Yesterday I went to Vincenzo's (www.vincenzosonline.com). Our family has followed the Vincenzo's brand since the little store was called Italian Canadian Foods, on Bridgeport Rd. in Waterloo.
These days, my appetite has diminished, and there are few things that I enjoy. Nevertheless, I love going to Vincenzo's. I enjoy having a latte there, and I often find things to bring home to try to deceive myself into eating something.
Having cancer and receiving chemotherapy can sometimes take over your life and your entire imagination. I learned a wonderful lesson in reality yesterday: I fell at Vincenzo's. Out of the blue, my feet got tangled and I fell like a log, flat, hitting my face on the floor, my hat and glasses flying off onto the hard concrete floor, my knee stinging from a scrape.
David and many other people came to my help. Was I hurt? Was I sure? I was advised not to be so eager to walk away. No, I was not hurt, though my scrape is still stinging and my knee hurts a bit. Only my pride was hurt.
My first thought as I fell hard onto the floor was "Oh, my God, how is this going to affect my condition?" As I got up and struggled to redeem my injured pride, I felt grateful for the ordinary, common experience of tripping over my feet and falling. And recovering! I was grateful to recognize that having chemotherapy does not mean that I am a china doll, breakable and super fragile. I am not broken! I am an older lady, who tripped over her shoes and was not paying attention. It may also be that the medication I am taking for nerve pain (a side effect of the taxol being injected as part of my chemo treatments) made me less alert. After all, I am not allowed to drive when I take it -- perhaps I should not drive the grocery cart, either!!!
I also fell once on the way to Santiago, nearing the village of Rabanal. People came out to meet me, carried my backpack to the pilgrims' shelter, and gave me priority in the line-up. I was just an older lady who tripped over her boots, and did not look where she was going.
I learned to take it easier yesterday. I am having chemo, I will have to live with this dreaded taxol for two more treatments, I will have a month of radiation, I am tired, I do feel pain, my appetite is not good, things taste like excreta, but I am not a broken, fragile china doll. I am a planetary pilgrim, walking toward healing. And we will surely meet again, on the road to Santiago!
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Psalms for Planetary Pilgrims
When I was a little girl of 6, up to age ten, I was very focused on being a minister. I used to hold services with my friends, who valued very much my ability to quote the scriptures. They could not understand how I could quote verses appropriate to whatever trouble we were facing.
It all started, perhaps, with my biological mother. Knowing she would die soon, she devised a way to teach me lessons that would last me for a lifetime. The solution she found was to teach me passages of scripture that would not be written on paper but would be inscribed in my memory. Thus, by the time she died when I was five, I had a store of unforgettable quotations to keep me company during good times and bad.
I no longer quote scripture and hold services as I did when I was a child. However, scripture has remained in my soul as an ongoing commentary to my life, often serving as a running companion in difficult times.
During the months since I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I have often reflected upon the old stories of determination, hope and survival that I learned from my dying mother.
One example is a story about Jeremiah the prophet. When the Hebrew people were sent away from their land into exile, the prophet Jeremiah was instructed to buy a plot of land in Jerusalem. It was not exactly a good business proposition, but the lesson was that land would be bought and sold again despite the exile - the people would come back. And so it was that on the day Dr. Sharkey told me that I had breast cancer I left his office and went to the store to buy six bras. I needed that reassurance that I was not entirely alone and helpless with the devastating news.
The practice of chemotherapy and radiation, where we are fighting an unseen invader, reminds me of some of the psalms where the psalmist is lying low, hiding from the enemies that are attacking him. There is fear in those psalms, even despair, but never a feeling that the psalmist is utterly alone. These are powerful messages reminding us that we are not alone.
Some psalms are strongly worded. Read Psalm 91. It will put hair on your chest, honestly!
I can still hear my mother's calm, soft, voice teaching me: "In peace I will lay down, and sleep, for you alone ... will make me dwell in safety".
These lessons are not magical potions. Trouble and shit still happen. They do not disappear by magic. But we do have options. We cannot control the attack, but we can control our reaction to it, and we can choose not to be alone. I think, considering her own life-story, that that was what my mother wanted to teach me. At least that is what I have taken from her story and her gift to me.
Thank you for walking with me today. We will see each other again, remembering and retelling the stories engraved upon our hearts, on the way to Santiago.
It all started, perhaps, with my biological mother. Knowing she would die soon, she devised a way to teach me lessons that would last me for a lifetime. The solution she found was to teach me passages of scripture that would not be written on paper but would be inscribed in my memory. Thus, by the time she died when I was five, I had a store of unforgettable quotations to keep me company during good times and bad.
I no longer quote scripture and hold services as I did when I was a child. However, scripture has remained in my soul as an ongoing commentary to my life, often serving as a running companion in difficult times.
During the months since I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I have often reflected upon the old stories of determination, hope and survival that I learned from my dying mother.
