Sketchy

 Thinking about William Morris

Between you and me, I'm overwhelmed. Everything feels very touch and go. I am one day away from swallowing the prescribed radioactive iodine and I can't say I don't have reservations about what is about to take place. I've been to the hospital twice in two days to receive a shot deep into my ass muscle that will hide the effects of the synthetic hormone Liothyronine during the prescribed nuclear scan. 

I discovered a few days ago that I have likely been under dosing my Liothyronine. My lifeline. I've been brain foggy and was feeling like my world was closing in on me. I was pretty sure it was the early signs of dementia, seriously. I was doing everything slowly. I found myself in a kitchen filled with young people buzzing about and I could not keep up with the conversation. It was frightening. I thought it was hunger from the prescribed diet and that was probably a factor but it wasn't the whole story. In 9 months I have gone from having one healthy thyroid that I thought worked pretty well—although now I have some doubts—to half a healthy thyroid, and now no thyroid. At first the medication made me jittery so backing off on it seemed the right thing to do but I went too far obviously.

I am struck. I am without a part of my body that I barely noticed or even understood and now I am tasked with accepting the reality of living with a dependency on medication that I don't quite recognize the effects of. It all makes me want to break down and cry. In the hospital yesterday morning waiting for Mark to park the car I just wanted to weep big poor-me-tears. In that vast waiting area, so somber, so many sick people coming in and out. It felt scary and bewildering. I felt lonely there and loneliness is not something I generally think about but this whole process makes me feel profoundly lonely. It is my job alone to carry my body through this medical obstacle course. The shots make me feel sick so I can't do too much, the whole thing is distracting me from what I would rather be thinking about. Stress causes cancer you know. This is the ridiculousness of the whole exercise. Dealing with cancer can give you cancer.

My friend who has the same cancer as me but in more sites started her low-iodine odyssey yesterday. I stopped by today to give her a hug. She reminded me that I was almost done. Friday is the scan and then I can return to normal. Another new normal.

June Blog

So what happened in June was I had the second surgery to remove my thyroid. The good part. The bad part went in January. It took a long time to get over in the winter. I felt profoundly wounded. I had had a huge scare at the discovery of the tumor  and then it took quite awhile after the surgery to get the results. So then I know something that I didn't want to know, but the good news is that part of me was in a trash heap somewhere. The nut sized cancer stopped dead.

The second surgery was easier. I had an idea of what to expect but the process of healing is still a job. The first 3 days were okay and then I was on my own for a few days which was not ideal. I should have asked for or demanded more help. After 10 days they took the bloodied bandage off and pulled out the sutures. The surgeon exclaimed "this looks great!" patting himself on the back for my benefit.  Somehow the incision site is less painful than the first time and I am grateful for that. In January I did not touch my neck near where they cut into me for over a month, despite knowing that gently manipulating the scar helps to soften the healing tissue. I felt apart from my body. 3 months after the first surgery I could feel connections being remade deep in my neck. Just around the time of the second surgery I was finally feeling normal. So I was more prepared for the second offense but the healing was still work that had to be done. In all it took about 3 weeks to feel okay again. There were real highs and lows during that time but then it all just dissolves little by little and before you know it you're getting up, getting dressed and going about your business like nothing happened. I was fortunate too that two other friends underwent surgery around the same time as me so I was able to help them and also have some really helpful discussions about healing. The surgeon only presents the landscape of the surgery they don't ever discuss in depth the after effects of the anesthesia on memory, the bowel, general outlook. In addition to the aftermath of the surgery I was also getting used to taking daily 2 or 3 Thyroid pills. At first 3 was too many and I felt horrible and jittery and I wasn't sleeping. The surgeon suggested backing off to 2 and that was a miracle.

14 days after the second surgery I awoke one evening, after a good weekend of playing tennis 2 days in a row and I felt so profoundly sad it was alarming. I climbed into bed with my husband and he rubbed my back as I drifted back into sleep. I felt badly about the damage to my body, the irreversible-ness of it all. The news came back, the pathology report was clear. No cancer in the side of the Thyroid they had removed but it was hard not to think, why couldn't I have kept it and used it rather than taking pills for the rest of my life. I felt again like an insignificant wounded animal up against a force much larger than myself and while I was grateful for the care I received it's hard not to feel like a statistic and a board recommended course of action. Am I out of the woods? I think so but the treatment continues, there will be another major test I will have to undergo in September involving Radioactive Iodine and 2 week diet beforehand. I will comply, what other choice do I have?

So all this is to say why I never blogged in June and maybe why the blog has been sparse all year so far. I am fine. I am here. I will prevail.

