CANCER VISUALS

Two days after treatment and I'm feeling pretty okay. I've had a couple of hot flushes during the day today, but nothing too bad. I'm trying not to stress out too much about these and just hope they are a side effect of the treatment and nothing too ominous.

My stomach is permanently full - the chemo seems to slow down my system although this is getting a little better each time and I'm not suffering too much with constipation anymore, which seems to be quite a common complaint! However, I do take indigestion tablets for a week after treatment and this helps. My anti sickness drugs do cause a fuzzy headed feeling which is peculiar, and gets progressively worse until about day 6. We'll wait and see on that one. I was in work today and had a pretty good day, not feeling too tired and we had a fun day. I think it helps to keep going when you can and being upbeat certainly stops you feeling "cancery".

My visualizations are really becoming part of my day now, and I have a relaxation tape which I am also using to get me into the frame of mind. I even tried it on the bus home from work today which made the journey a little more productive.

We are able to do amazing things with our minds - I think we either never learn this or those of us who do forget. My drama training was full of exercise for the body and mind and in the 10 years that I have been out of college these techniques and routines have dwindled and been lost. Working in an office environment certainly zaps the energy and although I have had bouts of enthusiastic fervor and got into regular exercise again or joined a gym, various things have happened to prevent this becoming a lifelong commitment. Something I hope to change. I also used to take acting classes quite regularly to keep my creativity going but again this isn't too compatible with a day job.

The best actor's retain a child like quality of enthusiasm and imagination - and visualization is just one way of re-igniting that stretching of the mind. I think going through these processes of visualizing ourselves healthy and well leads us into thinking positively toward our new futures.

I am believing more and more that one of the many reasons why I got Hodgkin's disease is that I have lost my creative outlet - I am a classic "bottler" of emotions and I feel that acting gave me a vent. I'm determined to find a way of finding that again. Acting as a profession may not be the way I can do that - although an actor never gives up hope! I'm certainly investigating other avenue's of work where I can use my creativity in a way that helps other's. A little less self obsessed career choice, less dependant on other people's choices or lack of interest in my case. But I hope that I can find some way of performing when I'm done with treatment.

Another aspect of the visualization process I'm interested in is the "inner guide." I'm struggling with this one I must admit, this is a process of relaxing and allowing yourself to see someone, a friend, a light, a guide and communicating with it. This is your inner self - and I don't seem to want to talk to myself at the moment! Maybe I'm doing enough of a job healing - I'm not gonna get too hung up on these things, Hey I've got anger issues to deal with too!

I found another nice image to use in my scenario.....

Once I've rebuilt my White men - who are all dispersing themselves beautifully through my blood stream and bones. I imagine a white beam of light, which is very powerful and shoots into my chest. As it makes contact, it makes contact with each and every white cell in my body and lights them up and they reflect the light and beam it outwards. This way I can feel and see just how many cells are in my body.

I can feel them getting stronger and buzzing with energy and pure light. This is a bright light, intelligent and energizing.

I also imagine a yellow healing light that I connect up with Red blood cells, who are healing my tumor sites after the white cells have cleared out all that nasty dead cancer. The yellow light is not a beam but more of a wash. It washes through my whole body healing everything up. Then I can feel healed and peaceful.