Viewing Time as an Ocean

September 5, 2011

Wouldn’t floating in the ocean feel more relaxing than rushing to catch a train?

This year has been filled with more trips than I usually take (five so far) and with each one I try to follow the standard I set back on March 14 in Maintaining Sanity While Preparing for a Trip. Haven’t always done that as well as I would like, but that’s definitely my plan this week as I get ready for two weeks in Europe starting next Wednesday.

As I approach my list of  “wouldn’t it be nice if I could also ______ before I leave, ” I am thinking of a recent blog by David Spero called The Ocean of Time. In it he considers the very nature of time itself as a way to counter our tendency to squeeze more plans into less time than we have to do them.

First, he reminds us that we usually think of time as a “rushing river, or a speeding train,” perhaps the “bullet train that we have to chase and catch or risk being left behind, or run over.  Then the next day we will have to chase the train down and catch it again.”

He then reminds us that a farmer watches the seasons go by and recognizes that as the seasons change, he will have a change to do something next year. Finally, David suggests that we might change our idea of time if we “imagine time as a lake, or a still sea:

“And you can float on it, you can splash around in it…  You have centuries of time to the right of you, and centuries of time on your left.  And ages of time behind you, that got you to where you are, and ages of time in front of you.

“You still have things to do.  But now you have all the time you could ever want, or ever need, or ever use.  An ocean of time, spreading out in all directions to eternity.  No way to be left behind, no way to be left out, no time limits to expire…it goes on forever.”

Of course, he points out, “if you spend your whole life in the ocean of time, you will miss some appointments.  But if you spend your whole life on the bullet train of time, you get to the end far too fast, and you will miss most of the scenery along the way.”

I am trying to follow his advice and first do what must be done (like packing, which I will begin today). Then whatever time is left may or may not include writing “evergreen” posts for while I am gone.

Incidentally, I learned the term evergreen this week in a column by Meghan Daum of the Los Angeles Times. She said that “evergreen is journalist lingo for a topic that, like its namesake, is always in season (or, at least, one that won’t go stale immediately).”

Would like to find time to do a number of posts so you have material to read on the blog, but if I don’t, I hope you enjoy what you find here. And if this is my only post for September, just remember that I am floating in the ocean of time and enjoying myself immensely.

Putting Too Much Pressure on Our Bodies

June 10, 2010

Here is an example of how, in the stress of over-burdened lives, even if self-imposed, our bodies need a break.

During the middle of the night on Tuesday, as I lay there for several hours watching a stream of consciousness that passed for a disjointed conversation with some kind of semi-intelligent being, I flashed back on a bout with a strange disorder I had almost ten years ago. It is called Guillain–Barré Syndrome (GBS) and is rare, affecting only 1 or 2 out of 100,000 people. Definitely a step above the common flu or cold.

If you look it up in Wikipedia, you’ll see that it is an autoimmune disorder affecting the peripheral nervous system. What happens is that initially the body works to get rid of foreign antigens caused by an infection somewhere in the body. So far, so good. That’s what the immune system is designed to do.

Unfortunately, instead of shutting down when the infection is over, the body goes into autopilot and starts attacking something else — you. Bummer. Specifically, it goes after myelin, an important part of nerve tissue. The result is weakness, generally beginning in the lower limbs and . . . well, if you really want to know the gory details, you can read all about it in Wikipedia.

I only mention it here because I thought I was having a relapse, though not nearly as bad as I had in 2000. And I’m writing this to tell you that in the middle of Tuesday night I remembered something about the dreams I had when I was in the hospital with GBS (see What I Learned During Three Weeks in the Hospital). Every night I had disturbing dreams, the closest to nightmares I had had in a long time. Climb a mountain with no end. Discover all my relatives were coming to dinner in fifteen minutes. Take care of a client who wouldn’t leave the office. Watch a huge wave rushing toward my house.

Analyzing this later, I realized the dreams pointed to how I was living my life; always feeling I had to do more. I had to reach for that 110% that perfectionists insist is average. Couldn’t stop with good enough. Couldn’t take time off.

