Yellow Stream - A Cancer Diary

Chapter 8: Almost Normal Life

4/10/97: Feel Good to Heal Good!

I woke up very early this morning, feeling almost normal! Before I had cancer, I would wake up early, go down into my office, and begin working. This morning, I followed the same procedure, in spite of having taken a sleeping pill last night. Aside from Cancerport, later this morning, I have an Evolutionary Circle meeting tonight, for the first time in about a month.

Cancerport was a very moving experience for me, as mothers spoke of children they wanted to see graduate and get married! This is also my experience, as one daughter graduates middle school in June and the other next June. I want to be there when they have grandchildren! I felt that it was appropriate to share my guided imagery session about "healthy cells growing all by themselves" again, and once more, it was received with great interest and care.

Several of us went to eat together at Taqueria San Jose in San Rafael. If you have never been there, you're in for a treat. This is a real, down-home taco place that serves fresh orange juice and fresh carrot juice made to order. I also enjoy their soft tacos more than anywhere else.

During the discussion, I heard about one woman who is surviving cervical cancer for over twenty-two years, with eleven recurrences! One of the women I had lunch with has survived over eleven years with hers!

At the Evolutionary Circle, I showed a ten minute segment from In Search of ... Faith Healing from 1980, in which my son's Wilm's tumor was the subject of research. The group was moved by his amazing healing and felt very inspired. I next spoke for a long time about my healing process, including "health cell grow all by themselves," and other anecdotes. The love and support I felt transformed my feeling of exhaustion into as state of excitement. We all shared where were mentally and emotionally and left with good feelings for each other.

A friend of R. W.'s was there who is a Reiki healer and does laying on of the hand healing. I look forward to next week's meeting where she will teach us some of her healing techniques.

This group has been going now for almost two years! In we try to support the goals and desires of each of the members with our thoughts and imagery. Next week we should have T. W. and her husband also.

4/11/97: It's Only Tennis!!

I'm going to miss Leslie's group this morning to play tennis!  I played for almost two hours and I can still do my work for the day!  It's so nice to do something you enjoy so much!

4/12/97: When the Iron Bird Flies...

Last night, our neighbors visited us. J. G. told me that she was invited to a dinner with the Dalai Lama some time in June! She said that she would try to get me invited without having to pay the $500 per plate. I was thrilled at the prospect.

I spent the morning working and playing tennis with the guys at Eastwood Park. It was wonderful again! I felt welcome and played quite well under the circumstances.

During my afternoon meditation, it dawned on me that both Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama are exiles, from Viet Nam and Tibet, respectively. This reminded my of what Padmasambhava said in the eighth century, "When the iron bird flies and horses run on wheels, the Tibetan people will be scattered like ants across the world and the Dharma will come to the land of the Red Man!" Alfred Toynbe has said that the most significant thing to happen in the 20th century is the coming of Buddhism to the West.

Tonight, we are going out for a special dinner and a concert with the Ying Quartet.

4/13/97: Reframing a Bad Day

I'm having a bad cancer day today. I woke up feeling tense and anxious and it took me around two hours to get in touch with what the problem was. I was feeling all of the financial pressure of paying for my cancer care and at the same time, keeping my household in order. Before I had cancer, we were already stretched to the limit, having chosen to spend our money on our childrens' education. Now, with the added stress of medical bills not covered by insurance, I'm really feeling the pinch. Just talking with friends and family and writing about it relieves the pain a little, and now I'm feeling more centered.

I got another email from R. M. in New Zealand. He had his TUR and it went well.

I managed to get myself out to play a little tennis this afternoon. This, combined with the advice from M. C., who gave me the massages when I returned home from the hospital on January 31, helped to finally lift me out of the bad day. M. C. suggested that I reframe my financial worries into gratitude that the cancer was found in time and pay the bills with thanksgiving for the opportunity to explore my life and bring my cancer under control. I took her suggestions to heart and now I'm feeling much better.

