Ron, Results & Resolution.

Dear All,

Goodness, my silences are growing in length... not good at all... I know that I have worried many of you and I am sorry. I have so much to share and tell and update you on, highs and lows of the past few weeks. But have chosen to focus on just a few of things for this entry, in order not to compose a huge volume all in one go - I am verbose enough as it is. I shall post more news in the days to come, with photos and videos that I want to show you all. But for now, I want to tell you about Ron, results, and resolution.

RON:
A couple of weeks ago I, together with my sister and parents, travelled down to the town of Liss, or should I say village. An hour and a half's train ride south of London, I found myself in a place that boasted only a few shops, a supermarket, a pub and an italian restaurant. (We arrived at lunch and found that, being a Monday, no place was serving food, with the exception of an Indian restaurant outside of the village where we, yes, were the only customers...). Anyway, the purpose of the trip had been for me to have a session of Reiki with a woman named Kathy, someone who had come highly recommended by a family friend of ours. The session was wonderful, and Chiara in fact exclaimed when I walked out, "Look at you! You look rosy!" But the purpose of the trip had also been to meet Ron, one of Kathy's clients who, hearing my story, had agreed to meet with me and chat over a cup of tea.

Ron is a fireman - a down to earth guy in his mid forties with a heavy Cockney accent, fit build, and the kindest of faces. He had been diagnosed several years ago with oesophageal cancer which had, initially, responded very well to chemotherapy. But soon after, the cancer reappeared, this time much more aggressively, in his liver. He had lost over 50 pounds and looked "yellow". Chemo did nothing for him, and by the time his tumor had grown to the size of his palm, his oncologist told him that there was nothing more that they could do, and that he should go on holiday with his wife and children.... enjoy what time he had left.... When he came back for scans many months later, his tumor had shrunk to the size of a 10p piece (a 25 cent coin), and months after that, it had gone completely. He has been cancer free for more than two years. And that was the man who sat across from me at Kathy's kitchen table, and asked me, "What do you want to know? Fire away." And so began a conversation that I will never forget for the rest of my life, and that I will hold dear forever.

Ron shared, "Alessandra, you have got to believe. Believe. Believe that you are well, believe that you will be even better tomorrow. The mind is a powerful tool and you have to use it. I would go into those meetings with the doctors, and they would tell me their opinions, and I would say, "Okay, that's your opinion", but I would hold true to my own. They'd show me the scan results, and I would say, "Yep, okay, doesn't change anything." They would say, "Hey Ron, you look well," and I would answer, "I know. I am well". Whatever they told me didn't matter. Because I listened to me, I told myself that I was strong and I was not ready to go anywhere and that this was not my time to die. I believed that. I would look at myself every morning in the mirror and say, "PMT, Ron, PMT" which stands for positive mental thinking. When I was too weak to go for my runs, I bought myself a good pair of walking shoes, rain gear, and I headed out every day. And every day, I took two extra steps. Alessandra, every day, you have to take two extra steps forwards. And tell yourself, "I am better than I was yesterday". Even when you feel awful, it doesn't matter, because you are bigger than that, and you have to remind yourself, without hesitation, that you are better than you were yesterday....."

And Ron went on: he spoke about what alternative therapies/approaches he used ("Do I know which, if any worked?" he asked, " Does it matter? I believed that they were helping me, and that is all that was important. Find your own combination that you feel fits you, works for you, and as long as you believe, then it will.") He spoke about having worked as a butcher for years, and knowing full well what a liver looked like ("And so, as I lay in my bath every night, I would visualise myself cleaning my liver: I would visualise the cancer as dirty marks, and I worked hard at picturing myself cleaning my liver up. And do you know what the doctor said when they finally went in surgically to check my liver following the "surprising" scans? That he had never, in all of his years of practising medicine, seen a liver look so pristine. Pristine!") Ron spoke about the importance of "getting in the zone", of keeping focus, of being unrelenting. He also shared, "And this is your time to be selfish. You have to be selfish. Think about you. You have the rest of your life to pay everyone back for the couple of years you spend focusing on yourself." He spoke about the need to find some alone time in the day ("Despite everyone's best intentions to help, you are more often than not surrounded by people trying to do or fix or distract. And what I found I needed was just time for me to be with me").

