It’s 8pm the night before surgery. Honestly, I’m trying hard to keep my shit together. At any moment I could burst into tears. I have that primal fear feeling deep in my bones. A deep trembling as if my life were in danger. If I let the feeling come, my knees feel like they might buckle. Immersing myself in our regular nightly routine, the day to day schedule makes it easier. Doing the regular stuff means I can ignore the future and pretend like tomorrow is just another day.
I think about all of the people I know who’ve had surgery. Actually MOST of the people I know have had surgery and all of those people have experienced the pain of healing. At this moment, I am in complete admiration of those people. I watched BOTH of my parents go through cardiac bypass surgery where not only were they put under but they had a machine breathing for them - keeping them alive - for hours! Now they’ve both been back to their regular lives and all of that pain seems like a dream.
Until this moment I was actually looking forward to tomorrow. One day and my cancer could be gone. The rest of my life is on the other side of tomorrow. I get a second chance. “Extraordinary Life 2.0” as one of my friends coined it. But there is still tomorrow. I know that I won’t be aware of anything much until after surgery. It’s the pain that I fear.
So what can I do? When I lean into the fear of the pain I feel my body tense up. I get that deep primal fear feeling in my bones. I know that going into anything with fear is not beneficial for my mind or my body but what to do? I acknowledge my fear. Either I feel my fear which leads to more tension and fear or I acknowledge it. Just like I’ve been taught by Tina Welling in my Spirit Walks. I name it. I feel it. I draw it into my body and breathe into it. I name it and make it mine. Yep, I’m afraid. And I can also be trusting, relaxed and calm. So tomorrow I will be all of those things.
Then I’m on to Extraordinary Life 2.0.
Be loved,
Desirée
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