It’s my daughter's birthday and I’m in the hospital in a gown awaiting a surgical biopsy procedure. Don’t know what the effects of this procedure will be – will I be in pain? Will I have physical effects?
This medical experience has put me in touch with images from my encounters with hospitalization of 28 years ago. One image that came up this morning was of my self-imaging as compared with images of others. I am naked in a hospital gown, inside the medical infrastructure. I’m in a kind of timeless place. Others are outside living and enjoying their lives. I am separate from them.
I recall being wheeled in on my gurney for the biopsy procedure. In the operating theater I look over at the wall and see a cabinet. All kinds of heavy-duty hardware, metal equipment is stored in the cabinet. Kind of a daunting view. Despite the rather surreal view I know that I’ll be anesthetized so I probably won’t be aware of anything further until I wake from the anesthesia.
I wake from the anesthesia in the recovery room. A few minutes after waking my ENT doctor comes in and says “you have cancer, squamous cell cancer of the right tonsil.” OK I think, and I ask “what is the treatment for this?” The doctor answers: “x-rays”.
Wednesday May 6, 1998
Gotta get my work done.
Why am I here? Why am I alive? This is the big question for me as a human. Seems like it’s time to move into some kind of final completion phase; this final phase being my ideal expression of who I am. I am healthy enough right now and motivated to do for others.
So now it looks like I have throat cancer.
Friday May 8, 1998
I’ve got cancer now.
This morning I woke up and felt tired. Like I didn’t want to fight. I think I’ve felt this a lot in my life. But I also have felt other energies, the energies of wanting to live and make a difference and get things done. I think the energy of wanting to live is superior. So now I’m on a path of movement. The awareness of weariness sometimes comes forward and persuades me to lay down. But the life energy inspires me to get up and keep going.
Driving for my pizza delivery job. It’s a rainy day. I don’t feel like being here. I feel like I’m wasting my time in a sense. Just the act of making money for money’s sake seems to me to be a waste of time. However, I guess it’s a means to an end. I’ve gotta keep on generating money to maintain my life.
I didn’t get a whole lot done today for my job with PMHCA mental health. I’m not sure what to do about this situation with PMHCA. I mean, I’ve gotta put the hours in. But Shelley says relax and take care of my health. I don’t have a lot of sick time. What am I gonna do? If I can find the way, truly find the way to do my creative process and enjoy my creative process, that would work. I could put a lot of time into the web page, I can put energy into communication. But it’s up to me to lay this out. I’m really pretty much independent, I do have a free hand in this, which is a gift, but I still gotta do the work. I gotta take it all one step at a time, like a meditation.
It’s a rainy night. With this cancer I’m given the opportunity to come into touch with my mortality. I may die. There’s a lot of beauty to be experienced in the moment. Still, as humans we seek the distraction.
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