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Old Man Cancer
In case you have been wondering why new articles take so long to appear on this website, it’s partly because I am one of those slow writers who considers every word to make sure it accurately conveys my meaning. The other reason is because early this year I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. It was my first serious illness after a lifetime of good health, and you may well ask why it happened. There are multitudinous causes of cancer, and all of them are probably correct. The immediate cause in my case was a long period of unremitting roller coaster challenges, some good, some not so good, which ultimately proved too much for me. Cancer is vast. It occurs in small children and animals and has even been found in dinosaur bones, although it is mainly a modern disease. A virus, obviously. Or caused by pollutants. But these days some of us also know that illness arises from within, and anyone who understands that is not exempted from close self-examination. Even in the case of children and animals who develop cancer, they must for whatever reason have developed some vulnerability which has allowed the virus to come in. But as an adult I accept that I myself have somehow made myself available to cancer, and it is up to me to do the best I can to put things right. That said, there is also an element of fate in major life events, which are mostly arranged before we are even born, although they can be tweaked.
The diagnosis was followed by major surgery and when I had recovered from that, chemotherapy. Since so many people today have encountered cancer, either in themselves or in others, it may be of interest if I share some of my experiences.
As I entered the hospital car park on my way to hear the consultant’s diagnosis, Beethoven’s Leonora Overture No 3 started playing loudly on my car radio. This music was very special to my late father, and I could feel his presence with me, supporting me and alerting me to the fact that this was to be no ordinary appointment. When I entered the room there were several medics present, all of whom were in some way involved with my case. The atmosphere was electric. I could sense that also present was a large cloud of panic and hysteria and information which was about to fall on my head. This intensity was nothing to do with me. Thinking about it later, I realised that it was the collective shock and horror experienced by countless sufferers of cancer and the medics who have to cope with them. At this moment my years of spiritual practices stood me in good stead, and I was able to keep my wits about me and sidestep the shock before it hit me like a demolition ball.
Other people’s collective fear, accumulated over time into a mass, packs an almighty punch which can knock you out before you can even get started. I knew that if I let myself get drawn into this negativity I would find it very difficult to recover, so I was able to avoid it. I also protected myself from the ton of information given and concentrated only on what I needed to know at the time. I put all the extraneous information in a safe place for future reference (and it has totally vanished off the face of the earth).
This does not mean that I was thereby freed from dark times. I have had them, of course, and still do, but I have always been able to recover, sometimes in minutes, sometimes in hours, because I never wish to remain in a negative frame of mind. It is important to recognise what one’s dark thoughts and feelings really are so that there is no question of denial. Then it is necessary to detach from them. Quite often the best way is to get your head down out of the firing line and just stick with what is available in the moment, as in these lines from Tennyson’s poem Maud:
My life has crept so long on a broken wing
Through cells of madness, haunts of horror and fear,
That I come to be grateful at last for a little thing.
Very shortly after my appointment I was admitted to hospital for major surgery and was in for nine days. Here again I was greatly helped by my spiritual life - not to mention the help I received from family and friends, many of whom are healers, and the angels, of course. And I wasn’t dreading being in hospital, for a strange reason: in the days when I first became interested in reincarnation I had several experiences, the most bizarre of which was a sudden intense desire to be in hospital. At the time it made no sense at all. I was fit and healthy and full of energy. But the longing to be in hospital was so strong that I found a job in one, and worked in hospitals for several years. Because of another, associated feeling I finally tracked this desire down to a time when I was lying on a battlefield dying of wounds. I used to think I must have been in the trenches of WWI, but now I think I was more probably somewhere in Eastern Europe.
Normally hospitals are places to keep away from. My hospital is new and bright and I received excellent care in every way. I have had to visit it many times in the course of the last months, as you can imagine, and I often drop into the cafeteria for lunch or a cup of tea. I like to sit in there and watch the people. Unlike the pushy, noisy people you may come across in a normal café, who are full of the flimflam of ego and competitiveness, most people in the hospital café have had their masks stripped away and are not out to impress anybody. They are confronting real problems and I can feel I am sharing a common humanity with them. Alternatively, if I want to enjoy a little luxury, there is a very nice Starbucks elsewhere in the hospital.
After surgery I was sent to the High Dependency Unit, which is one step down from Intensive Care, for what was supposed to be one night. It turned out to be four nights as there was no bed free in the ward I was supposed to be going to. ICU is fine if you are unconscious or near enough, and don’t notice anything, but if you are recovering and wide awake it is not so good. The atmosphere is tense and there are monitors going off all the time, checking patients’ life signs. I was woken regularly in the night to be checked for signs of life so I didn’t get much sleep.
