MBC is Not a "Journey"

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  • cive
    cive Member Posts: 709
    edited June 2016

    We were all dropped into a euphemistic minefield, barefoot and blind when we were born. In an Aerosmith song "Amazing" - there is the phrase "life is a journey, not a destination". So MBC is just a part of some people's journey along with lots of other stuff.

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  • Longtermsurvivor
    Longtermsurvivor Member Posts: 1,438
    edited July 2016

    This came to me in a dream last night. If you'd rather listen than read, please click the link below the poem.

    Healing wishes, Stephanie


    FOR A FRIEND ON THE ARRIVAL OF ILLNESS

    John O'Donohue

    Now is the time of dark invitation

    Beyond a frontier that you did not expect;

    Abruptly, your old life seems distant.


    You barely noticed how each day opened

    A path through fields never questioned,

    Yet expected deep down to hold treasure.


    Now your time on earth becomes full of threat;

    Before your eyes your future shrinks.


    You lived absorbed in the day to day,

    So continuous with everything around you,

    That you could forget you were separate;


    Now this dark companion has come between you,

    Distances have opened in your eyes,

    You feel that against your will

    A stranger has married your heart.


    Nothing before has made you

    Feel so isolated and lost.


    When the reverberations of shock subside in you,

    May grace come to restore you to balance.

    May it shape a new space in your heart

    To embrace this illness as a teacher

    Who has come to open your life to new worlds.


    May you find in yourself

    A courageous hospitality

    Towards what is difficult,

    Painful and unknown.


    May you use this illness

    As a lantern to illuminate

    The new qualities that will emerge in you.


    May the fragile harvesting of this slow light

    Help you to release whatever has become false in you.

    May you trust this light to clear a path

    Through all the fog of old unease and anxiety

    Until you feel arising within you a tranquility

    Profound enough to call the storm to stillness.


    May you find the wisdom to listen to your illness:

    Ask it why it came. Why it chose your friendship.

    Where it wants to take you. What it wants you to know.

    What quality of space it wants to create in you.

    What you need to learn to become more fully yourself

    That your presence may shine in the world.


    May you keep faith with your body,

    Learning to see it as a holy sanctuary

    Which can bring this night-wound gradually

    Towards the healing and freedom of dawn.


    May you be granted the courage and vision

    To work through passivity and self-pity,

    To see the beauty you can harvest

    From the riches of this dark invitation.


    May you learn to receive it graciously,

    And promise to learn swiftly

    That it may leave you newborn,

    Willing to dedicate your time to birth.

    Listen here:

    http://canadapodcasts.ca/podcasts/OnBeingWith/3325429

    xxx

    Willingness implies a surrendering of one's self-separateness, an entering-into, an immersion in the deepest processes of life itself. It is a realization that one already is a part of some ultimate cosmic process and it is a commitment to participation in that process. In contrast, willfulness is a setting of oneself apart from the fundamental essence of life in an attempt to master, direct, control, or otherwise manipulate existence. More simply, willingness is saying yes to the mystery of being alive in each moment. Willfulness is saying no, or perhaps more commonly, "Yes, but. . . ."

    Gerald G. May, Will and Spirit: A Contemplative Psychology (HarperSanFrancisco: 1982)

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  • Lynnwood1960
    Lynnwood1960 Member Posts: 1,284
    edited July 2016

    Stephanie, this poem is one of my favorites! I have it hanging in my kitchen since first diagnosed in 2008! Beautiful words!

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  • zarovka
    zarovka Member Posts: 3,607
    edited July 2016

    Thank you Stephanie. Not sure about journey, but it has been like waking in an alternate universe while still being in the old one. What an odd thing to find myself in a scary place populated with kind and intelligent and wise people .

    >Z<

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  • DivineMrsM
    DivineMrsM Member Posts: 9,620
    edited July 2016

    Wow, Stephanie. This is the first time I've ever seen or read the poem. Whats amazing isthat I've experienced so many of the things it mentions, living with mbc for 5+ Years now. Thanks so much for posting it. I am saving a copy for myself.


