I don’t write about my medical woes history much. In fact, I don’t think about it very often, these days, except to marvel at the fact that I’m here at all.
Facts are facts, though, and the truth is that my body has been through an awful lot. Beatings, droppings and throwings as a child, along with a great deal of manipulation by others. Illnesses galore. Tick borne viruses out the wazoo. Brain injuries and limb injuries, repeatedly. Drug reactions that caused my body to shut down nearly completely. The ever-present autoimmune mystery diseases, but of course. A brush with one kind of cancer, surgeries for another and the excavations for the ongoing one of melanoma.
That last one bothered me immensely, for years. I was told that melanoma doesn’t go into remission, at the time of my diagnosis. It was portrayed as a time bomb, waiting to go off in my brain, lungs or liver. Something I needed to wage a constant battle against and Be Very Afraid Of.
This did not help the auto immune issues, not one bit.
It gave me one more reason to believe that my body was not a safe place to live, to be. As a kid who grew up in a psychic mine field, I was already really, really good at being afraid. Thankfully, I was also very good at dissociating from my physical body, at dealing with that sort of pain. (Fun fact: I once walked around with my neck broken in two places for thirteen months. My issues with the medical community and trust are understandable, I think.)
So for a couple years, I did what I always do – I helped others with melanoma, almost entirely ignoring my own care. I was already a lost cause, in my mind. I helped set up a not for profit, I donated to research, I literally held people’s hands. I went on a crusade against tanning beds. (That might have actually saved a few lives.) I became an embodied melanoma and scared the heck out of some folks, undoubtedly. I know I scared myself.
Until I figured something out.
Here’s the thing – I can’t quote the statistics anymore because I’ve stopped following them, and thankfully the treatments are getting better and better, too. I don’t really care. But for me, I figured out that the melanoma was really the least of my issues. And that being stuck in identifying as my medical issues rather than the strong soul I am was what was keeping me in bondage to fear.
All that changed when I woke up from a dream one morning with this realization – all I have is now. My history is a place where no sane person would want to spend much time. And my future, statistically, could be very limited. Short. Possibly non-existent.
That left me with one thing, one very precious thing. Now.
Steve Gross, the executive director and Chief Playmaker at the Life Is Good Kids Foundation, recently said that “Being here now is really hard if being here now sucks.” No shortage of brilliance in that man. It’s true. And being there now, back then, did pretty much suck. Big time.
So I set out to change that, and it’s changed my world. My hope is, eventually, that it will change The World. Can you imagine what would shift, if we each just focused on our selves – part time, at least – and figured out how to make our now really, really, good?
My hope is that you’ll take that task on. In your own way, one that no one else can possible prescribe for you. And that you’ll inspire someone else to do the same. And then they will, etc. etc. etc. Then maybe one day, being here now will be the way we live. All of us.
I can tell you this – I don’t care how many days I have left. I hope, of course, for lots of time to be here, to play, to show as many people as I can how to free their spirits so that they can enjoy the now, too. The truth is that I am blessed, battered body and all, to be here.
Now.
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