Of course, that’s a made up word but since I seem to have nightmares even when I’m awake, perhaps it’s a new word. It seems that the peaceful, calm times are getting shorter. I wake up at odd hours from a night mare. I hear my doctor telling me, ten years ago, that if the cancer came back, it would be ‘really bad, worse than the first time.’ I wonder why I had to have this information? It lay dormant for that many years only to emerge in the blue hours of the night.
My other doctor telling me, that if that small ‘thing’ on my spine ever became a problem, it would be very diffilcult to operate, if not impossible. So! These old records, echoing their voices from long ago, as it has become my reality. But, at the same time there’s new technology. There are different options and choices. They need to be more careful what they throw out, even when meant well. Goes to show how very powerful words are and not just from the medical side. The impact of careless words. Like wild horses. Once they’re out and gallopping, you can’t call them back.
I also dreamed that I couldn’t find my purse and ran all over the place, looking. When I did find it, everything was taken. Just an empty purse and at the sight of that open, black, gaping hole, I couldn’t breath. The remaining hours of interrupted sleep, stretching before me like a long, bumpy road. The crickets chirped relentlessly but I was grateful for their incessant noise. I know, I really do, that I could call my friends, even at that hour but what would be different? They’d lose sleep, too.
I had my son call my doctor and ask him a lot questions but I did not want to know, at this point in time. I cling onto the camino like a life saver raft. Running away. How long is that leash?? I would love to unzip my skin and step out of it at those times. Even get away from myself. I am not a whiner, usually. I’ve dealt with a lot of set backs, hard knocks. But all of that was ‘do-able’ I don’t mind so much adversity in life as I’ve become rather good at dealing with things as long as it is ‘DO-ABLE.’
I’ve noticed I’ve also become somewhat short tempered at people’s ‘problems’. They’re having a bad hair day. They imagine their jeans make their butts look big. They broke a perfect nail. Their husband/wife is not listening. The laundry detergent is not making their underwear white. ‘Let’s trade places’. I know. I know. It’s not fair. It’s not their fault I’m saddled with this crap. I promise, this does not last very long. Only the time span of a Hummingbird cough.
I was so moved and touched to tears by my son and daughters’ loving support and willingess to carry some of this burden. My friends rallied around, coming by, spending quality time.
I drove to Grand Junction and visited my ‘adopted’ family. We went to have lunch down town. Lovely street, art work shops and restaurants. (Had salad and a Portabella. This one, on a rosemary-herb roll.) I actually wanted to sell some gold but when he offerd a low price, I kept it. Sentimental value was so much more.
Good morning mama! I love your honesty. I say that because even the empowered need to be empowered! We can only DO so much until its time for others to step up. I love you and I miss you. I want to just hug and hold you cry together. I know you can do this I cannot wait to see the pictures of your trip!!! Did you get your coupons? ((((((Hugs)))))))))
Dear Mom,
Your experience highlights a real problem with doctors’ training — they seem to lack the training that would help them to understand what they do not and cannot know. It is simply unknowable that cancer would, necessarily, come back worse the second time, in every patient. I would go so far as to say these doctors are violating the scientific method by purporting to have such certainty, not to mention committing egregious harm to patients who are unable to get such words out of their heads.
We hear stories every day of doctors who have told someone they had two weeks, or six months, to live — and the person lives five, ten, twenty years. Who are these people, lacking both humility, in the awesome face of their science, and certainty, who nevertheless lay hold to claims of certainty they cannot support?
It is deadly arrogance.
Given the power of the human mind to do its body well or ill, doctors may do more damage with insupportable assertions of certainty than the disease in question itself.
I would urge you to realize something your doctors can’t, which is that they have simply rummaged around in a grab-bag of received opinion and averages and pulled out loose talk, which they then handed you, like feces in a bag, for you to hold onto.
Don’t take the bag. Doctors know neither the mind of God nor nature, and it is simply not possible to state anything with 100% certainty, as they too often do.
You are free to believe anything is possible. And anything is. Let’s believe that, together. As between two unknowable outcomes, we can choose the one that gives us the most happiness, the most hope, and therefore the strongest immune system — and chance for survival.
I think that doctors may be accustomed, from dealing with some patients who do want a certain answer, to give one even if it is not necessarily based on anything but conjecture. Understand it as conjecture, try to dismiss it as such, and think about the things that do bring joy and pleasure!
Love, Adam
Absolutely Cameron! I didn’t take the bag either. When first diagnosed a doctor says to me… usually life expectancy is ten years. I was stunned that someone not even a specialist would just throw that out there like that! I sat there quietly almost grabbing the trash to puke…thinking omg I have to cram my life into ten years!
Dear Inge,
Your near and dear ones are so right. These doctors are taught so many things, but humility, alas, is not among them. The final frontier is not outer space, but inner space. Every day, discoveries occur that render our previous “science” and “fact” utterly false. The Earth used to be known to be flat. Mercury cured diseases. The modern versions stun the established order each time, to my personal delight. My relishing the trouncing of hubris is not simple schadenfreude; it is joy at the unfolding evidence that there remains SO MUCH that we simply DO NOT KNOW. There is so much still to be discovered.
So, if you will forgive *my* hubris at offering unsolicited advice, perhaps you might consider yourself the teacher of these alleged keepers of the knowledge. You have so much inner and innate wisdom. They are seeing through such narrow prisms. Perhaps you are here to remind them that science is the art of inquiry. Curiosity, not arrogance, leads to discoveries. Remind them that there is always another Way. El Camino. iAndalé!
With hugs from an unmet friend,
Rivi