This Magnificent, Magical, and Messy Life

It has been some time since I've updated. As is usually the case, it takes a number of people asking about me before I realize that an update is warranted. These are beautiful reminders of the love so many of you offer and the accountability I have to you, and the community in which I reside and belong. It's a lovely realization, actually...to matter and know so many care. Thank you!

So I recently finished my second antibody infusion of the 12 rounds I'll have over the next 20 months. I have been tolerating it well, with minimal side effects. I'm on a bimonthly schedule for these infusions, so I'll return for another at the end of November. Just last week I started having trouble with the blood return with my port. Sometimes blood filaments cluster around the end of the port line, so they needed some dissolving with medication that acts like Draino. Like magic, the filaments dissolved and the port is functioning well again. My liver numbers have finally returned to normal. I have to watch my intake of foods containing Purines (which is just about everything), as they affect Uric Acid levels, which remain a bit high yet. Otherwise all my numbers are normal. I'll have a CT Scan mid-December to see where things are at. And hopefully the news will be good...I have no reason to think they won't!

Given the reality of cancer, tumbling from time-to-time back into the trauma of it all, I have to remind myself that it is unrealistic to think that letting go of the deep sorrow associated with this illness is a simple process. Healing is never linear and as we rise to each new day, our insights are morphed and integrated into the never-ending process of becoming. Just as we continue to write our life story, we have obstacles to transcend and for some of us, more grieving to do. Over time, the impact fades but never goes away...it is just what it is!

I look back 12 years to a seven-year-old little girl who was mesmerized by learning there were machines that could take pictures of the insides of the body. That same little girl is now in her second year of clinicals in the radiography program at MPTC. I see a four-year-old little girl who joined me for chemotherapy because the people there "needed" her. She drew pictures, gave hugs, sang songs, and performed cartwheels for folks waiting for the taxi to pick them up. She learned at an early age that she could bring happiness to people who might be sad. That same little girl is now deciding which college she'd like to attend so she can be a social worker, psychologist or counselor. I see a seven-month-old baby girl who is now finishing her last year of middle school, trying on new identities and going on adventures, using her life well and coming into her own self. For the most part, it isn't the incidents in our lives that create problems, but the meaning we attach to them and the story we tell ourselves about them that matter most. The tragedies we endure have silver linings and opportunities to grow us in ways we might never, and our work is to meet those challenges with a strong and solid trust in this knowing. 

So we keep on growin' and trustin' and tryin' to gain clarity of what God's Will is for us through this time. I am in awe of the resilience of the human spirit in the people and care-givers we are meeting along the way. Although Steve says he never wants to "get good" at this cancer stuff, he will attest to the contrasting realities that play out in Cancer Care Centers all over the world. As we meet people, hear their stories and share in this cancer journey, we are humbled by the realization that sorrow cannot exist without joy, fear without love, dark without light, and beauty without agony. It is in this knowing that makes the human experience so magnificent and messy, all at the same time.

May you bask in your own magnificence and mess, allow it to take you to a greater depth of living, and be moved and changed as you maneuver through it all. From the bottom of my heart, I am so very grateful to you all!

Namaste',

Lisa