Singing in the Rain

Life isn't about waiting for the storms to pass

It's about learning to dance in the rain.

A kind stranger emailed me this anonymous quote.   I have been thinking about what it means quite a lot.  

I was blessed during the days I spent in hospital by some suprisingly acceptable television.   A few Hitchcock films, some Grey's Anatomy at 3 am and then this, my favourite film, Singing in the Rain.  When was the last time you stood in the rain like this?  I hardly ever did it, mostly from vanity to stop my hair going frizzy.   Well, soon enough I will have no hair, so standing or singing in the rain will present no vanity issues at all.
 

So two operations (with Christmas in between), a New Year's Eve in a hospital bed, countless scans, x-rays, tests, and lots of poking, prodding and painkillers and a full 8 days in a small room later, I am back home.  And in case one needs any proof that home is better than hospital, here goes:

(gardenias from home by my hospital bed, which did scent the room very nicely for days)

(the real thing on our front verandah)

(chair and window in my second hospital room.  You can just see the corner of the Chinese water torture style ticking clock which my husband had to remove from the wall on the shelf)

(chair and trees at home) 

It has occurred to me that we spend a lot of our lives waiting.  Waiting to finish studying, waiting to meet the right person, waiting to fall pregnant, waiting to get that perfect job \ promotion \ deal \ opportunity. 

For me, I will try living in the now.  Within reason of course. It is absurd to suggest that you cannot think of the future, or plan or look forward.  If I were to only live for this minute, I would be very overweight, and possibly an alcoholic. 

But you can go to extremes.  Part of my old life was full of lists, plans, projects to manage, things to do, tick off, complete, arrange, sort out.  I would lie awake at night thinking of the things I had to do the next day.  I don't think I was stressed about this.  But I liked to have things clear in my head and it was becoming a dreadful self perpetuating habit, which meant that I was over thinking absolutely everything constantly.   I still have this habit.... But I am hoping that my brain can be trained to calm down.  

I have received some amazing things from generous friends, aquaintances and complete strangers.  Your words and thoughts have buoyed me.  Which is strange, because as I have said to several people, I don't particularly care what most other people think.  So who would have thought that so much positivity could help me?  But it does.  Interestingly, in one of the many guides to cancer I have received, one of them is a little pamphlet to help friends and family.  One of the things it advises friends and family not to say is 'be positive' because it may make one feel as if one can't complain or articulate how one really feels.  I think this is a bit extreme.  One of the problems with a diagnosis like this is that it can be tempting to obsessively think about it all the time. That cannot be healthy. And if you have to think about it, think about it, to the extent you can, as a challenge and opportunity.   That, I think, is good advice from anybody. 

So, thank you all, again.

(this arrived from Seymour, a country town north of Melbourne, from a friend of my mother's)

(this turned up from a friend in Paris) 

(this was part of a wonderful bundle of things from Maxabella)

(this came with many other items from Jennie at Posie Patchwork)

I re-read this book over two days last week.  

Of course when I last read this book I shuddered at the chemo and surgery descriptions and thought thank God that will never happen to me. 

This time around I read it with an eye to tips, coping mechanisms and some perspective from the great survivor himself.  When Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996, he was toast.   Even his doctors, giving him survival percentages of 40% privately thought those odds were generous.   It is tempting to think his extreme fitness helped his fight. Or his determination.  But as he says, brave and positive people die from cancer every day.  Whilst not so nice negative people survive to complain another day.   Go figure.  Life is a great lottery.   The being positive I think is perhaps not so much about survival, but about making the experience more manageable, and giving one skills to deal with the post treatment phase, which I believe can be just as challenging as chemotherapy.  

Lance's foundation, Livestrong, fights to improve the lives of those affected by cancer.  Looking at this very well resourced and clearly set out site, it is quite amazing to see how far it has come since it was first established in 1997.  

Every day I learn about the amazing people, volunteers and professionals, who work to help cancer sufferers.   It is a whole new world for me but one which is not dark and grim, but life affirming and uplifting.  

Tweet

Pin It