rəˈlāSH(ə)nˌSHip/

noun: the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected.

This post is perhaps intended for the civilian rather than soldier.  I use the word “soldier” as a metaphor, no disrespect to the actual soldiers like my cousin who fight different kinds of wars.  However, this has been my war.  The enemy? Some call it cancer, some call it oneself.  In my case both are one and the same.  Scientifically my cancer was triggered by a genetic deficiency- no other reason.  Holistically, my cancer was triggered by emotional stressors that overloaded my stomach and GI area (the seat of emotion in the body).  Both practices point to the fact that my body had had enough of living the way I was.  The self was destroying the self.  I can not tell you the intense psychological effects that have resulted.  Or maybe I can, or at least try.  Here’s a dream for educational purposes.  It lasted the whole six hours of my sleep.  I know the duration because I would wake in intervals trying to pull myself out of what seemed to be the worst nightmare I’ve ever had.  Minutes seemed like days. 

The dream: 

I was in a tenement building.  A structure right out of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.  A giant building with masses of people and apartments- enough to fill a small city. There I was on the top floor visiting with a spiritual teacher.  A woman who met with the sick and dying, offering her wisdom and blessing.  I was in her cramped living room waiting for my session.  Next to me was an older woman, she too waiting but for other reasons. She was there to help her partner who was in session. 

Suddenly I too was in the session looking down at the woman’s partner; a frail, thin older woman- obviously at the end of her life cycle.  The teacher had finished and they were debating how to get the woman down to the street so she could go to the hospital.  The frail woman had walked the thousands of stairs up with her friend helping, but she and her friend were now too weak and exhausted to make the journey down.  Of course in this dystopian world there were no elevators.  I offered to carry her down.

The three women thanked me and I bent down to pick this woman up from the  pillow she was lying on.  So light and beautiful, as if she were a small child tired of her full day.  There was hardly a wrinkle on the woman’s face, her lips resigned into a smile.  All modesty abandoned.  She trusted me, what else could she do.  I was worried that I wouldn’t be strong enough as my own cancer had eaten away most of my muscle and stamina.  But my confidence grew now that the woman was securly in my arms.  I would risk everything to safely bring this woman to the ground. 

We began our journey.  Down halls, through doors, stairs, across the eternal maze of brick and laminate.  After a time the woman’s friend was lost.  We’d meet her below, no time to waste.  I’d have to manage the doors myself.  And there were many separating every floor.  Heavy and awkward to move through without banging limbs, terrified that I would drop the woman clutching my neck.  We went slowly through each one.  This went on for hours, five to be exact.  Stairs, then more doors, then crossing long corridors to the other stairs, and more doors.   As the blue of a desert dawn brightened my room the dream itself began to close.  The old woman and myself made it to the final descent . 

The lobby was minute compared to the city of floors we had just come from.  A single revolving door and a black sedan outside with a kind gentleman smiling in our direction.  An undertaker or limo driver, they all look the same.  I managed to get both of us through the fins of the door and gently placed the woman in the back seat of the sedan.  Her smile still in place.  She looked at me and something inside me needed to know her name.  My mouth opened to ask when I woke up. This time for the rest of the day. 

That was my dream.  More like an odyssey.  It was my first dream of death since my diagnosis.  After almost a year of dealing with staying alive, the idea of dying hadn’t really been in my thoughts until now.  And the unraveling of the subconscious has continued since.  The meaning seemed clear.  It wasn’t just a dream about physical death and the embracing of the feminine, but also relationship death.  That I am going to have to redefine my relationship to myself and close others including friends and family.  I’m going to have to get honest with what’s in my life and who’s in my life.  With what I want in life and what I don’t want.  To achieve this clarity will take time- perhaps the rest of my life, but you got to begin somewhere.  So I began breaking out the phases of relationships through my current experience.

