Saturday, November 12, 2011

...Poked you.

I've been dealing with my dog Ginger's health a lot recently. Actually she is in great health, but has a congenital problem with her knee which requires surgery. Before surgery she was given a pain patch to minimize the pain for 72 hours post op. Being my dog and therefore prone to being high maintenance, she of course reacted to the fentanyl and her body temperature dropped to a very dangerous 93. She spent the better part of the day at the vets on an drip in the hot room, instead of having her surgery. I spent the better part of the day freaking out, terrified that we would loose her. She finally got to come home that night, but I had to stay up all night taking her temperature and praying. Of course she is tough and made a full recovery, Thank God! Now we just have to get through the actual surgery next week.

The interesting thing about dealing with dogs is that it is completely non verbal. Are they sick, are the ok? A dog can throw up and be just fine seconds later. It is the little cues however that we have to watch for. It made me really start thinking about the small cues we receive in life that we don't pay attention to. The small gestures from our friends, partners and families. If you are on Facebook then you know what a "poke" is. Just a quick click and you can let someone know that they are in your thoughts. I used to hate poking! Mainly because a certain someone, seemed to poke me every half hour. I used to wonder "don't you have anything better to do"? Until, that is, that I realized that they were thinking about me a lot and letting me know. Maybe they were too busy for a phone call or note, but a quick poke let me know that I was cared for. I learned to love it.

There are so many small signs that we take for granted. We, for example, duck in from the rain like we are going to melt, but then once it has stopped marvel at the rainbow! The reality is that the rain is the real blessing in the first place, that we take for granted (unless you are living in Texas!). We take a lot of Gods gifts for granted the sunrise and sunset,a light breeze, the smell of jasmine on the wind. God "pokes" us all of the time and we forget to poke back! Just a simple thank you God for anything that you notice will suffice.

So God, I admit that I was so relieved when Ginger recovered that I forgot to poke you back, so I am doing it now.

Friday, November 11, 2011

It's all around us

Death is all around us. We are reminded daily that the circle of life completes itself in death. We see leaves turning amber and falling from the tree. Occasionally find the baby chick that had fallen from the nest lifeless on the ground. All of the wonders of life and death playing out before us daily yet we don't seem to really pay attention to it unless it comes too close. I confess that I've been living that way for my entire life. I can't say that I fear death. I am comfortable with my beliefs and believe that in some sense of the word we all go on, I don't see death as an end, but that being said, I am in no rush to experience physical death. I'm one of the odd ones that wants to live to be 100 or so. The thought that I might make it was challenged by cancer, but I knew that I would heal. And I did, I continue to be stronger and better daily. At this point I am preparing to return to work.

So why all of the examination of the end of life? In the past two months, I have had three deaths that profoundly shook me. Two of the members of my support group and the death of Steve Jobs. Oddly enough it was the death of Mr Jobs that shook me the most. No, I'm not a crazed Mac user and morning the loss of potential new products from Apple in the future, It was how he handled his cancer. When diagnosed, he opted to take a completely natural path, believing that he would cure himself. This sounded all to familiar to me. It was in my own head for awhile with one difference. When diagnosed, I was ok with the surgery to remove to tumor. I wanted it to be gone. I was not, however, willing to follow it up with chemotherapy and radiation. It took my partner, Ken and my whole family to basically tell me that I was being crazy to finally convince me to do the therapy. I finally made peace with it and went on to use natural healing, herbs, juices and acupuncture to restore my body from the surgery, chemo and radiation.

Had Steve Jobs had family and friends like mine to convince him that he was nuts, he may still be here today. I am grateful to have survived and am saddened by seeing a like minded individual, especially one with such an extraordinary mind, perish. The two members of my group hit hard as well. One gentleman, who had cancer of the esophagus (the most closely related cancer to my own) died not from the cancer itself, but from a blood clot in his brain. The shock of his death knocked me down for awhile. Here was a big healthy man, with a great attitude and love of life just...gone. I had missed a few group sessions and found out when I returned. The group had had time to process it and I remember just sitting there in shock all night. It made no sense. I found myself getting angry on the way home. This is not how it is supposed to happen. He was supposed to be a success, like the rest of the group. We are survivors and winners. We are the heroes of the cancer community. We don't die! But as I found out that night, we do. Just a few weeks later I found myself attending the funeral of another one of my group. I woke up just this morning with the mariachi band playing it's mournful tune that was played when they brought her casket into the sanctuary. The entire service was in Spanish, but as I discovered, grief knows no language. It was clear in the tears and the shock of loss on the faces of the mourners in attendance. After the funeral, I practically ran from the church to my truck. I ended up at Target shopping for nothing. I just wanted to be around people not dealing with death. I didn't want to be dealing with death, but here I am. This isn't the first time. The eighties, were an entire decade of loss for me. Starting with my first partner Tim, and ravaging my community. I still remember living in shock, wondering why I was still here. I made stupid decisions like not paying taxes because I believed that I was next. I had attended over fifty funerals before I decided not to attend another one. It would take the loss of my Grandfather ten years later to get me to attend another one.

That decade also served to deepen my faith in God. If I was supposed to be here it must have a purpose. God must have some plan in store for me. I am supposed to do something with my life. This was the knowing that allowed me to survive cancer. It made no sense that I would survive the loss of practically every friend and associate that I had only to die of a tumor in my tongue some twenty years later. I believe that to this second. And while I can't really see what the plan is, I know there is one. I believe that my life has purpose.
All I can say about it now is wait and see.