The Girl on the In-Between: Phoenix Spark

Jesse thinks you're number one!!!

It’s been such a whirlwind. I’ve had no time for writing and it’s been eating at me. Jesse is living with me now, and it’s been good so far, even though the apartment is largely in disarray. He lost his job in January and just started a good one this week. With all the chaos of my life, I chose to leave my wonderful job to focus on getting better, being a mom, and my creative pursuits. It’s time for some serious self-care. It’s time to be who and what I truly am, and to unearth the parts that have been sleeping.

Things have changed with the cancer, too. My tumor index began to slowly go down with oral chemotherapy. I started taking Rick Simpson Oil. If you don’t know what that is, I highly recommend looking into it. Even though it was going down, it was so slow and I was growing so tired of the fluid overwhelming my lung and having to have it drained via thoracentesis. At the end of January, I believe it was, the procedure caused my lung to collapse, which lead to a fun-filled, dilauded-enhanced stay in the hospital. Gradually, since the beginning of this, the need to have this done became less and less frequent. Still, it seemed like it was never going to speed up, and as is the way with chemotherapy, I was getting so weak and so sick.

I don’t bring it up very often, but I have been a Reike healer for quite a few years, though I maintained level 1 and primarily did self-healing for that time. I would even go long periods without using it at all. Well, I finally decided that you can have cancer and still use Reike, so in March I attended a four-day retreat to complete my Reike 2 training. I had recently received another call saying that the tumors had gone down again; very slightly. I was also toward the end of my two-week chemotherapy cycle, and I was weak and tired. But I went.

I won’t share the details of Reike training, as it’s a lot to try to fit into a blog. For those who don’t know what it is, in short: Reike is a Japanese form of meditation that requires training and mentorship. It promotes physical, emotional, and psychological health. It strengthens the mind-body-spirit connection, and is even used in some U.S. hospitals.

The retreat was amazing. Even though I had to excuse myself a few times to go and sleep in my little cabin, I got so much out of it. I could feel my Phoenix Fire beginning to spark. It ended on a Sunday, and the following Thursday I had a CT scan to get a better look at the tumors. Just a few days after that, I got a call from my oncologist’s office. I was told that the scan showed no evidence of disease in my lung, and everywhere else had diminished drastically, though it was still in multiple places. Jesse was sitting with me at the dining room table at his father’s house when this news came to me. I got off the phone and cried the first genuinely happy tears I can remember in a long time. I’ve been taken off the chemo and am being placed on hormone therapies instead.

Of course my Krav Maga has suffered due to all of this, but I still go whenever I can. That’s the hard part. That’s where I get depressed. I miss training five days a week. I miss having that drive and ability. I miss being able to do fall-breaks on my back, then immediately jumping up to strike the pads. I keep hoping that as I improve, I can get my class count back up, though I am not allowed to do the belt tests until my spine recovers. I keep telling myself that until I can advance, I’ll just have to become the most badass yellow belt I can be. Now…to actually get to class.

Some days the uncertainty of everything gets to me. Everything is so up in the air with no signs of landing anytime soon. I’m so glad I have Jesse here now. When I’m floating away or lost in a panic, he has a miraculous way of grounding me. Of course he drives me batty sometimes but overall, he soothes my soul. We seem to be sort of building plans, but I try not to think about it too much. I’m still afraid of losing this.

So yes, it’s been quite eventful. I’ve even had dear friends and family visit me from other countries since my last post. It’s been wonderful, but so fast-paced. I’m looking forward to things slowing down a bit. I need some quiet time, some self-nurturing time. This most definitely includes writing.