The first phase during diagnosis and surgery was immediate attachment to whoever was nearest and dearest.  In my case my partner and parent.  The second phase was unconditional attachment to friends that visited me or that I felt the need to notify.  Both of these phases were sincere yet contained  a kind of euphoric blind spot.  I wholeheartedly assumed the partner, family and friends knew exactly what I was going through.  They heard the same reports, diagnosis and treatments.  They heard the potential side effects and hardships that the treatment would no doubt bring.  All seemed outwardly so connected and supportive- and they were.  Even when their reality and commitments returned.  But the patient doesn’t always see that connection.  Some can feel abandoned.  Partners have jobs (in order to support the patient!), parents need to travel back home, friends have family of their own, and you are still sitting there with that IV in your arm.  The feelings of self pity, frustration, disbelief, boredom and intense anxiety spin like an automated rolodex through your mind as you watch the word literally pass you by.  The effect, in my case, was outwardly showing my brave face and enduring the endless poking, prodding and exorcism of “the Thing.”  Inside, though, there was a brewing “fuck you” attitude in the making.  Not directed at any person, just all people including myself.  My exhaustion had turned me into a lonely victim of survival that didn’t understand why no one seemed to really know what I was going through.  Why not? They were there.  They heard the reports, saw the symptoms and effects.  I withdrew. 

Here’s the thing:  No one will ever really know what your going through.  Its just a fact so live with it.  I wrote this before but I’ll repeat 'til the cows comes home.  I was, and to some degree still am, living a version of PTSD.  And the effects are long lasting.  I became protective of my emotions and process.  I preferred going to treatments myself.  I stopped asking for help.  I even drove my motorcycle to treatment one day.  Difficult with a needle in your chest and a pump on your back.  Probably one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done.  But I was dumb.  Chemo dumb.   I found comfort in those that “knew” what I was going through.  That would support me without judging or dumping their day on my sickbed.  Yes, I became somewhat selfish, but more than that I did what I had to do to stay alive.  There’s the war analogy again.  Other people’s drama, their approval or disapproval, didn’t matter.   

I’m not sure of the purpose of sharing all this except for the fact that caregivers take heed, you have a difficult job.  And to patients its good to assume that no matter how close someone is to you and your experience they still might not get it entirely. And its not their fault.  Daily communication and asking what it is you want and don’t want are critical to your comfort and healing process.  Stress of conflict and blame--stress of any kind needs to be withheld at all costs.  This is as much the job of the patient as it is for those surrounding.  Whatever it takes.  Meditation, removal of people, removal of surroundings, therapy, etc.-- again, whatever it takes.  Because at the end of the day it is about death.  A death that life has a significant role to play.  Sounds like an oxymoron but it isn’t.  Regardless what happens to your body there is going to be a death if you’re lucky.  If you live through without a death of something, I guarantee the cancer or "dis ease" will return.  Talk about pressure!  But its what I believe.  Hopefully we all will remain alive for a long life with multiple deaths.   A death of old patterns,  death of toxic relationships, death of inhibiting behaviors, death of stressors, death of certain parts of your life narrative, death of pity, death of low self worth, death of critical judgment, etc.  At some point I might even turn the semantics around.  Taking death and replacing fear and pain with optimism and joy.  The beauty of that old woman in my arms.  The care and love I had for her as I walked with her to death.  As many believe, all those you dream about are really manifestations of yourself.  So  perhaps I was seeking strength from the feminine to find a way to truly love my dying self.     

Whatever the reason, I felt compelled to share how much more complicated relationships (both the relationship to self and others) can be with a third partner called disease.  Relationships, in my experience, are now taking on new identities.  Some relationships will remain getting stronger,  some receiving higher priority, others falling to the wayside-- but all relationships provide something to learn.  As long as all of us are open and willing.  Cancer is a disease that spreads easily if left unchecked.  The disease can spread into relationships as well and its up to the healthy and afflicted to become more aware and not assume anything.  Judgment is the least powerful weapon in the arsenal of healing.  Love and acceptance of ourselves first, then others around us will guarantee that this disease wont metastasize our emotions now or ever.  It takes a lot of work to remain aware, especially those of us fatigued through chemo and radiation.  A lot of stairs.  Patience, we’ll get there.