The Fantastic Four, Assisted by Flower Faeries, Elves, and Oompa Loompas

Today, as I thought about my visualization of healing this Bat Cave, I thought that I shouldn't just call on my spirit helper, but also on Batman. Then, when I thought about healing, I remembered Claire, the Cheerleader, on the TV shoe, Heroes.

Scott has been an avid watcher of this show since the beginning, but I didn't take the time to watch it also. By the time I would've started watching it, so much had happened that I wouldn't be able to follow along. I decided to finally watch it when I saw Season 1 come out on DVD, so I bought the 5-disc set (this was post-surgery) and proceeded to watch all the episodes. I'm hooked.

Unfortunately, I tuned in too late to catch any of the short-lived Season 2 (only 11 episodes because of the writers' strike last fall), but I hear tell that Season 2 comes on DVD in two days. Guess who will be buying a set? Yep, yours truly. I've seen some of the previews for the new season, so I absolutely need to get caught up beforehand. (One day, as we were standing in line to rent DVDs for Eddie, I saw a Heroes magazine. I bought it. Silly me. But it was interesting and fun to read. There was a quiz you could take to determine what Hero you were. Guess who I was? Mohinder Suresh, the professor without powers. I figured that was about right. Scott was Nikki. He wanted to be the guy who can fly - Nathan, but instead he was this two-personality Hero.)

Anyway, I thought of Claire the Cheerleader, so this morning, I invited her and Bat Man both to help in the healing effort. Bat Man creates cool, handy gadgets - a nice guy to put together the scaffolding - and Claire supplies the healing energy and my helper guy designs the whole thing. I play hostess and supply grunt work!

Carver commented to my earlier post today (To the Bat Cave) that she was going to beam flower faeries to help in the effort. She had this beautiful photo of a blue flower she posted at Carver Cards that had this wonderful white beam of light in the middle - I said something like it seemed like a place where one could beam to and she replied, "Beam Me Up, Scotty!", so that's where beaming the flower faeries come in.

I asked elves to help in my earlier post, but since I thought about Gene Wilder and the Chocolate Factory a couple of weeks ago, I decided to ask for some help from those industrious Oompa Loompas, too. Can't hurt, huh?

Thanks again, everyone!

The Spirit Helper

Within about a week or so after my surgery, after I received the news that there were tendrils of cancer throughout the breast tissue and I was facing the possibility of chemo, radiation, etc., (and I didn't want to go that route unless I absolutely needed to), I was fairly depressed and I despaired of making a decision. That was in late November.

I went to sleep about 10pm one night, after talking to Scott. I fell right out. Then, I sensed something. I struggled to open my eyes, as they felt dried out from the contacts. When I finally could open them, there was a balding man in a robe standing to the right side of the bed. I looked at him. He looked at me with a gaze that was somber - not menacing or happy, but with a resolute look on his face. It scared the bejeezus out of me.

Then, I woke up for real. I opened my eyes and there was no one by the bed. I looked at my alarm clock - 10:40pm. I called Scott (he's a night owl) back right away as I was a bit freaked out.

His first question to me was: "Which side of the bed was he on?" I replied, the right side. Scott said, "that's good". I asked why and he said that if it had been on the left side, it would've been bad news, but the right side is good news. His interpretation was that this visitor (as I came to call him) was trying to tell me that it might be hard but that it would all work out at the end.

I'd just finished reading Bernie Segal's Love, Medicine, and Miracles", which is about a group of Exceptional Cancer Patients who, by virtue of positive thinking (and this is just a quick take on the book) and meditation and visualization, assist in their own cure from cancer.

I found it inspiring so my first thought was that this visitor was Bernie giving me a message. My mom asked if it could possibly be my paternal grandfather. Perhaps.

Then, in June, I read a book entitled "Many Lives, Many Masters" by Brian Weiss, which is about using hypnosis to learn about past-lives in order to cure people from fears, phobias, disease, etc. Individuals that called themselves "Masters" would occasionally talk to Brian through his patient and teach him things. One point he makes is that we are here on earth to learn certain lessons and I began thinking about what some of my own lessons might be. They included things like rewriting this idea in my head that I don't belong, learning to let go of anger, frustration, and resentment over other people's actions, learning not to try to control or manipulate other people, etc. I mentioned this to my acupuncturist on a Friday and then to Scott, who performed reiki on me on the next day, that my intention was to learn these lessons and let go of certain things. My acupuncturist treated me with the intention of balancing some of these ancestral issues.