Then, during the middle of my stream-of-consciousness routine, I realized that I still feel pressure to do more than is required. I may call myself a “recovering perfectionist” and write posts about perfectionism, but I still tend to put more on my plate than I can chew.

Consequently, when I got out of bed yesterday morning, wanting to go right back, I thought about self-imposed pressure. What did I feel I had to do that didn’t need to be done and could be eliminated? For crying out loud, I will be 75 years old on Friday. What in the world is wrong with taking two days off a week? If I can’t give myself permission to do it now, when will I?

So I began by thinking about writing this post. Did I really have to do this? No. I haven’t made any promises to do it, and besides, I imagine the sun will rise and set, and your life will continue if you come here on Wednesday, June 9, and don’t find a new post.

Now is is Thursday. Didn’t get more than the part above done yesterday. And I think a bottle of pick-me-up pills would go down well right about now. But the best medicine is probably just letting up the pressure on me so my body can heal itself.

By the way, that picture is of my husband lying in a poppy field this spring while I was busy taking pictures. Now he knows how to relax!

Dealing With Stumbling Blocks in Life

March 8, 2010

In the path of every person there are barriers large and small that we come upon unexpectedly. How do you handle your stumbling blocks? Learn how I approached my possible cancer diagnosis.

Visual Viewpoint: Where is My Ship Taking Me?

See Support4Change for explanation of “visual viewpoints”

In this picture of the paddle-steamer HSS Earnslaw on Lake Wakatipu at Queenstown, New Zealand, I knew where I was heading; to a sheep ranch across the lake. Now I’m on a boat, metaphorically speaking, and my landing point is unknown. In fact, as far as my body is concerned, it will be at least a few days before I’ll know in what direction I am sailing.

I was very much aware of such uncertainty for people who are in the process of getting a diagnosis for cancer when, about twenty-five years ago, I co-founded The Wellness Community—Foothills in Pasadena, California, which is part of an international support program for cancer patients and their families. During my approximately fifteen years with the organization, I served on the board and gave many workshops. Later I co-founded the nonprofit CancerOnline website (no longer active) where I wrote thousands of words offering encouragement and information.

What I said time and again was that it is important to have hope and to participate in treatment decisions. I gave lots of advice that seemed, to an observer of the experience of others, to make sense. People seemed to like what I said. [If you’d like to read some of the advice I’ve given about cancer, look at the Getting Well and Staying Well index in the health section of Support4Change.]

However, if you’ve been following the blog, you will know that now I get to see whether all that advice applies to me as well. A couple weeks ago I said that life is what happens when you’re making other plans. I made the comment when I was called back for a diagnostic mammogram because I had had an “anomoly” in my first exam. So last Thursday I went in truly expecting it would be a false positive.

For those who don’t know what that means, it’s when a test looks as though the results aren’t good, but they are. I’d told hundreds of women that there are many false positives. I had only had an “anomoly.” That sounded much more favorable than if the original mammogram had indicated a large mass, or if I could actually feel a lump. So I went into the exam last week taking my advice that it was probably just fine. Only an anomoly.

Now, because of that exam, I have learned that I have a suspicious mass in my breast. That sounds so ominous, doesn’t it, a “suspicious mass”? I watched as they did a sonogram and it didn’t look terribly big to me. It’s strangely shaped and less than an inch. But that’s still awfully big if it’s malignant and I’d rather not have it hanging around if it’s going to keep growing, even if it’s caught early. So I expect, if it is cancer, that in the end I will be fine. However, I’ve been around the cancer scene too long not to be aware of the potential for uncomfortable treatment, hair falling out, and all that stuff that no one wants to have to go through.

Now I have scheduled a biopsy for this Thursday and I will get the results this Friday. The answer will help determine what direction my ship is sailing this year.

When friends ask how I’m doing, I report that it’s an interesting experience to notice whether all those thousands of words I’ve written for others might now apply to me. I’ve discovered that they do. Not only do I know that diagnosing cancer early means a far greater chance of cure and survival, but there is always the possibility that the biopsy will show that it won’t be malignant. I’ll just have to wait.

