Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 2 Comments

Ultra-sounding Change

It’s 4:30 in the morning and I am finally feeling like myself again.

Overcoming a string of exhausting days, I wasn’t rolling out of bed until after sunrise, barely feeling like I was keeping up.  Mandatory school meetings, laundry, oil changes, an ultrasound…

Right, the ultrasound.  The third one in the last nine months, monitoring this ever-mysterious growth on my one remaining ovary.  This amalgamation of cells that three months ago the doctor suggested be surgically removed.  After already having two similar surgeries, I asked that we hold off another three months, get another ultrasound, and then decide what to do based on whether the growth had, indeed, grown.

For those following the Archives, you’ll know the process of discovering the growth and my experience in accepting its existence has been threaded throughout posts over the last nine months.  One approach I’ve experimented with has been the ‘zero energy return’ strategy, in which I’ve opted to take periods of time not thinking or writing about it at all.

Other times, I’ve given my situation my focused attention, going so far as to call a truce and fully accept its presence in my life.  This was an interesting endeavor that inspired a few posts, one of which was called “No Enemy“.  The concept was prompted by a sticker on my car – a peaceful logo message from a clothing line based in Santa Cruz, CA.  No Enemy founder, Paul Cheatham, actually stumbled across the post and gave me the affirmative thumbs up (or would that be a peaceable knuckles?) on the thread that I was weaving.  Great to have the man, himself, tell me I’d grasped the concept of his creation.  (Check out his fantastic art in his Love Journal here).

So I may have stopped making the growth the enemy, but I still was demonizing potential surgery.  Every time I thought of going under anesthesia and re-opening old scars, my body would cringe.  That idea I could just not accept.  I was in complete resistance.

Then something changed. Nothing special happened, exactly.  I left that last ultrasound appointment.  The technician was mum, as usual.  I stepped into the sunlight of the hospital parking lot.  I walked to my car, fishing out a grocery list for my next errand in town.  Somewhere between the hospital exit and my car door, I made peace with the potential of surgery.  It was a surrendering like a sigh.  Ok.  If I need to do it, I’m willing.

courtesy of Paul Cheatham of No Enemy

It would be days before I would hear the results of the ultrasound report.  Over that time I settled more and more into the possibility of an operation.  Yesterday, I finally spoke to the doctor, completely prepared for him to, again, suggest that I have the growth surgically removed.  Instead, he told me that the report stated that the growth was “not as prominent” as it had been in the last ultrasound.  In fact, it was not even definitively being referred to as a dermoid cyst anymore.

So prepared for surgery, I pressed the doctor.  “Well, would it be a good idea to just have the surgery and remove this growth, once and for all?”

But he replied, “There is nothing in this report that would merit me scheduling a surgery.”

“Wow.  Well, last time we spoke that was your recommendation.  So, it’s changed?”

“Yes, based on this report, there has been a change.  Nothing shown here warrants surgery or the risk it would put to your ovary if we operated.”

“So should we just have another ultrasound in three months?”

“I’d say six.  There’s nothing in this report that would justify an ultrasound in three months, either.  Six months is fine.”

To be honest, I think I’m still digesting this.  But what I gather so far, is that two ultrasounds showed a growth on my ovary, determined to most likely be a dermoid cyst.  I was told that these kind of cysts will continue to grow slowly and the only way to address them is through surgical removal.  In the past, I have done just that.  Twice.

But now, this growth is not as prominent or definitive.  No surgery is needed at this time.  No ultrasounds required in the near future.  It appears as though the plot has taken a turn.  This doesn’t seem to be the same storyline from my past.  This growth has changed like some elusive shape-shifter.

Did my acceptance lead to a rewrite of an old script?  Was this growth never a dermoid cyst to begin with?  Has this entire scenario been a mere illusion?  Is it possible that this whole chapter has been written as an opportunity to learn?  Perhaps to complete something, once and for all, without a surgical knife.

The story isn’t over yet.  I’m still following this thread.  But I’m inspired by the power of surrender and the seeming change that it can bring.

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Love the Journey

Have you ever been on a strenuous section of a hike, where all talking finally ceases?  The effort to traverse the path takes 100% concentration.  No excess energy can be squandered on conversation.

These past four days of blog silence have been a conscious and concerted effort to preserve my resources.  Like a trailblazer on a crumbly cliff side footpath, far from home with a 45 pound pack, there has been no room for error.  No time to chat.

Interestingly, my two greatest disciplines – writing and yoga – the very rituals I deem as the bedrock of my days – went on pause over the weekend. There is rarely a circumstance that would allow me to usurp these daily practices.  Yet, I found myself on an uphill climb with significant weight, and it captured every ounce of my attention.  My reality became finely honed to one foot in front of the other, one breath at a time.  Nothing more.

Metaphors aside, what the heck was I doing?

Moving to a new house.  With a sore throat and major head cold.

For three days I’ve been blowing my nose, chomping on Jeb’s chewable vitamin C’s and schlepping boxes up the staircase of my new abode.  Instead of practicing sun salutations, I’ve been on my hands and knees, face mask in place, scrubbing gecko poop from the far-reaching baseboards of my closet.

