On Being Present With What Is

I have news. The Mayo oncologist has ordered at PET CT, which I had on Friday, and a surgical consult, scheduled Thursday September 28th. I can already see the PET CT results online in the Mayo patient portal but haven't received a call from their department yet. I left a message on Friday so maybe I will get a call tomorrow with more definitive answers.

Based on what I am interpreting, however, it appears that the cancer is active in not only the breast but also in both axillary lymph nodes and in the mammary chain on the right.

All of this is contrary to what my oncologist at Regions had to say. He said things were stable, except for some new activity in the breast.

Once again I'm left navigating the medical report in a "canoe" on my own! This "river" has a lot of scary creatures in it! Holy shit, man. I'm not sure I'm getting out alive (of this metaphorical river). Perhaps Mayo will be there for me tomorrow and give me a call. In the meantime I am now taking applications for an on-call radiologist. If you know one, please send them my way!

Luckily the medicine wheel training I began in May continues in October. We are getting into the west and facing our fear of death. We began in the south with the serpent, shedding the taming done to us throughout our life by "shedding the skins of our past as an act of power and act of love all at once." This has been a really interesting process.

Four concepts also included in this Andean teaching of shamanism are nonjudgment, non attachment, non suffering and walking with beauty. These are such beautiful and truly poignant teachings. I try to put them on like a lens, as a tool or way to observe life and the situations we find ourselves in.

I must say, IF I can be in that place where I am being present in the moment, not worrying about what those damn scan results mean, I'm ok, life is good. How can it not be?! If I can get to the place of non attachment or non suffering the results almost don't matter. That's a crazy thing to say, I realize. Of course the results matter! That is why I was upset in the first place. But do I really need to be upset? My soul is fine. I'm feeding my light body. I eat A LOT of vegetables. I meditate and listen to a guided imagery healing audio. I'm going to be ok, right? (Won't The Vegetables save me?!). The rub is that I'm still trying to cultivate these teachings as a knee-jerk habit, rather than something that I may or may not recall in the very moment I need it.

All that to say, it's a practice. I have a practice to help me self regulate and manage the difficult emotions that come up with the difficult news but I'm far from practicing perfectly! Ha! But now I know that's not even the goal! The goal is to do the best that I can in each moment. That's all anyone of us can do, anyway. We can only do our own version of our best in each moment, whatever that looks like. And who is to judge what that looks like?!

I feel like there are a lot of parallels with Buddhism, Shamanism, meditation, the Bhagavad-Gita, chanting, drumming, (singing or even humming), time in nature, other religions and the flow of life itself. It's interesting how cancer has brought my interest in shamanism into the light and how now that torch is guiding my way in this eerie dark tunnel!

Please be well and take good care of yourself!

**Interested radiologists please contact me through this website ***

@ songforannieblog@gmail.com