One example is a story about Jeremiah the prophet. When the Hebrew people were sent away from their land into exile, the prophet Jeremiah was instructed to buy a plot of land in Jerusalem. It was not exactly a good business proposition, but the lesson was that land would be bought and sold again despite the exile - the people would come back. And so it was that on the day Dr. Sharkey told me that I had breast cancer I left his office and went to the store to buy six bras. I needed that reassurance that I was not entirely alone and helpless with the devastating news.
The practice of chemotherapy and radiation, where we are fighting an unseen invader, reminds me of some of the psalms where the psalmist is lying low, hiding from the enemies that are attacking him. There is fear in those psalms, even despair, but never a feeling that the psalmist is utterly alone. These are powerful messages reminding us that we are not alone.
Some psalms are strongly worded. Read Psalm 91. It will put hair on your chest, honestly!
"Whoever dwells in the shelter of the most high will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday".Even as a child, I remember "getting it"; understanding that these lessons did not mean that trouble would not come, but that I should not fear it. Trouble did exist, after all -- my mother did die when I was five, but she did not leave me alone.
I can still hear my mother's calm, soft, voice teaching me: "In peace I will lay down, and sleep, for you alone ... will make me dwell in safety".
These lessons are not magical potions. Trouble and shit still happen. They do not disappear by magic. But we do have options. We cannot control the attack, but we can control our reaction to it, and we can choose not to be alone. I think, considering her own life-story, that that was what my mother wanted to teach me. At least that is what I have taken from her story and her gift to me.
Thank you for walking with me today. We will see each other again, remembering and retelling the stories engraved upon our hearts, on the way to Santiago.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Planetary Pilgrims Don't Sugar Coat Their Story
When I was first diagnosed, I remember saying to David that I would like to leave a good witness. I wanted to share my story through this blog so my friends and family could read first-hand about how I feel, and about how the story of my journey unfolds.
It has been a good story so far, the story of a journey through breast cancer, and chemotherapy. Later in the story we will travel through the land of radiation as well. I have received five treatments, and am getting ready for my sixth one.
Taxol is the essential element in the second set of four chemo treatments. A side effect of Taxol has been joint and nerve pain. How much pain? "Enough" pain. Let us say that the past week has been as much fun as chewing aluminium foil. I hasten to add that the medications for joint and nerve pain have been quite effective, and I have been grateful for them However, they have their own side effects, making me feel like a zombie!
This zombie-like existence is unsettling, and perplexing. It has also been depressing -- I have experienced a total absence of desire, something that is quite removed from my every day existence. I have had visits and calls from family and friends. I have gone to the cottage and enjoyed the lake. I have had visits from my grandchildren. Still, on the days when I was most affected by the side effects, the best description of my behaviour has been a dull, silent, blank, look.
During that week, I would also extend the phrase "total absence of desire" to my appetite. Nothing tasted right, and I found there was no room to eat anything. Not only was I not interested in eating, I was not at all interested in cooking. In fact, I could not remember anything that I cook regularly. The very idea of making a meal seemed unusual and not appropriate. Other than spaghetti, I could not remember anything that I cook regularly. David very kindly assures me that I do cook regularly, making good and tasty meals. Let us hope these skills return.
Although I am feeling well today, Saturday, I am aware that these feelings might return after Wednesday, when I am scheduled to have the 6th chemo treatment. Ah well, we will survive. And I will cook again, lovely and delicious things, I am told!
Until then we continue to journey, through the land of silence and dullness, and we will see you again, on the way to Santiago.
It has been a good story so far, the story of a journey through breast cancer, and chemotherapy. Later in the story we will travel through the land of radiation as well. I have received five treatments, and am getting ready for my sixth one.
Taxol is the essential element in the second set of four chemo treatments. A side effect of Taxol has been joint and nerve pain. How much pain? "Enough" pain. Let us say that the past week has been as much fun as chewing aluminium foil. I hasten to add that the medications for joint and nerve pain have been quite effective, and I have been grateful for them However, they have their own side effects, making me feel like a zombie!
This zombie-like existence is unsettling, and perplexing. It has also been depressing -- I have experienced a total absence of desire, something that is quite removed from my every day existence. I have had visits and calls from family and friends. I have gone to the cottage and enjoyed the lake. I have had visits from my grandchildren. Still, on the days when I was most affected by the side effects, the best description of my behaviour has been a dull, silent, blank, look.
During that week, I would also extend the phrase "total absence of desire" to my appetite. Nothing tasted right, and I found there was no room to eat anything. Not only was I not interested in eating, I was not at all interested in cooking. In fact, I could not remember anything that I cook regularly. The very idea of making a meal seemed unusual and not appropriate. Other than spaghetti, I could not remember anything that I cook regularly. David very kindly assures me that I do cook regularly, making good and tasty meals. Let us hope these skills return.
Although I am feeling well today, Saturday, I am aware that these feelings might return after Wednesday, when I am scheduled to have the 6th chemo treatment. Ah well, we will survive. And I will cook again, lovely and delicious things, I am told!
Until then we continue to journey, through the land of silence and dullness, and we will see you again, on the way to Santiago.
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