Latvian Adventure

So I am counting down the days until I arrive in Riga, Latvia,  to investigate Rigvir viral therapy. My faith in chemo this time around is dwindling and I need a shaft of gallant light to shine on a chemical free option. The light in question is glistening in the Baltics, beckoning me like a chalice of magic to come and try....it could end up like a chalice offered by the 'cure all' circus fellows promising an elixir of endless life, but at the very least, a distraction from my current concerns.

I am currently wrapping myself in a blanket absorbing all comforts before I rejuvenate my being into some kind of positive action, directed and defiant against cancer. I seem to be letting the blighter win at the moment, my energy levels sunk into an abyss of nonchalance and minor despair.

A friend from my breast cancer group has just run 5k and got a certificate. I thought to myself, I should be doing this, I should be stepping up and pushing myself, a couple of years ago I completed a 10k run and wanted to go on to do the half marathon but got side tracked with uni and immersing myself in study.

I want to pick up that baton though, instead of staring at it from a distance.(of around 10k)

 I also saw a Macmillan Nepal trek advertised, which really peaked my senses. I am not sure I could raise £4000 to go and do it though and if I did there is no guarantees I would be well enough this time next year...but I yearn for adventure, to be up a mountain, trekking for a purpose. Last time I was in Nepal it was 1997, but I found it a magical place, of fresh mountain air and spirituality, friendly faces at every turn (apart from when I saw an old woman kicking a puppy against the wall of a temple, I sank down in my air conditioned bus seat and zipped my fleece up to the eyes, pretending I hadn't seen it). People though, were raw and real, mostly smiling, welcoming, humble.

The experience I remember very vividly was seeing the living goddess Kumari in Durbar square Kathmandu. A child....taken from her parents at around 3 years old she is thrust into life as a living deity, as the incarnation of Taleju, (although I thought it was the incarnation of Lakshmi, but wikipedia begs to differ). Her feet not allowed to touch the ground as she is carried everywhere on a sedan chair. As I looked at the this goddess through an ornately carved window in durbar square, her eyes heavily made up, she glanced out at her adoring sentients. A sadness almost in her eye's, she is but a child, only allowed to play with certain caste members of her age. Her elevation to deity, coming at a price, as when her period comes, the goddess incarnate is said to leave her body and she then is ejected back into society.....shunned as an EX goddess, anyone that marries her is said to be cursed and doomed, therefore a solitary celibate life for the ex goddess.

My friend and I debated heavily on the humanitarian aspect of this child deity. My deeply rose coloured  spiritual spectacles remained dedicated to the holiness of the goddess for those that worshipped her and the whole cultural meaning, but on reflection the unimaginable magnitude and impact on this little childs life, both an honour and a curse in equal measure.



No Nepal for me right now, but instead I look forward to Latvia, a little adventure encased in a nugget of hope. Hope that maybe I can start to think of treks again, half marathons and the like......

Letting go of 'The Fear'

So the last couple of days have been interesting. I have defined this secondary breast cancer journey, like most people in my position as a roller coaster for want of a better analogy (as I think that one is possibly over used). Sometimes I feel like I am on the verge of death, not as in my symptoms but in my state of mind, the not knowing when or how it will happen but knowing that it will be sooner rather than later, perhaps it is a gift to be embraced, the 'knowing' bit, the 'knowing' can alternate between extreme fearlessness and excitement about the fact my subconscious is letting me pursue my every whim and desire, without any restrictive containment of 'lots of time', and extreme despair of how I cannot control the progression of the cancer or the ability to stay on this planet for my daughter to watch her grow up and all that, that entails. When I visit my oncologist like I did the other day, she manages to inject me with some much needed fearlessness and hope again, it hasn't gone to my bones, although my joints look abit inflammed and some little thing on my jaw but they are sure it is nothing, I avoid letting myself create images of some a jaw cancer ravaging my face. She also confirmed that there are some other treatments in the arsenal and that on the vast spectrum of death by secondary breast cancer, I am still teetering at the early stages of that spectrum, but I know this can change on a sixpence as it were. This injects me with the permission I need to get 'experiencing' and reconnecting with people again with what appears to be no boundaries. I am not even afraid to approach celebrities to try and raise the awareness of secondary breast cancer, to try and fund some much needed research as breast cancer funds get lost and only a tiny percent. I think even 7% of funds go to secondary breast cancer...this is quite simply not good enough, it is the final curtain in the breast cancer world and yet it gets the least funding? It is hard not to dwell on the big pharma conspiracy theory as nothing else seems to explain why the funding and the research is not resulting in any 'cures' just 'treatments....that prolong your life....but you will need these chemical treatments to live'.....I also find myself wanting to get back to nature as much as I can as if it has some kind of answer for me, like I am reconnecting with some kind of life force in preparation for what lies ahead , or to try and live as hard as possible. I have booked myself into a fire yule ceremony on the 23rd of December, with lots of other earth seekers. I am looking forward to it.....some real earth connection stuff maaaan.