Tag: cancer

Side Step Cancer

Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite drink?
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Google it.

I have been a student of the Hippocrates Institute for twenty years. It’s real. I initially went there because of a friend, given a prognosis of 3-6 months. The oncologist said – “we are going to cut out you lymph nodes. You will have no taste or saliva glands. You will have to carry a pump spray.” He thought, why would I do that, if I only have months to live.

He heard of Hippocrates and signed up. I talked to my friend the other day. He still drinks wheat grass and green drinks. He works out. Twenty years with cancer in the rear view mirror.

I thought, “Why wait to have cancer. Why not learn about my health now and circumvent this disease.” I have been to the institute twice and can’t wait to go back.

I have yet more testimony.

Both my younger sister and my daughter were diagnosed with stage four cancer, a month apart. My sister went to Hippocrates right away. She has been cancer free for five years. She has never looked sick and she plays pickle ball every day.

My daughter on the other hand was influenced by my older sister. Steeped in processed food. Over indulgence and vats of wine. She is an RN and favors all things western. She chases psychotropics, antibiotics, tests and more tests.

When I offered to pay for my daughter’s visit to Hippocrates, her reply was, “MaMa, that would be doing nothing.”

She lived eighteen months in excruciating pain. She passed. She chose MacDonald’s milkshakes over green drinks.

Cancer is personal.

Tribal Tune

It’s all in my head, as I watch Hannibal kill and eat, study, chase, travel, elude; my Netflix is unending, as is this sentence, that goes on and on, like life, that doesn’t, while cancer prevails, fought and incubated, as I eat my cereal, plain as can be, the duration is filled with people, sun and sand, surfing, working, laughing, praying, not leaving any time for tears, as I play music, the thunder and lightning sounds, the large pellets of rain pummel my scorched plants, all in the key of E. Born in the key of G, I sustain an E.

And then I cried.

Now What

Life is not about never failing ~ but rising from every fall ~

I have been on the island, for 18 months. My daughter had cancer. A long fought battle to survive, ended two weeks ago. Life requires more than a will to live. She never did relinquish. Her body gave out.

She’s in my mind.

A friend wrote me a note saying; grief is pernicious.

I am going to clean my yard.

Hello, Old Friend

It’s 3:30 in the morning and the rain has woke me. I can’t help, but hear it’s relentlessness, on my tin roof. The sound of the rain brings joy to my heart. It promotes contemplation. It heals me. It washes the earth.

When I was young, on a Saturday afternoon, in the middle of this neighborhood, looking to score, at the local tavern, The Island Bar, I found myself surrounded by police cars, I was shocked to be white. It was so obvious. They were there to break up a fight, I was really wishing I was a different color. They looked at me, cutting their eyes, saying, “what the hell are you doing here?”

Continue reading Hello, Old Friend

Put a Flower on it –

I’m sitting on my couch, my daughter laying sixty feet away, suffering with cancer. I have chosen to not write about this, in the past, because it’s too personal, too overwhelming and there has been too much conflict.

I came home from Costa Rica, February 18, 2019, on an emergency ticket. I went straight to the hospital and proceeded to fall apart. Little by little, I have pieced myself back together, as I sit on the sidelines and watch her CANCER process, played out with the doctors, my sister and her father.

I disagree with everything they do.

I’m about living, not dying.

It’s all quite complicated.

Cancer is personal.

Flower or no flower.