28 October 2007
To My Friends 11
02 November 2007 : To
My Friends Collated
To My Friends 11.(2nd November 2007)
It seems a long time since I’ve written anything at all except the odd poem but when I look at the dates its only about 6 weeks. Much has happened in that time:
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week I had the last round of my chemotherapy. Indications after the first three rounds are that there was a reduction in the size of the tumours in my liver. This was good news. Not a cure but a little more life. We have no idea what the situation will be this time and will probably will not find out until the end of November. In the meantime there are more small tumours on my face and head. I suspect that nothing further will be attempted until there is a full evaluation of the effects of the current chemo. In the meantime we wait and live from day to day.
The main side effects are pretty much the same as they were before. Dry mouth, a return of restless legs, An increasing stiffness in the scar tissue in my face, neck and shoulder and tiredness. All of these things seem to have been cumulative, that is they are worse now than they were at the beginning of the chemo. The tiredness is very interesting. I think that in some sense a significant amount is mental. This of course is not true for everyone. Sometimes I just sit in a chair and do not want to move. If I surrender to this feeling I will do nothing except doze and occasionally read or watch TV. However, if I make a real effort to get going with some little project I discover that although the tiredness is not completely gone I am quite capable of getting going and doing lots of different things.
Since I last wrote my youngest brother, Noel, has gone on dialysis .This was a great shock for both Noel and his wife Veronica. They had a donor lined up and it all looked set for a transplant but at the last moment the doctors would not go ahead. So now he is undergoing what I endured 6 years ago. That is going to the Dialysis Training Unit 4 days per week to dialyse and train so that he can do it at home. Often, as part of my effort to overcome tiredness campaign, Julie drops me off in town and I walk down to the Hospital and spend some time with Noel before walking back about 45mins through the park. The park and the gardens are often a source of inspiration particularly in the line of writing poetry.
Another event recently was a two week visit from my son in New York. This I loved – to have Nathan whom I see so seldom staying with me for two weeks. We had lots of talks and drew closer in repairing some of the hurt that had been done in the past. During this time I discovered that it is necessary often to double someone before that person can accept any mirroring. During this time also Anna and Seth came from Wellington and Auckland respectively and so we had some good times together as well as the resurrection of some old patterns. Fortunately some greater maturity had developed.
Lately I’ve been reading some rather thought provoking books. The first was James Hillman’s ‘A Terrible Love of War’ .This is a very good read in which basically Hillman explores our ambivalent relationship with war under four headings. War is Normal, war is inhuman, War is sublime and Religion is war. The book certainly brings forward some interesting and powerful data.
The second book I have been reading is ‘Psychodrama – Advances in theory and practice’ edited by Clark Baim, Jorge Burmeister and Manuela Maciel. This is a compilation of work from 28 different authors or practitioners, including Sue Daniel. It is published in two parts the first focuses on ‘New Perspectives in Psychodramatic Theory’ and the second on ‘Developments in psychodrama practice and research’. Many of the chapters I have read are interesting. Sue takes us back to our roots in role theory and the cultural atom. And there is a very good chapter by Peter Felix Kellerman on mirroring. Some other chapters seem a little too academic for me but overall the book is well worth a read.
A third book I have been reading is called ‘Jesus for the Non Religious’ by by John Shelby Spong. This book strips away and demythologises some of the biblical stories that are a bit hard to swallow. He links it all up with the Jewish background in which the bible is set, relates New Testament to Old Testament as well as pointing to the lack of adequate language for conveying what the writers wanted to convey, namely, their experience of Jesus.
I’m still living in some fear that the end of the chemo will be the last medical intervention and that now I will just have to sit it out. The fear is not great and so far I am managing to live a relatively normal life – tired but still able to get things done.
I’ll finish with a poem.
Pounamu
Cold hard dark
keeping its own shape
and feel remembering
its own journey over
many years – millions
beyond all understanding;
now here with me
it sits very still
its green stone song
fading as it allows
itself finally to rest
claiming a shape
that is now and always
its own. Such beauty
is seldom sung.
Time is as time is
a green space filled
with that which developed
toward this alone,
remembering now its
true nature given
and love from a hand
that has caressed its beauty
oven five fruitful years
now passing on
her own soul
as part of this giving
and we become one
the stone merging
in its fullness
to bring healing.
