Walking with...

Chronicles from Chemo-Land

Guest Post No. 3 by Val

I realized the other day with astounding clarity that I have a chronic, potentially deadly disease. And, I only say “potentially” because of modern medicine’s possible capacity to keep this cancer at bay long enough to allow something else to kick me off first. I have had this disease for 17 years so it has been chronic, although the nicer term is “in remission”, for a long time. But now its chronic nature is starkly revealed to me by the type of interventions that are required to keep it at bay: not just chemotherapy and radiation, which are short term, but monthly IV infusions of herceptin indefinitely, and a 5-year plan for Letrazole.

I have a friend who talks about “walking with cancer”. I think that this is one way in which she expresses this realization; i.e., the chronic, deadly nature of cancer. I have been thinking about it as “walking with death”. For me, expressing it this way takes some of the mystique and horror of cancer out of the equation and focuses directly on the reality that we are all going to die. It reflects aspects of Buddhist teachings; for example, experience the sensations of our breathing while contemplating the fact that each breath brings us closer to our last.

The purpose, of course, is to shake us up into realizing how precious life is and to act accordingly by living ethically and authentically. Authentically in the sense that we accept who we are with all that means--the good, the bad, the ups, the downs, successes and failures--and having the courage to take risks and to pick ourselves up when we fail and try again. To make us ask ourselves what is meaningful in our lives and how to pursue that meaning. We talk about this freely—living authentically, blah, blah—but actually doing it is a different matter. It is damn difficult.

I listened to a Buddhist teacher, Stephen Batchelor, give a talk in which he spoke eloquently about how we must “ground ourselves” in our bodies in order to make any headway at all with this project of living authentically in the face of death. What he meant was to start with our sensory experience, our direct experience of living in a body because that experience is inherently, automatically calming. I know this to be true. But despite years of yoga practice, I find I still need reminding.

The treatment protocols and their side effects for this chronic disease will be good reminders. I already know that getting through each treatment, each test and figuring out how to handle symptoms have been greatly aided by just lying over a bolster, feeling the bodily sensations shift and change while watching my breath. 

I do not say that the anxiety of cancer and its treatments can or should be tackled only by breathing and reflection, though. Lorazepam has its place and I’m sure glad I have a prescription for drugs, and a method for working with my body – yoga.