wavesworld

where do we hide when it comes from inside

every once in awhile mitchell prints out something for me to read.  most of the time he forwards stuff, but when he prints it, i pay better attention.  it was a recent article of deepok chopra's strategies for dealing with fear, and it got me to thinkin...

up until my early twenties, i was relatively courageous - i wasn't always tripping over my worries and fears. but when i was 24, i began having anxiety attacks.  i didn't know what they were at the time, but i sure suffered from them...it usually started when i was eating...i'd begin to have a sensation like i was choking, and then i'd panic, hyperventilate, and often end up in the emergency room.  doctors never found anything wrong, but a number of them recommended i see a therapist. i was losing a lot of weight quickly and becoming way too skinny. everything i ate was a potential death sentence, so i stayed with custard, ice cream, and pureed things...little by little my life turned into one great big fear-fest. every kind of phobia developed.  when i finally couldn't take it anymore i started seeing a therapist, whose office was right across the street. first of all, she put a name on what was happening to me, and showed me the diagnosis in a textbook. it helped to see that other people had this too...and i began delving into why...in those days i was so invested in being nice and being liked that i was pushing down what i really felt or wanted to say (hence the choking), plus there were other emotional wounds to look at - things i found hard to swallow.  eventually there came a point when i got so sick of being of afraid of death that i just surrendered...i said okay, i'm tired of living like this, so just kill me...but i didn't die...and over time i began eating normally, and not being quite so afraid of life. my therapist moved to israel, and i went back to school to become a therapist just like her, and help neurotic people, just like me. 

 

it's been many years since then, and i fluctuate with more or less fear, depending on whether i'm on or off "the beam". (the beam being something akin to the correct path)...when the actors studio host asks the question to his guest..."if there is a heaven, what would you like god to say when you arrive"... i've always known my answer..."safe at last".  i often relate to life like it's one big obstacle course or dangerous neighborhood. hypervigilence is sure not a peaceful way to live... and things are even more complicated now. i can't hide from what is happening inside, and now it's real...i don't want to be afraid of my own body, no matter what is going on in it. i'm not someone who wants to parachute out of an airplane just because i have a death sentence, but i do want to live my life with love being the main reason for my choices, not fear.

 

here are the words of advice mitchell printed out for me: 

 

        "Fear deprives people of choice.  Fear shrinks the world into isolated,      defensive enclaves.  Fear spirals out of control.  Fear makes everyday life seem clouded with danger."  (yup)

    While fear is a natural response to danger, particularly in a time where that danger is pervasive we need to bring our best ideas, plans and strategies for making sure that everyone survives the storm.  It is in times of crisis that humans are able to live our very best selves, to take a little bit less for ourselves so that someone else may have some, to get imaginative and find a way for everyone to find a place at the table.  

    Combatting fear can be tough thing to do.  As a starting point, try one of these four strategies for living more fully. 

1. Thank your intuition for the fear.  Acknowledging the alarm bells, rather than denying them or distracting yourself from them, allows you to make a choice about what to do next.   

2. Check into the present moment.  Our fears are often anticipatory.  They are rooted in things that might happen.  We might lose our jobs.  We might get sick.   Check in with what is going on right now.  If you are worried about losing your job, are you still working?   Do you have good health right now?  A place to live?  Food to eat?  If so, be grateful for what you have in this moment.

3. Imagine how you would like to be in your life.   If you are feeling fearful, give yourself a moment to imagine yourself feeling very confident, calm, loving and connected to those around you.  You are capable of handling whatever situations may arise.   Let yourself experience this as concretely as possible imagining the position of your body as you stand confidently, the warmth of the sun on your skin.  Lots of research has shown that visualizing like this makes it way easier to act in the ways you want to.

