It has been a month since I had my call to adventure with Cancer, and what a roller coaster this month has been.
This month has been an intense dance of my body showing me I am definitely mortal and feeling alone and scared mixed in with The Universe showing me in mind blowing ways how supported and watched over I am.
At first, I allowed myself to wallow and cry…look up shit on the internet and scare the crap out of myself…it’s all part of a Cancer Diagnosis, really.
Then, I reached out to doctors who are friends and people I know who have been through the ringer with Cancer and got myself into trusted Cancer communities which have really been a huge help as far as researching my options and getting emotional support from people who know how it feels to receive that call from the doctor.
Within a week, I pulled myself out of my tears, Netflix and unmade bed, and got myself out with the inner circle of friends and healers I am so lucky to have around me.
It’s hard to see people’s faces when I say the words, “I have Cancer”…it’s like reliving my own personal phone call all over again, which was why I decided to do a mass outing on Facebook about it, and let everyone know at once.
Since I do have a small platform on which to speak, I have decided to make it part of my Cancer treatment to allow people in and not have to do this all on my own. I am one of the most independent women I know…but this call to Cancer showed me that inside this independence is a scared little girl who really doesn’t have any idea what life will be like in the next 3 weeks after my surgery and is just plain scared.
Cancer is not a death sentence…it is a launching pad to change.
That being said…getting to the life changing rebirth point of this is taking some strength, effort, allowance of emotional outbursts and friends…it is definitely taking friends.
My doctor sent me to a surgeon who is “the best in the business for my type of Cancer” and I can honestly say I have never been treated worse by a person in the medical profession than I was by this jerk of a man. Why he wants to specialize in women’s wombs when he has 0 empathy or bedside manner is beyond me…not to mention working with women who have just been diagnosed with Cancer!
The week after my Cancer diagnosis was the most emotionally raw, ripped apart and scared I have ever been in my life…the same can be said for anyone who receives that call, and being told this Cancer was my fault, my anatomy was very hard to deal with (because of the scar tissue from the colon resection I had 10 years ago) and that this surgery would need a very deep 9 inch incision and will be very hard on him did not help me in the least….in fact, I went home after that appointment and cried myself to sleep.
I literally was dealing with PTSD after meeting this asshole a week after my diagnosis.
Luckily for me, I have never EVER wanted children in my life. Not even as a little girl did I play with dolls, pretending to be a mommy. Never. I played outside with animals, the fairies in Nature and swam a lot…always choosing the elements over playing mommy. If I were a woman who was hoping to give birth to a child, this diagnosis would be a whole other level of Hell…so I am grateful I am not one of those women, and that I received this instead of one of them.
That being said…the womb is still a big deal, and I want to make sure I feel good about the person I was releasing it to, and every time I thought about this doctor, my stomach literally hurt with knots, my heart sank and I began breathing very shallow.
One of my best friends told me to get a second opinion at City of Hope, so one night at 3am, I searched their site for a female surgeon who dealt with Uterine Cancer, and found Dr. Dellinger in the Women’s Health Unit.
I still had a surgery date of 6/12 booked with the Asshole Surgeon, so time was of the essence, and I had to get in to see my second opinion quickly…amazingly enough…they just had a cancelation that morning, and I was able to get in the next week just before she went on vacation. Time #1 The Universe showed me I was being heard.
The night before City of Hope, I was a mess. Partly hopeful but also the Asshole Surgeon had done a number on me, and his foreboding voice saying (as he was looking at the computer screen and not me) “Don’t even ask for Laparoscopic…with how messed up your anatomy is from the colon resection, I cannot even try…you must be cut into at least 9 inches in order to even see what’s happening in there.” Really nice.
So that voice was fucking with me, and making me doubt that even if Dr Dellinger said that she would do it laparoscopically, would she see if the Cancer had spread? No matter what, I want to do one surgery and be Cancer free…not have to worry that the surgery didn’t show them everything that they needed to see and that I’d end up on the table again in the future.
I went into meditation with my ancestors and my Wolf Spirit Animal, Freedom. Freedom has been in my life since I went to visit a wolf pack at Shadowland Foundation in January of this year, and I have returned many times since to bring my mom, bring other friends, going alone for spiritual talks and wolf kisses and I even spent the night on the Blue Moon in March with my pack.