However, there is an additional thing I want to share. If you have seen the video called “Heal Your Relationships by Strengthening Your True Self,” on the homepage of Support4Change, you will know that the true self is able to observe what happens to the body without being attached to it. It doesn’t identify itself based on whether the body feels well or looks good.

I can honestly say that I am reacting to this intrusion in my life with greater acceptance than I would have been able to pull off twenty years ago. Guess that means I’ve made progress, though I admit that my ego still has greater control over me than I’d like. In fact, the more I recognize my ego in operation, the more I become aware of how it wants to run my life, like claiming that I should be immune to the vicissitudes of life — such as needing to deal with the bother of cancer. However, the first step in getting rid of the ego is recognizing when it’s active so that the true self can make decisions and take actions the ego may not like.

This evening I was talking with a colleague of mine who has had cancer and who became blind a few years ago. She has a much harder time accepting the blindness than she did accepting the cancer diagnosis. Our discussion led to the observation that we all have stumbling blocks along whatever path our journeys take us. Some are there because of challenges placed in our paths by illness and loss. Others we place there ourselves when our ego says, such things may happen to others, but they shouldn’t happen to us. Our true self accepts them as the reality of what lies in our path, and then proceeds to deal with them to the best of our ability.

I’d love to hear from you about how you have dealt with stumbling blocks in your own life.

Helping One Another When Life Gets Tough

February 11, 2010

Discover the value of friendship and relationships when accidents and illness happen.

Ecuador and Peru Travel Report # 12 and Visual Viewpoint: Hang On, It Can Be a Bumpy Ride

See Support4Change for explanation of “visual viewpoints”

Plus Evidence That Life Happens When You’re Making Other Plans

This picture was taken on our fiftieth wedding anniversary at the sand dunes outside Paracus, Peru. That area has lovely hotels, a peninsula, a bay, a pre-Inca Culture and a National Reserve. In a later blog I’ll tell about the marine reserve, where we went in to morning. Then after lunch took in our first dune buggy ride. Lots of sand in the area because it has one of the lowest levels of rain in the world.

I think we both look and feel rather young, don’t you think? Well, maybe not as young as we’d like to look and feel, but not too bad for our age. Until this week I’ve expected life to continue as it has, with the normal assortment of ups and downs, for a good number of years.

But if you’ve ever had a dune buggy ride (this was our first) you’ll know that when you’re going to the top of a hill that you don’t know whether what you’ll face on the other side is a relatively gentle ride down or a super-steep slope. I could swear that some of the drops were almost vertical, which makes for an exciting, drop-in-the-pit-of-your-stomach, but fun, experience.

I remembered this when I decided to share my ride downhill this week. You see, on Thursday afternoon, my assistant, Renee, was showing me how to sign up for Twitter — which we hope will help more people know about the Better Tomorrows Program and the Ask Yourself Questions Club. The day was moving up a steady climb and everything was working well. (I always thought Twitter was a bit silly, but here I am trying to play the game with everyone else. We’ll just have to see how things do work out.)

THEN, I got a call from the breast center where I had had a mammogram on Monday telling me that the doctor wanted me to come in again for another, more definitive exam. They said there was an “anomaly.” D-o-w-n I went. The falling in the pit of my stomach was exactly like the feeling of going down some of those sand dunes, with none of the happy excitement that were part of it. This was just dread. The earliest I could get in for another exam wasn’t for three weeks.

What interested me as I tried to absorb the news was that I know a lot about survival of cancer. Some twenty-five years ago I co-founded The Wellness Community—Foothills, part of a large international support program for cancer patients and their families. Later I co-founded a website called CancerOnline (which is no longer active) and wrote extensively about the role of hope and the need for participation in one’s own treatment.

Now here I was, faced with my own potential diagnosis, and the intellectual understanding of treating cancer flew out the window with an emotional reaction that is almost universal. The ride down the slope was not gentle. Of course, I knew I would eventually bottom out and settle into the more steady process of dealing with whatever I had to deal with. At the moment, it seemed overwhelming in part because I had thought that if it ever happened to me that I would respond more calmly because of my knowledge. So some of my reaction was shock that I reacted as I did.