And then Ron looked at me, and I started to cry. Because his look said it all. I will never forget it. He said understood the hell I am going through, that he had felt the fear that I feel. He had run the marathon and fought the battle. "Believe, Alessandra. No matter what. Believe you are going to be fine". I know that my words cannot but capture a glimpse of what it was like to sit in the presence of his man, to hear his words, to feel that I need say nothing because he knew what it was like for me. I wish that I could convey all that he shared, and could have had you hear his tone, seen his face, witnessed his look. I will never forget them. I will never forget him.

Since meeting Ron, he is part of my day. I tell myself, and those around me, that I am better than I was yesterday, and I do believe it. He is part of my visualisations, as I am on all fours cleaning my liver and he shouts, with a smile on his face, "Come on, Alessandra, you can do better than that! Clean this mess up!" He whispers, "Believe", in my ear, when I begin to falter. I see his look, inviting me to join him in that stubborn, determined, utterly convinced attitude. And when I cry, as I do in some moment of my everyday, I sense him saying, "I get it. I so get it".

RESULTS:
I got my scan results yesterday, and they were disappointing. Dr. Plowman opened our meeting with, "Well, you're not where I'd like you to be. This is not good enough". And so I sat there, and was told that all was stable (i.e., nothing had shrunk) except for my liver, where there were actually some new spots. (i.e., the cancer had progressed). While my eyes welled up with tears, I waited for the panic to hit me. Nothing. I waited for the despair to take over. Nothing. I had a strange sense of calm. Sad calm. Was it resignation? I mean, I haven't had good news from a scan since the summer of last year, so what should I expect... no, I did not feel resigned. Was it numbness at what I was being told? I mean, there's no way to soften being told that you have more cancer in your body.... no, I felt very much present. My tears were very real. I cannot describe the calm other than being the first time that I have actually faced bad news and truly thought, "Doesn't matter. I can beat this". I am so terribly drained, so deeply, deeply exhausted by this physically gruelling and emotionally battering journey. But if you were to see me, I don't look sick. I don't feel sick, other than what the treatment subjects my body to. Because I am well. I am alive. I am strong. and as Ron would say, "Whether you believe it or not, you are better than you were yesterday".

So Dr. Plowman sat back in his chair and said that he wants to bring in another consultant to look at my case. A good friend and long time colleague of his who is a prominent oncologist in London. He specialises in breast cancer, and has a private clinic, which grants him access to particular treatments and options that would not be available nor possible within hospital settings. He also is very connected to the U.S. and its clinical trials. So, we await a consult with him, probably next week. In the meantime, all treatment is on hold, which means that cycle #23 is not happening this Thursday... instead, I will be at the birthday party of one of James' friends, Harry. A much better way to spend my day.... :-)

RESOLUTION:
So, yes, I am emotional and frustrated and disappointed and tired and drained and saddened by the news of the scans. But I am not desperate, nor defeated, nor depressed. I am resolute. My blood work still shows that all my organ functions are 100% healthy (including my liver), I have not lost weight, and aside from a bad cold and fever that are making me feel awful right now, I am well. I truly am well. And if I can say so myself, I look pretty damn good for a 37 year old.

I think that I have told you all that I write poetry as a way to process this experience, to put my thousands of daily thoughts on paper, to give emotion a place to be outside of my head. I often reread my poems, my own form of therapy. Well, one that I wrote on March 10th, feels very relevant to how I am feeling this morning. Resolute.

I Am Here

I hold the future with both hands,
My palms are callused by this past year
My fingers weak, my skin worn,
But I hold on.
I see the future,
Eyes wide open
Visions of milestones, of memories to come,
I view the all clear.
I hear the future,
Quiet calm,
Away from turbulence and storms,
My breathing, my laughter.
I taste the future,
Sweetly my own
My tears salty but happy
The moments mine to savour.
My body is alive
My senses are awake
My present is a mere step
In the footpath forward.
I feel the ground under my feet,
Solid,
As I look ahead.
And keep moving towards my goal.

Hugs to all.