Healing (Or Not) Into Something Or Other

I guess puppy training videos are boring to some people.  And to some dogs.  Both Michael and Dharma crashed out during the exciting part about learning to roll over.

I've never been one to care if a dog can roll over or play dead.  What are the uses for those skills?  If it's not practical, I don't need to expend the energy.  Still, I'm able to stay awake (unlike some two-leggeds and four-leggeds...) while watching various dogs rolling onto their backs to please some human who likes such things. 

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Dad and baby, cuttin' the zzzzzzs

Before Someone interrupted my attempt at writing this blog post, saying it was time to watch a dog training video, (and then that Someone interrupted the video by falling asleep.  Ahem...), I was GOING TO write about how fittingly I titled this Healing Into Life blog back in February, and how I didn't realize it until now.  (Geniuses don't always immediately realize their brilliance, I have heard.)

Confession:  I kinda stole my blog title from a book of Stephen Levine's which I first read in the late '80s - Healing Into Life and Death.  (I'm also told that geniuses are smart enough to not always have to reinvent the wheel, so stealing is a good saver of energy.)  At the time of Michael's diagnosis, I wanted to focus on the "healing into life" part.  I wasn't willing to entertain the death part, even though 100% of all the bodies around are moving in that direction.

Anyway, this diagnosis has been instrumental in changing and healing our lives in more ways than I'm probably aware of.  And for that, I am continually in awe and grateful.

I may not always look or sound happy about it.  I have dumped out my rage in emails to understanding friends, cried buckets of tears in numerous public places, and had days when my bed's magnetic force wouldn't let me get up.  But I've also learned a lot about myself, watched Michael learn about himself, been the recipient of generosity bigger than I knew could exist, and felt my heart soften immensely (I needed that). 

The experiences we are having while living with this cancer are not special.  Everyone reading this has been touched by some big loss, a devastating diagnosis, or a huge disappointment that changed everything.  It's all a part of being human.  Maybe we signed up for this.  Maybe it's all part of some extraordinary plan.  Maybe it just is.  I have no idea.

But here we are.



My Dharma teacher is showing me The Way.  Today's lesson:  Be so empty, so living in wonder, that when a bird flies overhead, you have no choice but to sit down and watch like you've never seen anything like it before.

Introducing...

...our new baby!

 This is Dharma.

 Best guess is that she is fourteen weeks old.  She's a lab mix (the animal control people who picked her up in Kansas thought she was a black St. Bernard mix.  Oh, my...)

 Black dogs are hard to to photograph.  But they are not hard to love.

Dharma:  Hinduism describes dharma as the natural universal laws whose observance enables humans to be contented and happy, and to save [themselves] from degradation and suffering. Dharma is the moral law combined with spiritual discipline that guides one's life. Hindus consider dharma the very foundation of life. It means "that which holds" the people of this world and the whole creation. Dharma is the "law of being" without which things cannot exist.

So far, we are three for three in the poop and pee in the house game.  We'll try harder to figure out the outdoors bathroom tomorrow when it's light outside.  

Dharma's skills so far (besides pooping and peeing in the house): She knows "Sit" and she mostly comes when called.  

Oh, we are so in love!

Watching

We visited with Jeff (oncologist) again yesterday.  Doing Watching and Waiting or Watchful Waiting or Watch, Wait, and Worry (however one wants to call it), means visiting Jeff every two months.

Jeff checks the already enlarged nodes down there and checks to see if any neck nodes are suspicious.  He also checks for an enlarged spleen.  Michael passed the palpation tests, and he's feeling fine - no symptoms of tiredness, weight loss, night sweats, etc.

So....  we continue to watch and wait.

I've decided that I'd prefer to just call it "Watching".  Being here now.  Those fears I wrote about in my last post...  they, like Waiting, are about a future that I don't know.  I don't find peace there.  But it's really nice here in this moment as I look out at the gray skies and the trees with yellowing leaves outside my window and as I listen to Michael running water in the kitchen.

