March was a month filled with markers.
First, of course, was the conclusion of treatment: with my last dose of radiation on March 6th, the treatment portion of this long road is complete. I am cancer-free, and the plan is to stay that way.
Since then, one event after another made it abundantly clear how completely cancer claimed this past year of my life. It began with what I’m calling “the list of the missed.” First, we discovered I’d forgotten to get my car inspected in 2016. I drove minimally after chemo began in July and only began driving regularly again to radiation appointments. I didn’t register the expired sticker until Steve (poor Steve) needed to use my car one day and got pulled over. Shortly thereafter, my gynecologist’s office notified me I’d missed scheduling my annual exam. Then, while traveling in Portland, I asked my niece how long she’d been a blonde. Though she lives far away, I keep up with her via Facebook. Or so I thought. She’d been blonde since last summer, she said.
In quick succession followed the Spring Equinox and the Science Museum of Western Virginia’s annual Butterfly Ball, each an even more profound reminder of how quickly things can change, how consuming treatment was, and how grateful I am to be on the other side.
Losing balance
After my initial diagnosis in early June, I was scheduled for an MRI, after which I was to meet with my oncologic surgeon to find out specifically what kind and stage of breast cancer I had. My appointment with her fell on June 21st, the day after the Summer Solstice.
On the Solstice, ten days after my diagnosis, I prepared and carried out a Solstice ritual. I find value in rituals, especially in times of transition. Based in large part on an article by Monica Carless in Elephant Journal, my ritual was in essence my plea to the universe that the news at the next day’s appointment be good: that the tumor be small, the cancer caught early, the stage 1 or 2. I dressed in white, and we lit a fire in the firepit in the backyard. I lit three candles, one each to represent the past, present, and future. I spoke some text, mostly borrowed from Carless, a portion of which went like this:
“Surrendering under a Full Moon becomes a ritual of letting go and breathing in the fine essence of being taken to unknown place. Although our fear may steer us away from valuable lessons, surrender takes us by the hand and guides us to new strengths…. During this Full Moon we are handed a great opportunity to find balance and open-heartedness, forgiveness and hope. Shall we take it, hands held, eyes to a peaceful future? While we could easily to slip into worry and fear, it’s better to surrender to hope—it is a deliberate choice.
During Summer Solstice we are bathed in light from the sun and the moon. At a time when darkness threatens to overwhelm our hearts, we are gifted with more light than we have experienced in months. Is this a signal to trigger our hope? I welcome this Full Moon and Summer Solstice as a herald of good things to come.”
Steve and I then wrote down fears or thoughts we wanted to release, tossed our papers into the fire, and spoke aloud any wishes we wanted to share. I threw sage in the fire for purifying, and lavender for healing and safe passage. I blew out the candles representing the past and present, leaving the future candle to burn into the night.
The next day the news—while far from the worst it could have been—was much worse than we had hoped. Triple negative cancer. A six centimeter mass, lymph nodes involved, Stage 3. More tests needed to be sure it was not Stage 4. Chemotherapy, bilateral mastectomy and radiation all likely. That appointment and the six days that followed still remain one of most traumatic weeks I’ve ever endured.
Seeking equilibrium
The Spring Equinox, March 20th, marked nine months since that summer ceremony of hope, the last evening we were free to imagine a different reality than the one we were presented with the next day. Nine months—a gestation period. It seemed important to mark the Equinox, sometimes called the “day of equilibrium,” with a ceremony as well, as a way of bringing things full circle and signaling my moving forward.
The Spring Equinox celebrates re-birth and renewal. This time I borrowed ritual language from articles on foreverconscious.com, refinery29.com, and whitegoddess.com (sources in links) to create a pastiche script of personal significance that read in part:
“Equinox is the perfect time to honor the growth and the pain, the light and the darkness and all the experiences that have made you who you are today. It is the perfect time to love yourself and learn to find gratitude and peace with the journey you are on,” a time to “manifest, release and create.” Furthermore, “It is a time to meditate on the way change brings balance” a time to cultivate patience and enjoy the process of growth. “Plants don’t burst into bloom the minute their seeds are laid and birds don’t emerge from their eggs fully grown.” It is a “time to free yourself from things which hinder progress” and “to perform “banishings and also perform workings to gain things we have lost, or to gain qualities we wish to have.”
I burned the “Bye-Bye Cancer” signs from my last radiation treatment in a brass pot. Then we smudged the house with a sage smudging stick to cleanse it, and lit a new candle from the flame. We wrote healing intentions, which I placed in a cloth bag with rose petals, flowers being symbols of spring and rebirth, and touched a growing green plant. There were a few tears.
It felt good to mark the Equinox with another ritual, this one focused on cleansing, healing, rebirth, and balance—moving forward along the path I’m actually traveling, rather than wishing for a different journey.
Regaining my footing
A few days after the Solstice, I saw an advertisement for the Science Museum’s annual Butterfly Ball. Steve and I have attended every year since it debuted four years ago, including the May 2016 event, which took place almost a month to the day before my diagnosis.
I didn’t know then it would be the last ball I would dance at for nine months.
We attended several dances during treatment, the first a Halloween ball just after chemo finished in October. I got out on the floor for the Cha-Cha Slide and realized I didn’t have enough strength, or balance, to actually hop when I was supposed to. I had to fake-hop, and after one more line dance, I was done for the evening. We went to the President’s Ball on campus in November; another annual event for us, attending felt like a declaration of normalcy.
Consider: I have danced in the aisles of the Dollar Store, in the parking lot of a beach restaurant, on a deck in the middle of the woods to an iPod. I am always one of the first people on the dance floor, one of the last to leave. This year we spent the President’s Ball sitting down, listening to dueling pianos, watching others take a twirl.
The Butterfly Ball fell early this year, but we got tickets just in time. When we arrived at the Science Museum, a DJ was playing, but by the time we ate, walked through the Butterfly Garden, and visited the on-site science experiments, he’d moved on to karaoke.
We stood with the crowd and listened to the first performer or two. Then someone chose a love song to sing, and I took Steve’s hand. He looked at me skeptically but followed my lead. Who says you can’t dance to karaoke?
Immersed in the music, wrapped in my husband’s arms: it did indeed feel like a rebirth, a new beginning. I can’t yet dance with abandon as I used to; Steve tried to spin me once, and my less-than-flexible upper body reminded me I have more healing to do.
Still, the forgetting, even for a moment, felt good. Almost as good as my feet stepping back out on the floor.
I took a short hiatus to process the conclusion of treatment, but I’ll soon be returning to a regular posting schedule. Thanks, as always, to my readers for their support!
Still Life, Beyond Cancer 
Your spirits are high. Considering where you are…its fine to have lapse. Keep dancing, you and Steve. I send a hug from South Africa.
LikeLiked by 1 person