I had my bi-yearly check up with my surgeon, Dr. Tennant, and radiologist oncologist, Dr. Hahl, this past Wednesday morning. Lots of post cancer patients have at least a five year protocol where you remain under your doctors’ care, and I am one of them. For the first time both doctors came in the exam room together to assess my tongue and neck. I had a huge smile on my face as I shook their hands and gave them a hug. For a few seconds we just looked at one another, their smiles matching mine. There was something about seeing those two souls together that just lit up my heart. And from their perspective, all their hard work and knowledge has obviously paid off with this healthy and bright eyed soul, me, standing vertical in front of them, and still three dimensional. These two gentlemen and their medical team, and with the help of my own body, basically saved my life. And let’s not forget my younger Joan, she definitely stepped up to the plate with her strength and courage.

It had been a whirlwind time, finding out on December 20, 2022 that I had stage three tongue cancer. My pathologist, Dr, Bernstein, had called me personally at home, on his own vacation time, to talk to me about my tongue biopsy testing positive for squamous cell carcinoma, a critical diagnosis that found me in the surgery room only six days later, December 26, 2022. I look back now and think that whirlwind time was a real blessing. I had no time to really think about what was going on in my body, nor the why for the urgency which these doctors took on my case. I understand better now. Stage four is the last stage for tongue cancer. I only had to do the math.

I think about my body now, how strong and resilient, so amazing, so ready to take on healing, then and now. Yet I think there is a tenderness that our bodies contain, a vulnerability that is present in all of us when we undergo some sort of physical health issue. I remember in the hospital a few hours after surgery my daughter Jano told me she cried when she first saw me, mostly because my throat had been cut. Slit open for the doctors to test lymph nodes on the right side of my neck because the cancer was on the right side of my tongue. I get that. Our throats are meant for soft kisses, or a pretty scarf, not the knife of a surgeon. How hard it must have been for her to see her mom lie on a gurney and look so very different from pre-surgery to post-surgery, with my throat covered in gauze and a plastic JP drain sticking out the side of my neck.

I rarely think about that time in my life. Most of it I do not remember. But I have noticed, when I am first waking up in the morning, that time when you’re not quite awake but you are awake, on the rare times I begin to think about lying in that hospital bed post surgery, I feel such a deep grief. A grief deep down in my bones, remembering, traumatized, grieving, and I will begin to cry. I wonder sometimes from a nurse’s point of view if this time in the “twilight zone” of waking up is similar to the time when my body was sedated, under anesthesia. Then, is my body remembering? I tap it down immediately. It’s too deep for the conscious me to emotionally handle. Don’t get me wrong. I have certainly cried at times. Some of you, Dear Reader, have been by my side when I cried. In the first year I often cried and could not understand why I would unexpectedly feel tears flowing down my face…again. To be honest, a couple of times I have been out on a prayer walk and wailed loud and long, with Reddogg and all of Mother Nature to hear me. But oh! What a positive release it was, especially for my body. But I also had to learn to grieve in smaller increments, little trickles of grief, like ice cream melting down the side of a sugar cone.

I began to talk to my body, to coo to it just like the sound of a Mourning Dove in the early part of the day. “Oh Baby, it’s all done, it’s all over, and never again. You did so well. You are healing so well. Thank you for helping me grow strong and healthy. I’m sorry I accused you of betraying me, that was never the truth. Oh Baby, look at you now!”

I am thinking just about any one reading this post totally understands what it is like to deal with a physical challenge, a health issue that, well to put it bluntly, sucks. I highly encourage you to grieve as long as you need to grieve. To go out into the woods and wail like a banshee. ( A banshee is a fairy woman of Irish folklore, known for her fantastic ability to wail, scream, and shriek loudly. I like that image, I can relate.) I also encourage you to talk to your body, praise your body for all it has been through and done for you, and celebrate your body for the marvelous vehicle it is as you navigate your own journey in this lifetime. As a nurse I can promise you most of us medical professionals really try to do the best we can with everyone under our care. But the medical field does not often address the needs of our bodies after it is all over and one is moving on in life. But each of us can do that for our own body. Go ahead, talk to your body, care well for your body. Simply begin with the words, Oh Baby! The rest will come to you.

c   Love, Joan