It has been four weeks since my surgery. I can lift my arms over my head and do some light weight lifting. I went to a Tai Chi class today for the first time since surgery, and did pretty well. My full-time disability days are coming to a close; I go back to work on Monday.

This seems like a turning point. One chapter of the journey is over, and another is about to begin. The next step will be six weeks of radiation treatments, then after that five years of hormone therapy. I have heard from several people that the hardest part is yet to come. But to me, from my current vantage point, it feels like the most difficult hurdles are behind me. For one thing, the cancer is out of my body now, which feels huge! For another, there are far fewer needles ahead of me than behind me. I think I'll have to get blood drawn every six months, and there's always the possibility of having to go through another MRI scan or biopsy round. But neither is staring me in the face in the next few months!

I have been meaning to write about the things that have gotten me through the journey this far. Now seems like a good time.

First, the non-woo:

1. Tig Notaro. Like, big time. Tig is a stand-up comedian who performed live just days after getting a diagnosis of breast cancer. She had tumors in both breasts and has since had a double mastectomy. Her 30 minute show, called "Live" (with a short "i", as in, to stay alive), was recorded and has now been released as a CD. I bought the download for $5.

An excerpt from the show was played on a episode of This American Life. You can listen to it here.

2. My friends, students, teachers and healers. The response on my Facebook post about the diagnosis was overwhelming. I felt so much love and support, it was just amazing. I was also very lucky to have several women in my meditation and yoga classes who have experienced breast cancer first or second hand and could give me understanding and advice. I am so blessed.

3. My husband. He's been fantastic through this. He's been with me every step of the way, always telling me that everything will be fine. And only a couple of times needing to be reminded that I'm in need of more special care than usual.

4. I already listed the books I have used.

Now, the woo:

1. Prayer and meditation. I generally begin my day with yoga, followed by a few moments of prayer or meditation. But after my diagnosis through the surgery I increased my daily contemplative time to 10 minutes or so. It really helped keep me centered when I had to go to work. Here are some of my favorite prayers.

The Serenity Prayer

Goddess grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.

I said this one a lot in the beginning, while I was still really grappling with the diagnosis.

The Metta Prayer
May I be safe,
May I be healthy,
May I be free from suffering,
May I live with ease.

This Buddhist prayer was my go-to meditation whenever feelings of anxiety or sadness became too much. I repeated it over and over in my mind during my lunchtime walk or on my way from my car to the office before work. It always calmed me very quickly.

Humme Hum Brahm Hum

I searched hard for a mantra to chant internally during scary medical procedures, as a way to distract me, calm my mind and relax my body. It had to be short enough to repeat on one breath, easy to remember, and pleasant to my inner ear. "Om" felt too short, and Frank Herbert's "Litany Against Fear" was too long. I finally settled on "Hummee Hum Brahm Hum" (from the Kundalini Yoga tradition). The usual Sanskrit translation is "We are we, we are God". The word Hum also relates to the heart center, and one of its meanings is the grounding of Universal Form in the body. So the mantra can be translated to mean "God is in my very being," which I love.

Hummee Hum Brahm Hum also has a lovely tune, which you can hear in this YouTube video.




2. Visualization. Two visualizations came to me during the months before the surgery.

a. One was visualizing my body turned into a flock of butterflies. Most of my body was black butterflies with blue markings. The cancer cells appeared as red and black butterflies. I picked them out of my butterfly body and asked them to fly elsewhere.

Closer to the surgery, the butterflies in the visualization all turned into bright blue butterflies with black markings (think Morpho butterflies). The red cancer butterflies were absent. I took this as a very good sign.

b. The second visualization that came to me was of a sphere, a ball I could either hold or put up around me. When faced with needles of any sort, I put my fear in the ball and bounced it away from me. Or if someone irritated or stressed me when I was at work or otherwise out and about in daily life, the sphere expanded to include all of me, as a shield against the irritation. This visualization of a sphere of power has come to me several times now; I think it will stay with me.

3. Affirmation. Each week, I took a couple of hours out of my weekend for contemplation. This is when I found the mantras and prayers I wanted to work with. I would usually do some gentle grounding yoga to get in touch with me inner strength: Warrior 1, Warrior 2, Tree Pose. Some breath work to calm me.