All the creatures of my rural farmhouse dwelling have been saying their goodbyes.  The chickens have congregated to my neglected rack of bananas outside the bedroom window.  Roosters with their puffed up chests, make cocky announcements about who’s the boss of breakfast.

And Saturday night, after I collapsed in a heap of tissue on my bed, I was awoken by a centipede bite around midnight – right in my armpit.

Just about all of my boxes have now been moved.  Jeb and I are living out of our suitcases for these last three days.  I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.  And I wake this morning with clearer nasal passages.  This morning I will resume traditional yoga postures.

Though I’ve been steeped in the potency of pure moving focus, I’ve still experienced moments observing with my writer’s eye.  I’ve still had glimpses of yogic awareness.

I’ve paused to sit on my new balcony, surrounded by potted succulents and ferns.  I’ve seen sunlight stream through blue glass at my kitchen window with a different view.  I’ve taken a deep (yet congested) breath and moved my boxes, one at a time, staying soft and flexible, opening to new possibilities despite challenges.

(Ok, I took a lot of homeopathic flower essences to stay calm, too.)

And in the desire to sow the seeds I want to reap, I’ve given thanks with each baseboard sponge wipe at my old home, grateful for all the house has gifted me these past two years.

Despite the spiders and gecko poop, crowing cocks, copious mucus, endless stair climbs and a centipede in my bed, this move has been relatively smooth.

Though at times I’ve felt like I’m in some strange movie, for the most part, I’ve stood engaged with the moment in this unique precipice of change.  Poised with one foot in the past and one in the future, I walk away from the old and towards the new.

Three days until these posts stream from a new desk at a new address.  There won’t be many roosters at my new pad.  So as annoying as that teenage chicken can be this morning, playing king of the hill on that over-pecked banana rack, I’ll soak up his sunrise crows.  He offers some screeching chime of a reminder – stay present – one breath at a time.  Follow this thread all the way, moment to moment.  From old to new.  Familiar to unknown.

Love the journey.

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

No Enemy

Not much for bumper sticker statements, I’ve always thought it a bit odd to stand on a soapbox while burning fossil fuels.

My vehicle does feature a few ornamental declarations.  There’s my license plate frame from the Surfrider Foundation with the request to “Respect the Beach.”  There’s a Polynesian rendering of a dolphin on Jeb’s backseat window, put there when he was small.  And there’s the simple, round decal suggesting “No Enemy“, adhered there to remind me, as much as anyone else.

http://www.noenemy.org

Perhaps like any profound truth, these sentiments reveal themselves in time.  Often beginning with the receiver of the message nodding in easy affirmation,  “Of course!”  But only through stages does the depth of the lesson unfold.

So it is for me and No Enemy.  Another layer has been shed, another strata to explore has been uncovered.

What if one were to apply No Enemy to disease?  To consider that which presents itself in our life as an illness (even a life-threatening one) not as an enemy.

I don’t have a life-threatening disease.  I am facing a health issue that I have been resistant to write about here in the Archives.  Snippets of my journey with a dermoid cyst on my ovary have threaded their way here on occasion, but for the most part I have remained quiet on this topic.  Mostly because I have come to no conclusions and often have not even found any interesting question beyond “why?”

For twenty years these growths have periodically announced their presence in my life, and twice I have undergone the surgical knife in order to remove them.  On one occasion the growth was so determined it overcame my ovary, resulting in the loss of a precious organ.  It would be easy to see how I could resent these persistent tumors (benign but troublesome all the same).  It could be easy to hate them (and I have).  Fight them (I’ve tried).  Wage a battle to eradicate them once and for all (a mission I have attempted, and honestly, still pursue).

The mystery (and subtle beauty, actually) is that no doctors have any idea why these growths develop and there are no known alternatives to surgery that have proven to dissolve them.  Hence, with an aversion to a third surgery, I have been left to face this present growth in all of its existence.  Ever the communicator that I am, last week we had a conversation.

Ok, it may sound strange, but the growth itself is strange and if there are options between an operating room or some dialogue, I’ll pick the chat.  Of course, I had to settle down.  Be in a still space.  But once my head was calmed, the message from this growth was clear.

It has a desire for life.  It wants to fulfill its potential.  It is compelled to grow.

Instead of shunning this mass of cells attached to my ovary, I was able for the first time to meet it in neutral territory.  It simply wanted to be.

I can relate to this.  Maybe you can too.  I want to grow.  I have an ever-burning desire to fulfill my life’s potential.  I want to be free to be.  And I don’t want to be shunned or dishonored for that.

Once I could meet the growth from this place, everything within me shifted.  I wasn’t fighting anymore.  I wasn’t resisting.  I was accepting from a very matter-of-fact perspective.  A growth of cells on my ovary wants to fulfill its potential and grow.  Ok.

For now, I’m left with knowing this but also recognizing that this growth puts my ovary at risk if it continues to grow.  From my perspective, the only way to support my overall physical health is for the growth to dissolve.

So the questions remain.
Can I honor the growth and request its death?
Is it possible that through its dissolution its potential can still be fulfilled?
Can I lovingly come in to greater health without “battling” an illness or “fighting” a disease?

Is the ultimate healing one without an enemy?

I’m still on the journey, following this thread.  For now, this is what I have discovered.

I remain open.  Curious.  Looking, learning, listening…