I am Not Going it Alone.

Hello everyone,

I have been out of it, really, really out of it, even though I have been right in the thick of it too. The paradox continues...

The loss of much of my hair threw me into a deep grief. This despair started on Monday, February 11, which was not quite two weeks ago. My mom was still here and that was also the day I met with my oncologist and learned of my new treatment plan to take the Tamoxifen. I started immediately on taking the daily pill, and it is impossible to tease out the emotional response to my hair falling out while still integrating the idea that I have cancer. And all of that on top of beginning to take strong hormonal medication that is forcing me into early menopause.

The next day I had a dose of potent medicine given to me in the form of a statement from my ex-husband. He sat with me while I sobbed and listened to me moan that it wasn't fair over and over again. He agreed with me, and after what seemed like five hours, I finally felt like I had found a momentary dry spot within my grief. I looked at him with a broken heart and puffy face and my dear ex-man with tears in his eyes just calmly looked back at me and told me, "Georgia, you are one in a million."

His sweet and sincere gift has been a powerful counter-thought to a whole bunch of statistics that were given to me via the conventional oncologist.

As I write this, I am reminded of how I have rarely followed anyone else's prescribed or formulated ways for how I should go through life. Why the hell would I start now?
Just because I have cancer doesn't mean I lay down and bow to the oncologist, especially the conventional one who felt the need to tell me that she was not a closed-minded oncologist.

Whew...thank goodness the anti-authority impulse that I have carried for as long as I can remember is still beating inside of me, alive and well. It is fire. It is will. It has helped to guide me through the thick darkness of despair and grief that is absolutely part of this process. It is a keen knowing that I must find my own way through this, just like always. And I will.

BUT there is a huge difference to how I am walking this journey. It has to do with how I am relating to my people through all of this. And here lies where cancer has already significantly changed me...

In the wee hours of Valentines day, I was combing out my hair in the bathroom. I was so scared because I didn't know how it was going to fall out. Chunks? Clumps? Strands?

Before I started the combing, I was lying in my bed having anxiety prickle up and down and along my sides while trying to take deeper root into my chest and make breathing difficult. Finally, I just kicked off my covers and forced myself into the bathroom where I shakily picked up my daughter's brush.

I don't brush my hair, I finger comb it in the shower on the days I wash it. So brushing my hair was a foreign act to me. I didn't know how to get all of the hair that had fallen out, yet had not fallen off of my head separated out.

The texture had turned to this weird gritty, dry, itchy shit that was just dead feeling. I had been wearing it up in a high top-knot since Monday, too afraid to do anything with it except let it down and run my fingers through it while on a short afternoon trip to Consumnes River Preserve.

As my mom, children and a few other friends walked with me under the warm sunshine with all kinds of birds flying in spectacular patterns near and far, I kept pulling out the loose strands and letting them go into the wind with a prayer on my lips that the birds would find the group of stray strands and use them to make their nests.

I have been doing that for the birds a lot actually, and recently put a handful of my hair in a netted, green bag that four avocados came in. I hung the bag under a protected branch of a nearby tree where I can see it from out of my bedroom sliding glass door.

Wow, the birds distracted me.
Sorry, they have a way of doing that to me. Back to how cancer has really changed how I am relating with my people. So, I combed out at least half of my hair and there it was sitting in the bathroom sink. I just stood there staring at it and then I went and woke up my dear housemate/sister-wife and asked her to witness for me. She got up in the middle of the night to stare at my big old pile of hair and listen to me talk. She then cleaned it all up for me too. I still have it all saved for now.

That act of waking up dear housemate/sister-wife was how I really said I am not going it alone. Here let me say that again: I AM NOT GOING IT ALONE!
This is too big to go alone. I don't understand how people do that, but cancer college is teaching me that some people are ashamed of their cancer. Some people try to hide it or isolate themselves. That is not me. I am not ashamed. I don't know why I have cancer, but I don't think it was something I did...or didn't do.

It just is. And I will find my way through this. And so many of you are right by my side. My army of love and light. Thank you. Thank you. And one more time THANK YOU to everyone for all the emails, texts, calls, letters, meals, healing sessions near and far, administrative research, rides, food, car usage, shoulders, hair to bury my face in and cry, impromptu van blessing ways while eating meals out of jar and off of a stick on our way to see MaMuse, just a look or a wave, hand holding, kisses, hugs, and all the HOLY things you amazing people are doing and sending me through the ether. I love each of you.

So much love and light!
Georgia

p.s. I am in the middle of a dance workshop this weekend titled "Write of Passage." It is seven hours each day of dancing and writing and connecting and more dancing and writing and connecting...pretty much exactly what I need. Thank you to my dance tribe and especially to Sue and Cathy for intuitively knowing I wanted to go and gifting me this wonderful workshop. I am so in love. xoxog