A pain in the bones

The last glimpse of the sun today

Day 29. The last few days I have been emerging from the dark clouds of the first week and then dipping into the bone pain that comes from the belly shot a day or two after chemo. This shot decreases the number of days my white blood cell count is down—which is a potentially life saving move—but something about the way the cells turn over in the bone marrow makes my bones hurt in the most unusual and extraordinary way. This time I was more prepared for it, and it arrived just on time and felt familiar.  There are three core lessons from this that I think are worth exploring in the slanting light of this late afternoon.

The first thing I’m noticing today is that familiar pain is somehow easier than totally unfamiliar pain. Last time I freaked out about the pain in the bones. It’s wild and throbbing and unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. Who knew that you could feel your bone marrow? This time I saw the pain coming ahead of time, and it’s not quite that I welcomed an old friend, but I could just know it and understand it. It was clearly different this time, but it was familiar enough that it was recognizable.  I write a lot about complexity and uncertainty, and I can see here the ways that uncertainty ramps up my own experience of pain. Having a better sense of the path I might be walking—even if I can’t shape the path very much—helps me avoid getting lost in it. There is some important lesson here for me as a teacher and maybe for all of us as learners. This leads me to the second core thing I’ve learned this week…

...but sometimes it's more beautiful once the sun is down

Knowing the pain is temporary makes it much easier to bear. Now of course I know that chemo is temporary and so most of the side effects here are temporary. (I notice that the ones that linger past the treatment are the ones that frighten me the most.) But last time I felt the bone pain I had no idea how long it would stay—an hour? A day? A month? Three? It stayed about 30 hours last time (slightly longer this time, but with less severity.) Last week on one of the dark days, I got a card that actually quoted me to myself (you’re awesome in so many ways, Val, and now I smell so good) and the quote Val picked out (of mine) is about how things come and go. So obviously this is a thing I know, but it bears re-knowing (and reknowing and reknowing). Remembering that everything is temporary, that this pain will pass and this joy will pass and the sun will rise and set and rise again is maybe the most important thing I have to remember. It makes the delights in our life more precious (tonight’s spectacular sunset is a temporary and radiant jewel) and it makes the pain more bearable. I get into trouble when I think this terrible thing is the way my life will be in the future. When I can hold onto the fact that this will change, and this will change, and this will change, I am so much happier, even when I am aching badly.

The last thing I have been struck by this week is that our bodies are amazing. This is a time when the attention of many people turns to the miracle of Christ’s resurrection. I don’t know how you feel about that, but this week I have been awestruck by the miracle of our tiny daily rebirth, the wonder of bone marrow and wounds that heal and infections that our bodies cure. Really. I haven’t ever thought about my bone marrow before (how much thought to you give to yours?). I haven’t given enough thought to my white blood cells generally. This pain is a little reminder that makes object some of the things that are going on in the background all the time. Have you thought today about how miraculous it is that you breathe and your heart beats and your skin heals when you cut it? And you go to bed with a headache and you wake up without it? Yes, our bodies go wrong sometimes. Some people get sick and their immune systems fail and they die. Sometimes people get cancer. But mostly, for most people, most of the time, our bodies heal themselves. And I have been awash in gratitude that medicine has figured so much out, that we can find tumors and remove them, that we can inject our bodies with something that kills cancer and so dramatically increases our odds of living for more sunsets and more and more.

and then the light is gone for the day. But there's tomorrow...

So perhaps it isn’t a week for new discoveries. But walking in the hills, and listening to the sea, and editing the book I’m so proud of and eating healthy and yummy ginger cookies with a dear friend in the sunshine—all these make each moment crystalline, and each temporary delight a counterbalance to the inevitable—and fleeting—moments of darkness and pain. It is an extraordinary privilege to be alive. 

Totally delicious and utterly healthy ginger cookies

1 1/2 cups almond flour
1.5 oz butter, melted
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
(1 tea blackstrap molasses--I don't use this but Melissa does)
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda                                                                                                                              

1-2 tbs chopped crystallized ginger

Directions:

Combine all of the ingredients in a medium bowl, and mix until a thick batter is formed. Preheat the oven to 350F and drop the batter by teaspoons onto a baking sheet lined with a Silpat, or parchment paper. Flatten each dough mound, into your desired cookie thickness. 

Bake for 8-10 minutes, until golden brown around the edges, but still soft in the center. (We like these warm from the oven, so we only make enough to eat in one setting. We also like them tiny so we can have more, but you might like them bigger)