I'm Just Sayin'...

Folks, here is something that irritates the hell out of me, so get ready for a vent.
I had a great lunch with a dear friend in Door County last week. Now, I'm not faulting her, so much, as her thoughts and words simply reflect the thoughts and words of a good number of well-meaning, dangerously educated people I've encountered over the last year and a half. She isn't the first one to say this to me, but as I headed home, I let out a breath and thought, there it is again.
So I have to say it. Please don't blame cancer patients for their cancer.
Don't tell the cancer patient that "holding it all in" for so many years made them "get" cancer. Or they "got" cancer because of their repressed anger/lack of self-esteem/acceptance of verbal abuse or whatever. Don't ask a cancer victim why they thought they "got" cancer, as if a few sessions on the therapist's couch would have the same curative effect as ten rounds of chemo. I have no idea why I "got" cancer and you did not.
There are mean, nasty, horrible people who don't get cancer and live a long, prosperous life - think Leona Helmsley! There are people who eat frozen pizza and potato chips every night for dinner, who work in nuclear power plants, who never exercise, who don't get cancer. When you say to the cancer patient, "No wonder you have cancer" it's blaming the victim. I'm reminded of the way sick people were cast out of the synagogue because their illness reflected their sin, and they were, therefore, unclean (and cut off from the very community whose support was necessary for their healing). I didn't give myself cancer. I'm a victim of this disease. Maybe it was the PCB's in Michigan's soil, or the Fox River, or the crap in the air that caused it. Maybe it was just a random event for a bunch of cells in my body.
All that being said, of COURSE there are many things cancer victims need for their healing, including, but not limited to, good therapy to process what the disease means to their lives; healthy exercise and good food; lots of love and positive regard; prayer; a reason to live each day. These things we know. We know that life post-cancer is never the same, and that we are irrevocably changed by all that happens to us.
Focus, dear friends, on these things with the cancer patients in your life.
(And thank you to all my friends who have!)

Trillium

White stars sparkle on
Green forest floor; the night sky
Has fallen to earth.

When Gratitude Flows, Gotta Go With It

This hymn came to me this morning and I sang it for my devotional. It's up there with "For The Beauty of the Earth" as one of my favorite "traditional" hymns. It's spring. What can I say?

Let all things now living
A song of thanksgiving
To God the creator
Triumphantly raise.
Who fashioned and made us,
Protected and stayed us,
Who still guides us on
To the end of our days.
God's banners are o'er us,
His light goes before us,
A pillar of fire
Shining forth in the night.
Till shadows have vanished
And darkness is banished
As forward we travel
From light into light.

His law he enforces,
The stars in their courses
And sun in it's orbit
Obediently shine;
The hills and the mountains,
The rivers and fountains,
The deeps of the ocean
Proclaim him divine.
We too should be voicing
Our love and rejoicing;
With glad adoration
A Song let us raise
Till all things now living
Unite in thanksgiving:
"To God in the highest,
Hosanna and praise!"

Grateful Moment

I want to give thanks for my coach and therapist, Bob Johnson. When I met with him today, he held me in such compassion and understanding, through tears and laughter. It is good - to have someone hold you in their care without judgment, worry, or need. It is good - to feel his regard. I know his heart aches for me and all I've been through - we've known each other a few years now - he is a caring man, but all his energy was focused on holding me through our hour today with kindness and honesty. He was a "ministering angel".
This, really, is what the "Confessional" should be like.

Denial is not a river in Egypt

I think it's been said before - maybe to the point where it's trite - that the health care industry is not an industry that handles death well. It's about healing, curing, and managing, but when death looms on the horizon, even those compassionate hospice workers can get a little weird. Give you an example - I recently asked for my Lorazepam to be renewed. It's an anti-anxiety drug I take every so often, and I take it when the anxiety of treatment overwhelms. I wake up at 3 a.m. and can't get back to sleep; I don't always have time to meditate and pray and exercise my way out of my mid-night trouble. (At one point I think I'd gone more than two weeks on almost no sleep - that's when I finally asked the doctor for help!) As my therapist said, it's a very normal response to a frightening situation - of COURSE I'm anxious...I should be terrified.