Floating

 

I begin this in my living room on Saturday morning listening to a groovy collection of John Zorn music. New to me and highly compatible with my current state of mind. There are tulips blooming everywhere, the leaves are emerging and the mountainside is changing shape and color with every moment. The garden is coming together here and at the Urban Farm. The Japanese maple outside the bedroom window that reminds me where I am in time is greeting me with delicate chartreuse leaves extended on flaming red branches. On the nights when the moon was full and the night was clear the tree was black and white as if covered in snow. Waking and seeing it at first, I could not believe my eyes. It took a moment for my brain to understand that it was moonlight and not snow after all. I heard some good poems read and I saw a few concerts and reconnected with the dreaminess of listening to art performed. By chance we got a hand-me-down piano, something I have wanted for a long time but was not sure I could afford. My neck is healing. It has taken awhile and it is still not quite 100%. I am feeling reclusive, selective about who I see and what I take on beyond what I am working on. I think it is a healing response and at the same time I think it is a transition period for me.  Taxes—the most recent obstacle to my creative pursuits— are done. And today I am washing my office floor—preparing the space for work. Space to work gets lost in the chaos of life; hidden under paper, place mats and unopened bills. The truth is the cleaning is all part of the practice and that is why when the thought came to me to wash the floor, I said yes. This is an important part of my daily practice, saying yes to doing things, whatever they are. I stop myself all the time and consequently things have backed up on me, I take too long to do things. I am too sporadic. So the idea of the practice is to add consistency to the behavior I am working on developing. Why is it so challenging to give myself an hour a day where I take time to move my creative—non-work—work along? This is the hurdle, making time and doing it. Taking the time and sinking-in to do the deep work, without losing touch with everyday life, that is what I wrestle with. It feels like losing control but I know the only way to explore creatively is to let go, really push off from the dock and float alone into the darkness of the catacombs where it all originates from.

Returning

I am back to walking despite the bitter cold. The question of purpose comes up not just for me but for others in my milieu. The young are confused and misinterpret their daily acts as trite and unimportant. I often think if only X would happen then I could do Y, Z. Well here's a news flash. X is happening! I picked up trash today on my way home. I picked up a big plastic cup, a plastic sheath from one of the salmon reparation saplings that flew off in the wind, and an empty bottle of vodka before I found a discarded grocery bag to put it all in. I filled it up pretty quickly. I have been meaning to do this for a long time but haven't. The trash annoys me. Beer cans, coffee cups, fast food bags that like magnets pull the dog off course. So today I did it. It felt good, and it gave me a totally different perspective on my walk. I may never write a great novel and there may be no purpose to any of it but I will be able to walk down my road without hating humanity and that's something.

P.S. Someone on my road drinks a ton of 100 Proof Vodka in plastic mickey bottles. I hope it isn't a kid.

Bare

I am rowing along my feet are my oars

row, step, row, step, breathe, breathe, breathe.

Merrily, merrily.

I saw seven eagles flying, trill, trill, calling.

Two white capped adults and five mottled juveniles

above the creek. I called to them,

my head tipped back compressing my delicate vertebrae

exposing my white lumped neck.

Hello eagle brothers what a fine day it is.

I bet you can smell the rotting salmon all the way up

in those cottonwood trees. They trill, trill,

call back to me soaring overhead. Showing off

feeling good because of this sudden sun that has

pulled us all out today and made us joyful

when we should be afraid.

As someone who has considered cutting things short
stopping midstream so to speak but fearing the end
incredulous that it all must end in happier times.
I feel lighter now, knowing how it might end
a lump begins somewhere and there you go.
An answer to the question.
An end to the unknowing
but miraculously
step after step, row, step, breathe, step
with my eagle brothers alive above me
and my salmon sisters dead on the creek banks
getting ready to smell as soon as the air bloody well
warms up, and it will. Hope rows along side me.

I am linked to them, the eagles and the bare trees
my flesh exposed, no more or less important.
I am in the flow and that is the point.
And I will row hard like my salmon sisters swam hard
follow my purpose which for now is the simple
act of breathing, stepping, striding, rowing.
Moving when it is time to move,
waiting when it is time to wait.
Sunning myself when the sun
calls me out into the world
along the creek beneath the trees.
My soft neck bared and open
so that the eagles might pull free
and devour what is
unwelcome in this once perfect body.
Trill, trill, call. Step, step. row. Breathe.

One Month

I have not written in a month. Not because I had nothing to say but because I was not willing to go into those deep woods. Instead I have spent the month quietly inhabiting two states. One private, one public. My public self enjoyed the holidays. I ate, I drank, I traveled about dropping off cookies and cheer, spending time with family and friends, it was lovely. My private self came too and sat quietly waiting for my public self to get tired and go home. Some days for hours I forgot completely about my private state and was amazed by how positive and hopeful I felt. Other times my private self scrambled, clawed to the forefront of everything presenting formless ideas that eluded words. I am changed. I turned 50 in December and it was an emotional day. I missed my mother to the point that I could barely speak about her. Like a wounded child I long for her steady hand. In reality she was not that steady, she faltered and I see those fissures in myself. My private self keeps a little album of these creases in our combined flesh. I am not her but at times I fear that I am. We are so fragile. While I was thinking about these two selves as they slid back and forth on top of each other making me feel whole and fractured simultaneously I came to the following conclusion based on evidence and information. I am going to be okay regardless of what happens to me. I have today and I feel fine. As long as I feel fine I will continue to move ahead. My face in the mirror smiles back at me and I think, look at her she looks fine.