The Dance

In the spring I began to dance with a partner I wouldn't have chosen for myself but one that undoubtedly keeps me on my toes. We think of people either having cancer or not having cancer. Benign or malignant. Black and white. I'm learning to dance in the grey area.

For the last four months I have navigated each day with this one question in mind, "Do I or don't I have cancer?" Here's the quick backstory: A significant lump is found in my thyroid (only 5% chance of those being cancerous), further testing is done because of it's concerning size and shape and these tests reveal the presence of a particular gene cluster that bumps me up to a 50% chance of it being malignant. The biopsy comes back inconclusive as thyroid biopsies notoriously are.

"So what are the odds that this is malignant?" I asked my doctor. "50/50" is his reply. A big fat MAYBE. The protocol in such cases is removal of the thyroid (no they can't just remove the nodule). Both doctor and surgeon delivered this news and then began talking nonchalantly about the surgery as if it was a given. Meanwhile, my head is reeling....remove my thyroid? You want to remove the conductor of the entire orchestra?? Ummmmm....no. No thank you. Not yet anyway. Not on a 'maybe'. And so this is where we part ways the surgeons and I--they offer surgical removal of the thyroid and I refuse. What's left for them to do? Their job is done. They have reached the end of their road with me. And so, from there, I trepidatiously set out on my own road to healing my way. 

First order of business: Allow the emotion to do it's thing. For four days after receiving this news I spun out. Complete and total panic. Option 1: Listen to my doctors and remove the thyroid. From everything I've read so far, this looks like a death sentence to an active enjoyable lifestyle. It looks like signing up for life as an overweight, depressed, couch potato until eventually your other organs begin to fail because of course a pharmaceutical representation of the thyroid's job is never going to actually do the job quite right, without consequence. Not cool with option one. Option 2: try to treat it naturally. Great! I like this option! Buuuuuut....what if it IS malignant and my approach doesn't work and now I've just let it sit there spreading to lymph nodes and God knows what else and in the end I have to have not only the thyroidectomy but ALSO chemo?! Definitely not cool with this option either. Rock. Hard place.

For four days I cried, I yelled, I sobbed, I shook, I begged, I journaled, I read everything everything everything under the sun related to thyroidectomies. I processed and vented ad nauseum to my partner and sister. Fear fear fear--I just totally wallowed around in that shit. I allowed myself completely to have this process because I knew this process was necessary and crucial to my healing. The thyroid is ALL ABOUT self expression! So no more with my usual approach to challenges which is a polite nod to the fear in the room (it's important to acknowledge after all) and then proceeding in a more civilized manner. Screw polite. I let that shit out. It was a long and arduous four days. And then.....

Space. Clarity. Now that I let the emotion (fear! panic!) process itself out, I was able to breathe. I was able to think. Get clear. Feel the inherent intelligence of my body.

Second order of business: Feeling. When I think about doing this surgery it makes absolute sense logically. It's rational. Better safe than sorry and all that. And yet, despite the logic, everything in my being is telling me it's not right. It feels wrong. When the docs also told me I had a tumor in my parotid gland (whole different ball of wax, not worth getting into) that should be surgically removed I said, 'okay, sure, let's do it.' I agreed to that surgery without batting an eye. So it's not surgery I'm balking at, even though surgery scares the crap out of me. That particular surgery felt right. Thyroid removal feels so wrong. The body and intuition is smart. I'm going to log this information and take it very seriously!

Third order of business: Generate a plan. Ok, I've chosen to heal myself naturally so how is this going to work? First, I have to look at the particular reasons I am growing problematic cells in my throat. Energetically, this area has been one of my greatest challenges so no surprise to me at all this is where an issue would develop. Second, food. When cancer cells show up in the body our body can typically handle them if they aren't busy handling other stuff like inflammation from our diet.

If I have cancer I must not give my body anything that feeds cancer. If the mass is benign, it's still a 'precarious benign' that has started mutating cells and is sitting right on the edge of swinging into malignancy so same outcome there--don't feed the body anything that creates cancer. And so begins a strict anti-inflammatory diet. No sugar, no gluten, no dairy, low carbs. This is hitting me where I live. I LOVE FOOD. I eat healthy but indulge when I want, especially when traveling. For me, travel is a culinary experience. I love to indulge in the local foods where I am. Last year I traveled through northern Italy and didn't care one bit about the famous landmarks--I cared about the trattorias. Every day I walked past the gallery where Michelangelo's David is housed without any desire to see that famous masterpiece; I was more interested in the rapturous experience that lunch was going to bring. Changing my relationship with food was going to be challenging.

I began juicing everyday and eating only high nutrient, fresh, organic foods. It felt good and was actually pretty easy until about the 20th time I stepped into the kitchen to make yet another variation of vegetables.....how many freaking ways can you eat vegetables without going nuts?! And how does one feel full when all they eat is rabbit food?? I WANT A DAMN CUPCAKE! (Ok here's a little secret loophole I discovered. I make my partner eat the cupcake and then I kiss him--passionately. It's not the same but it's a little vicarious taste of chocolate. Desperate times, desperate measures.)

So phase one of the anti-inflammatory diet plan is all about will power. There is nothing else to get through it. It takes sheer will to stay away from the naughty bits and consume all the nutrient dense bits. But then fun things start to happen! Within three weeks I dropped 8 pounds (hey I can see the definition of my muscles!), had an extraordinary amount of energy (no afternoon slumps!), lost all of my waking up aches and pains (I'm not old after all! I was just inflamed!), and stopped having headaches and brain fog. And the best part is, after a month I LOVED what I was eating. Now, four months in, sugary, gluteny things don't even sound good. I crave the fresh, organic, energy rich, nutrient dense foods. The energetic vibration is so vastly different between a cupcake and a plate of seasoned, fresh veggies from the farmer's market and now it's the veggies that sounds SOOOOO good to me. I was never a big vegetable lover so this is HUGE for me. And my partner is relieved that he doesn't have to eat all manner of baked goods now to get a decent kiss out of me.

