This Cancer Thing: January 6, 2013

Had a beautiful, restful, week-and-a-half-long winter camping trip to Arizona following Christmas, despite my severe reluctance to go in the first place!

The first half of the trip saw much snow and overnight temperatures dropping into the single digits – um, BURR for this SoCal girl!

At the Grand Canyon the day after Christmas. Snow, fog, and cold, cold, cold!
Thank Buddha for a cozy sock monkey hat bought at the hardware store a few months ago!
(Doesn't everyone buy their best chapeaux at the hardware store?!?)

And BURR for Jake, too - this was his first time in the snow!
Good thing he was wearing his coat/saddle blanket!

But snowstorms also meant that not a lot of people were out camping! At one state park campground, there were only two rigs there. Ahhhhh, blissful solitude!

The last half of the trip was considerably warmer, having made the trek into the Verde Valley and then onto Arizona’s “West Coast” – the Colorado River. After a week of piling on layer upon layer of clothing every day, being able to hike in the magnificent desert sun in short sleeves was a glorious treat!

Finally, sun and WARMTH!!!

Although I reconciled and reasoned my way into going on the trip after that initial bout of paranoia (see blog post of December 23), alas, all was not stress-free.

Unfortunately, dwelling on this cancer thing has been front and center of my brain since the Thanksgiving trip to the Eastern Sierras. A little before then, I began to notice some pain in my lower right back. Not excruciating, not life-altering – just there. But because it’s unlike typical muscle pain I’ve had before, of course my cancer-induced neuroses conjured up the most dreadful of scenarios, even though I otherwise continue to feel fine.

My next CT scan is January 16, and I’ll see Dr. Hampshire the awesome oncologist after that to go over the results.

But the lower back pain combined with specter of the upcoming scan has instilled a good deal of – dare I say it? – fear.

Ugh.

I SO didn’t want to go there.

But sometimes, as hard as you try otherwise, you just can’t help it. The mind takes over and all of a sudden you’re scared.

Because I know that at some point, this cancer thing will take a turn and go in a direction I don’t want to go: down the Chemo Road to the junction of Vomiting Avenue and Hair Loss Street. And ya know, I’d rather not set my GPS for that location, thank you very much.

The advantage to Stage IV Asymptomatic Follicular Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma is that time is on my side: while I’m in this “watch and wait” status, new treatments may become approved or existing ones bettered to make the side effects not so dire.

But that still didn’t stop me from constantly waking up in the middle of the night while on vacation and stressing about Cancerland.

Is this what I get to look forward to? Worrying every time a scan is looming? Paying WAY too much attention to pain that may or may not even be cancer-related? I needed to find a way away from fear and paranoia, and get back on the road to fearlessness.

While in Arizona, a day trip brought me to Second Mesa on the Hopi Reservation. There, an older Hopi man came in from running his errands to unlock the artist’s guild building so I could take a look at the locally crafted pottery and jewelry. He apologized for the chilled darkness of the shop; his power had gone out with the last snow storm. Chatting with him, I was repeatedly drawn back to a simple sterling ring with a unique wave pattern. Rings have always been vexsome for me, because of my knotty knuckles (“Don’t crack your knuckles!” my Mom was forever telling me while growing up. “You’ll end up with knots.” Chalk one up for Mom – she was right!) But when I tried this particular ring on, it slid perfectly over my knot and settled snugly onto the base of my finger like it was meant to be there. Guess who just bought herself a ring?!

Hopi artistry.

The man said that according to the Hopi, wave and water patterns represent growth, sustenance, and the continual flow of life. Yeah, buddy! That’s EXACTLY what this cancer chick needed to help ward off the fear juju that had been brewing!

As mentioned in previous posts, I give a lot of credence to symbolism and visualization – the “altar” in my bedroom is full of meaningful and symbolic trinkets, totems, fetishes, and ephemera that have been gifted to me by friends and family, or that I’ve picked up along this adventure in Cancerland.