Some random thoughts

Someone asked me yesterday what I had learned from my cancer experience. This is a fair question, but a rather big one to tackle in a passing conversation in the corridor at school. I kept my answer sincere, but brief. I guess...I've learned to take ownership of my life.

Lumbering through the limbo of severe illness, it was difficult to feel I was the owner of much of anything. My body belonged to the doctors and nurses who cared for me, and my mind had become a foreign entity, struggling to fulfil the one command that everyone (including me) felt compelled to issue at regular intervals: be strong, for just a little bit longer, be strong...

So when the treatment was over, and my doctor cautiously confirmed, "Well, that's it. Theoretically." I felt ecstatic, but I also felt this tremendous pressure. I get to live, so I owe it to...the universe to do it right. No more fear, no more excuses.

In practice, this has meant taking a serious personal inventory and trying very hard not to shy away from the results. This is an ongoing process in which certain things need to be changed, while others can only be accepted. Uncomfortable questions are faced, responsibility is assumed, and along the way hopefully a large quantity of mental garbage can be disposed of.

Ten years ago I had a picture of who I thought I would be, and I am nothing like I predicted. Ten months ago I had a notion of who I thought I should be, and the disparity between that idea and the reality was oppressive. Somehow, cancer has given me the strength to shake off these ideas and begin to form new and healthier ones, on my own terms.

(A bit of a downer for the last day of school, no? I should be celebrating. But this is where my mind is, so I thought I would share.)

Happy 30th

Today was my birthday. I ate cake.

It was one of those Safeway cakes with the sugary icing on top that's so sweet it tickles your throat when you swallow, and I cut myself a corner piece with a flower on top to enhance the effect.

The last time I enjoyed cake this much I was a kid, when I would dig in without dedicating a single thought to calories or health, and I would enjoy the delicious tingling of the icing as it dissolved on my tongue without being distracted by worries about money, or work, or relationships, and it was bliss. Tonight's cake was like that. Childhood innocence on a fork. *sigh* I had two helpings.

There were moments when I thought I wouldn't see this day. I recall thinking after a particularly unpleasant visit to the "special care" unit in October, there is no way my body can take another 3 months of this. But it did. And I don't know - maybe I could survive whatever treatment would be required if I should relapse, but I'm not really keen to find out.

So tonight's cake was not only a birthday cake, it was also a goodbye cake. Goodbye to cake. And all of its refined carbohydrate cousins, and dairy product pals. And while I'm at it, goodbye to meat (including seafood), processed foods, and all added sugars and fats. I will do whatever it takes to make myself well. Mind and body (and spirit? We'll see about that one...)

THE PLAN: a whole-foods, plant-based diet, to be complimented by yoga, meditation, therapy, and whatever other healthy practises I pick up on the way...

The other side of cancer, the other side of 30, I will be a healthier person. This is not a diet. It's an entire lifestyle makeover. Not surprisingly, the most common responses to The Plan so far are, a) that's really extreme; and b) that's going to be really hard!

Of course, they're right. And like many other people, I am an expert excuse generator, and also tend toward laziness and lack of self-discipline where this sort of thing is concerned. It would not have been unusual for me in the past to talk about doing something to improve my diet and health in general, and maybe even do it for a week, and then slip back into old patterns.

The thing is, I just can't afford to do that this time. It has to stick. Fear is a strong motivator, and that will keep me going for awhile, no doubt. But I need to make a commitment I can't back out of when the going gets tough, which of course it will. That's where this blog comes in. I think sharing the experience will help me stick to it. Nobody wants to write (or read) a blog about failing at something, right?

The adventure starts tomorrow. Wish me luck :-)