I also looked for the perfect affirmations for my healing. I will end with a page from my notebook of my favorite affirmations. The symbol at the bottom is the Sanskrit symbol for Hum.

I just placed a Sock Dreams order for warm winter socks. What I do for fun on a Saturday night!

When life gets hard, wear cashmere socks and the world feels just a bit better. That's my motto!

Eleven days ago, my kitty Ki ate a light breakfast, then turned and trotted off past the barn and toward the pasture. He had a faraway look in his eye and a purposeful air, an air that said "I'm going for an adventure!"



He never came back.

He's not coming back.

Most likely he was killed by coyotes. Or maybe he found another family to adopt. Certainly, he found adventure, whatever happened.



I adopted Ki when my neighbors abandoned him when they moved away. I reluctantly rescued him and took him in. I'm glad I did; he he probably wouldn't have lived long in the city.

He was a outdoor cat when I took him in. When we moved to the farm, I let him roam outdoors again. He was a good hunter, and loved living here. If the hunter became the hunted, well, all I can say is he lived the life he wanted.

I am sad, and I miss him. But I am glad that I knew him, loved him, and gave him a home.

Apparently Discover Card now gives you the option of getting a card with a picture on it. When I called Discover to report my card stolen, the very kind woman suggested I get one of the fancy cards with a picture on it.

I was not prepared for this question. The conversation went like this.

Nice customer service lady: "What do you like to do?"

"I do yoga," I suggested.

"Yoga. No, we don't have any yoga designs. Do you have any pets?"

"Yes, I have a cat."

"What color?"

"Black," was my answer. But then I realized I actually have two cats, one black and one tawny. I bet they don't have a picture of one black and one tan cat. I'd feel like I was betraying Barney every time I used the card. This is a bad idea.

"Actually," I said out loud, "Let's just go with a plain card. No picture."

"Just a plain card?" asked the customer service lady.

"Yes, plain."

"You don't want a beagle, do you?"

What??? "No, I don't want a beagle."

"Okay. Just a plain card," she confirmed.


I just got my new replacement card. Guess what picture is on it. Just guess! That's right...A BEAGLE!

I can't have a card with a picture of a beagle. I don't have a beagle. If I ever did get a dog, I can tell you it wouldn't be a beagle. (Not that I dislike beagles, they are fine dogs. But I would get a border collie or sheltie if I were to get a dog).

So now I have to call Discover Card back and order another card. And continue to not have a working credit card.

Argh!

I was all set to paint a pen and ink drawing with watercolors, when I discovered that the ink I was using is water soluble! D'oh! I guess I'll have to color it in with colored pencils. Which is fine, I was just looking forward to seeing what I could do with the water colors.

Last night Rob and I went to see British singer-songwriter Richard Thompson in concert at Columbus's oldest surviving theater. It's a fabulous space, and we had good center seats. Richard played solo, on a single Lowden acoustic guitar, for over an hour and a half. It was phenomenal. His virtuoso guitar playing takes me breath away. He has a technique of both strumming and picking simultaniously that fills he room with sound and often sounds like several guitars playing at once. He loves throwing in blues riffs, which gives his more rocking songs an early rock-n-roll feel, which I love. He was also a member of the seminal folk-rock band Fairport Convention, and definitely keeps a folk sound on many of his slower songs.

It was an amazing concert. If you like guitar at all, if youever get the chance to see this man perform, with or without his band, take it! Acoustic or electric, solo or backed by his band, Richard Thompson is just fabulous!

I have never been so happy that the yoga ball I use as my desk chair sits in a frame to keep it from rolling around as I was yesterday at 1:50pm. Not everyone in Ohio felt the earthquake. It was more apparent for those of us in taller office buildings. At first I felt a little dizzy, like I was having vertigo. I had trouble focusing on the computer screen. Then my body seemed to pulse, as if my heart was beating hard and I could feel the pulse throughout my body. I looked up and saw the leaves of my plant quiver. Was there construction going on somewhere in the building? A canon fired at the statehouse across the street? Or did I just eat something that raised my blood pressure?

