30/05/2024
The Shrinking World
Over the last few days, I have been recovering from having my stent unblocked again (third time lucky!) I am surprised at how easily I over look the severity of the invasive procedure required to do this. I think because it doesn't cause any pain at the time, it is easy to dismiss it. So, the week since the unblocking has largely involved laying on the sofa or sleeping.
Sleep seems to come so easily now, so much so, is hard to fight it. Even an hour or two after getting up, I can find myself wanting to sleep again and at times there is little choice but to give in to it. It seems to wrap me in a kind of think blanket that hides me from the world and takes me somewhere else. It is not unpleasant, inconvenient maybe. However I find it hard to not think that sleeping a lot is one of the symptoms of end of life. There are times when I travel between the states of awake and asleep, when it feels like the conscious world is very distant to me. It is a strange experience that is hard to put into words.
The good news from this week is that my medication has been tweaked again and for the first time in around two months, I have the pain pretty much under control. It is alarming how bad it is, when the slow release twelve hour medication wears off. Sometimes, it is almost possible to imagine that I am OK. Those moments between doses however, remind me that I far from it. The pain spreads around my stomach, back and right hand side, stabbing as if this cancer has murderous intent towards me, an innocent victim in all of this. I guess victims of such attacks are very often innocent.
With the increase in medication and the increasing need to sleep, I am not driving and as I can't walk due to breathlessness, my world has shrunk beyond what I could ever imagine. I had fantasies of going for walks, or drives to places and to see friends and family. All of that has gone and my life now revolves around the house and reliance upon people being able to visit me or take me out. For someone who has been active and social all my life, this is a blow that I hadn't expected. I remember writing a post about cancer being a thief. It seems like it has returned to collect some things it left behind previously.
And where does this thief called cancer come from, well it is my firm belief that like all so called dysfunctional behaviour, it stems from trauma and childhood. Having explored and taught the impact of trauma on the body for years, it seems clear to me that the trauma I experienced in childhood is a major contributing factor to it. A view that was backed up by a 4th year medical student I had a good chat with in the hospital a few weeks ago. So I believe that trauma gave rise to this disease, the fear I felt as a child has been held in my body for many years, despite an awful lot of therapeutic work on it. Sometimes, though the work we do on ourselves comes too late with such things as the damage is already done.
And we must also consider in all of this that our soul has a time to return home and when this time comes, perhaps there is little that can be done but to surrender to the inevitable, for nothing is more important than soul growth, learning and experience, both in this life and beyond.