I also spoke with my brother, Max. He gave me some valuable suggestions for copyrighting this work and finding a publisher! I'm really grateful for his suggestions.

4/14/97: The Frog on the Leaf...

Compared to yesterday, this was a fine day, but I was still haunted by the cost of cancer. I worked in the morning and then went to have a session with Alan Sheets. He worked on my knees, lower back, shoulders, cranium, and bladder. The session was very relaxing and I didn't feel the need to nap for the rest of the day.

From Alan's office, I met G. S. at the California Conservatory of Music to pick up twenty copies of Yellow Stream which my son had made for me. These copies go through the beginning of chapter eight, and are expressly for the purpose of finding a publisher for the web site as a book. I might change the title to "Healthy Cells Grow All By Themselves" before final publication.

From there, I went to Golden Gate Park for a walk and a time to be alone in nature. I just had a feeling that this would be better for me than rushing back home to get more work done on the Sniffer. On the way to the Redwood Grove, I passed a small pond with beautiful, broad leaves in it. Perhaps they were water lilies not yet in bloom. It was a beautiful pond, and then I noticed a frog sitting on one of the leaves. The frog was as big as the leaf, about three inches long, and two and one-half inches wide. I stood and watched the frog for several minutes. When I thought about it later, I thought about this poem:

Next I visited the moon viewing platform which juts out over another pond (no frogs here either) in hopes of running into Itzzy, who often does Tai Chi on that platform. Then it was time to go and I slowly left the Arboretum being mindful of each step and each breath.

At night, I went to Anna Halprin's class and offered her the first printed copy of Yellow Stream. She seemed really grateful. The class got off to a slow start, with Anna boom box not working. We sat and did breathing exercises and I noticed that several people were having a tough time. I thought that this would have been a good evening for a long check-in, but we moved forward anyway. Anna spent much of her time with the woman that was having the most difficulty, and I enjoyed dancing to the rhythms of the drums that were playing when we finally had some music.

My drawing came right out of my gut. I looked at the box of crayons and noticed that there was a small piece of a thick, red crayon that appealed to me. I picked it up and started drawing bold, thick curved lines that eventually resembled a large hourglass, but in reality, it was my anger of the cost of cancer coming through. I wrote, "I want to see my anger red!" I wanted to have an intuitive feeling for why I was so pissed off about the cost of treatment, or at least have someone tell me what I was feeling. The expressing of anger in the drawing was quite strong, and I received a lot of good feedback about it during the ensuing discussion.

As people shared their drawings, I felt the group coming closer together. I stated, "I finally feel that the group is coming together. Even though we are still having a tough time, we are having a tough time together." Many agreed with my statement.

I headed home feeling much better and with a strong desire to write. However, as I walked in the door the phone rang and the call was from New York. I was told about a healer named Winefred Wager, who I'm supposed to call tomorrow to see if she can help me "long distance!" I also had a message from Dean Ornish, but I haven't spoken with him yet. He is starting a prostate cancer study with Dr. Carroll.

4/15/97: Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood?

My wife and I met Sylvia Boorstein at the Good Earth at 9:00 in the morning. We had such a delightful time speaking with her about everything from dharma to family drama. She is obviously a wonderful and caring person who is enjoying a happy life between Buddhism and Judaism. We talked about our favorite prayers in the synagogue and it turns out that the service for replacing the torah is both of our favorites. It talks about the torah being, "a tree of life and everyone that upholds it is happy!"

I spoke to her about my practice and she thought that it was wonderful to have "healing... free" as a meta-program throughout my breathing. I wanted to speak more to her about my practice, but the time seemed to fly by. At one point, she said, "We must learn to cultivate boundless love rather than just adhere to a structure." We were talking about the practices of the orthodox who seem to follow the structure more than their hearts. Later, she said, "It's not in the liturgy, it's in the heart!" She told me about Elat Chayyim in upstate New York, which is supposed to be like a Jewish Eselan. It's funny, but I don't have any desire to go there. I'm sure I'll see her again quite soon.

