welcome, none are required. 🥰 💞
June 24, Facebook post
On this one all comments will be deleted. I do not have extra energy for comments
Healing energies always welcome, not required.
Update:
3rd day of high steroids post spot radiation therapy. Kevin is my med guy because I was certain I was only 2 days high dose. Nope. shakes fist at sky
Residual symptoms seem slightly less today. Haven’t thrown up, good bonus. 😊 💞
Photo tax:
Traveling healing basket.
June 18, Facebook post
comments might be deleted, it’s not you, it’s me**
I had 3 days in a row of pinpoint radiation to eradicate the brain mets and any residual from the excised one. It is expected to be good for at least a year, maybe longer, and scans periodically.
Learned I’m now allergic to Ativan. Thanks MCAS. The Ativan hangover combined with the allergic skin response was its own little hell for day one into two. 🎉 🤨 🎉
The monster mask was necessary. You are locked in. It sucks, but it is less than an hour. My max was 45 minutes. My min was 30.
The part over your chest isn’t locked and your lungs are free.
Behold the monster!!!!
June 14, Facebook post
Comments will be deleted
First standing shower since surgery, gooood scrub around the incision, permission for upsweep granted…feeling clean.
June 12, Facebook post #2
2nd, maybe last post for today.
I’m also medically cancer staging wise
Stage 4, Terminal
Per the smart docs at Hillman Cancer Center.
Still have the best teams.
Had follow up with Nuero-oncology brain surgeon guy. Spoiler: he’s thrilled.
Here is my daughter’s summation of a day that lasted thru 6 hours of appts, preps, scans, talking, NO DECENT FOOD, and finally an MRI for pinpoint radiation mapping:
“Neurosurgeon said most of recovery for mobility from surgery will be seen within 6 months and wherever she’s at at the one year mark is about where things will stay. I like him a lot. Very straight forward and didn’t even flinch about a year from now. That leads me to believe he has just as much confidence about this as he did the surgery 🙌❤️💛🧡🙌🌟🌟🌟🙌”
June 12, Facebook post
Friends. Conversations coming.4 right now keep reminding yourself that I am one of your deathworker friends, and I knew when I agreed to this particular body in this particular time for this particular human body contract that***once I took a first breath the rest of my contract said there would be a last breath***I have known that I am terminal since my first breath. I have known that I am stage 4, terminal, since my first breath.This is important information to try to keep in mind as we navigate this space together if only so you understand the point of view that I am coming from. I will try to gently educate you because I love you.I do not need you to carry any certain belief to stay in this space.
The beginning, first Facebook post, June 4th. All copies of FB posts are transferred as is, typos and all
Posting to my wall will remain off until I get my bearings.
Not dead yet.
Not expecting to be dead soon.
And…
Went to hospital for suspected stroke (I knew it wasn’t). Long story, details later. Brain lesion metastases from primary lung tumor. I named this one Blessed little fucker because it took out my dominant (left) arm and hand bite by bite over 2 weeks. I ran stroke protocol 34567812 times. Believed I’d pinched a nerve. BLF (Blessed Little Fucker) was resected, all function returned. Minor tweaks thru OT to come. General strength PT for a bit.
Turns out some things I tossed off as aging were tumour gags. LOL 🤷🏼♀️
Radiation first, chemo starts on June 26. I’ll have a port. Yada Yada.
Stage 4, terminal but managable, optimism all around.
Do not smoke. Hahaha
Details when I have them. Healing prayers and energy welcome. I’m going day by day with my focus on clearing and joy. We have Hillman Cancer Center and one of the best global teams for cancer, cutting edge tech, research, etc.
Undiffererntiated adenocarcinoma unless new testing shifts it. Not the worst, not the best, many tools.
It is not small cell or squamous cell (worst prognosis), not the best one, either, that’s non small cell basal something and has most tools. 💜
FB wall off while I narrow my focus to health and joy as the treatments do their jobs.