And, because of those treatments, I think I have changed. Those issues were toxic to my relationship with Scott. He commented last week that he thinks there has been a big change. I feel it, too, because there have been several times when I could've gotten really angry and then manipulative or turned around a depression, or been resentful of something, but I haven't gone there. My reactions have changed and that's a good thing.

I've since begun thinking of my visitor as one of those Masters. It has been a difficult experience, especially these past six months when I learned I had metastases. But I feel so different inside that I think the CT scan results will come back clean.

Now, I just need to get through this Bat Cave experience. I know I can do it. I've encountered many obstacles in this experience and I made it through. It's interesting phenomenon for me to say this, but, I have faith. I called on this Master or spirit helper to help heal the radiation burn. I called on him to help me with the Stray Cat Strut. I called on him last night when I woke up to start healing this cavity.

And, I woke up in a good mood, thinking, "To the Bat Cave!" Thank you to everyone who help me on this journey by praying for me, sending me blessings and good thoughts and good energy. It has really really helped.

To the Bat Cave!

Sooo, is this a reference to the Dark Knight? Well, yes, sort of.

I woke up thinking of that phrase, "To the Bat Cave!" and it's because as I tried to explain what it is we're trying to heal to Scott, I said that I have this little cave under my right chest, where the tissue expander used to be.

I now have an open hole, about an inch in diameter, where the tissue expander poked through. This is the hole the plastic surgeon yanked the expander out of and is the "entrance" to the cave. Once you go through the hole, this cave is about 8mm high, about 6.5 cm long, and 3.5 cm wide, with this 2.5-3cm white entrance on the right end (which is my right). At the edges of the entrance hole, the tissue is about 1cm on the "top" side and about 2cm laterally.

Lovely.

As I understand it, what we want to encourage is that my body grow tissue from the rib-side of the hole up to the top of this cave. So, I have to grow tissue that's 8mm tall, 6.5cm long, and 3.5cm wide. It will probably take 2-3 months and I may have to wear the "Vac" - the vacuum wound pump for as long as 2 months, depending on how well I tolerate it. I will wear this pump as a fanny pack. It makes a small amount of noise. But, as I understand it, the pump whisks away any moisture, which might harbor microbes, and it will also encourage red blood cells and blood vessels to the area for healing and for building new tissue.

I need to try to eat more protein. I've been trying, but I guess I could try to eat like Michael Phelps, who reported a daily diet of 8-10,000 calories; the breakfast he eats is enough to feed my whole family!! Protein will help my anemia as well as help build new tissue.

I was feeling discouraged last night, both because of the news of the wound pump and the fact that I still had a temperature; when the Tylenol started wearing off, it was 100. Sigh.

Although I didn't get to sleep until 12:30am (watching the women's gymnastics event), I slept fairly well and I had a lot less discomfort than the night before. The wound care nurse didn't pack the cavity with as much gauze (she thought the plastic surgeon put a whole roll of gauze in there!), so I think that that decreased some of the pressure. I was even able to sleep on my right side, which I hadn't really been able to do for several days.

So, last night, I started some visualization about this wound. Sometime, I will post about this visitor I had post-surgery in November. Since June, I've thought of him as a spirit helper of sorts. Sometimes, when I do the stray cat strut visualization, he's helping me kick out the cancer cells. Last night, I visualized him and me looking around the Bat Cave, taking a tour of sorts. Then, I started to visualize the tissue on the bottom (i.e., nearest the ribs) healing, by imagining a small group of elves building new tissue using cells as building blocks. So, when you think of me, help imagine these little elves rebuilding the tissue underneath. I would appreciate it!

I woke up in a good mood, though! Something changed during the night. Not sure what yet, but I think I won't have the fever any longer. Time will tell! Have a good day everyone!