The Hidden Journey. Christine Lister
demise.
It seems he is okay at the moment but the probability of the melanoma spreading is 30% – moderately high. They can and will monitor him. It’s also possible for him to be involved in a clinical trial of an anti-cancer vaccine.11
I hear possum activity outside. Life goes on. So will ours. I have to learn to deal with it better because the pain is starting to cripple me. It seems a long time since the melanoma was diagnosed. In reality it’s a short time that feels very long.
We are going to see David to query him about the Ludwig Institute and the trial. Apart from the inconvenience, there doesn’t seem any reason not to participate if Rex is a suitable candidate. Going to the Austin once or twice a week for three months will be my trial.
I feel so vulnerable and sad. I hurt so much inside and out. I try to obliterate the pain with pills and alcohol. It’s a recipe for trouble long term, but it is my crutch until life stabilises. I am not ready for this challenge. I wasn’t even expecting it. I was enjoying my new found life and freedom too much.
Now life has stopped me in its tracks once more. We’re over the first hurdle but in the back of my mind there is a worm telling me the melanoma could be back. I should be ecstatic Rex is okay, but I’m not. I’m scared. I don’t trust life will be okay for us. I hate cancer. The original tumour penetrated the lymph. Somehow, somewhere, some day the cancer cells will show up again. I’m a lady in waiting.
I am marking time, waiting, praying, hoping. Rex is under threat. My whole way of life is threatened, suspended. Everything I hold dear, everything I have worked towards this past year was testament to the future I believed in. Now the future is clouded, shrouded in mist. Time feels like my enemy.
There is an air of unreality to my world. I want to hide, lick my wounds, but I can’t. I must keep my brave face on, my full-of-hope-and-confident face. Muscles tighten like screws, squeezing my skull, hardening my shoulders.
Saturday 31/3/01
I’m starting to realise these are the challenges we will be facing for the rest of our life. Rex has survived this crisis, as he will survive many more. I will have my own health crises, but please not yet.
I must rid myself of this neck and shoulder pain. I understand why it is with me. It comes from the stress and emotion of Rex’s cancer. I also understand I can’t tolerate it much longer. I must free myself from pain. This means I must free myself from the negative thoughts and gloom that have dominated me. Whatever life we have ahead, we will live it together and happily. We will do what we want when we want now because there may not be enough time tomorrow.
Rex told David, ‘The odds may be 30% or 1 in 3 of recurrence but in reality they’re 50-50. You’re either alive or you’re dead. That’s it. It could be a bus or a car. You’re either here or you’re not. No use worrying about it.’
He says he’s staying strong for me so I’ll know he’s invincible. I don’t want him to pretend or hide anything. I don’t think he can, but he realises how important he is in my world. My safety and security, my base foundation are derived from him in large measure. If he is threatened, then I am too.
I am planting once more – Rex Robustas and anniversary trees. I am letting the season and the garden heal me, nurture me.
Six weeks later. Letter 9/5/01
Dear Gregory (still fondly in the guardian angel genus):
I have written to you so often in my mind but today I am doing it for real. It is so long since I’ve seen you, yet you are with me constantly.
Autumn is nearly over. I love autumn, the beautiful still days, the sunlight filtering through the trees, the changing colours of the leaves, the crunch of leaves under our feet when the dogs and I walk in the park, and the coolness which allows me to snuggle up in bed with my hottie and electric blanket and a book or Rex, if he is there.
Most of my important dates and anniversaries are in autumn - my birthday, Rex’s birthday, our wedding anniversary, and my retirement, when I first went overseas, when I first bought this house. It is the time I most love being in the garden spending hours recreating new pockets of beauty. It is a magical time, a time for reflection and celebration after the harshness of summer.
This year I added one more celebration, perhaps the most special of all. We got another chance at life. Rex has been pronounced free of cancer (melanoma) after a traumatic few months. Although the medical pundits say he has a moderately high risk of recurrence, for now we can fly again.
I was so scared of losing him. I thought my life was over just when I had started to live. But of course it wasn’t and it won’t be. The strength and resilience I learnt at your side guides me still, allows me to feel my pain, to understand I’m not being punished, that life just threw me a curved ball when I least expected it. With support from close friends and family, I did cope.
I have had the most wonderful year since I retired. I have never been so happy, contented or calm. With my body free of pain my mind and spirit ran free, giving me glimpses of paradise here on earth. I feel good about myself, that what I am doing is right for me. The dogs and Rex have thrived with the quality time I have for them. I can hear them. I listen to what they say.
The garden talks to me too. This is my passion, where my creative energies come alive. Amidst the forest of native plants, grasses, herbs, spring bulbs, brilliant deciduous autumn trees, orchids and roses are emerging in pots and across archways. The garden is ever changing, just like the weather and me. I walk in it, sit in it, marvel at it and drink it in. I dream of what I can do, then I make it happen, bit by bit. And then I walk, sit, marvel and drink it in some more.
The parrots and rosellas still come, but now the smaller birds, like eastern spinebills, honeyeaters and pardalotes are returning. Fishes and their babies swim lazily and carefree in the newly planted pond. The ringtail and brushy tailed possums have moved in too. This is definitely the place to be. I love it. So do the plants and animals.
Walking, meditating and writing are part of nearly every day. Each morning as I write in my journal I allow my thoughts and feelings to wander freely across the pages, to reflect on life and living, and all things both large and small. It is here I find you most often, hear you, talk to you, reach out to you, and revisit what I learned about me with you as my guide. I talk to my journal as openly as I talked with you. I reveal myself and in so doing accept who and what I am and better understand what is happening to me. I even let Rex read my journals when he feels the need. I’m not scared by it. Funnily enough, neither is he.
Amidst all this spirituality, reflection and freedom to develop the new me, I found I needed an intellectual challenge. I turned to business and finance - setting up and running our own superannuation fund and investment company. For the first time in my life I feel truly happy, a happy that pervades deep into my soul. My world is smaller, more secure and so beautiful. I allow the people in it to care for me, to love me and hold me. The dogs adore me and want to be with me. I am on my own a lot, but rarely feel lonely. I have found a peace I never knew existed and glimpses of paradise to entice me on for years.
All my treasures, mementos and guardian angels have been resurrected to adorn our house and garden to ward off evil spirits. I know the intense pain I feel at the moment is a legacy of our brush with death. I feel a deep certainty the pain will go, although my body takes longer than I would like to heal. The old wounds are deep, but they no longer haunt me, cannot hold me in their sway. I am at one with Rex, closer than we have ever been; yet I am free, free to be me.
Gregory, I treasure my time spent with you. Because of it I can seek out and treasure all that is precious in my life. I know I will also have a life worth living even if Rex can’t be with me forever.
We go overseas for two months in September, autumn in Europe. This will be the journey of a lifetime, the journey we never thought we would make.
I find it hard to write to you. I grieve anew, yet I feel you are with me. If I write again it will probably be in autumn, from one hemisphere or another.
May your life be as blessed as mine.