Welcome to the Cancer Dance

  This is the view outside my office window today.  Gorgeous, magical and musically tinkling, illuminated with frozen light from within.


 These are humaan lungs.  The trachea divides into the two main bronchi that enter the roots of the lungs. The bronchi continue to divide within the lung, and after multiple divisions, give rise to bronchioles which are termed the bronchial tree.  This tree continues branching until it reaches the level of terminal bronchioles, which lead to alveolar sacs.

"Alveolar sacs are made up of clusters of alveoli, like individual grapes within a bunch. The individual alveoli are tightly wrapped in blood vessels and it is here that gas exchange actually occurs. Deoxygenated blood from the heart is pumped through the pulmonary artery to the lungs, where oxygen diffuses into blood and is exchanged for carbon dioxide in the hemoglobin of the erythrocytes. The oxygen-rich blood returns to the heart via the pulmonary veins to be pumped back into systemic circulation." (Wikipedia)

As without, so within.  Look at the resonance between the beautiful ice-frosted branches and the bronchial tree, which exists in the rainforest within the lungs.  Patterns repeat in nature in the most unexpected of places, as confirmed by my view outside and my lungs inside.

In Tuesday's, Jan. 18, 2011 Scinece Times p. D1, I read Roni Caryn Rabin's article on "A Pink-Ribbon Race, Years Long."  She tells the story of a woman who had metastatic breast cancer,  a sad category of 4 to 6 % of women who are found to be Stage 4 upon their original diagnosis. With her cancer already attacking her spine, she had come to a local support group.  Those in attendance were  "survivors" who had small localized cancers that were vanquished years before.  When it came to her turn, she could not stand to share her story.

Thus the success and the stalemate of dealing with cancer, that relentlessly kills 40,000 women annually.

What I did NOT know until I read this article is that 25% of all women who are diagnosed as Stage 1, the smallest, earliest and easiest to heal from, will battle with metastatic disease eventually.

I have figured out that the medical establishment in its wisdom does not lay out all of the grim statistics at the beginning.  For example, after my mastectomy, Rick and I sobbed with relief as the gentle genius Dr. Sacchini told me that I was Stage 1, and now all I had to do was prevent a recurrence.  Yes, I admit that I individually am not a statistic, yet I now understand that having this disease is not like getting the flu.  One cannot easily get "cured."

"All too often when people think about breast cancer, they think about it as a problem, it's solved, and you lead a long and normal life; it's a blip on the curve." said Dr. Eric Winer, Director of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
"While that's true for many people, each year approximately 40,000 people die of breast cancer---and they all die of metastatic disease.  You can see why patients with metastatic disease may feel invisible within the advocacy community."

Those who are at Stage 4 are incurable, even though medical progress permits them to live incrementally longer.  Think of the late Elizabeth Edwards.  She survived for several years with the metastatic disease; but the median life expectancy is really 26 months, and fewer than 1 in 4 survive for more than 5 years. 

"This kind of uncertainty keeps many patients from throwing thenmselves wholeheartedly into the ethos of hope and empowerment that helps sustain many women with less aggressive forms of the disease.
Dr. Herbert says that while the pink-ribbon campaign has raised awareness about breast cancer, it masks a relentless killer.

"People like the pretty story with the happy ending.... You always hear stories about women who 'battled it' and 'how courageous' they were.  Cancer doesn't care if you're courageous.  It's an injustice to all of us who have this.  There are women who are no less strong and no less determined to be here, and they'll be dead in two years."

I was shaken after reading the article.  I am a somewhat awake and aware woman of moderate wisdom, and I need to position myself in relationship to this disease.  How can I create a new framework by which to live my life, and face challenges that come with this cancer?

My thoughts turned to this weekend and our last class where I will probably teach via Skype due to my level of continuing pain.  Then we host Terry Patten with Deborah Boyer and Michael in a substantial offering which I will describe in a bit, and shortly thereafter we launch into the major portion of our 2 and 3 year programs.

I can hardly digest all that has transpired for me personally since the launch of this first class. I left for Sedona at the end of September with the biopsy for breast cancer yet to be finalized; I became the first Integral Spiritual Minister; and the next day upon my return found out I did indeed have that diagnosis. A mastectomy was performed Nov. 4th. That in itself would have been quite enough to deal with, but it was followed by a serious infection leading to major emergency surgery; and having barely recovered from that experience, I had lung cancer surgery Jan. 10th.

I would like to give you a report in the 4 quadrants as to what transpired during and after my 5 day stay at Sloan-Kettering as it might serve to inform you for your futures as individuals and as members of a spiritual community..

I had been told that 90% of patients receive arthroscopic surgery for lung cancer which leaves the patient with very little pain and three small scars. Upon awakening I was informed that I was one of the 10% who had to have a formal thoracotomy, which is the most serious of the cancer procedures, and results in the greatest level of post-surgical pain.

 Was I entering ito a "why me" thought pattern? No, not at all. My mind-set remained one of curiosity moment to moment, and I watched for the moments of gratitude within my experience.  I was not happy about the level of pain, and am still not pleased with its slow dissipation, but it is a very tiny blip in the larger scope of gratitude for having discovered the cancer so early.

I was expecting the thorasic floor to be one populated by aged men with craggy faces and yellowed fingers from years of smoking, my stereotype.  I found instead many  healthy looking young men and women.  The range of the thorasic service covers esophogeal cancers which are experiencing a rapid increase, and my particular surgeon is an expert in handling them.  I spent some time looking at the faces of the rooms' occupants to get some sense of who might be there, and for what conditions.  I cannot say I gleaned any answers from my curiosity.