My massage was cancel led, so I worked in Leslie Davenport's office until our appointment at 1:00. We worked on the financial issues in my life, which was very appropriate for what had been happening over the week end. I had images of my grandfather on my mother's side, who seemed to be the most generous person in the family. After all, he was in his eighties and well taken care of by my mother and my uncle, Sam Sandmel, the Reformed Rabbi and publisher of many books on Jews and Jesus. But my money problems seem to go deeper into my childhood and relate to matters about feeling unworthy and rejected. There is still a lot of work to do about this area, and I plan to continue until it is resolved. One thing that Leslie said at the end of the session was that I should really focus on things that I can change in my life and let go of things that I have no control over. I thought this was appropriate advice at the time, and I've heard it many times before.

The most significant thing that happened in the session was just before the end. I could feel the waves of sadness starting to overcome me, even though I was still focused on my breathing, doing, "healing... free". The feelings came, got very intense, and then started to melt away, all under the eyes of mindfulness. I experienced the impermanence of the rise and fall of the sad feelings in a way that had never touched me so deeply before. This is, according to my understanding, the text book practice of vipassana meditation.

My session with Gail Teehan was wonderful once again. We worked on my back and pelvis, and I could feel the energy shifting, as she would go through the various steps of the lesson. We are developing a wonderful connection of mutual love and support as we continue to work together. Since she's so fond of dance and art, I invited her to Anna's class on April 28 to come as one of my support persons.

I came home thoroughly and totally exhausted, so I headed straight for a "mind story." This time I settled into my breathing and was able put my worries out of my mind to get a clear picture of my bladder's "healthy cell growing all by themselves!" I felt rested and much, much better at the end of the "mind story!"

At night, we went to a dinner party at S. and C.'s just two houses away. Ten of our best neighbors were gather together for a very nice time.

4/16/97: Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off to Work I Go

R. T., my boss, and I are met to discuss my raise and bonus, so I went to Menlo Park for the day. Marty Rossman was traveling to some Alternative Medicine conference in Orlando, so I drove him to the airport, which is on my way. This gave me a chance to chat with Marty about my life and ask him about his. The main point of our discussion was the effectiveness of guided imagery in my cure. Of course, he's the master! When I asked him about Yellow Stream, he said that he was very impressed with the resources section.

I met my son for lunch at the Uptime Cafe at NGC. I had lunch cards from when I taught a class at NGC, so we got to pig out on cafeteria food! He was fairly talkative about his life, but we didn't discuss my illness at length. He is going to sing for Gail Teehan's mother on Friday night.

So, the day turned out to be kind of a normal work day, as my life is becoming more and more normal and my symptoms are affecting my daily activities less and less. For example, I didn't have time for a mind story today, but I compensated by going to bed by 8:30.

4/17/97: The Ups and Downs of Cancer

This morning, I had the most wonderful massage from Elyse. This was the third in a series given to me by M. C. when she first heard about my cancer. The massage was sterling! Elyse did some amazing work on my back and abdomen. I feel that she may be one of the best around. She has agreed to allow me to publish her phone number, so please see her name in the reference section.

I had a different kind of session with Leslie Davenport today. She used EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) as a therapeutic tool. The technique involves random eye movements induced by the therapist while the patient is focusing on a troublesome emotional or physical problem. The goal is to desensitize the brain to the feelings associated with the event in order to allow the brain to reprocess the event in present time.

As for my session, I was dealing with five issues that came to light while I was reading Getting Well Again. The issues related to stress around losing a job in 1994 and changing from consulting to a full-time position. In addition, I have been undergoing therapy since then to recover my sense of personal power and have therefore come in to quite a conflict with my spouse, who always wants to be in control. The other two major stresses in my live have been in the area of financial worries and interpersonal relationships. During the therapy, I was aware of how all of these issues were interconnected, and that the missing ingredient was "unconditional love." Leslie offered that she had found this through her spiritual practices and that I possibly could do the same. I left feeling a little depressed, but now that I've had a nap and a chance to write about my experience, I feel a lot better.