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  • artistatheart
    artistatheart Member Posts: 2,176
    edited July 2016

    Yes thanks Stephanie, I love this.

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  • ShetlandPony
    ShetlandPony Member Posts: 4,924
    edited July 2016

    Alternate universe, indeed. A scary place populated with kind, intelligent, wise people. Well-said, Zarovka.

    I live a double life. One day I spend at the cancer center: I have my blood drawn out of a weird device that is implanted in my body. My hubby and I wait for the tumor marker number like sports fans waiting for their team's score, only it's about whether I'm going to die yet. I sit in a room and a big technician with an interesting name brings in a cart with a little sheilded syringe box with "radioactive" symbols on it. He injects the stuff into me, and I say thank you. Later I lie on a machine in a large white room and try to just breathe normally as I ride in and out of the sleek white archway. I go home and swallow my daily $475 pill along with several other cheaper ones, then log on and chat about life, death, scans, pains, hair loss, and cats with a bunch of other aliens like myself. The next day: I go buy groceries, drive my kid places, do the banking, go to dance rehearsal, and nobody suspects I am really an alien from another planet.

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  • artistatheart
    artistatheart Member Posts: 2,176
    edited July 2016

    Exactly Shetland......

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  • Lynn1234
    Lynn1234 Member Posts: 169
    edited July 2016

    Shetland-I'm going to read your words to my support group at our next meeting....its exactly how I feel.


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  • ShetlandPony
    ShetlandPony Member Posts: 4,924
    edited July 2016

    Thanks for the validation, Artist and Lynn. It helps to know there are others who understand, right? We are not alone.

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  • artistatheart
    artistatheart Member Posts: 2,176
    edited July 2016

    Sometimes it is the ONLY thing that helps me. Some days I feel so disconnected to family, friends, life. Like I am just spinning in a holding pattern that no one else can feel. It can be a very lonely feeling. I am so thankful everyday for having people who truly "get it".

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  • stagefree
    stagefree Member Posts: 2,780
    edited March 2017

    bump


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  • cliff
    cliff Member Posts: 290
    edited March 2017

    there is another meaning to the word "journey" it is the process where male breast cancer is finally recognized and treated. my journey started a year ago when I found a painfull lump in my left breast. two days later I pointed it out to my doctor, the one I had been going to for 24 years 4 times a year and that's the first time he ever checked my breast.two weeks later I had surgery for stage 4 IDC. not a very rare case, since only 30% of people know about male breast cancer including the medical profession. sometimes its a longer journey, a lump is found in a high school kid, and is blown off as "part of growing up" by doctors till someone finally recognizes it for what it is, years later. some journeys are journeys of learning.

    this is not intended as a put down for women with BC. more of a rant against the general ignorance of male breast cancer.

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  • Freya244117
    Freya244117 Member Posts: 603
    edited March 2017

    I agree Bestbird. My other issue is why is cancer the only disease where it is all about the "battle" or the "fight". To me those terms insinuate that you actually have a chance of winning. And if you don't, well............ maybe you just didn't fight hard enough. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

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  • blainejennifer
    blainejennifer Member Posts: 1,848
    edited March 2017

    Cliff,

    Our local cancer center is run by a male breast cancer survivor, Bob Riter. http://www.crcfl.net/index.php/cancer-info/bobs-co...

    He is very approachable, so if you want to contact him, he will respond.

    I agree. More people should be aware of male breast cancer. Too many guys ignore a lump in their breast because dudes don't get breast cancer, right?

    How are you doing?

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  • cliff
    cliff Member Posts: 290
    edited March 2017

    tamafloxin is working so far. coming up on one year since surgery. also, there is another reason both men and women might miss lumps, diabetic neuropathy, makes your hands numb and your feet burn. that's what my excuse is anyway. but still no reason that doctors shouldn't check men regularly too.

    Gals, check your guys, might have them around a bit longer

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