When I told my husband, I cried. When I called my primary physician, I found myself crying to the receptionist, which added to my sense of falling off a cliff, or sliding down a very steep hill. And remember, I hadn’t actually had a diagnosis, only a request to look into an “anomaly,” whatever that was.

Fortunately, when the doctor called me back a short while later, I discovered that the x-rays did not show a sclerosis, lump or cyst, which would have been “suspicious” and require a more timely re-testing. It was just that one of my breasts was thicker than another. At this news the downhill ride slowed considerably and even came to a halt when she said that 40% of the women she sends for a mammogram are called back and of those 90% are just fine.

I knew there are always false-positives, but somehow that hadn’t made me feel better until I was reassured by my doctor and could remind myself that even if they do find cancer, it will have been caught early. Since I have great confidence in early detection, I won’t feel I’m plunging over a cliff as much as simply going through the inconvenience and discomfort of treatment.

I can add another illustration of the plunges life offers at inconvenient times with another recent story: A friend called three days ago with strain and tears in her voice saying, “I need help. Can you help me?”

Turns out she tripped and fell as she was unpacking in her new house. The next day she had to have an operation for a shattered ankle and won’t be able to put any pressure on it for three months. So I’ll be bringing her here until she can get around her house more easily.

I will end this part of today’s post by saying that, when you go over the hill, it helps to have someone there to make life easier until you slow down and can start up again. I know this well because a year ago I had a major back operation and my husband was there for me day after day. So when I told him about the possibility I could have cancer, I said I was sorry that he would have to help me again. He just reached for my hand and said, “That’s okay. We’re a team.”

Having a support team makes the slides downhill much easier. And I can guarantee you that giving others a hand when they take their plunge down a slope they hadn’t intended to take can steady them until their ride ends and they can begin to go up the next hill. It feels wonderful to be on both the giving and receiving side.

NOTE:  The diagnosis was negative and I was cancer free. But the experience taught me a great deal about the value of having a support team!

Could You Laugh at Cancer?

April 26, 2007

Are you able to poke fun at cancer, as many survivors are able to do even though they are also fighting the disease?

Recently I received an e-mail from a cancer survivor who shared an approach to life I admire. It shows how one can move right through a difficult situation with a bit of humor. Christina, who gave me permission to use her story, wrote:

I thought that others may enjoy my real life experience. Let me start off by saying, I am 27 and have recently survived Breast cancer!

After my first treatment of chemo, all of my hair fell out and it took me months to leave home without wearing a wig. The very first night that I mustered enough confidence to go out with only a ball cap I went into a convenience store and right away noticed the people staring at me. A few people smiled and kept walking but the man behind the counter had something to say.

“Ma’am, are you ok?” he asked, almost wishing he had never said a word.

I smiled and after making my purchase, I lifted my ball cap and said “I lost a bet.”

[The picture comes from the Max Cap Company in England. Also, you’ll find neat hats at Stylish Noggins, whose hats, caps and snoods are not open at the back.]

Christina’s story is a good addition to the Living Well Despite Illness section on Support4Change. I realize, of course, that joking about cancer is not to everyone’s taste, but I was introduced to laughing at illness through my work with The Wellness Community—Foothills, a cancer support program, in Pasadena, California. That’s where I became acquainted with Sydney Love. He is a cancer survivor who supplied me with many cancer jokes, some of which you can read on Cancer Jokes One and Cancer Jokes Two.

As I write in Does Cancer Have a Sense of Humor?, many cancer patients discover humor is a way to let a bit of light into the dark corners of their world. Betty Cea, a lymphoma patient, is one of them. When she sent me “The Top 10 Reasons I Can’t Be Sick Anymore,” which is the sidebar on Humor: A Powerful Coping Aid, she said:

My hair left, my dysfunctional family whom I love very much stayed, and the cancer has come back. I might as well laugh while I fight … cancer hates a sense of humor …

As with all humor, the pleasure is in the punchline, the unexpected ending or twist to a story. And all such stories are, for me, all the better when they come from quick thinking. Too often my “clever” retorts are obvious when I’m on the way home from a conversation that got overheated, long after we needed something to calm the tension.

When have you been able to defuse a tense situation, or insert a little humor into a depressing situation, by thinking quickly and humorously?