Of all of the wolves there (about 10-12) Freedom is the one I have a huge connection with. He is known as their healer wolf too…and the first day I went there, Freedom was limping, and I got on the floor with him and gave him Reiki…and he accepted it for a few minutes, but then took his beautiful huge paw, and put it right on my heart chakra and gave me Wolf Reiki…it was one of the most connected I’ve ever felt with an animal that was not one of my own.
So with this connection, I have been calling on Wolf Medicine to guide me and help heal me through this…and BOY did The Universe show me it had my back in a big way through Freedom.
I asked The Universe to show me a HUGE sign that would hit me in the face and make me KNOW without one single doubt that it is a sign and I am in the right place. Not a heart on the wall or a butterfly flying by…but something undeniably just for me to put my mind at ease that going with City of Hope is the right choice.
The whole time I was at City of Hope for my initial visit (4 hours) I was looking all over the place for signs…listening to conversations around me, listening to song lyrics that were playing in different parts of the hospital, looking at walls, billboards and just being very aware of everything around me.
The moment my new surgeon walked into the room, she looked into my eyes and smiled and shook my hand…already much more than Asshole Surgeon did. I cried the moment I saw her, and our visit began. She read over my chart, asked me a bunch of questions, answered all of mine and said that she has no problem doing my surgery laparoscopically and gave me so much hope that it was caught soon, and after my surgery, I should be cured.
The exact opposite of Asshole Surgeon.
At that point I was weeping tears of joy, but also a bit scared of what he told me, so I repeated what he said to me, and the look on her face was priceless as she said, “Well I certainly do not agree with that…but if I think there is any scar tissue getting in the way of my work laparoscopically, I will switch over to making an incision, only if completely necessary.’
Every cell in my body exploded in relief, and this was the exact opposite of how my body felt about the other guy…it wanted to shut down near him…fight or flight took over, and I couldn’t get away from him soon enough.
Our subconscious mind is 88% of our mind, and it speaks to us with how our body feels. I think this may be one of the most important things I have learned yet in Hypnotherapy College, because when your body feels horrible around someone…88% of your mind is telling you to get out of the situation with them. My body felt completely at ease and light around my new surgeon, so I said yes to her treatment proposal and went to another part of the vast campus of City of Hope to meet with the surgery coordinator to book my date.
Now I still have not seen any type of sign yet, besides how my body felt with her…so I just figured that was my sign and eased off on looking at every little thing around me for that sign…and as with everything…when you stop searching…there it is!
The Surgery Coordinator had me sit at her desk with her and her computer screen was right there, so I couldn’t help but see what was on it. She just happened to have an e-mail open and what I saw on it made me almost jump out of my skin.
The e-mail signature of the email that just happened to be open had a picture of not just a wolf in the world but FREEDOM…the wolf I have a huge connection with, and next to the picture was a quote by Reverend Collette, who is the human mama of the wolf pack I visit, and am now an honorary member of.
I started crying right them, which I’m sure the coordinator is used to with working with Cancer patients ready for surgery, and I told her how I knew Freedom, and even had some of his fur in the medicine bag around my neck, and she was so excited because she was planning on going with whoever sent her that e-mail to meet the wolves in the future.
THAT was my hit me in the face sign that I am in the right place.
In this past month I have been put through the ringer, but have also been shown I have so much support through family, friends and amazing signs like this from The Universe.
I am going to try to keep a weekly blog of all of the amazing doors that open up for me through all of this and how the universe shows me that it has my back, if not for just the pure fact that getting this stuff recorded somehow now will help with a future book…but also I hope that someone who is just as scared as I am happens upon this blog to read my journey and see that you DO have a choice. Listen to your body and how it reacts to those giving you medical advice and treatment.
Be your own advocate…no one can really have your back if you don’t have your own back.
You deserve to feel honored, listened to and be treated well by your medical team. If you don’t feel that…please please please find someplace where you do.
My pre surgery tests are scheduled for the Dark Moon in June and my actual surgery is scheduled for the Full Moon of June (not because I asked for it that way, but because UNIVERSE) and I can truly say I finally feel hopeful about it, and excited to release my womb to this beautiful surgeon who has a heart and lovely bedside manner to go along with the fact that she is in one of the most premier Cancer Treatment Centers and Research Centers in the world.
How lucky am I that it is 30 minutes away from me? One of the women sitting next to me in the waiting room traveled from the UK to go there…I just had to drive from Altadena.
More to follow in the next week about the metaphysical/spiritual ways I am releasing my womb…it’s not just about the surgery…the surgery is only the final step.
I know Freedom Wolf will be holding my hand during surgery and the final stage of releasing my womb.
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