Fourth order of business: navigating the social weirdness. I'm cruising along on my diet plan, practicing yoga and meditation, tending to my emotional and spiritual needs and making sure I'm working with the energy of the throat chakra to keep that moving. It's all really good and I'm actually feeling amazing. I'm working with various doctors--western, homeopathic, and middle of the roaders. I'm starting acupuncture. I'm getting more tests. I'm trusting myself. I'm loving myself. I'm working with it. So all good, right? Enter the haters.

Somehow the food part is getting me some pushback. Super weird. I'm out to dinner with folks or at a cookout and the naughty bits are invariably thrust in front of me, to which I say I'm doing this strict diet right now so I'm avoiding that bratwurst, or slice of cake or cocktail or whatever is being pushed upon me. This begins the, "well you can have this instead, it's not that bad...", or "just try this...", or "it's not going to hurt you to cheat once in a while". (At this point people are just trying to help me enjoy myself so that's nice enough). But when I politely decline and state that I'm going to pass on the cheating, I then get the frustrated eye roll and under the breath snort. I have become one of those people. Now I'm being put into the 'high maintenance' box and the 'no fun' box and the 'annoying' box. I overhear the comment in an annoyed tone, "don't even bother offering that to her, she can't eat anything", accompanied by another eye roll. I was surprised that people care that much about what is on MY plate...I'm still trying to figure out how what I eat has anything to do with anyone else. The social pressure around food and drink is interesting and majorly bizarre. My, we judge each other over weird things. But of course this presents me with much needed practice on the whole speaking my truth bit. Yay throat chakra!

Fifth order of business: Gratitude. This technically shouldn't be so far down on the list because it showed up at the beginning of this journey in big force. Yes it sucks that I'm dancing with cancer. But the suck comes with blessing. It was exactly the kick in the arse I needed to address some long standing, lifetime patterns regarding my throat chakra. This has always been a source of blocked energy for me. In the past I've not been comfortable speaking my truth, or actually speaking at all. Self-expression was a scary place for me; in my upbringing self-expression equaled judgment and criticism. In partnerships I've always bit my tongue and withheld how I was really feeling when I was upset or hurt. In friendships I allowed others trample all over my boundaries (ok I guess that's not really fair, because truthfully I didn't even have boundaries). I am uber sensitive to hurting people's feelings and have allowed all manner of misbehavior with a forced smile on my face because I don't want to hurt anyone by telling them they are being an arse. I am well practiced at biting my tongue, holding my truth, and staying in the shadows.

Once the 'C' word came into my reality there was an instant shift. All of my fear of judgment just faded into the background (not gone per se, but definitely sitting quietly in the background) because I realized that all of the things I was holding and not giving voice to were for the sake of others--either because I didn't want to "be rude" and establish boundaries when someone was behaving inappropriately, or speak up when someone was doing something to me I didn't like, because I was afraid of judgment/criticism, or because I was afraid to hurt people's feelings. All of that shit fell by the wayside because it suddenly became utterly clear how ludicrous it is to bite my tongue and consequently develop a potentially fatal illness all for the sake of not upsetting someone's feelings. I'm done with that. I speak kindly and with compassion but I'm no longer afraid to speak. I say what I need to say. I don't worry about how the other is going to take it because that's not my responsibility, it's theirs. I don't worry about what they'll think of me because it doesn't matter. My responsibility is ME. I try my very best to function from a space of kindness and understanding. I will never intentionally hurt someone or be mean to them. If I do speak too sharply, I fix it. I apologize. Knowing this about myself, I don't have to work so hard to be agreeable. I know who I am; I know what's in my heart. If someone gets offended because I had to draw a boundary or say "no thank you" then that's their shit. I'm not getting cancer for them.

This perspective shift has left me with a stronger sense of who I am. I feel stronger in my sense of self than I've ever been. I can now say I love myself WHOLLY. I have such deep gratitude to be standing in this space. I've tried my whole life to get into this space of self-love but apparently it took an act of duress to flip the script. Sometimes it happens that way.

And finally....

Four months into the journey and it's still a journey but one I'm supremely grateful for despite the challenges. I feel healthy and I feel happy. I am committed to bringing my bodies (ALL of them--physical, emotional, mental, spiritual) into balance so that cancer cannot take root. If I have to end up having my thyroid removed at some point down the road then that's what I'll do to stay alive. But in the meantime I'm healing in the way that feels best and most appropriate for me. I'm following my gut.

I'm sharing all of this today because since the beginning of this road there has been SO MUCH (you truly are getting the abbreviated version) in the way of blessings and lessons and emotions and gratitude and overwhelm (just a big ol' soup!) and there's so much I've wanted to say about it all. There's still so much I want to say about it all.

I have learned first hand how important it is to be gentle with one another because we never really know what someone is going through or how overwhelmed they may be. And we ALL have things we are going through. I don't think the particular circumstances of the challenge is as important as the process through which we navigate the challenge. That process is where all the stuff is--good, bad, ugly, and beautiful--but all there to help us GROW.

So as I lay my story here before you, I also bow down to yours. Whatever you are going through and however you are choosing to handle it, I honor you.

In sharing our stories and how we navigate the challenges I believe we can learn so much from each other. Regardless of what we are facing individually, some basic things apply: honor the emotions that come up, listen to your intuition, trust yourself, speak your truth, love yourself. These are simple in theory but difficult in application and therefore when we share with one another how we are doing it, each of us in our own way, we can walk each other a little bit further down the road.

In Love,
Heather