On the joy of finding out that your surgeon is also a practitioner.

Today on the advice of my medical consultant [more on her later], i kept my 4pm phone appointment with my surgeon to review that yes, they would be sectioning the tumor up in the operating 'theater' to properly assess the degree of its containment vs invasion into surronding tissue and that yes, the extent of lymph node removal would be based on this finding, and yes, it is basically not a viable option to leave the ovaries in given the current state of things owing to risk of uterine cancer.  Both my guru and my medical consultant have advised me to trust in my doctor's good judgement and considering all the doctors i have come to know many times all to well in 20 years of nursing i have to say that i suspect that, being assigned this surgeon, i have in fact landed in the tub of butter.

When she called today and asked me how i had been doing, i locked up and was totally unable to speak for the first time in days.  I couldn't stop crying and she said, 'that's ok, i often have that effect on people...'  I told her that it was fear but not a lack of good faith, that she just seemed like a caring person, because it's true. She wanted to know what i had been doing to prepare myself mentally and physically, i told her about the running and the ketogenic diet and the prayers from all over, the meditation.  [forgot to mention the painting, sanding, cleaning and hundreds of texts and phone calls] She advised me that i might want to make myself a playlist that i can bring with me to the procedure - 'whatever music or chanting you might like to listen to' - and she told me, 'i want you to know that i meditate every night before a surgery and also on the morning of every surgery - so we'll be together in this'.  I told her that gobs of people all over were sending prayers and they were bound to land on her as well, and i think i sensed that she was good with that.  As for now i will be seeing her in one week at surgery.

So considering that i almost cancelled this phone call based on having nothing new to ask, i am grateful i was advised to keep it.   A surgeon who meditates.  I can't even begin.

I feel physically quite normal and more nimble.  No pain for about a week now.  I could swear that when i am ketotic the chronic and naggingly odd aches and pains of the aging bod seem to just go away.  And peeing on those ketone stix and watching the color change is always a thrill.

There is an older book out there called 'lights out' that i bought long ago and never read [that's just my thing, just love me or leave it alone].  It's about circadian rhythm, artificial light, and health - and apparently the author proposes going ketogenic during the winter months as a yearly cycle.  Should i be granted the years with which to explore this idea, i plan to - and i have to say i think the author was onto something massively ahead of fashion.

om to all

xoh

keeping one eye the peace.

i don't know where it comes from but i blame all the people out there praying for me or loving on me, or both - i blame the accrual of my own attempts at meditation, and i most certainly blame my guru.  i know it will vanish at some imminent time, and then i suppose it will return.  i am extremely grateful for it.  If any of you were to bring it up in conversation, that might cause it to fly away ~


for what it is worth to anyone following, there was a second pathology done on the original and it says that the cells are actually moderately aggressive rather than aggressively aggressive.  or perhaps it means they are just moderates, for an alien.  it still has to come out, but it's an improvement in the picture.

peace and love,

hari

LOVE OF BEING.

back to the lawn in the almost warm oregon sun.

i exited from the building trying not to to scare incidental hangers-out with the facial evidence of my 'news' - and headed straight to the nearby grassy spot.  i felt it pressing in on my existence - down from the blackness of space and up from the blackness of the earth. and out from the blackness behind my eyelids.  i saw the gleaming amber arc of of my familiar part of this spherical film of a cradle which has provided and held the totality of everything my existence has ever known and felt.  Not so much the earth itself as the luminous glaze of life that rests upon its surface.  felt in the most absolute way my soul's love of living within this particular luminous orb-jewel of a home careening motionless though an ocean of blackness.  all of its cruel waste and dead misery - clearly just a footnote to the gift of existing here.  i felt most acutely the anguish of my soul's objection to the prospect of being cut loose/ booted out from it.   with a depth that i knew most humans - myself included - cannot withstand for very long at all, i saw the pain of my love of being [here].

outset. the non-comfort of not fitting the profile.

Good morning, dear readers.

Two weeks from this moment, with a days worth of jello in me and my skin coated in a light antiseptic wash, i will be getting my sleep in preparation for a surgery to remove the whole of my inner female components and the malicious entity that has been in silent occupation of my uterus, for who knows how long - or how short - a time.

