End of Life Matters
End of life Doula Melissa Murphy, a companion, guide and resource supporting our community in end of life matters.
www.starsbeyondourskin.com
Day T-minus one. As afternoon turned to evening, I recall a sense of dread filling my chest while heaviness descended to my stomach. This fear and uncertainty that began months ago was familiar; the feelings expected, albeit intensified, as my mind created images of you being sent off to battle. How I loathe that expression – often used to describe having treatment for and living with cancer. You start tomorrow – five days a week for five weeks. Your summer job. Although you’ve been in the throes of preparing your body, mind, and spirit, as well as navigating, researching, communicating with providers/family/other survivors – months before now.
Nearly every day, I keep reminding myself that it’s July, nearing August. It feels like we’re living in a parallel universe in this climate while also inside your reality. Perhaps I should be grateful for the shades of grey that have graced most of the days lately – in many ways, they seem fitting to the mood of the moment. It must be the strangest summer since lockdown except back then it was surprisingly easeful, whereas present time is often unsettling. Go figure. Your days have been interrupted while nature’s canvas appears to be in-between seasons. The bountiful flower bushes have been vacant of butterflies and the bees are few, while chanterelles are already popping up. I swear I’ve also seen leaves shifting to red and brown already.
Today you will have completed twelve treatments and the way you’re meeting this episode of your life humbles me. I probably shouldn’t be surprised, but in the past you said you wouldn’t imagine choosing such treatment if you were faced with cancer. We both know now that until we’re in it, we simply do not know. Yet what I am witnessing now is you meeting this prognosis with grace. I experience you as a calm, practical, inquisitive, disciplined person – possibly more than you were before. I see your profound emotional maturity and humility. Somehow you have more humour than usual – a gift that lightens the emotional load for both of us. I tell you I’m going for a bite to eat or to a cultural event (thank goodness for summer in that respect) and you smile, teasing “who will take care of me?” It feels like you’re teaching me how to do life. To be sure, there would be complaints and emotional outbursts if the tables were turned. Only when I specifically ask, I might hear that you have a bit of a headache, some nausea or fatigue. The hardest part is the travelling to and from – not so much the treatments you insist.
Day two. I’m invited to go for a routine scan myself, involving radiation, as my name has come up on a list. I offer that I can meet and accompany you for one leg of the journey and you agree that this would be nice. At last I feel I can ‘do’ something tangible; to be there with you during one of these many long days. While at my appointment, I ask the technician about the process I’m about to go through, less because I am afraid, more so that I’m attempting to put myself in your shoes for a moment. “It’s like taking a transatlantic flight,” they say; “such a tiny amount of radiation.” What sounds like a miniscule percentage is then offered. Yes, but is this machine like what a cancer patient might encounter during their treatments?, I ask. “Oh that radiation is something else altogether,”comes the reply. I decided not to elaborate further.
Day five. It’s been said that when you’re going through life transitions such as grief and loss, the people you least expect, sometimes so-called strangers, will appear, while others retreat from your world for whatever reason (ironically some did so before this chapter even began). Someone I hardly know but who attentively checks in, suggests a walk accompanied by selections of poetry including a personalised one they’ve created for the moment. You are open to this unique idea so we go – the three of us – and I notice my wanting to check in with you multiple times to know if you’re doing ok (after all this is a proper hill walk it turns out) however I have quickly come to notice that you are often leading our trio and I am the only one sucking wind. Gratefully, we pause often to sit and enjoy the stillness; to take in the vastness contrasting our smallness. Our new poet friend reads from his notebook; a prayer of sorts for the rest of this cancer/healing journey, (however long it may be, I think) “…from your wound is the medicine. Now let nature tend and stitch you into a rebirth that was always meant to be…” I received a voice message later that evening from the writing angel acknowledging your “strength, stoicism and inner knowing. I know we haven’t known each other long, but I think all will be well,” said our walking companion, as if blessing us.
Day six. I routinely forget that this is your reality until I see you reach for those 500mg tablets or check your blood pressure. I’ve not yet seen you have to look after your health in this way – it’s only ever been an au natural existence. A friend tells me that he supported a family member who had the same cancer, cautioning me about potential after-effects that could present as an accumulation post- treatment. While not entirely new information, I felt resistant to having my protective bubble burst while simultaneously craving and appreciating the straight talk. Especially in weeks gone past where small chat, answering vaguely, or simply replying I’m well to the question of how I’m keeping makes me want to jump out of my skin.
Today post treatment, you are pale, a bit warm even. I calmly enquire how you are, continually observing: is that you trying to smile, though maybe a bit bewildered? Although you don’t say it yourself, I surmise that it may have been an undignified kind of day. In truth, how could any of them not be? “I just need to lay down for a while,” you say. Noticing the sun has come out for the first time this afternoon, I realise I need to drink water and return to what I’ve been writing.
“The art of life is to stay wide open and be vulnerable, yet at the same time to sit with the mystery and the awe and with the unbearable pain – to just be with it all” – Ram Dass
To learn more or to connect with Melissa, email her at starsbeyondourskin@gmail.com or visit www.starsbeyondourskin.com. She also welcomes your questions or ideas for future columns.
