CureHodgkins.com Patient Diary
DONNA MARIE: MY STORY

I flew out to San Francisco, thinking the change from New York City would help my lingering flu. Within a few days, my symptoms accelerated. I was unable to stand up in the shower and I would spend six to seven hours every morning visualizing before I was able to get up from bed. When I flew back home, I went to my parents who took me to the family doctor. I was hospitalized that day and months later after extensive tests (including bone marrow biopsies, liver biopsies, and blood gases) I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's. My first reaction was distress and tears, but after that, I assumed a very positive attitude, because my body was so weak, I could not afford to further compromise my immune system. Somewhere along the line, I learned an important fact: The body wants to survive and will instinctively find resources to cope with the illness. This is contrary to the initial feeling I had that my body had somehow betrayed me. I began doing things to distract myself and keep a positive focus almost by instinct and my family and friends rallied around me as well.

I went through seven months of intensive chemotherapy in which time I lost my hair and experienced bloating, intense vomiting and sleep loss. I was extremely underweight and emaciated, so it was a struggle to reach the 100 pound mark although I am 5'6. It was a very dramatic change in lifestyle for me -- I had been a trained dancer and suddenly it was a struggle to walk, but losing everything put me in touch with subtler miracles. My lifetime goal was to be a great artist and create a masterpiece, but one day when I finally was able to leave my house and feel the sun on my face again, I felt such power in my being -- I began to see the life force as the masterpiece. I felt I was reexperiencing the world and seeing my connection to and part in a grand scheme.

One of the greatest things I learned from being ill is that cancer is not a death sentence. It is possible to enjoy and celebrate your life, even when you are compromised by illness, and it is possible to defeat illness. Most important, being ill taught me how precious living is. It's the greatest miracle of all and it is ours to savor each and every day.

UPDATE:  My Story Revisited
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I have now been in a solid remission for ten years.  Yes, life has changed a little bit for me.  Being a cancer survivor has a certain weight to it, as being a survivor of anything has.  There is a psychological weight, if not a physical weight.  When I first recovered, I remember visiting New York again for the first time when there was still the residues of temporary arthritis in my body and as I hobbled for the bus, it took off, blowing a great cloud of smoke in my face.  It felt as if I was back in a huge, teeming beehive and it was all so overwhelming.  Part of me thought, “I’ve paid my dues.  I want life to be easier.”  Yet the world remains indifferent to suffering, in some respects.  No one hands you a medal for being a cancer survivor.  I tell that to all the people I’ve informally counseled over the years, because pain and suffering and disappointment are intrinsic parts of life just as joy and triumph and success are.  But life is worth living, as it always has been.  It’s worth living, whether you are six or sixty.  There will always be struggle, but there will also always be the possibility for great joy and small, everyday miracles.  As I said to a friend once, “People want so many things:  careers, great houses, nice things, etc.  But push comes to shove, being alive is enough.”  And it is.

Since having cancer, I allow myself the full range of human emotions – not that I didn’t before.  But if I have a bad day or go through a bad mood or feel down, I accept it, knowing that it will be okay.  Even the earth has fluctuations, so why shouldn’t we?  And in a recent visit to the Planetarium in which the universe was projected over our heads onto a simulated inky night sky, we were shown that we are all “star stuff,” our world just a tiny spec in a vast cosmos.  We are a part of that grand scheme, as I first realized when I was walking in the sun for the first time after being ill and I saw the birds flying south.  It is true.  We can get caught up in dull routine, but the possibilities for life are truly endless.  It’s a matter of stepping back and really smelling those roses.  And allowing compassion for ourselves during the times when we can’t or don’t want to smell roses.

I guess especially once you’ve had cancer, you can give yourself permission to be fallible and to be great and sometimes just to be.  And being is really and truly grand.

Copyright ©1998 Donna Marie. All Rights Reserved.