"...life is sweeping by; go and dare before you die. Something mighty and sublime, leave behind to conquer time."
(Goethe)
Showing posts with label quotes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quotes. Show all posts
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
no rest for the wicked
pain status: gradually increasing aching at tumor site, lower back, and left femur. The pain has been waking me up around 1 or 2am; I can't return to sleep unless I've taken 2 percocet and smoked a bowl. I will henceforth be referring to this blog as "increasingly annoying late-onset scar tissue pain is hilarious." Make note in your bookmarks.
This quote is from one of my favorite books, Letters to a young Poet. I had it on my wall while I was going through chemo. Don't be scared, rather, appreciate the unknown.
This quote is from one of my favorite books, Letters to a young Poet. I had it on my wall while I was going through chemo. Don't be scared, rather, appreciate the unknown.
“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.” -Rilke
Thursday, February 18, 2010
I want to be de-cancered.
Kairol Rosenthal will be at Modern Times in the Mission next Wednesday to read from her book, Everything Changes. I will be there too, so if you are in the area, let's meet up and exchange horror stories...
My mom gifted me Everything Changes shortly after it came out. I had just finished treatment. I sifted through some of the pages thinking, "This would have been great a year ago". I wanted nothing to do with cancer, I wanted it to be solely in the past. So I put the book down and went on with my self proclaimed un-cancerous life.
But, Kariol's book is a resource for those who've already ridden the cancer roller coaster and lived to tell about it. One thing that is becoming more and more apparent is that I'll never rid myself of that death-defying thrill ride. It wasn't the cancer itself that was traumatic, it was the treatment. And, the treatment rarely cures us. It affords us more time, at the very least, and for that I am grateful.
I have been attempting to manage my chronic pain via Kaiser's services. It's slow going, with the majority of treatment lines requiring you to take weekly classes that have little to do with anything before you start the program. Once I'm past all of the red tape, I hope to learn to manage all of these nasty after-effects, both physical and psychological.
One quote in Everything Changes that perfectly encapsulated my sentiments:
"I felt like I had to fight for my right to be pain free. My Nurses made me feel like a drug addict after my bone marrow biopsy. 'Nobody else needs pain killers,' they said, all condescending. Sorry, but I'm the boss of my own body." -Dana Merk, 24
WORD!
My mom gifted me Everything Changes shortly after it came out. I had just finished treatment. I sifted through some of the pages thinking, "This would have been great a year ago". I wanted nothing to do with cancer, I wanted it to be solely in the past. So I put the book down and went on with my self proclaimed un-cancerous life.
But, Kariol's book is a resource for those who've already ridden the cancer roller coaster and lived to tell about it. One thing that is becoming more and more apparent is that I'll never rid myself of that death-defying thrill ride. It wasn't the cancer itself that was traumatic, it was the treatment. And, the treatment rarely cures us. It affords us more time, at the very least, and for that I am grateful.
I have been attempting to manage my chronic pain via Kaiser's services. It's slow going, with the majority of treatment lines requiring you to take weekly classes that have little to do with anything before you start the program. Once I'm past all of the red tape, I hope to learn to manage all of these nasty after-effects, both physical and psychological.
One quote in Everything Changes that perfectly encapsulated my sentiments:
"I felt like I had to fight for my right to be pain free. My Nurses made me feel like a drug addict after my bone marrow biopsy. 'Nobody else needs pain killers,' they said, all condescending. Sorry, but I'm the boss of my own body." -Dana Merk, 24
WORD!
Friday, April 17, 2009
love your suffering
You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, a single power, a single salvation... and that is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing else.
Thrush before the last chemo and a general malaise. Sometimes my mind forgets that I'm sick, seriously so, and calls my body to action, to the normal life, the life of errands and jobs and making other people happy. My body usually concedes until it has reached its limit, raising the white flag of fever, of aching bones. My body, my body. I must learn to listen to my body before all else.
I think of my last chemo and begin to cry, the weight of the experience is overwhelming. On one hand, I understand that millions have gone through treatment before me, I am not special, this is no big deal. This is life.
On the other, I think about the special hell that I have been banished to within my body for the past six months. The feeling of cellular betrayal, your insides crimping and dying and spasming. The daily heaving, blood coming out of every orifice, heart pounding the rest of your body into submission. The sickly smell of mesna, the many, many sleepless nights thinking about death, wondering how it feels, wondering if it will be in a hospital bed just like the hundreds you've laid in before. Wondering if it will be sooner rather than later. The incredible quiet that envelopes everything when you realize you are alone inside your body, fighting with it, dying with it.
I dare not delve any deeper, I'd rather just forget it all.
ortho surgeon consultation on May 4th. We'll decide if I need to lose a hip in addition to all of this other nonsense.
until then, last week of chemo!
Thrush before the last chemo and a general malaise. Sometimes my mind forgets that I'm sick, seriously so, and calls my body to action, to the normal life, the life of errands and jobs and making other people happy. My body usually concedes until it has reached its limit, raising the white flag of fever, of aching bones. My body, my body. I must learn to listen to my body before all else.
I think of my last chemo and begin to cry, the weight of the experience is overwhelming. On one hand, I understand that millions have gone through treatment before me, I am not special, this is no big deal. This is life.
On the other, I think about the special hell that I have been banished to within my body for the past six months. The feeling of cellular betrayal, your insides crimping and dying and spasming. The daily heaving, blood coming out of every orifice, heart pounding the rest of your body into submission. The sickly smell of mesna, the many, many sleepless nights thinking about death, wondering how it feels, wondering if it will be in a hospital bed just like the hundreds you've laid in before. Wondering if it will be sooner rather than later. The incredible quiet that envelopes everything when you realize you are alone inside your body, fighting with it, dying with it.
I dare not delve any deeper, I'd rather just forget it all.
ortho surgeon consultation on May 4th. We'll decide if I need to lose a hip in addition to all of this other nonsense.
until then, last week of chemo!
Monday, March 30, 2009
Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such. -Henry Miller
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
I love her.
"Like all those who never use their strength to the limit," Colette wrote, "I am hostile to those who let life burn them out."
"Like all those who never use their strength to the limit," Colette wrote, "I am hostile to those who let life burn them out."
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