There’s a kids’s ebook that sums up my expertise with confronting life’s obstacles fairly properly. Bear in mind Occurring a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen & Helen Oxenbury? A younger household units out on an journey to discover a large bear, solely to come across impediment after impediment of their path.
We’re occurring a Bear Hunt!
We’re gonna catch a giant one!
When life throws one in all its many large, scary curveballs at us, we people are inclined to need to make it go away. We set off for a treatment for the most cancers or the damaged coronary heart–We’re gonna catch that Massive Bear. However our enthusiasm takes us solely so far as the primary hindrance. Within the kids’s story, there may be one block after one other. There’s tall grass, large rivers, deep mud, swirling snowstorms and gloomy caves. At one level, the household faces a darkish forest.
Oh no! A forest!
A giant, darkish forest.
We will’t go over it.
We will’t go below it.
In April, I realized that one other tumor on the base of my backbone was rising. The change felt overwhelming and horrifying. I didn’t need to have surgical procedure on my backbone, once more. It wasn’t that I didn’t need it eliminated. I did. I couldn’t proceed to disregard the intensifying ache that ran like electrical eels via my left hip and down my leg. It was that I knew the surgical procedure can be complicated, if even potential, and I wished a shortcut. I wished to keep away from the likelihood that I may completely lose the power to make use of my left leg as they chipped cussed tumor cells off delicate nerve endings. However I additionally knew I wished to be again in my physique, dwelling totally.
Oh no!
We now have to undergo it!
If the tumor was eliminated, and I used to be alive, was it price it? After all. Nevertheless it was nonetheless painful to think about “buying and selling physique components for time,” as author Laurel Braitman places it poignantly. The problem was the place the tumor in my lumbar backbone was hiding; it hugged tightly to nerve roots that dictate perform and energy in my left hip, leg, and toes. A help group I attended on Zoom prompt that my husband ship my lunch upstairs every day, so I by no means needed to go downstairs once more. I walked up and down my stairs that evening like an incantation. There was no shortcut. Within the image ebook, the youngsters make it via the forest this fashion:
Stumble journey!
Stumble journey!
Stumble journey!
The opposite problem was that the realm had already been radiated. Gaining access to the tumor meant eradicating bone that tends to crack and crumble after most dose radiation. To take out the tumor, I might sacrifice stability. To regain stability, I’d seemingly want severe reconstruction, limiting mobility considerably. This felt like making it via the forest solely to be observing a large river.
Oh no! A river!
A deep, chilly river
We will’t go over it.
We will’t go below it.
The tumor was not attentive to chemo. I had already obtained the utmost allowable radiation in that space. No medical trials had been at the moment an possibility. But when I did nothing, the tumor would seemingly develop and sever my nerves by itself.
Oh no!
We now have to undergo it!
Again to doing analysis and making calls. Now, I do know I’m ridiculously lucky. I’m white, privileged, with glorious medical insurance that acknowledges that uncommon illnesses require outside-home-state care. The disparity in outcomes between white and black, low and high-income most cancers sufferers is stupefying. All of it begins with entry. I’m tearfully reminded of this throughout each irritating name to insurance coverage corporations. Think about if English had been my second language? Or if I didn’t have eight hours to dial and re-dial till I get via to individuals who may help? We will do a lot higher. Then somebody does. Karina, an insurance coverage affiliate, approves the scans I must get the surgical procedure.
Splash splosh!
Splash splosh!
Splash splosh!
Like the youngsters within the story who come throughout the river, and step throughout it on mostly-hidden stones, I leaped from one submerged stone to the following. This, it seems is how we face most cancers or any large problem; it’s not the Massive Bear Hunt treatment. It’s the “Splash Splosh Stone” strategy, targeted on progress.
There wasn’t anybody in Colorado with expertise with Chordoma. Then Dr. Al-Mefty, my former famous person surgeon, informed us he “solely” specializes on skulls. Splash. Fortunately, he advisable Dr. Gokaslan. Splosh. Dr. Gokaslan would see me. Stone. He set a date for June 14.
Oh no! We now have to undergo it!
I actually, actually wished to again out of this surgical procedure. I wished to discover a shortcut with much less struggling. You already know, one the place I might get to maintain mobility and energy, have some summer time, and keep tumor-free.
The shift occurred for me once I acknowledged that the obstacles in my path are usually not in the way in which of me dwelling, they are dwelling.
They’re the place I discover deep connection, variety humanity, creativity, humor and neighborhood. They’re the place I get to follow being the human I need to develop into. They’re the trail. I haven’t failed and my physique isn’t failing me, it’s simply time to degree up and face the following journey.
Oh-oh! A CAVE!
A slim, gloomy cave.
We will’t go over it.
We will’t go below it.
Oh, no!
WE’VE GOT TO GO THROUGH IT!
As I waited for the anesthesia to work earlier than surgical procedure, I imagined the similarities between synapses of a nerve, the roots of a tree, and a river delta. 
From above, they give the impression of being the identical. Deep, structural resilience. Perhaps every part will likely be higher than anticipated.
Once I awoke post-surgery, I instantly tried to maneuver all my toes. They wiggled simply, equally, and did slightly dance. The medical doctors and I grew to become teary. My nerves one way or the other weathered the six-hour surgical beating and bounced proper again. (My good friend Jill factors out, “A surgical beating has nothing on youngsters and what they do to our nerves–so after all they’re powerful!”) Ha! Once more, what does it take to belief that we’ve got deep, structural resilience? wiggling toes
The kids’s story ends in daring lettering: WE’RE NOT GOING ON A BEAR HUNT AGAIN!
We all know the reality. We’re getting older, and life retains throwing us scary curveballs. We’ll need to get out from below the covers, return via the cave, the snowstorm, the forest, the mud, the river and the tall grass. However we do it as a result of this loopy, lovely life is price it. And we do it collectively to steer for the absolute best consequence and essentially the most life alongside the way in which.
The journey attracts us again in. It’s no marvel that when the ebook is over and all is calm, the tiny youngster you might be studying to seems to be at you with large eyes, pats your hand, and says, “Once more!”
Love,
Susie