Later in the evening, I went to a meeting of my Evolutionary Circle. The meeting focused on healing, especially lying on of the hands, and other methods. We just had time to heal two members, neither of which was me, but I got a lot out of tuning into the other members and finding a way to offer my healing energy. I felt that B. M. needed energy around her thymus, and so I moved my hand in a healing motion around her thymus and then placed the ammonite fossil that Barbara Rose Billings gave me over her thymus. Then I touched and tapped her sternum. At the end of the healing, she shared that she thought that something was indeed going on with her immune system.

4/18/97: All Things are Impermanent!

Today was rather a strange day. I was supposed to play tennis at 8:30 A. M., but the ground was wet, so we postponed it to 10:00 A. M. By 10:00, the courts had not dried, so tennis was cancel led. By now, I was going over some bugs with a colleague at work, and by the time we finished our conversation, it was too late to go to Leslie's group. So I settled into work until about 1:45, when my wife called to tell me she was having car trouble and I needed to pick up the girls. So, off to the tennis courts I went for just about an hour! At last!

I didn't take time to relax this afternoon. I got caught up in computer stuff and now it's dinner time! I guess I won't make Anna Halprin's open house this evening.

4/19/97: Birthday Greetings

Today was my wife's birthday and S. G.'s Bat Mitzvah. The Bat Mitzvah was a joyous occasion and many people wished me well. They were happy that I appeared to look so well and continue to visualize my complete recovery.

When I got home, I felt quite exhausted. I proceeded to do a "mind story" using Leslie Davenport's tape. Not too much else is happening on the healing front today!

4/20/97: Overprotection

When I was a boy of around twelve or thirteen, I studied and played the game of chess. I studied the masters like Lasker, Reinfeld, Alekhine, Botvinnik and Capablanca. In fact, when Reshevsky played a simultaneous exhibition at Purdue University in 1959, I played him to a tie by playing the Lasker variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined. My favorite master was Aaron Nimzovich, who published My System in 1925. This was my favorite book on the subject and I studied it long and hard. One of the strategies that Nimzovich taught was called overprotection. He maintained that if you have a pawn in a strong position, especially in the center of the board, you should do everything in your power to overprotect that pawn, which, in turn would lead to a very strong position. Overprotection became my primary strategy in chess, and perhaps in life.

Overprotection is a good strategy for raising children if you consider expressing your love and affection for them consistently throughout their childhood. I'm not talking about protecting them from the outside world so much as assuring them that they are loved and cared for in a way in which they feel secure and protected. My girls and boy have been raised this way and are wonderful people.

I think that overprotection is a good strategy for healing from cancer also. What I mean here is that the more you can do for yourself, the better. For me, this means being a support group junkie, doing "mind stories," having guided imagery sessions, doing Feldenkrais and other massage therapies, acupuncture, and all of the other activities I'm engaged in to support and overprotect my health.

 I came to this realization early this morning after a very difficult night of little sleep. I was looking deeply into my feelings and remembered how I played chess and bridge as a youngster.

I studied the game so much so that I could feel like a winner. I had felt like such a looser as a child that I needed something to win at and I chose chess. Almost every time I played a good game with a good player with a chance to win, I would get heart palpitations and start to shake. I would get very nervous and feel compelled to win. I needed to win at something. This attitude and nervousness carried over into my college days at Purdue University to the game of bridge. I quickly became one of the best bridge players on campus, but winning was still an issue. When Mike Sears and I entered a tournament in Terra Haute, Indiana, I was nervous and shaking as usual, and we did not win. Mike was very disappointed in me. However, when Charles Goren visited Pudure, I was his partner in a tournament and we won.