4. Connect, connect, connect.   In times of fear, we tend to disconnect from others, to collapse in ourselves, to try to do it all alone.   Unfortunately, not only do we do harm to ourselves by thinking we can weather the storm alone but also to our friends and family who are feeling fearful to and desperately need us to connect to them.   We are tribal creatures who are at our best (and sometimes our worst) when we are together.   Remembering this and allowing yourself to connect to others can at least make the storm a lot less lonely to weather.  

let's call the whole thing off

i was sitting here getting ready to write when the phone rang.  i got up reluctantly to answer and it was mitchell on the other line - from the bedroom.  he called to ask me how long he'd been napping. what a goof...that man really gets a kick out of himself...

yesterday he had an idea that sounded good tho'.  he wanted to take us on a short vacation...cabo san lucas or puerto vallarta, neither of which have i been to.  the priority was warmth, beach, and not too far away.  sounded good to me... i spent most of my day online, planning and reading reviews. unfortunately we both have an abundance of potential deal breakers when it comes to travel. in buddhist terms we're aversive personalities...i walk into a room and immediately know what i don't like...there's too many things that bug me, and mitchell's got his own list.  after booking the first place, i had second thoughts.  reading the reviews a little more closely, i saw a pattern - annoying people hardselling timeshares and the "all inclusive" hotel that isn't. i cancelled that one, and then found another, and then more research, and cancellation number two.  mitchell opted out after a few hours of this, leaving it all up to me (can you blame him)...well, here's our itinerary as it stands now...continue to stay home in our cozy world with the heat on...lots of luxurious baths...enjoy our latest novels and see the films we've missed...unless someone's got a better idea?

 

a spoonful of sugar...

 merry, merry, merry...done.  like many in the tribe, i spent christmas at the movies and the chinese restaurant...and this morning we hosted the day after xmas karaoke brunch for our friends and their two kids. mitchell and i worked it out so that when they walked in we were already doing the jingle bell rock.

c-word update: the person i have to go through - to get to the one who knows, emailed her command...go back on the drug...i am really annoyed at not being able to contact the oncologist directly and play with the idea of changing docs after the new insurance kicks in...it's a tough call though cause i know this breast cancer onc is pretty darn smart...anyway, i followed her instruction...back to the pill...if it can still have a stablizing effect, then its alright with me.  but its sure getting hotter in here with my personal thermostat broken and all.    

oh, and the kindness of strangers... my phone rang the other day...it was elizabeth, the lovely operations manager at craft.  remember me writing about the bucket list, dinner at the french laundry? well, i'm in...elizabeth let me know that the laundry will be happy to make room for my friends and i, whenever we want, and then she wished me a wonderful holiday...i tell you, there's still an awful lot of sweetness in the world, dontcha agree.   

whatever became of...

when we were kids we spent our summers at dee's bungalow colony in the catskills.  i loved being there. we were out of our little family structure and lived kind of communally.  i had other relatives in the bungalows nearby and lots of kids my age. we hung out at the pool, ate in the "casino" where there was a jukebox, and we taught eachother the latest line dances, and we drank egg creams and saw shows on saturday night.  it was just us kids and our mothers until the weekends when the dads would arrive, which meant there was five days of peace - no parental fighting.  the rest of the year we lived in a hick town in new jersey.  not only were there no jews, hightstown was a real cross burning type place.  hated it...but the kids at the bungalow colony were hip and cool and every year i looked forward to summer...at the end of every august, i'd cry all the way home. when i was 13 and 14 i was in love with a boy at dee's, and his sister was one of my best friends there. this week the boy and his sister became my facebook "friends".  he wrote to me, and i wrote to her.  we spoke on the phone. i told her what i remember most was us singing on the stoop - california dreamin and eli's comin were our specialties...i asked how her life was she said "awesome"... she married the guy she was in love with at dee's all those years ago....had four children, opened up her own insurance company and lives in ashville n.c....my turn, never married, no kids, left home at 18, live with my boyfriend of many years, dealing with advanced cancer.  she asked, "does that ever make you think of god"...i said, "i've always thought about god, but i'm not religious".  she told me that 20 years ago they were saved, and now they are messianic jews...(i don't know exactly what that is, but i began feeling less open about myself)...after awhile we said our goodbyes and that we'd keep in touch....forty years gone by.