Things settled down, and I wandered out of my cube to see if anyone else felt it, too. Half a dozen people were telling each other that yes, they'd felt it, too. A few minutes later the word came: an earthquake, epicenter in Virginia.

I tried to settle back into work, but I still felt a lingering vertigo and nausea. I was finally got back into my work about half an hour later.

When I got home around 6:30pm the power was out at the farmhouse. I don't know how wide an area was effected, but it was at least my neighborhood. The refrigerator felt...not exactly warm, but not cool either, when I opened it to put my food away.

My plans for the evening had included a load of laundry and a hot bath, both of which had to be abandoned, as we have no running water in a power outage because we're on well water.

I have no idea whether the power outage had any connection to the earthquake. Rob did say he saw a power truck in the neighborhood, likely searching for the cause of the outage. The power came back on about 8pm.

It was a weird and slightly unsettling day.

Last weekend, I continued my project of managing the non-grass plants in the shady side yard. As a result of Rob’s herbicide adventure a year ago, there’s almost no grass there at all this year. Instead, it’s all weeds of one sort or another. I decided the best way to manage it would be, instead of mowing there, to pull up the weeds I don't want and encourage others to thrive.

Specifically, I pulled up poison ivy, Virginia creeper, garlic mustard, ironweed, pokeweed, thistle, and another prickly plant whose name I forget. I am encouraging chickweed and moss, and of course the early blooming (and now dormant) endangered spring beauties.

I love the chickweed. It’s fast-growing, creates a soft springy mat, and it isn’t a vine so it won’t climb up the trees or house walls. I am ambivalent on the presence of broadleaf plantain, which is plentiful. On the one hand, it's not attractive, but on the other hand, it's not prickly or rash-inducing. So I leave it. A little research tells me that both chickweed and plantain are medicinal herbs, which is cool!

In about two hours I completed probably 3/4 to 4/5 of the yard. I had hoped to transplant more moss over to the moss and step stone walk area that I'm constructing, but I ran out of steam before I got there. I’m not sure if I’ll have time to do it this weekend, either. Maybe the following weekend. I’m fast running out of growing season!

Rob and I also finally got around to mowing the rest of the yard this weekend, too. It seriously needed it. For the time being, anyway, I feel good about my yard.

Ki seems to be comfortable, and happy to be home. He has to wear a collar to keep him from licking the incision. It's flexible, made of Tyvek or a similar synthetic material, rather than one of the rigid plastic cones. While he appeared to be somewhat annoyed by it at first, he seems to have gotten used to it, for which I am grateful.

He is eating, though not as voraciously as usual. He is pee'ing too, which is good. As of this morning, though, he has yet to have a bowel movement. He should have had one by now. I will skip Tai Chi class tonight and go straight home to check on him. If he hasn't had a bowel movement during the day, I will have to take him back to the vet.

He really wants to go outside. We're supposed to keep him inside for two weeks while the incision heals. It's going to be a long two weeks for all of us.

But overall he seems comfortable and fairly happy, so that's good.

Ki had exploratory surgery last night, but they found no obstruction in his GI tract. They did find a calcified nodule in free-floating in his abdomen, and removed it. It's about the size of a large lima bean. Ir certainly could have made him uncomfortable.

He wasn't hungry when they fed him this morning. We went over to visit him around 1pm. I took a can of tuna to see if that would entice him. He completely refused it. He wouldn't even lick it off my fingers. He didn't seem to be in pain, but he was obviously unhappy. We gave him lots of pets, and he liked that. But clearly wasn't happy with the situation.

They're supposed to call when he has eaten and been able to keep the food down. It is 8pm now and they haven't called. Rob was thinking about visiting him but to be honest I think it would just depress me more...and I have cried a couple of times today.

To be honest, I don't think the nodule they removed is the cause of him not eating. I think it's something else, but I haven't a clue as to what it could be.

If he isn't eating tomorrow morning, I am thinking about transferring him to our normal vet, who will be open by then. They might be better equipped to deal with figuring out what's wrong. And they have his past medical records.