The new oncology nurse wasn't crazy about the prescription (Lorazepam is addictive) and wasn't sure it could be renewed. I just shook my head - for Christ's sake, I wanted to say to her, the least of my problems these days is addiction! Rehab seems very doable after ten rounds of adriamycin!!!! Throw me into group, I'll share my feelings!!! (I'm laughing)

Seriously, there is no roadmap for how to live with death. Whether death is imminent or simply and abstract concept - or something in between, as I'd describe those of us on the cancer odyssey - getting from here (life) to there (death) is a highly individual thing, as individual as any life journey, healthy or no. Should sick folk go around long-faced and troubled, or should they choose to embrace the good that comes and let the rest fall away? As a parish minister, I always followed my parishoner's lead; if they wanted to live and fight (even if the obvious end was close) or lay down and die, that was their perogative. They are the royalty in their own death.

At my first dx, when everyone around me was alarmed and anxious, I would say, "I ain't dying until I'm dying." And I meant it. It's not a denial - I had my bad moments - but a decision to live into the day, taking what comes and relishing life while I can.

The Practice of Getting Lost

An exerpt from "An Altar In The World" by Barbara Brown Taylor

In my life I have lost my way more times than I can count. I have set out to be married and ended up divorced. I have set out to be healthy and ended up sick. I have set out to live in New England and ended up in Georgia. When I was thirty, I set out to be a parish priest, planning to spend my life caring for souls in any congregation that would have me. Almost thirty years later I teach school. The last time I tried on one of my old black cotton clergy shirts, the rotted fabric gave way beneath my fingers.
While none of these displacements was pleasant, at first, I would not give a single one of them back. I have found things while I was lost that I might never have discovered if I had stayed on the path. I have lived through parts of life that no one in their right mindwould ever willingly have chosen, finding enough overlooked treasure in them to outweigh my projected wages in the life I planned. These are just a few of the reasons that I have decided to stop fighting the prospect of getting lost and engage it as a spiritual practice instead. The Bible is a great help to me in this practice, since it reminds me that God does some of God's best work with people who are truly, seriously lost.

Medical Dictionary

Artery...... ......... ......... .. The study of paintings.

Bacteria.... ......... ......... . Back door to cafeteria.

Barium...... ......... ......... What doctors do when patients die.
Benign...... ......... ......... ..What you be, after you be eight.
Caesarean Section..... .....A neighbourhood in Rome .
Catscan..... ......... ......... . Searching for Kitty.
Cauterize... ......... ......... . Made eye contact with her.
Colic....... ......... ......... .... A sheep dog.
Coma........ ......... ......... .. A punctuation mark.
Dilate...... ......... ......... ... To live long.
Enema....... ......... ......... . Not a friend.
Fester...... ......... ......... .. Quicker than someone else.
Fibula...... ......... ......... ... A small lie.
Impotent.... ......... ......... Distinguished, well known.
Labour Pain........ ......... .. Getting hurt at work.
Medical Staff....... ......... . A Doctor's cane.
Morbid...... ......... ......... .. A higher offer.
Nitrates.... ......... ......... ... Cheaper than day rates.
Node........ ......... ......... ... I knew it.
Outpatient.. ......... ......... . A person who has fainted.
Pelvis...... ......... ......... .... Second cousin to Elvis.
Post Operative... ......... ... A letter carrier.
Recovery Room........ ...... Place to do upholstery.
Rectum...... ......... ......... . Nearly killed him.
Secretion... ......... ......... . Hiding something.
Seizure..... ......... ......... .. Roman emperor.
Tablet...... ......... ......... ... A small table.
Terminal Illness..... ........Getting sick at the airport.
Tumour...... ......... ......... . One plus one more.
Urine....... ......... ......... ... Opposite of you're out.