Resilience: The Plan So Far

Okay.

Okay.

I'm ready.

I did some wallowing but now I am all suited up (no cape) to go out there and kick cancer to the curb.

I've decided that everything that enters my mouth from now through (at least) treatment and recovery, will support my healing. I'm going mostly raw vegan, low sugar, gluten-free, (possibly) no caffeine. Possibly no alcohol. (I've recently been having a glass of red wine about twice per week. There is some scientific evidence that this can aid in the fight against cancer, but my current thinking is that sugar is just about the most toxic thing I can put in my body (after processed foods, which I don't eat) and alcohol converts to sugar.) (On the other hand: wine.)

Additionally, it's going to be freaking brutal, but I am committing to daily exercise of some kind. I've been five months off of the mat but I still HAVE a mat, so no excuses.  I'm just going to start slow and realize that it is going to be terrible for a while until I get my practice back. I won't commit to doing yoga every day, but every day I will do SOMETHING to sweat. Activating the sweat glands has been shown to be very beneficial in helping detoxify the body which allows for more efficient healing.

Daily meditation --no excuses. Some kind of spiritual devotion --journaling, reading, chanting, pranayama.

I figure this cancer deal can go one of two ways and I'm going to give healing the best shot possible. I'm not talking about death here --my cancer is not life threatening. But it's been my experience that people with cancer either get really focused on living and healing and embracing the vibrancy of their lives, or they get scared and start living as if they are dying. I want everything I do to be in service of healing, and in service of living in the fullest sense of the word.

And yeah, I realize that this focus on clean living makes it hard to go out to eat or have some kind of social life, but I'm in grad school and that's not a huge temptation anyway. Plus, while I realize that there's just nothing sexier than a 52-year-old divorced mother of two who is covered in cat hair and battling breast cancer, so far I'm not beating off suitors with a stick. (I'm not ready for that anyway. I'm still in the "should I join a religious order or become a lesbian" phase of my divorce recovery.)

To kick off the health campaign, I did what is possibly the most woo-woo thing I've ever done--and people, that is SAYING SOMETHING. I had an Ayurvedic massage, which incorporated sound healing and crystals and craniosacral and regular massage. Oh, and these incredibly good-smelling oils. It was blissful--like, I have a little bit of a Bliss Hangover now. The massage healer/shaman/wizard was a woman named Randi Marks who just...well...if it is possible to be healed by that, I'm healed now.

And now we go forward.