I love "Watching" Michael feeling well.  This is very good right now.

We're All Scared

I have been a member of a number of MCL groups on Facebook for the last few months.

A new group started up yesterday.  It's for partners and spouses of people with MCL.

In my introductory post, I told about my situation, and I talked about being scared.  My collection of fears is not small, and each little fear has been dancing in my head quite obviously the past week or so.  Powerful little buggers they are.  Or so they seem, anyway.

In response to my post, a woman said, "We are all scared."

I knew that.  But I forgot.

We are all scared.

On the MCL list, we are afraid of the disease, of the chemo, of financial issues, of relationship problems, of friends leaving us because they can't handle what's going on with us. We're also afraid that we can't handle what's going on with us, and we're afraid of death.  I am not afraid of these things.  We are afraid of these things.  We, the spouses and partners of people with MCL (along with just about everyone else), are afraid of these things.  The fear is not mine, it's ours.*

And right now, many parents of school-aged children in Colorado and other places are afraid for their children to be walking to school or playing in the neighborhood, because a young girl was abducted a few days ago.

It seems that EVERYONE is scared of something. And that makes fear seem very, very normal, and I feel much less alone.





*(We could argue that feelings aren't owned by anyone - they "just are" - and that way of looking also helps me to see that I'm not alone in experiencing fear.)

Leo Update

It looks like Leo has a new home, and it isn't ours.

I feel happy knowing that the people he now lives with are enjoying that beautiful guy. And Leo has a German Shepherd friend there, which he wouldn't have here.

AND Michael gets home tomorrow. We will have a quiet time of re-connecting.

It all works out.

Fourteen and a half years ago, when we went looking for a 4-legged family member, Buddha was the first dog we visited. But I, being of the picky variety, wanted a black lab, and if Buddha had any retriever in him, it was just a tiny bit. So we passed him up and went to a different shelter where we met a couple of black labs. They were not perfect dogs like Buddha was, and I'm not hard-headed enough to take a not-so-wonderful black lab over the most awesome dog in the world, so we went back and snatched our sweet Buddha.

One of the best decisions we've made together.

Why this process has to be so much longer and harder, I don't know.

Don't tell Michael that I truly considered bringing home a 160- pound Rottweiler sweetheart yesterday. He was on a diet after reaching a high of 180. His neck was at least as big as my thigh (but much more muscular). I just didn't want a six year-old dog. And I also didn't want to be the one living in the doghouse when Michael came home and saw that I had brought home a porker of a dog. Tee hee...

There Was Love, And I Passed Him Up

Oh, I'm in love.

And I can't do a thing about it.

My Love is at the animal shelter a few miles from our house.

Michael is at his qigong retreat many miles from our house.

The two have not met.

My preferences are: a big, black, male dog.

This dog I fell for is: a HUGE, white, male dog.

One out of three isn't bad, is it?

I got an emailed okay from Michael, saying that he trusted me on making a decision regarding a different dog whose information I had sent him. But that dog did not fall in love with me or allow me to fall for her. (She, being a "she", met two out of my three criteria, but she flunked the personality test, which should be added to the list of preferences above.)

I guess I could have used Michael's email as my ticket to get WHATEVER dog I fell in love with because, after all, Michael said that he trusts me, right?

But trust is earned, and I might lose that if I came home with a HUGE, white Love who sheds almost as much as me.

While I was on retreat, I had kinda sorta thought that getting a dog might not be the wisest decision. It's hard to travel, one more thing to deal with. Blah blah blah.

Then I came home to less-than-fun-times, and I realized that we need all of the joy and love we can hoard. Life is too short to wait and yippeee later. For me, a dog is like a baby. They both open up my gut and heart and turn me into a kid again. If there is still a kid inside this old body, it needs to come out and play!

I know there are other dogs that I can love just as much as my beloved Leo (yes, that's what they say his name is right now, subject to Michael and I finding him the most perfect name WHEN he comes to live with us). Our new awesome dog doesn't have to be Leo.

But, I really, really love him lots.

Sigh...