last night my family called for channukah, and one of my sister-in-laws got on the phone with news. when i was 16 or 17 my family moved to roosevelt after the latest eviction.  roosevelt was the coolest town i ever knew in new jersey. not only were there smart jewish people, it was a town full of artists, musicians and geometric domes. just miles from hightstown, yet light years away. there was a hippie house just outside of town that i would hang out in as much as possible.  two long haired pot smoking guys in their late twenties lived there and it was the place to be.  i developed a crush on the older less goodlooking one, and thought of him as a kind of guru.  we'd talk about the nature and meaning of life and art. we smoked lots of pot, but he had also taken his share of lsd and had a more advanced view of it all.  he always had a knowing smirk on his face and the townsfolk didn't seem to like him too much.  a couple of times we kissed, but when he found out that i wasn't 18 that was the end of that. (perhaps relevant to the coming news)...anyway he became a computer programmer way back then, and even visited me a few years later in san francisco.  then we lost contact.   so, back to the news.  he was arrested last month on many counts of child molestation. i googled the whole report and arrest record because it was so shocking. when confronted by the children's father, he apologized for his actions, saying that he just needed a release. his picture looked like he had been cast for a role as a stereotypical pedophile.  he had the same ironic smirk as he always did...but now he's in prison...and that's what became of that guru.

 

i just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in...

i was pulling out of a parking space this afternoon and the radio was playing these words, "don't hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky", and just then i looked up and there was a real live rainbow...ah the beauty in synchronicity.

i took myself out on a date today. i didn't want to spend my friday obsessing about the test results.  i went to see "seven pounds".  afterwards i reluctantly called home to check the answering machine but mitchell had already listened to the nurse's message and read the faxed results.  the report said the cancer was relatively stable...now i've got two competing stories, one with progression, one with stability. if i my vote counts i go for number 2... still waiting for the oncologist's feedback. do i go back on the meds or not...questions in the crap shoot.  

 

on a different note, today a lovely person named kathleen celebrated her fiftieth birthday.  i've been friends with her sister for 20 years, and know her by way of her sister.  i'm not usually in on her day to day life, but i do know somethings about kathleen...she's kind and generous, hard working, a loving sister and aunt, a poet, and a regular reader and supporter of this little blog and me. so thank you kathleen, and happy happy birthday to you...  

and then...

today i went for another pet/ct...this is the one where you fast, then you get an iv put in with glucose, then you wait for an hour and read twilight (as enjoyable as candy), then you get into a cylinder type machine and they start the test, then a few minutes later they shoot you up with contrast which makes your body feel like its burning, and then you hold still for 35 minutes, so you calm yourself down and tune in to your spiritual self and then you pray for the ease of all beings suffering, and then you go home to eat, but before you taste the food your mother calls to find out how you are, and then you get annoyed but you quickly realize she is just worried, and then you get to hear about how terrible your gambling addicted brother is doing, and then you eat while logging on to intervention tv thinking that maybe an intervention could help him, so you write down his story, and then before you press "submit"  you realize that no one in the family would want their problems aired on television, and then you bake some cookies and think about joining oprah on january 5th for her latest weight loss change your life program.  

cranium insanium

there's nothing like game night at our house...no matter how many grown-ups show up to play, total childish insanity takes over...it's like we save up the intensity and passion we feel out in the real world and let it all out at the cranium table...it gets really loud...someone, (okay it was me) shouted out an answer even tho' it wasn't my turn...i could hear mitchell and michelle yelling "j'accuse, j'accuse"...and then the jury of my peers passionately arguing about it.  no one listening to anyone else but really getting off on these ridiculous arguements...it's not how we communicate on the outside...i reach the edge of hysteria every game night...it is the best medicine...

the next morning mitchell and i were still laughing.