Now my life is on the line and I'm playing for keeps. I get the same heart palpitations and shaking when I think of the possibility of actually helping someone with my ideas and guidance. I get nervous when I think about publishing this web site as a book and actually speaking to people about how they can learn to make appropriate decisions for their medical treatment. Now that the word is out, I may be able to control my nervousness and shaking enough to heal myself and realize my goal to deliver this message far and wide. This is serious stuff, and I am committed to getting well again. My girls are still young enough that they need overprotection - overprotection in the sense of feeling loved and protected.

4/21/97: The First Night of Passover

I was able to play three sets of tennis this morning, but I was so exhausted that it took me more than two hours to recover. I took a long bath and the got into bed for a long "mind story." Both of these were very relaxing and I found myself quite able to concentrate on my breathing and visualizing healing in my bladder. My poem became:

Lying still,
Breathing in, Breathing out,
Healthy cells grow all by themselves.
I am free of cancer.

In the evening, we went over to A. and S. M.'s house for a lovely sader. I was able to participate fully, and even had a few cups of wine. It was a very enjoyable evening.

I'm still having sleep problems, however.

4/22/97: Weird Old Women Who Wear Purple!

Today I went to Leslie Davenport to work on my sleep problem. She led me in a hypnotherapy session which focused on deep relaxation and then led me into several visualizations that seemed to help me recover my ability to let go and allow myself to sleep. The tape recording was messed up, however, so I am going to have to reconstruct the session from memory while it is still fresh.

From focusing on deeply relaxing my physical body she went into deeply relaxing my mind through a technique of unraveling a loosely woven fabric of burlap or some similar substance. The purpose of this was to unravel the mind from it's objects of attention. Next, we went deeper with a count down followed by a visualization of a relaxing place. I chose China Beach in Point Lobos State Reserve.

The final scene was a library in my mind in which there were books of a positive nature on the right side of me and books of not such a positive nature on the left. The books on the left were stories about stress, illness, heartaches, pain, suffering, and the like. I took each of these books one by one and placed them in a receptacle which was then taken out of the library for good!

I came out of the session feeling very relaxed and as if I had taken a nap. I'm sure there was more to the session, so I'm going to ask Leslie about it and try to recover the tape.

Later, I went to see Gail Teehan. She did a Feldenkrais session on twisting of my spine, which was very good. She also showed me exercises for my back and knees. While we were working together, she spoke about how much Feldenkrais has helped stroke victims. During the discussion, she mentioned that she thought she'd be around to be a weird old lady dressed in purple! I love doing work with Gail, but I won't see here until May 15 because she'll be in Feldenkrais training.

In the evening, my wife and I went to separate support groups at the Center for Attitudinal Healing in Sausalito.  The support group I attended was the "Life Threatened" and my wife attended the "Care Givers" group. I first contacted The Center for Attitudinal when my son had Wilm's tumor back in 1976 and spoke with the founder, Dr. Jerry Jampolsky. Later, 1987 or 1988, my wife and I completed the Volunteer Training, but we got busy with our young children and never did much with the Center.

The support group was different from the others I've been attending in that it started and ended with everyone holding hand and one of the facilitators offering a message of hope.  I enjoyed that aspect.  When I had an opportunity to share, I really felt supported. Everyone was interested in my meditation of "healthy... free" and invited me to teach it, but as time was limited, I'll have to wait until another opportunity presents itself.  I think people felt inspired by my story.

4/23/97: To Click or Not to Click...

Today was a very nice day! I went to Menlo Park around 11:00 A. M. and spoke with my boss once more about my annual review. Next, my son came for lunch and we had a nice time with the V. P. of my group. I received such tremendous support from everyone at work today that it really made me feel happy.

My little enneagram support group met in the afternoon. This was the first time we were all together for a very long time, and it really felt wonderful. In this group, we use our combined knowledge of the enneagram to help each other through good times and times that are not so good. We were all trained by Helen Palmer and completed our certification in 1991. We have been meeting regularly since September of 1994.