My enthusiasm for allopathic medicine is qualified at best, flimsy at worst.  I think allopathy's special gift is what it brings to the abrupt - the extreme, the emergencies of life, and i feel often grateful for that.  But other than that i prefer the view of the body as self-sustaining given the essentials.  I wish i had the luxury of time enough to try to healthy this alien away - to turn to roots, to greens - to potent fungi and pure foods and fresh air - to reverse its mood.  To talk it off of its tantrum.   But the situation has been assessed by all kinds of commenters as, in fact, going emergent.

I was delivered the news of this uterine lurker only ten days ago.  I had had maybe 90 minutes to brace myself for the news - because any nurse knows that if you have a biopsy pending, and are called to come in to the clinic, your life is probably on the verge of a massively uncomfortable shift.

Sparing you some minor details - two weeks ago my doctor agreed to see me for menstrual symptoms that were starting to seem more bothersome than what i'd been told to expect from 'perimenopause'.
The next wednesday i scheduled a GYN appointment for my lunch break on evening shift.  I mean, why go near my place of work on my copious off-time if it isn't absolutely necessary, right?  Thanks to our union, my 10-hour shift promises a 70-minute lunch, plenty of time for my first endometrial biopsy.

Exactly.  So after the shattering trauma of having the darkness my unsuspecting nulliparous [nun's] womb pierced by the spinning twizzler of a medical probe i returned to the nursing unit in fully functionless basketcase condition and my compassionate charge nurse got me sent home asap.  The GYN and i both assumed the results would be routine - phone call in a week, no problem.

My GYN doc entered the clinic room and told me, "ellen, i read your path report and reread it again, i just could not believe it was true - because you don't fit the profile at all... You Have uterine cancer...and we have to address it."

The sun was out that day, and it was nearly warm out, so after an hourlong, remorselessly life-altering download in that clinic room i made my way to the grass yard, sat readily on the earth, and made a number of very painful phone calls.  An angelic nurse friend showed up from her day off to find me and to stay with me until 6 pm when i was strapped to the CT bed with my arms raised and my IV flash-pumped the terrible dye into my bloodstream flushing all points tender with a intensely foriegn metallic warmth.  I burst into tears and followed instructions as i was passed through that monolithic ring, giving me orders for when to breathe, when to hold.

The next afternoon another angelic nurse friend came with me for the nearly three-hour consult with my future surgeon.  We were both impressed.  She comes across as just the mix of humanness, competence and humility you'd want in a surgeon.   I was given 6 days to decide between an old-fashioned and a robotically assisted vaginal laparascopic hysterectomy.   I took on all the available time and as many opinions as i could, and went with the bot-assist.

I cannot imagine that anyone is still reading this harrowing tale, and i may wind up taking this down at anytime, as i question my reasons for recording this story.  Ostensibly this blog serves the purpose of keeping informed those who want to be informed of what is transpiring in my medical life and my soul.  This does in fact constitute my first public writing/self-publishing stint ever.  I hope it gets lighter soon. And better soon.  I haven't stopped laughter in real time, though i doubt you'd deduce that from reading what is here.

I will leave writing about the emotions and such around this until later.   But about that i will say one thing.  I have been as shocked by the depth of despair that has arisen as i have been by the depth of the calm.

I don't plan to be nearly as graphic as i could, as least not now.  And for what it's worth i don't care for capitalizing 'i' if it is not at the start of a sentence.  Hope you can manage.

As for FACTS:

The alien is a 5cm adenocarcinoma grade 2 to 3, contained in the uterus.  CAT scan shows no visible mets.   Pain, especially at night, has been an issue ever since the biopsy invaded its lair.  A pending second pathology has been pressed into existence by the clinical advocate MD i have retained.  She is looking for any possible sound arguments for sparing my ovaries.  It may be a longshot but why not try?  As for after surgery, my chances of dodging chemo have been described by a distant third opinion as 'likely' with chances of missing out on radiation - not so much.  Everything of that ilk is contingent on the microcontents and structure of whatever is gently coaxed from my body two weeks hence.

Goodnight.  Please don't encourage me to stay up this late in the future.

OM. peace&love