Thursday, March 14, 2013

Slash-n-Burn

     I can't shake the waking remnants of the dream from a few days ago. The sleep was drug fueled and sporadic, hardly restful sleep. I drifted to awareness with a vague dread, a cautious hopefulness that maybe today I would be myself, not the steroid-raging shell of exhausted alertness that stared me down in the mirror. I can't look at that woman in the mirror. Her eyes are spent, yet intense, boring  into my own eyes, demanding something, anything other than the status quo.
     I woke with the absolute surety that my midsection was a pile of embers, a pile of charred bits of black. A deep pile that would stick to my fingers if I touched my belly. It smelled.  I so wanted to touch it and verify that my belly had indeed been incinerated. I did not touch it. It was just a dream, after all.
     But it is not just a dream. I yearn to have the landscape of my belly be laid clean. I believe that the way to healing is through treatment. I spend hours visualizing my belly as a pink happy place, with shiny healthy cells. This a step further down the path. I have to push forward through the tangled undergrowth and clean it out.  I can visualize the pink healthfulness there, made possible by the passing devastation of chemotherapy.

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