MY CANCER

I was diagnosed on June 17, 2005 with a very bulky, mediastinal, B-cell lymphoma. The cancer suffocated my left lung, collapsing it, and encapsulated my heart. At times, I was unable to eat food unless it was cut into small, pea-sized pieces, because of airway obstruction, due to the cancer. When I entered the hospital, my face was blue due to lack of oxygen. The location of the cancer ranged from the middle of my neck down to almost the very bottom of my left ribcage. I was later informed that, given the severity of my symptoms, without treatment, I would have been dead in about two weeks (by the Fourth of July).

Days before diagnosis, given the increasing severity of my physical symptoms (including excruciating heart pain that hurt so much I fainted), I concluded that I must be dying of some illness. I shared this conclusion with a few, close associates of mine, all of whom assured me I was fine. Watching my body give up, and feeling the pain firsthand, there had grown to be no doubt in my mind about my imminent death, but I had no health insurance, no income, no job, and a guilty conscience (I didn’t want to financially burden anybody with my hospital bills; plus, I had reached a point where I didn’t think my life was worth saving).

But then, at the last moment, I was saved by Love. My mother called me just to say “Hello.” Upon hearing me speak, she said that my voice, and cough, didn’t sound right and that I should immediately seek medical care. I explained to her than I had no health insurance or money. She then contacted my sister, a pathologist, and a lymphoma survivor herself. Hours later, that night, my sister generously offered to pay for my hospital bill. The next day, I arrived at the hospital for my “moment of truth,” which was a cancer diagnosis—and the happy saving of my life!

THE GIFT OF CANCER TALK

*Point 1: I was unhappy, blocked, but I didn’t know why. I had been contemplating ending my life, and even wished that I would get cancer, so I wouldn’t have to (devastating my family). During this time, I came across a skateboarder with no legs and not even a stomach; he was happy and free, gaily skateboarding. He’d figured out how to be free even without legs. He knew a secret I had yet to learn, a secret I longed to learn.

*Point 2: Ten days later, my wish came true. I was diagnosed with cancer, and with this diagnosis, I became privy to the skateboarders’ knowledge. For (what felt like) the first time in my life, I was met with others’ overwhelming love for me and their validation of my self-worth, valuableness, and loveableness. I internalized their love for me into my own self-love (a type of love I had never known before!). For the first time in my life, I felt complete, whole. I was filled with a peace, a joy, I had never known. I was free. I had learned the skateboarder’s lesson: A key to life is self-acceptance.

*Point 3: But self-acceptance isn’t so easy to acquire. I had spent 29 years without it. If I could have loved myself in an instant, I surely would have. But I couldn’t. A catalyst was required. What was that catalyst? On one level, it was the cancer experience, but on another, something deeper was going on.

*Point 4: Then, in July, an unexpected event led me to the conclusion that my cancer had disappeared. Days later, my medical scans confirmed this astonishing result. (In medical language, “residual scar tissue is all that we see.”) My massive cancer had disappeared, all in less than 2 months!

*Point 5: My cancer was a gift because it gave me self-love, showed me that miracles are real, taught me that a life devoid of suffering and filled with peace, love, happiness, meaning, and freedom is attainable, and taught me that the puzzle that I had dedicated my life to solving, and almost died for, has been solved, will be shared, and will help pave the way for others, so that they, too, may heal themselves.