How I Leaned on my Meditation & Yoga Practice Through Breast Cancer During COVID Part 1 of 2
This article is written by guest contributing writer Karen Dillon. For more ways to connect with Karen her email is: dillonhang5@me.com and her website is www.karendillon.me
Picture provided by Karen Dillon
On November 25th, 2019 I received the phone call no-one ever wants to receive. My youngest son had arrived home from his first semester at Boston College and I was informed that I had invasive lobular breast cancer. What the hell is that??
Cancer was not at all in my “repertoire of me” on any day. Certainly not last November, as I had just wrapped up leading a group of students in a 3-day mind, body and spirit cleanse with vegan food, juices, yoga, meditation and self reflection. I talked about the importance of weaving all 3 aspects of your health together for total body, mind and spirit wellness.
As life would have it, my journey as a cancer patient began; appointments were made and calls for help from my spiritual pals and family were placed - I moved into action!
The fear that gripped me was like nothing I have ever experienced, my breath was shallow and my chest was tight. I reached out for help and graciously received it; however I didn’t want to talk about what was going on.
I was too wrapped in fear. My husband, sister and I started the path of fact-finding. They were extremely supportive and came to every doctor appointment with me.
My husband woke in the morning and asked me where my mind was all night and I purged my crazy, fear-based projections, as well as absolute confusion as to what treatment plan to pursue. He would come home from work at the end of the day and we would replay my same thoughts and fears.
Who knew there were so many different forms of breast cancer, each person’s cancer has unique characteristics and in my case I was given options. They assured me that options are a good thing! I felt like, seriously, you are the doctor, you have the training….tell me what to do because I am scared to death and have no idea what to do!!!
This is where my background in yoga and mediation came in. As I had said my breath was shallow and my chest was tight. My mind was on an overdrive, a constant loop of what was happening and what I was supposed to do. I am forever grateful that I had a daily habit put in place many years ago to start my day with readings, yoga, prayers and meditation.
At this time, I also added morning journaling as well as a daily bedtime practice of writing and purging my fears, praying and listening to meditations to try to go to sleep. I am not sure how I would have survived that first month or so of fearful appointments and 2 surgeries.
I had a lumpectomy pretty quickly to remove the cancer, however that wasn’t enough. The surgery didn’t come back with clear margins around the detected cancer so I needed to go back to the decision drawing board.
To further complicate matters, I have a BRCA2 mutation, which is identical to my mom — an ovarian cancer survivor of 25 years. Therefore, the doctors started hinting at a double mastectomy as the course of action. This was a big leap from the initial stage 0, easy lumpectomy. Now I was stage 2B with genetic factors further complicating my decisions.
Each day I started off on my meditation cushion praying, meditating, writing, listening and then moving on my mat - trying to come up with the right answer as to what to do next. Would it be another lumpectomy or a double mastectomy? And of course, all the doctors sounded like I had pulled a fire alarm when they heard about the gene and my mom’s cancer.
It became a non- negotiable decision to remove my ovaries and fallopian tubes in order to prevent ovarian cancer, which is a very hard cancer to detect in its early stages. The answers didn’t come, the fear and confusion persisted, but I persisted as well. I spoke to safe people, but I couldn’t rehash it with many, it was too agitating.
I meditated, wrote in my journal, prayed and did my yoga practice - I didn’t give up, I couldn’t.
I had these tools ingrained in me for many years and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that to continue each day I had to first take care of me. They say what you do first thing in the morning sets you up for your day. I believe this is true so I kept at it daily and ended my day with all my rituals to try to get a restful sleep.
Two days before Christmas, my husband and I went to an appointment with the medical oncologist, this was the appointment that would tell me if I needed chemotherapy as well as surgery. I came very close to canceling this appointment as I woke up that morning saying, forget it, I just want to enjoy my husband and boys being together and I don’t want anymore information.
I really didn’t want to hear the answer, I wanted it to all go away until after Christmas. Thank God I showed up and heard the good news of not needing chemotherapy and my oncologist was very helpful in providing me information about the benefits of a double mastectomy. We went home and had a family meeting - my husband, myself and my 3 boys ranging from 19 to 23 - we talked about mom’s breasts, ugh!
All together we concluded that I should go with the double mastectomy and when they did the reconstruction surgery I would have my ovaries and fallopian tubes removed at the same time. This was an awful lot for me to absorb as just a month and a half prior, I was a healthy 53-year old woman leading physical, emotional and spiritual cleanses, teaching yoga, meditating, eating well and not drinking alcohol.
My mind could quickly go to this isn’t fair, why is this happening to me? My body has betrayed me, if this can happen to me then what else can happen in my body? I basically was given a hard lesson in letting go and surrendering to the fact that I had absolutely no control over this - it was nothing I did or didn’t do, it just happened.
Well that’s a scary place for someone like me to be, as I liked to think I had some control over my health and I thought I was doing a pretty good job at living healthy…
END OF PART 1:
Stay tuned for the rest of Karens life journey, as part 2 will be released next #wellnesswednesday. Next week Karen further explores how the COVID-19 Pandemic influenced her healing plan and how she leaned on yoga and meditation to help get her through this challenging part of her journey.