V. R. was describing how she had used email to end one relationship and begin another. At each step of the way, she had to decide on whether or not to send a specific message to one of her friends. This gave rise to the phrase of the day, "to click or not to click!" (Another example of "to click or not to click" occurred in the morning. I had just pressed the send button on an email message to D. K. when he phone me to answer the question I was asking in the email!) As I shared what was going on with me, I felt totally supported, and each of us got enough time to share what we wanted to.

4/24/97: The Mother Ship

Last night, I had a dream. In the dream I was running away from an impending nuclear disaster to a space ship that was to take a number of people to safety. The "mother ship" had a lift that would allow one person at a time to be speedily transported into the ship. I noticed that the entry mechanism was rather weak and decided to redesign it. As I did so, the space ship seemed to grow in diameter and I was able to try out my new designs rather easily. Naturally, I woke before the disaster. I wonder what it all means.

At Cancerport today, I offered a copy of Yellow Stream to the group. I explained how each day had it's own title and that some of them were quite funny. I shared how the book became know and Yellow Stream and everyone laughed. Earlier, someone mentioned that laughter was really good for healing, so we had plenty of it!

At night, we had another meeting of our Evolutionary Circle. The theme was once again based on healing through laying on of the hands. Before we actually did any healing work, we each had an opportunity to check in with the group. I could feel such love and support from everyone, as I shared what had happened in the last week. We are such an unlikely group of people that somehow we've managed to stay together for over a year now.

4/25/97: Bubbles of Energy

Leslie Davenport's group today was quite special. She led a guided imagery experience which was quite similar to the one I had earlier this week. We started with deep breathing, as usual, and switched to relaxing the body, starting with the eyes, working up to the forehead and to the top of the head. Then we moved to our face and then on down to the feet and toes. From there, she had us imagine bubbles of energy rising from our fully relaxed feet and legs on up through our torso and winding up at the top of our heads. The visualization was very effective for me, and I felt very relaxed during the whole process. I probably could have fallen asleep several times. I later found out that most of the people in the room felt a deep sense of relaxation also.

In response to a question from one of the members of the group, I had an opportunity to speak about managing your own health care and how to make appropriate medical decisions. I explained how I had to make a tough decision back in early February regarding radical cystectomy versus the Shipley approach with I eventually decided upon. I also spoke about integrative medicine as the approach I took. This gave rise to comments by many other people supporting what I had to say and enhancing my viewpoint. I shared that I really wanted to come to the group mostly when I was feeling good so I could share my healing experiences with other people and not be so needy. All in all, I felt really supported and that I had contributed to the healing experience of others in the room.

4/26/97: A Family Gathering

I played tennis this morning in Eastwood Park with the gang that was there. I was really in the "zone" today! I made a lot of shots simply by not thinking too much about them, which is exactly the space I like to be in when I play tennis. Again, it took me two hours to recover. I took an hour bath and also slept for about an hour.

In the evening, we went to my brother's house in Los Altos for a little sader. My son and his girlfriend were there, along with my sister, her husband, my brother's daughter with her entire family, and my brother's girl friend with her son. The gathering was very nice and quite spiritual. Somehow, it felt good for us all to be together to celebrate the festival of freedom.

4/27/97: Call from an Old Friend

This morning, I received a call from an old friend, Rabbi Zalman Schachter, who is now on the faculty at the Narpoa Institute. He called me because of email that he received from Sylvia Boorstein. Zalman was quick to wish me well in my recovery, and his demeanor was full of loving kindness. I really appreciated hearing from him at this time.

Later in the day, I helped my daughter with her school project on "Zen Buddhism - It's Beliefs and Effect on Society." I really enjoyed reading the material with her and helping her understand the concepts of Buddhism, in general, and Zen Buddhism in particular. The quote which really go to me this time through was,

"This earth on which we stand, is the promised Lotus land,
And this very body is the body of the Buddha."

Tomorrow starts another chapter!