Keeping it together...

I started reading an interesting book called, Close to the Bone, Life-Threatening Illness as a Soul Journey, by Jean Shinoda Bolen. My sister shared it with me because it helped her cope with her own experience with breast cancer five years ago. Bolen employs several myths to illustrate how cancer affects us. In particular, she discusses the myth of Persephone from Greek mythology:

..a biopsy reveals cancer, through whatever means we learn of a life-threatening illness, the effect is the same: Persephone--the assumption of youth and health, the assumption of safety and immunity from disease and death--has been violated and taken into the underworld......Illness as a descent of the soul into the underworld is a metaphor that brings to the intuitive mind and knowing heart a depth of understanding that cannot be grasped consciously otherwise...p. 15, Close to the Bone.

I've only begun the book but, her premise that the body cannot be separated from the soul resonates deeply.

Today is one of those days where I am doing everything in my power to maintain a positive attitude and still feel off. Why won't my darned brain comply with my wishes? Why are my mind and body not syncing?

I love lists. I love checking things off lists. Here goes: Things I did on Tuesday to feel better:

Taught yoga at Frogs. Check.
Walk at lagoon, listening to Guns n'Roses. Check.
Practiced yoga at home. Check.
Cuddled with the cats. Check.
Touched base with friends. Check.

Why don't I feel better? I feel tired and melancholy. My body does not feel like my own right now. It is bloated and puffy, as if somebody inflated me with a bicycle pump. No fair: if I am bald, I at least get to feel skinny all the time, right?

Onto the positive column: I am picking up one of my oldest and dearest friends from the airport tonight after I teach my 6:30pm yoga class. Kim is coming in from Atlanta to be my sidekick through Round 4. I am really excited to see her and catch up. We've had a wide variety of experiences together, like when we were in Marbella and Paris in 2001 or in Barbados for Law School-summer school in 1991, or tubing down the Chatahoochie River with the Morins in Atlanta in 1997 or was that 1998?

I am so grateful that she is coming out to experience one of the less fun times with me. Just as Megan was a pillar of support for me during Rounds 2 & 3, Kim will be too. And, I'm glad to give Todd and all my "local" friends a little breather in this seemingly never-ending saga. Despite my best efforts, I am dreading this next round of chemotherapy.

Joy, joy, happy, happy. Repeat 100 times....