Aftermath/The 1%

Wait wait wait! Did I just ‘roll credits’ on this movie? Stop. Keep recording. It’s not over yet! My melodramatic unicorn she loves a big finish but it’s not finished is it? I think I just heard her hit the edge of the pink ocean set with her horn and she seems to be wandering around dazed and confused in Candyland.

It’s been four days since I had the news that my cancer has gone, or at least receded. You’d think that this would mean pure elation, that finding out your terminal illness had simply disappeared was simple. But in reality it is never really considered gone with Stage 4 and although I am relieved and amazed to have this extraordinary outcome in just ten weeks of treatment, joy is not exactly what I have running through my veins right now. I’m stunned. Astonished. Confused. There is huge relief and gratitude certainly, alongside a heap of adrenaline, caution and disbelief. And a certain lightness. I float about and find myself engaged in open hearted conversations with strangers. It’s a unique period of my life as my world tips on its axis and nothing is normal. There is nothing expected or unexpected from here. All the rules of gravity and normality are suspended as far as I am concerned. But I need to know more, to be reassured. I understand that this may not be forever. I understand that I still have stage 4 cancer. That I don’t have any active cancer. Just these sleeper cells to keep me on my toes. I perceive this as a glorious reprieve, but I also don’t want to spoil the wonder of it all by projecting forward to the next disaster. It is nothing short of a miracle. Nevertheless I need to see my consultant to talk this through, to understand-and it’s not until the 8th. Maybe she will say it’s all a joke or I have misunderstood. Carl my GP friend tells me not to worry as it is what it is. Complete Metabolic Response is just that. Complete. From all the academic papers I’ve found I’m aware that my rapid remission is also very uncommon. When I asked the doctors about shrinkage they told me that stabilising the disease was the goal. If you’re lucky there is some shrinkage. No one ever mentioned this complete outcome. And when I said to them in the first appointment ‘mine will disappear, you’ll see.’ They sort of looked at me sympathetically as if they feared my self delusion. Why would you not tell a patient about all the possible outcomes? Why not have you aim for the stars? I do see why they are cautious and careful to manage your expectations but I needed to visualise and aspire to the very best outcome. I’ve beat the odds so many times in my life, why not now?

I’ve seen Seka the healer for five days running. Day one was calming, day two was searing, an uprush of burning emotion so powerful I had to say it’s too much. It hurts. The pain collects in my fingers and toes like arthritis. This must be similar to what she experiences as she draws out your dark matter and flicks it out of her fingertips. Your body is still fighting she says. Still healing. Patience. Wednesday and Thursday were calmer. A lot being released from the stomach. I buck involuntarily like I am possessed or having a fit. She has a deep forest green which washes over me as soon as I lie down and she lays her hands on me. I was struggling not to overthink yesterday. My busy mind and internal narrative a block to concentration. Eventually I asked her to turn the music off. But the colours were soft and muted the past few days, apart from when she laid her hands on my stomach and then the wave of yellow orange was so strong I must have looked like I was having a fit as I jerked and strained on the bench. By Friday the storms had calmed. No colours. Just deep rest. I feel lighter afterwards, sometimes not entirely balanced as I walk back down the little road that the Kailash Centre is on. It’s a birthday cake of a building, white and cream stucco, once grand, now an esoteric collection of healers and herbalists. Inside a little faded with posters of Indian origin depicting scenes of healing and gods at work. Downstairs smells of oils. Various smiling people appear occasionally or say good morning. I am fascinated by who else comes here or practices here. The receptionists are always a little strange. Older women with Stepford Wife smiles and a sort of underlying icy-ness. Like they are the gatekeepers to some kind of cult. Nevertheless, I want to spend some more time there reading the large books of plant recipes and healing related matter. It’s a bit like arriving in a wealthy house in India that has been abandoned. A curious place where curious things happen.

In other news my first monthly art subscription box, generously given by my colleagues, was hidden behind the bin when I got back on Wednesday. A box containing greytone charcoals and soft pressed dark green and mustard charcoal. And blue sketch paper. I have never used it before. Plus a booklet with some how to get started tips. It encouraged you to start with energetic lines representing rough shapes and movement. The green is shade and the mustard skin tone. I have never sketched on blue paper but it works very well. I got quite distracted by it once the kids were home, copying famous nudes for inspiration but, as the evening went on, they all turned into twisted versions of myself, and I think I drew four versions of me on the journey from sickness to health. Even if they started as someone or something else copied from the internet they turned into me. They are sad dark portraits of a closed sick body which gets lighter and more upright. It’s strange when you attempt to draw what comes out subconsciously. I was at it again in the night. They take the form of whatever comes out of my fingers. It finds me in the green and mustard chalk dust, broken and gnarled. Figuring out what’s broken or left behind. I feel like a snake that has shed many skins. I will keep going at this self portraits as therapy thing. It interests me. And when you have no intention to make it nice or good for anyone else the truth comes out.

I’m awake from 2.30-4 most days at the moment. A bad habit but my mind is racing looking for answers and trying to make sense of it all. What now? I feel like I’ve been running for 6 months now. Pounding the pavements literally between hospitals and metaphorically by keeping positively engaged in short term goals to distract myself for existential terror. But now I need quiet reflection. Time to think and be quietly grateful and go inside my heart to acknowledge what has happened. I want to say to think about ‘why it happened’ but this I will never know. It’s too easy and too arrogant to say you were saved for a reason but somehow I do feel…in debt…to the universe. Indebted. I mean ok if you want to call it that Angela that’s what we’re going to do. It’s a better motivation than ambition. Do something for someone else and see what happens. Ok. Today those doors began to open. There are some interesting cancer charity and music possibilities around but I want to resist making myself too busy. I need time to heal. Physically and psychologically.

At the beginning of all this an old friend delicately asked if I would like to be put in touch with a former colleague of his who had recovered from Stage 4 cancer and had a complete response. This was the first time I heard the phrase and No Evidence of Disease. The language is different and more cautious with stage 4 cancer. But then the doctor tells me that the latest thinking is that stage 2 cancer never quite goes away either and exists in microscopic particles. So I accept this visitor as part of me. A fellow traveller on this extraordinary life journey. This gentleman and I talked for an hour. An unknown voice at the end of the phone with a message of hope. I knew it was not reasonable to attach myself to this outcome but I held it in front of me like a beacon. Why not me. Why shouldn’t I be the 1%? I like this theme. If you are from a very privileged background you are in the 1% from the start but I wholeheartedly believe you can be think yourself there. Be the 1%. Say it loud and believe it. Claim it as yours. Who is going to stop you? And if you are wrong, who’s going to laugh at you for trying?