Prayer to the Blue Medicine Budha: Tadya Tha om bhaishajye bhaishajye mahabhaishahye raja samudgate svaha

(Tad-ya tha om bhe-kha-dzye bhe-kha-dzye ma-ha-bhe-kha-dzye ra-dza sa-mud-ga-te so-ha)

Translation: Thus Oh, King of Healing, of Healing, of Great Healing, the Fully Exalted One – may your blessings consecrate us.

This is my story of receiving a diagnosis of endometrial cancer in 2005 and how I chose to treat it. Initially, I had been diagnosed with a 3cm fibroid in 1996, located during a pelvic exam and diagnostic ultra sound. I elected at that time to treat the fibroid with diet, nutrients, herbs, acupuncture, and hydrotherapy – all the modalities which were part of my training and interest as a traditional healer of Naturopathic medicine. I am not trained in Chinese Medicine, but I have employed many wonderful Chinese practitioners during this healing process and during my cancer care. Throughout the two years of treatment and recuperation, my goal during this process of surgeries,diagnostic workups, chemotherapy and radiation therapy was to augment the body’s ability to heal with attention to reducing inflammation, provide nutritional support for healing, and utilize therapeutics and herbal formulas that would support my healing, reduce side effects of toxic therapies, keep the organs of elimination open and optimize detoxification, immune modulation, and mental- emotional-spiritual balance and release.

Excerpts from my personal journals September, 2005 – March, 2006 : “Four days ago I had a 3 cm node removed from below my kidneys along my aorta. I am recovering from this surgery in Eugene. Such a brightness this nod had – such a luminescence. Even tucked away in the fascia and tissue of its dwelling, one can visualize the radiance it emitted. I love this node. Radiant fire bursts from your heart. An orb glowing in the midst of tendons, fascia and vessels. You rise and you set as the sun does now. A beacon calling out for the alert. Be calm in the storm. Guidance from you within. Safety, shelter, comfort and warmth.”

September 13th, 2005. “I start chemotherapy 9/29 – had to reschedule everyone (patients) once again due to medical stuff. Disconcerting but according to my doc “no excuse”. Many fears regarding the chemo – side effects, future disease, disability, weakness. Hard for me to be dependent on others. Asking for what I need is way out of contest. I do hope I maintain as much integrity around this journey as I can.”

Sept. 17th, 2005. “ Breitenbush: Women’s silent retreat – Vipasana;  I go to the rock to empty my pain from the last several months of surgery and medical interventions. I cry release, refill, goodness. Go to the river – wash, soak, saturate your body with the love of the river. When you stop working so hard, you realize what you were working so had for. Notice the way you relate in every opportunity. Be with self.”

Sept. 22nd, 2005. “Enjoying the presence of being in the dissolution of matter, then realizing that there is discomfort then forgetting it all due to mental activity then coming back to the change that has occurred. Meet suffering with self- compassion and compassion then can sit with others in their distress. Heart breaks open with compassion.”

Sept. 23rd, 2005 “Practice dying with every moment. Our last breath will be an exhale. To greet confusion; that which is unfamiliar to me. To not know and to greet this confusion. To practice unknowing or to allow the state of confusion and to cultivate this into spaciousness. When I dissolve, I feel the spaciousness – this has fear attached to it because it is unknown. As many structures dissolve around me, I am forced to meet confusion. My health as I know it; my work as I know it; my home and community as I know it – all this is dissolving becoming new form. How I love and trust as I know it – dissolving. In my life, currently many familiar ways of being are in a state of dissolving and I am faced with greeting confusion. So in the fear of stepping into the knowing of confusion, I ask for comfort in this arena; ease in the spaciousness of my living; presence with the unfamiliar and mindfulness. I would like to transform my fears into mindfulness.

Sept. 24th & 25th , 2005. “We open our hearts; we breathe. We open our hearts; we breathe.” “Experience life in nothingness.”

Sept. 29th , 2005.  First day of Chemotherapy: Just relax and let the nurses take care of you. Reconnect with another dimension. Just let things go in a certain way. Take the curriculum, this is our role; don’t forget who you really are. The secret beauty we were born with; what is your spirit, your soul.

“Bone pain – hips, legs, and feet. Deep bone pain; two hot tubs today with some relief. Bowel pain. Can this time/ this journey be a journey of pain? I think seriously of not going on with this treatment. This is not comfortable at all. Today was a difficult day. I cried, I ranted, I found silence. Would love bring relief? The Buddha would say – yes.” Oct. 1st, 2005. “The last several days I have been feeling really good with good energy.  Appetite has improved in the last two days. Hiking at 7000ft on the Pacific Crest Trail in the Sierra Nevada’s”.

Oct. 11th , “ Fever – no chemotherapy. Fever; immune system active. How is the body handling all that it is being subjected to?
My immune system is being challenged in every way.”
Dec 5th, 2005. “Yesterday last chemo. I did well overall.”
Jan. 20th, 2006 “Chemotherapy was completed at the end of January, 2006 after a series of 6 treatments with Carboplatin and Taxol;
three weeks off between administrations of the chemo.”
In February, after my blood cell count was better, Stephen and I flew to Costa Rica to spend 10 days at a friends yoga retreat center.
We ate wonderful food, rested, swam in the warm waters, sat with tropical birds, followed monkeys, and did yoga every day.
I had a three hour Thai massage that left me feeling like a molecular being in space.

Radiation therapy was initiated the 1st of March for a series of 25 treatments with beams focused anterior and posterior to the abdomen and pelvis; then to the hips bilaterally. I listened to the Dali Llamas healing chants every treatment. During the third week; I was so sick with so much gastrointestinal upset, I stopped the treatments for 3 days. I dream that I need to take the Black Madonna with me to the treatments. I resumed the last 5 sessions with my icons– the Dali Llama and the Black Madonna.

Goal of Treatments: my goal during this process of surgeries,diagnostic workups, chemotherapy and radiation therapy was to augment the body’s ability to heal with attention to reducing inflammation, provide nutritional support for healing, and utilize therapeutics and herbal formulas that would support my healing, reduce side effects of toxic therapies, keep the organs of elimination open and optimize detoxification, immune modulation, and mental-emotional-spiritual balance and release.

Conclusion: The diagnosis of cancer is life altering. The decisions that you make with your family and community are difficult at best in the realm of predictable odds. My path of therapy included a comprehensive integrated cancer treatment : two Naturopathic Physicians and a Chinese medical doctor for nutritional recommendations, supplemental therapy, hydrotherapy, homeopathy, acupuncture, and herbal remedies. My years actively involved in treatment and healing are ongoing. Now, I am in the phase of preventing recurrence and paying attention to changing my physical, environmental, emotional, and mental presentations that can contribute to cancer’s opportunity to return.

May all beings have happiness and the cause of happiness. May all beings be without suffering and the cause of suffering. May all beings have happiness that is without suffering.  May all beings dwell in equanimity free from attachment and aversion to those near and far.

Namaste.