 

and here's an update on the cancer thing...i stopped taking my medicine three days ago. i've never liked taking drugs and it feels good to have even a little time off...i know it won't be for long, but for now, nothing going in but food and drink.  i wrote the oncologist today for advice and asked to be transferred to a different physician's assistant.  a few minutes later the assistant called - and was very nice and helpful...did the onc read my email right away, (that would be uncanny) or did the assistant feel bad about how she spoke to me last week and decided to try again...or was it just another of those awkward coincidences that happen to me on a regular basis.   i judge and complain about someone, and before you know it they end up doing or saying something that makes me regret my attitude about them...anyway i'm set up for yet another pet scan this week.  it'll give us a better view of the tumor load and then i'll get the advice about what to do next...i realized that the more scans, the less scanxiety i'm experiencing... denial, perhaps?   or maybe i'm  just getting better at that one day at a time thing.  

love, live, laugh, give

odd night last night...first of all, mitchell began to have symptoms...my symptoms.  you've heard how sometimes a woman is pregnant, and her partner has morning sickness, bloating, cravings.  well, last night after the mri news it began...anxiety, achy bones, allergic reaction (to nothing-as far as i can tell)..."for the first time i feel what its like to be you" he said...which started a sea of laughter. misery loving company? i haven't laughed that hard in awhile, and he was cracking up too...(perhaps in more ways than one) i gave him a xanax, and a benedryl, and he finally calmed down and went to sleep. and so did i - until i was awakened by the creepiest experience...acid reflux...2nd time in one week and it was awful...it's just a minute away from choking to death, at least that's how it seems...i've watched the commercials about it but i never really understood what it was...turns out that a lot of people i know have experienced that horror...oh man, i didn't want to lay down again so i turned on the computer and googled it...i found a site where a guy promises that he found the natural cure.  it cost 20 bucks for the online report but getting out my wallet and credit card info just seemed too extensive...i bookmarked it and turned on the television...i rarely get to watch late night, but i tuned in to charlie rose interviewing quincy jones. he's had quite the life...when he lost his mommy at seven he said he made music his mother.  i liked the way he talked about life and spirit and the purpose of his fame ...and i wrote down his words just before i went back to sleep...love, live, laugh, give...sounds just about right.

pleasure moves on too early and trouble leaves too slow...

no matter how long its been stable, its always too soon when it progresses...yesterday i had the full spine mri...i knew it wasn't going to be good, but hope springs eternal and i held a drop of it. i stayed out of the house most of the day to avoid the call...but tonight i got the results...there's new spots on my thoracic spine and my lumbar spine (which was radiated two years ago - and is baaack)...ugh...and my iliac crest is enhanced, (that's how they put it)...my oncologist is at a conference in san antonio, so i had to deal with the unfriendly, controlling physician's assistant.  i don't like her vibe at all...and its not because i'm shooting the messenger...i just don't like the way she talks to me ...oh well, back to the progression problem...no more ease of one pill a day and known side effects...i'm not sure what will be recommended next, or even if i'll follow it... for now, i need to go deeper into myself and see what myself recommends...i'll let you know... 

oprah and me

i have to admit, when i saw the headline stories on yahoo, it was the first one i read...oprah has revealed her weight.  i even went deeper, googling her height to get the complete story - come'on yahoo, do your research.  o and i  are the same height, but i weigh less than her today...more than i ever have, and not that much less, but less...just recently i saw oprah on mitchells new big flat high def screen tv... i thought she looked a lot wider than on my little television, but i figured it was the screen...apparently she's hit the big 200 and she's terribly disappointed in herself...that's okay oprah, it gives a kind of hope to us weight gainers out here. even you, with all the benefits of trainers, chefs,and stylists can be toppled, over and over again by the abundance of tasty in the world...coincidentally, it was today that i heard that i may have a really good excuse coming down the pike -  thyroid problem!!! i saw my primary physician this afternoon... a proactive move, given that in a few weeks the new insurance kicks in...i decided to get a few prescriptions filled, some blood work, and a regular checkup.  i really like my primary doc, but i only see her about once a year. she's a bit older than me, looks way younger, and somehow juggles teenagers, a full practice, a husband, and regular exercise. she remembers my name and most of my story, a great feat if you ask me. her first husband died in his 20s of cancer and it changed her forever. i like that kind of doctor - very human. she checked out my body, looked at my numbers, and said that there was a good possibility my weight gain has more to do with my thyroid being out of whack than anything else...hmmm...alright then... on to the boulangerie.