The Telling

The hardest part about being told you have cancer is telling other people about it.

A phone call to a family member or a friend can be an emotional ambush, an unexpected visit even more so. While I have made a few telephone calls, I have preferred to write 'press releases' and send them to friends by email or privately through Facebook instead. So far this has worked very well.

One friend suggested I start a blog, but at first it seemed a very narcissistic thing to do. The practicality of it is unmistakeable, however. It gives everyone the chance to hear the same story, and diminishes the number of times I have to tell it.

So, here we are.

Here's one of the 'press releases':

For a while now I have been dealing with something I need to share with you. Last fall, around the time I gave up eating wheat, I started to experience the symptoms of a hiatus hernia. In a few months, as my ability to swallow food diminished I lost 45 pounds, and it eventually got so bad that I could only swallow liquids.

After a visit to St Mary’s Hospital in Kitchener last month it was determined that I have a malignant tumour in my esophagus. The CT scan determined that there are lesions on my liver and it was concluded that I have stage-4 cancer. They are offering chemo and radiation to shrink the tumour, but give me no chance of surviving the cancer beyond 1 – 3 years.

I am of course pursuing alternative treatments and am still considering radiation therapy to shrink the tumour so I can at least start to eat properly. Good nutrition seems to be the best bet for a miracle.

I meditate more than ever, and am doing Qigong and visualization exercises as often as possible since the Doctor of Chinese Medicine, who says the lesions on the liver may not be cancer, has suggested that these practices may be why the cancer hasn’t spread to other parts of the body. He also estimates that this has been going on for 5 – 10 years.

I don’t look sick yet and I am not in any pain, and have the support around me to keep going. Given that the traditions of Qigong and Chinese medicine view everything as energy, I have adopted a language of transformation to describe this challenge. For example, I avoid saying anything to suggest I am ‘fighting’ a ‘battle’ with cancer. Instead I would say that I am dancing with it, working to transform it into something else.

I have called a lot of people to tell them, but it is such a hard call to make, and I love writing so much that I find it more powerful to share this in a letter rather than in a phone call where you wouldn’t know what to say. It is enough to know that I have your support and best wishes. I know that if I asked you for anything you would not hesitate to help me.

So far this experience has proven to be a powerful blessing. It may even turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to me, a massive wake-up call with no ‘snooze button’ within my reach.

Cheers.

Andrew