4/11/09
Surgery on my right salivary gland. A complete Parotidectomy in medical terms. Bringing back all these thoughts and emotions from 7 years ago when I had the tumor removed from my left ear canal. This time, it seems, the case is worse and the consequences are greater. This is Cancer. I have cancer. It sounds so strange to say those words. Cancer is always something someone else is dealing with, someone older, or someone maybe younger but with troubles in his or her life or maybe even not, but distant enough from me to not make it have such an impact on my life. Cancer is such a wide term, including so many types and variations of fast growing cells, it's obvious to me this is a deeply rooted symptom of our society. It hits me most clear when it's non-understandable to people around me that me, who has been living such a healthy and wholesome life (relatively speaking, of course) could have brought this reality upon myself. But I see life as such a larger and more complex web of arrangements, and nothing rational can explain what is going on. As much as the good intentions are there, connection with nature, spiritual development, life is never expected and sometimes it will hit me right at the core, where serious changes need to be made, even on very subtle levels. This is still very vague, but there is obviously something to learn here. If there is something I have learned in my spiritual path so far, is that nothing is happening without reason or for the sake of advancement in my spiritual growth. Maybe something here is pushing me to break loose or change something so fundamental in my being, so subtle on the other hand, that my conceptions in life are disabling me from seeing what they are. My perception still maybe too gross.
One thing this time recuperating is allowing me is time to come to an absolute halt in progressing and moving around. I mean, it's not as if my life was such a crazy mess before that; Life in Thailand was very laid back and dedicated almost entirely to spiritual practice. But having the body in a kind of relapse, a mode of pure simplicity where all I can do with it is relax and let its nature take the course of healing and gaining its energy back, there's I a lot of time for reflection, sensitivity, and at this point in the progress of things, clarity and ironically no fear.
Ophir asked me last night if I was feeling fear in this process of having cancer and the consequences involved. I found myself saying no, not fear, just confusion, uncertainty. Dr. Gross (his name so ironically relevant...) used the word Death for the first time when I spoke with him 2 days ago. He said pretty blatantly: “your sick, you have cancer, you're young, and if you don't take care of yourself right now, you will die”. I know fro many people this kind of wording would be devastating emotionally, and shocking to hear, but surprisingly, I felt as if he speaking to me from some very distant mundane sphere with a somewhat limited scope of how this universe really works. You know what, even if I die in the next couple of years, which is highly unlikely, but anyway, so what? Will something be lost from the love I have to give to this world or the quality of life I can still live while i'm inhabiting this body? Without using New age cliches and to fancy all this up, I mean really, What is the difference if I die next year or in 50 years? The quality of my life is of much more importance to me right now.
Some practical aspects having to do with quality of life and the treatment proposed to me now are in the forefront, taking my mind from that to presence and just letting my body recuperate alternately. The Doctors, on the basis of a post-op protocol so far are suggesting a series of 6 weeks intensive Radiation therapy, possibly accompanied with some light Chemotherapy. Funny how there words have become such smite taboo in my little yoga world, but once confronted with online resources and people who actually have had first hand experience with these treatments, it's not as terrible as it seems. First of all, the specific treatment i'll be needing for my salivary gland, where possibly some microscopic remnants of the removed tumor are left (something they are not sure of yet and cannot possibly be sure of unless is develops further), is very localised, a fact which substantially reduces the risks of permanent damage to healthy tissues and cells. Sometimes i'm surprised at the narrow mindedness not of the medical establishment necessarily, but of the so-called alternative medicine approach who will negate all invasive conventional modes of treatment, on different accounts of course, each with its own merit, but sometimes disregarding completely the immense amount of knowledge this system has gained in the past few hundred years. Obviously, it has it's limitations, but this is not a good enough reason to exclude it completely. This has been the challenge for me. Pre-op I was on this kind of high-horse of “i'm gonna heal this with Yoga and Macrobiotics and an hour of Pranayama every day”. Ideally, this can work, but practically, when you have a tumor the size of a ping pong ball growing fast and deep into your salivary gland, it's going to take a shitload of intensive practice to catch in time before it starts spreading to different parts of the body. This was a realization which got hold of me one morning and enabled me to clearly make a decision that the operation was the right move. All “green parties” (i.e. my Homeopath, macrobiotic counselor and fellow yogis and therapists around me) agreed with me on this and were happy of my decision. So I feel the same degree of caution is necessary when deciding the course of action right now. Side effects include loss of hearing (!!), temporary loss of saliva, taste, burning and sickness and an overall feeling of shit because the body is being bombarded with high power radiation aimed at killing cancerous cells to dust, but destroying many other cells along the way. The way I see it, if these side effects are temporary and will not affect the quality of my life in the years to come, I'm willing to take that chance and obviously strengthen my system as much as possible with yoga, diet, Homeopathy, Herbs, Acupuntcture and other treatment. Complementary medicine is meant to complement, support the system while going through the conventional process while minimizing the side effects and the collateral damage to the immune system and other healthy cells. It doesn't have to be a replacement, either this or that. On the other hand, the school of view which is a little more rare on the scene, but of which I have a lot of appreciation for its deep level of understanding of energetics of life and or bodies, says that these microscopic remnants of cancerous cells can be stopped and destroyed only with the means of diet, energy and correct lifestyle, and the fruits of this are tested in the long run, when the root of the problem is addressed and there are no recurrences in the future. This is hard to see because there is no scientific data backing this up besides Yogic traditions and some people's testimonies. But I believe in it. My insight into the subtleties of mind and body in the past years has brought me to a point where I don't think anything is beyond the power of the mind and the energy which follows it. If the development of cells can be nipped at the bud with simply not allowing it the nutrition it needs to develop, i.e. acidic environment, sugar, fat, tension, and create a positive environment for the development of healthy cells and strengthening the immune system and the body, than this is most obviously the preferable method for me to bombarding with heavy weaponry, killing everything in sight and causing the rest of the being major imbalances and impurities. But what I seem to be needing now is a strategy which appeases my mind, not so much my belief system. I need to know this thing can be tackled, dealt with and like with surgery, I see how both approaches, medical and holistic can be combined, or even should be. The first and formost important treatment is on the level of the psyche; the deep behavioral patterns and emotional blockages leading to the accumulation of stagnant energy in the place of the tumor, and that needs to be dealt with first and as the main background for any other treatment. It's the only treatment that in my view can uproot cancer for good.
It's much easier to tell other people what they should be doing, but when it comes to yourself it's not so easy to look in the mirror and make important decisions. But a world view which is based on a strongly rooted conception which doesn't allow any space for other types of wisdom, such as the medical world can give us, and in cases like mine, where the urgency for action is immanent, it can be dangerous to hold on such views as “conventional medicine does not provide the answers”. It's just as bad as the medical world shunning any other method just because they're not familiar with it.