During my stay in ICU I experienced a psychic attack. I was lying awake listening to the monitors beeping, when the whole ward seemed to open up like a swamp and the monitors began howling like the Hound of the Baskervilles. The windows in that ward were always closed, but suddenly there were unaccountable gusts of wind, and puffs of air like breath would swoop down on my face and say things that sounded profound but didn’t actually mean anything. There were footsteps on the ceiling running up and down. Then spirits appeared in Victorian costume and began to lunge at me in sudden swoops, say something and vanish, trying to lure me into some complicated scenario. I realised they knew I had a weakness for Victoriana and were trying to lure me into a sort of Sherlock Holmes drama. But the scenario they had in mind was nastier than anything in Conan Doyle. I was weak from surgery and exhausted, but determined not to be deceived. As soon as I challenged them I was challenged back by an old woman dressed in an amazing purple tweed costume with an elephant’s trunk for a face. She fixed me with her stare and her whole face turned into a snake’s eye. I got rid of them all by calling on Archangel Michael as I didn’t have the strength to do anything myself. So they left. The monitors howled and cried for hours afterwards, and all next day they were on the blink. The nurses thought there was some electrical malfunction and I didn’t bother trying to explain. In the end, tormented by the noise, I turned mine off and when the nurse objected I pointed out that the monitor wasn’t telling them anything they couldn’t see by looking at me. Very soon after that I was moved out into a normal ward.
I was on an “enhanced recovery” programme which meant they expected me to recover quickly and do well, and six weeks later I started a course of chemotherapy. You may wonder why I chose this rather than take up one of the many cancer diets. Over the years I have tried many healthy diets. I was a vegetarian for a long time, have done macrobiotics and raw food and similar regimes, so the initial excitement of starting something new was missing. Macrobiotic food is excellent only when prepared by someone who knows what they are doing. Raw food is not good in cold weather. The most famous cancer diet, the Gerson diet, is impractical for ordinary people in Britain, and probably impractical outside an expensive clinic. As for Dr Breuss’ teas, I felt that regime was more suited to a younger person. The first solid food you get in an English hospital is tea and toast, in my case marmite on toast. Delicious. Then visitors bring you all the foods they love - cakes and chocolates and sweet drinks - also delicious. I just wanted comfort food, which in my case is mostly healthy stuff. It seemed to work, as the cancer quickly reduced in my blood tests and by the end of the chemo it had vanished entirely.
Naturally I also did and still do visualisations and affirmations, and I will write about these in another article, where I will also give information about the supplements and foods I use.
At this point I am recovering and slowly getting my energy back, in the hope of undergoing another bout of major surgery to carry out a repair which is needed as a result of the previous surgery. I could live without it, but my life would be limited in a way it was not limited before. When I was assessed recently for this new operation some tissue was found which may or may not be cancerous, and as I write this I am waiting for the test results. I will know next week whether I can have the operation or not.
This development came as a shock, because I was so sure I was in the clear. My hope was (still is) to be fully back to normal by next March, having had the op and recovered without complications. So when I realised things might not work out according to my plan I went through a very dark time. The future suddenly looked bleak. During this time I looked up to my right and saw what looked like a microscope slide covered with a film of icy blue-grey fluid containing a few cogs. Then an old man appeared in profile to my right, looking down at me. He was pointing a long bony finger with a huge joint. He had a thin bony figure, long thin bony nose and wispy white hair. He wore a white garment and resembled traditional pictures of Jack Frost. Then I heard a strange, languid voice that seemed to come from somewhere in my right pelvis. It said: “you think I’ve finished with you, I’m not finished with you yet.” At the time it felt like the icy grip of death.
I knew he was Old Man Cancer because of that remarkable book, “Initiation” by Elisabeth Haich, which I will review one of these days. In it the author says that diseases have a spirit and she describes one or two of them. The appearance of the spirit expresses the inner nature of the disease.
I am now over the shock and able to accept with equanimity whatever comes. I am not afraid of Mr Cancer, because he had come in from the right, and death comes in from the left, or so I have been taught. And he wasn’t pointing directly at me. I think he found me at a weak moment and was trying it on. Fair game, Mr Cancer. I was complacent and you are very clever.
So there you are - that’s my news. I am keeping on keeping on and getting better every day. I have so many articles to write.
I treated myself to some new DVDs, notably “Orphee”, Jean Cocteau’s odd take on the Orpheus myth, set in post-war France. When I was 17 this was my No. 1 movie, and it still looks good I think. I also got the complete collection of “Gavin and Stacey”, the best British lowlife comedy to appear for years: beautifully written and observed, often very funny (and very rude). Just the thing to cheer you up on a winter’s day.
30 November 2010