All styles of healing energies welcome regardless of base spirit. Candles, saints, jujus, prayers, etc welcome. I’ll update periodically. I probably won’t answer comments. I will NOT entertain advice, well meaning or otherwise, on my profile. I will not be answering most individual messages.
Grief is Chaos
Grief is a slippery, dancing, horrible, unavoidable thing. We have so many ways to talk about it, even us deathworkers. We talk about moving with and through it. We say blessings to others of peace and strength. Sometimes we discuss “getting to the other side” of it. Grief isn’t a wall you scale (though it can feel that way). There isn’t a line you finally step over where all of present life returns to the sharp focus of before the grief. Your first grief (though you were too young to know its name) is like your first time having sex, the you afterward can never be the you that was prior to the experience. There is no returning to them.
When the world shatters you into grief, it is chaos. Loving someone, some thing, any thing means you’ve struck a bargain with grief. When it stomps through the door, it shoves you down, hard. You struggle for air, the rooms are topsy turvy. Everything tilts, shimmers like mirages, and nothing fits – furniture is uncomfortable, clothes rub the wrong way, sounds are deafening or whispers. You are upside down, floating in a debris field you cannot dodge.
As time moves around you there is less debris, but you see it in the edges of your vision. Chaos lessens, but doesn’t become order. Eventually it settles into a still pool deep within you. As long as nothing ripples the surface, you do feel some peace and can plot your way through this new normalcy.
One pebble. That’s it. One tiny pebble and your still pool splashes that grief back up through your soul, scorching, shoving you down, teeth bared, gleefully taking its next chunk.
What time does is make the splashes smaller, mostly. Until the pebble is a rock. Then, chaos. Grief doesn’t give way to order. Grief gives way to knowledge. Grief imparts wisdom from that still pool that stays behind. Grief schools us on surviving loss, on the price of love, and on our blessed mortality.
I’m not quite cruel enough to say, “embrace the chaos”. You can’t fully prepare for it. Everyone gets the chaos, there is no secret back path around it. You can expect it. However, walking around every day expecting grief is no way to live. Best when chaos hits to simply remember it. Remember, because you’ve encountered grief since you were born. Remember eventually it settles into a still pool. When it does, embrace the life you’re living as well as you’re able to in that moment until it’s disturbed, again.
As a Deathworker and intimate partner with Chaos, perhaps you were hoping I’d have better advice, a faster fix. This is the best I’ve got because I too signed those contracts with the blood of incarnation – to love means to grieve later, to take a first breath means to exhale a last one. May we all love and live fully making those contracts worth our blood. Hail!
Death, Aging, & House, M.D.
Aging is so interesting. I started (re)watching House, M.D. today. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed the Sherlock of medicine. Pilot episode, and my takeaways from it are wholly different than 15 years ago when I first watched it. Aging changes perspective. And thank gods, right? How utterly dull life would be if it didn’t.
Watching House reminded me of my mum because she loved the show. She died early into season 3 in 2006. I continued to watch thru all 8 seasons, even as it did what long running TV series tend to do, lose its edge. I did it because it made me feel connected to my mum. For years I held a tenuous connection thru a tv show and when it ended there was a finality to my mother’s death that hadn’t been before. Aging is so interesting, yes?
I am 58 years old. I’m far closer to my death than I am to my birth. Like every human each day brings me closer and farther away to those two things. The 2 universals of being human. Forget taxes, they’re hit and miss, but birth and death? Those two are guaranteed.
Aging piles on experiences, adding layers of uniqueness to my perceived self. Closer to death strips that uniqueness away, peeling back my self to the reality that I in fact am not unique. Neither are you. We’re born, we die. All of us. No uniqueness there. Yes, it’s humbling. At times the inevitability of it is somber. More than either of these it allows a freedom that closer to birth doesn’t. Not striving to be ever more unique each year is a relief, a blessing. Aging releases me, us, into just being human in whatever way we define that. The freedom to die like everyone else is oddly comforting. Aging is so very interesting.
LEAN IN TO JOY with BONEWEAVER 