Mike Consedine
14th October 2007
It seems a long time since I’ve written anything at all except the odd poem but when I look at the dates its only about 6 weeks. Much has happened in that time:
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week I had the last round of my chemotherapy. Indications after the first three rounds are that there was a reduction in the size of the tumours in my liver. This was good news. Not a cure but a little more life. We have no idea what the situation will be this time and will probably will not find out until the end of November. In the meantime there are more small tumours on my face and head. I suspect that nothing further will be attempted until there is a full evaluation of the effects of the current chemo. In the meantime we wait and live from day to day.
The main side effects are pretty much the same as they were before. Dry mouth, a return of restless legs, An increasing stiffness in the scar tissue in my face, neck and shoulder and tiredness. All of these things seem to have been cumulative, that is they are worse now than they were at the beginning of the chemo. The tiredness is very interesting. I think that in some sense a significant amount is mental. This of course is not true for everyone. Sometimes I just sit in a chair and do not want to move. If I surrender to this feeling I will do nothing except doze and occasionally read or watch TV. However, if I make a real effort to get going with some little project I discover that although the tiredness is not completely gone I am quite capable of getting going and doing lots of different things.
Since I last wrote my youngest brother, Noel, has gone on dialysis .This was a great shock for both Noel and his wife Veronica. They had a donor lined up and it all looked set for a transplant but at the last moment the doctors would not go ahead. So now he is undergoing what I endured 6 years ago. That is going to the Dialysis Training Unit 4 days per week to dialyse and train so that he can do it at home. Often, as part of my effort to overcome tiredness campaign, Julie drops me off in town and I walk down to the Hospital and spend some time with Noel before walking back about 45mins through the park. The park and the gardens are often a source of inspiration particularly in the line of writing poetry.
Another event recently was a two week visit from my son in New York. This I loved – to have Nathan whom I see so seldom staying with me for two weeks. We had lots of talks and drew closer in repairing some of the hurt that had been done in the past. During this time I discovered that it is necessary often to double someone before that person can accept any mirroring. During this time also Anna and Seth came from Wellington and Auckland respectively and so we had some good times together as well as the resurrection of some old patterns. Fortunately some greater maturity had developed.
Lately I’ve been reading some rather thought provoking books. The first was James Hillman’s ‘A Terrible Love of War’ .This is a very good read in which basically Hillman explores our ambivalent relationship with war under four headings. War is Normal, war is inhuman, War is sublime and Religion is war. The book certainly brings forward some interesting and powerful data.
The second book I have been reading is ‘Psychodrama – Advances in theory and practice’ edited by Clark Baim, Jorge Burmeister and Manuela Maciel. This is a compilation of work from 28 different authors or practitioners, including Sue Daniel. It is published in two parts the first focuses on ‘New Perspectives in Psychodramatic Theory’ and the second on ‘Developments in psychodrama practice and research’. Many of the chapters I have read are interesting. Sue takes us back to our roots in role theory and the cultural atom. And there is a very good chapter by Peter Felix Kellerman on mirroring. Some other chapters seem a little too academic for me but overall the book is well worth a read.
A third book I have been reading is called ‘Jesus for the Non Religious’ by by John Shelby Spong. This book strips away and demythologises some of the biblical stories that are a bit hard to swallow. He links it all up with the Jewish background in which the bible is set, relates New Testament to Old Testament as well as pointing to the lack of adequate language for conveying what the writers wanted to convey, namely, their experience of Jesus.
I’m still living in some fear that the end of the chemo will be the last medical intervention and that now I will just have to sit it out. The fear is not great and so far I am managing to live a relatively normal life – tired but still able to get things done.
I’ll finish with a poem.
Pounamu
Cold hard dark
keeping its own shape
and feel remembering
its own journey over
many years – millions
beyond all understanding;
now here with me
it sits very still
its green stone song
fading as it allows
itself finally to rest
claiming a shape
that is now and always
its own. Such beauty
is seldom sung.
Time is as time is
a green space filled
with that which developed
toward this alone,
remembering now its
true nature given
and love from a hand
that has caressed its beauty
oven five fruitful years
now passing on
her own soul
as part of this giving
and we become one
the stone merging
in its fullness
to bring healing.
Mike Consedine
14th October 2007
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