One condition that earned my everlasting gratitude for good fortune was my roommate.  The last time I had had a truly ratttling roommate experience.  I will not go into much detail about her or her extensive family; I have, though, become an advocate for careful selection of rommates for the health and well-being of the other party.  I am averse to loud noises, boisterous gatherings with loud cackling laughter, and a party-like atmosphere of relatives and friends ordering in copious food platters as if they were attending a Super Bowl party.  They basically had no boundaries about it being my room as well.

There---that exposes my petty side, but it also served to irritate my nervous system, deprive me of much-needed rest, and challenge me to race to my own bathroom before one of the 10 relatives got in there first.  When she was alone and fearful, however, I went over and talked with her and offered whatever insights or information that I could to ease her fears.  And in return, both she and her husband were gracious to me in other ways.

This time I was blessed with an elderly Roman Catholic woman who possessed that beatific smile, darling laugh, and continual bouyant life force that held her throughout her pain. We quickly bonded across our diversity, and when we both left, we cupped each others' face as we kissed on both cheeks.  I felt nourished by her presence, and I do stand by the belief that a quiet room setting can be a medical ncessity for some of us, an enviornmental factor that should be taken into account.

Engulfed with pain I had never experienced before, I was subdued as my husband walked with me into the family lounge. There seated across from us was a very handsome woman with red eyes. I am now familiar with the S-K dance, where someone really does want to unload their grief and story but also does not wish to intrude or place more on another sufferers' shoulders. After dodging one anothers' eyes for a while, my husband offered up the cold weather as an extended hand, and she and he found commonality in where they had both grown up, and where she now lived in Florida. Rick moved there during his youth and we are planning to buy a second home there, so the conversation formed a safe platform upon which to place her grief which came in due course.

Her 42 year old attorney daugther lives in Fla. with her husband and 2 young children. She had a lumpectomy and chemo 3 years ago. Last year she began to experience intense pain around the top of her spine. Long story: after many fruitless tests it turned out she had a metastasis of the breast cancer wrapped around her sternum, and a surgeon at S-K was the only one in the country who could safely perform the surgery. She had to charter a private plane to get her up here duirng our recent blizzard.

A short time after being put under, she was awakened, and told that the surgeon could not perform the surgery. The tumor could not be removed and must remain inside her....growing..... She might have 3 months....or longer...no one knew. The mother was in that white hot state beyond grief.

We spoke and cried for a long time. Then I went to speak to her daughter for a while. My husband noted that during that time, as I became involved in their situation, my entire body began to move with less agony, and once again it came to me that I could offer them the gift of an Integral perspective, gently and non-didactically offered, as soft as chick's down, that spoke of radical truth while infusing the message with hope and a different and elevated understanding of life.

I am still in great pain, but I have come to accept that those of us with cancer and other life threatening diseases are living within a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person perspective on them and their particular pathological chaos.
Let me explain what I am noticing.....Before this surgery I had been in 3rd person relationship with both cancers.  They were "IT" to me, something that must be gotten rid of, as something alien to me.  It was a medical problem for the doctors to figure out the best medical and surgical interventions to free me from their tentacles so that my body might resume its happy rhythm.

But the reality that I have had 3 major surgeries in three months, one of them highly invasive that actually cut out and disposed of a lobe of my lung, shifted me into a 2nd person perspective of "You and Me".  The cancer has moved into being in interaction with me, and the cellular level work I have been doing plus the depth psychological evolutionary and generational analyses have shoved the cancers into my face, so to speak. YOU and I are in communication at a very deep level.

I have had repetitive dreams that have gone on for weeks, which I realized in a flash as this shift to 2nd person:

I am back at my school, but the 3 men who harassed me are just adults in the place; they have no energy around them, they are just people moving around and speaking.  It is my class that is giving me trouble...Night after night I try to get them under control, but try as I might, they are out of control, not responding to any force that I exert.  I can FEEL how strongly I try to wrestle them into their seats; into getting them to take notes; into comforming withg my expectations.  I cannot and do not succeed, night after night after night.

Welcome to Cancer 101.

Nothing that I can do will tame them or get them to be orderly or healthily functional.  It is beyond my ability to change them. I must address new UR realities that might not lead me toward a happy conclusion of "a cure".  I realize that in the LR I am no longer covered by any medical protocol where the oncologist can promise that "this chemo will lead to a 14% chance of metastases". I realize the truth that BOTH cancers can metastasize anywhere, at any time, and I will be called into their chaotic dance.

I have identified my Master Cancer Cell. That is when I own it as within my 1st person awareness.  I see that I cannot deal with it on any egoic or gross level myself.  I must surrender, more deeply than I did in my earlier awakening, and OOOH, there is far more that must be surrendered.  For my LL I will be most discerning about which groups I associate with so that I am not compelled to deny any part of my situation. I am not "the walking dead", nor am I a "she-ro", all chirpy and skipping around at race to the cure events with my bedazzled pink ribbon in tow.

Ken advised me that the huge discovery about healing is that much of it is under our control. Meditation, visualization, and affirmation all can play a key part in how we patterrn our dance steps. I will continue to revise and strengthen my UL and my entire ILP.

I will remain a vital part of my beloved program. I am excited to share what has become embodied within me. We will co-create so much of what is necessary as we Baby Boomers---I am the very first of us---hit the age when life issues and illnesses will confront us with urgency, and our skills will be called into practice.