Reflection 8 Climbing the cliffs


Roughness is relative. I have had events in my life that caused suffering, times I would never want to experience again. I have been ill on occasion – a virus, or the flu can get your attention. A kidney stone has brought tears and nausea and pain that only morphine could extinguish. But my week in the hospital following the radiation and subsequent chemo combo was physically and emotionally draining. I spent each day mostly staring at walls, aching emotionally and physically, and doing little else.

When one of my early esophageal dilations went terribly wrong, I awoke to a second much more traumatic and lengthy hospital stent, having lost movement in the entire left side of my body. I anguished through the next few days with the uncertainty of when or even if I could move normally again. The two weeks plus for that hospital trial were much worse than the prior hospitalization that I thought was so uncomfortable.

But I was totally unprepared for the surprise awaiting me on my third hospitalization, awaking from a nightmare, unable to speak, with a tube in my throat and skeletal from weight loss. I was in that facility even longer, and returned periodically for brief admissions after that because I couldn’t quite shake off the demons.

When you think you can’t handle any more, you amaze yourself when you cross over that peak and discover yourself to be a stronger person when you stand again, on the other side.