Background and overview

I learnt more about the health system from being an inpatient than I had in 20 years of working as a neuropsychologist. I was unexpectedly diagnosed with two brain tumours on 4/9/13. They turned out to be grade IV Gliomas (glioblastoma multiforme (GBM)). After removal of the right parietal and left occipital tumours, I received the standard treatment under the Stupp protocol (combined Temozolamide (TMZ) and conformal radiotherapy 5 days/week for 6 weeks), but the TMZ had to be ceased after 5 weeks because I had started to develop pancytopenia, where more than one of my blood counts had begun to drop. By Christmas 2013, I had become anaemic and needed a couple of blood transfusions. I ended up in hospital for 3 weeks of the 2014 new year after experiencing my first seizure (suggestive of a right temporal lobe focus) on 31/12/13). They were so worried about my bone marrow, they did a biopsy. Luckily, it was all clear of any nasty disorders. It had just been suppressed by the TMZ My blood counts slowly returned to normal with daily injections of GCSF, which stimulate bone marrow function, for several months. For 17 months I was doing better each day, without any physical impairments or major cognitive problems A third brain tumour was found in the right temporal lobe on 2/1/15, and removed 6/1/15, only to reappear on 17/2/15 after I started to feel vague symptoms at the end of 2014. I had my 4th round of brain surgery on 1/3/15, followed by stereotaxic radio surgery of a residual, inoperable, tumour, on 17/4/15. I've been feeling like my old self again since that highly precise form of radiotherapy, and it feels fabulous.

My way of coping.
I choose to live in hope that everything will work out for the best. I've learnt that even though things are sometimes unpleasant, life and love go on forever. I put my faith in the life force that created and unites us all in love, across all time, space, and dimensions. I refuse to succumb to fear, which is an invention of our imaginations. There are an infinite number of things to fear, both in this world an in our imaginations, and most of them never eventuate. I choose not to dwell on them, and to focus instead on counting my many blessings, current and past, and to have faith and hope that if I look after the present moment, the future will look after itself.

If you're reading, and haven't been in touch, please don't be shy, send me a brief private message using the contact form on the right. It's nice to know who's out there. Blogging can leave me feeling a little isolated at times (I used to have recurrent dreams of being out on a limb over a canyon, or of starting to strip off in a crowded waiting room). Your emails are appreciated, although I can't necessarily answer all of them.


Friday, 13 September 2013

Jokes, and karma

Did you hear about the Tasmanian neuropsychologist with a brain tumour?


They'd finally found
 her second head!!!


Boom, boom!

I moved to Melbourne to study Neuropsych at Uni in 1986, and was surprised to hear 2-headed Tasmanian jokes from nearly everyone I met. Back at school in Tassie, I don't recall having heard hearing any, but the joke was so ubiquitous in Melbourne that I quickly learnt to act amused. To not do so would have been like being a kiwi who did not laugh at the sheep jokes. Not cool! Everyone knew about the sheep, right? (I actually felt a secret bond with the poor kiwis, as the sheep jokes could have easily applied to Tasmanians, but I wasn't going to subject my fellow taswegians to more mockery and derision. Keep a low profile, laugh along with the jokes, keep out of trouble, survive).

So thanks, every one of you self-satisfied, smug,sophisticated, smarmy Victorians who indicated your ignorant prejudices about Tasmanians through the 2-headed jokes. You made me grow one! Bastards!!!

Just joking.

just like one of my friends, who commented in a recent email, I need to examine my beliefs about karma. I think I've been slightly smug in that department, and had assumed that my karmic debt wasn't too bad this life. I certainly haven't  committed any atrocities. I was almost boring (no, was definitely boring) at school because I was too afraid to get into trouble, I've tried to put others before myself and to be kind, generous and compassionate throughout my life (failing most with those I love the most, but I think they forgive me). I've been guilt of envy, lust, greed, pride, sloth, anger ... But who hasn't? I don't think I'm being punished for my sad satisfaction that I've tried to be the best person I could be, and for desiring to be a bodhisattva, like Avalokitesvara, who chose to keep returning to earth to save sentient beings from their suffering, rather than to go to the Buddhafields where everything is pretty blissful, apparently. No attachment to cause suffering, just lots of love. See, I was aiming high in my spiritual aspirations. Saving all souls from suffering, that would be joy. But it also speaks of attachment, and holds the root of suffering in its lofty aims. The suffering and losses I've seen make me realise that karma, if such a thing exists, does go back many, many lives, and that it is impossible to know the karmic debt of  one soul. Trying to make sense of the suffering inflicted on one person or family is impossible. But if I focus on my growing belief that we are all interconnected creatures of light, which is love, then I feel a lightness and absolute belief that all will be well. 

The events of this life are like waves on the shore: Rhythmic, sighing, gentle, crashing, stormy, yearning, caressing, hungry, giving. Each of us is following our own tides, but we move through this life together, and while our souls will pass onto other dimensions as our time in these mortal bodies ends, our loving essence will live forever in the hearts of those we've known, even the strangers we've smiled at or encountered. How absolutely beautiful!

I remember three periods when I could almost see the beautiful interconnectedness and onness of all people. The first: walking down Little Bourke st in Melbourne in 1991, after watching my first real neurosurgery. All those people, so many shapes and sizes, all walking around thanks to an exquisitely delicate and marvellously wonderful brain. I could visualise their brains I their heads, and it was wonderful. Pinky, pearlescent, pulsing brains hovering over grey coats walking in the twilight. Second : after having David, and then Nathaniel, for a few weeks, every human being was a defenceless newborn, craving love, and deserving it still, even the most irascible with cactus suits grown through life's hardness. My heart embraced them all and wished them love. Third: after dad and  Marita died last year, my friend Libby gave me Eben Alexander's Proof of Heaven, and my heart swelled with love for each person I saw, knowing that our souls are eternal are bonded by love, and that no matter what suffering we  experience in this life, it's infintessimally small compared to the full scope and wonder of existence. And we're never apart from the ones we love, because we're all manifestations of one great being of love.

I'd best try and sleep again, Nathaniel snuggled against me. I feel calm and restored after leaving hospital, and the fears have lessened. We found and removed the big GBM that would have killed me quickly if left undetected. Now it's just a case of working through the next tumour (3 heads, for good measure?), chemo, and radiotherapy. And turning my focus entirely to loving and cherishing my family 

A sweet person sent me an image from Facebook. I like it.

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