Something shifted…

March 13th 2021

The pain started the evening of Sunday, March 7th and steadily grew over the next 24 hours. I was having a diverticulitis flair up post-severe polyvagal fight/flight response during the first half of radiation treatment. I hadn’t had a flair up in seven years because I had done a lot of work becoming a calmer person able to regulate stress responses, but cancer fucked with my ability to activate calm, cool, and collected in this life crisis. [To learn more about the polyvagal system, click here]

I blame it on the cashew milk, almond milk and cashews I’d been eating the last couple of weeks. By the time I went to bed the evening of March 8th, I was experiencing nausea and intense abdominal cramping; and at about 2 am I woke up and vomited. The food wanted to leave my body and couldn’t seem to gain traction through my intestinal tract. Severe stress responses on the digestive tract suck!

I had radiation in 3 hours. It’s not like I could call out and say, “Sorry having a bad day!” Besides, I was set to end on a Friday and didn’t want to head into another week for one final session so when the alarm went off I groaned and got up clenching my gut. The second day of my third full week was literally a “clogged drain” full of physical pain. Double Fuck!

I arrived hunched over moving slowly due to the pain and discomfort. I clicked on my health journeys app to play as I got on The Table. Today I decided to listen to the “Fight Cancer: Affirmations” segment during treatment. I had been listening to this 20 min positive affirmations focused on, what else, but fighting cancer several times a week for a couple of months now.

Positive Affirmations are positive statement designed to counter negative thinking.

I clicked to play and shuffled over to The Table; and as I did I focused intently on the affirmations as the best distraction to my gut and this treatment. This is what I heard:

I know that the more I can acknowledge and accept what I truly feel without criticism or blame the more I assist my body’s natural tendency to be well.

More and more I can soften and release unwanted emotions once they are acknowledged.  I can send them out with the breath in the interest of my own well-being.

More and more I can consider the possibility that my body is teaching me something useful that this cancer has been challenging me to learn and change and grow.

More and more I can soften toward myself and accept who I am without criticism or blame. I allow my body to heal.

health Journeys App: Fight Cancer by Belleruth Naparstek

At this point I was still being positioned on The Table by the Radiation Team while I focused on the words. My eyes were closed because I continued to not want to see the reflection of myself in the radiation panel overhead.

In that moment, I felt as if something within me had shifted. In spite of the physical abdominal pain and the all too familiar emotional discomfort in that position on The Table, I felt something within me change.

In that moment the emotional distress seemed to melt away.

I shuffled out of the radiation room to go change into “normal clothes” again; and as I did, I observed within myself that indeed something felt different.

# # #

I was super tired from lack of sleep and super uncomfortable from pain so I contacted all my clients I was scheduled to see today so that I could rest. I was hoping my system would start moving again so the pain would cease. I also didn’t want to risk an infection.

The good news is that after my nap, I woke up with my body saying, “Hey! The plumbing is working again! Afterwards, I decided to take a slow walk to the local pharmacy to pick up my prescription. I needed physical activity to counter radiation fatigue, which I was experiencing rather intensely, too. I asked for the prescription the night before after meeting with my radiation oncologist the day before for our weekly Monday physical. My armpit was on fire from the “sunburn” effects of radiation. It moved from first degree to second degree burn so the good doctor called in a prescription for lidocaine to mix with Aquaphor and slather my armpit to counter the burn.

Managing all these symptoms was becoming a true headache: lymphedema in arm and breast, sunburn, severe fatigue, severe thirst…gut pain…emotional distress.

UGH! But about that emotional distress…

I took the time to walk to the pharmacy after a good nap to reflect upon what happened that morning while on The Table. Something shifted…

I felt as if my heart was unencumbered. I could think about radiation without a tightness in the chest or a tear in the eye. Something, indeed, shifted…

I felt my lungs fill with air and my thoughts feel the lightest they have felt in weeks; and I wasn’t exactly sure what happened; and I didn’t care because something within me shifted….I think?

I decided to see what I felt on Wednesday when I returned to The Table.

# # #

When I arrived in the room, it felt different to me. I turned on the Health Journeys App as I had been doing for each treatment session as a means of comfort to counter my distress, but today I felt no distress.

I felt like me again. I do not know what happened, but I do believe the repetition of positive affirmation for weeks on end had a hand in this emotional inner shift; and I was so okay with that!

Wednesday night I decided to give a gift and a card to my radiation team on Friday. I wanted to thank them; and I wanted my last week of radiation to be less about surviving hell and more about celebrating life!

Friday would also be a no radiation day. On Thursday I would have my last whole breast radiation treatment leaving Friday to be a day they took films to map out the target radiation they would give to the tumor site during my last five trips to The Table on my last week of radiation.

Thanks to the power of Amazon, the gift I selected arrived before noon on Thursday.

Friday I walked into the radiation room with the cards and the gifts in an envelope. I placed my phone on top of the envelope and asked, “Lizzo or Dua Lipo”. I caught the team off guard.

One of the them said, “I love Lizzo!” I played “Water Me!”

When the radiation treatment ended…I gave them the envelope and said, “This is for the three of you. Why wait to the last day to say, “thank you.” I am looking forward to next week being a good week!”

And I walked out singing inside, “I am free yeah, yeah” I am emotionally free!

This is the card I gave my radiation tech team:

Yes, indeed, something had shifted for the better and I was going to ride that better feeling as a counter message to all the suck I had dealt with and still would have to deal with on the day to day with breast cancer.