Life in the Cancer Cloister

By Susan Tweit

A friend who survived cancer said the treatment was like “living in a black hole,” in the sense that while the world goes on around you, and people are helpful and kind, you’re really isolated by the intense and exhausting journey you’re on.

That’s how life feels right now. Even though we’re surrounded by people who love and care for us, and who help in so many ways; even though Salida in summer is a crazy busy place; even though life hurtles on at what seems like a breakneck pace; our intense focus on Richard’s health and well-being creates an oddly peaceful space around us.

I never imagined that this all-out effort to help my love survive brain cancer that has required four brain surgeries in less than two years would allow us such a relatively quiet existence. It’s like being on a spiritual retreat: we’re both focused on creating a nurturing life, and our days follow an ordered routine.

Here’s how a day in our particular cancer cloister goes: Richard takes his first meds at about six, before the sun slips over the rim of the Arkansas Hills. We snuggle in bed for a bit, and then I head to the kitchen to make his four-grain, three-fruit hot cereal. Once it is soaking, we do half an hour of yoga, our spiritual grounding time.

Then it’s time for breakfast, and afterwards, I settle into writing. Richard often works a Sudoku puzzle, a sequencing exercise for his recovering brain. About the time I finish answering e-mails and posting my daily haiku, he heads off to meditate, and I turn to whatever writing project is most urgent. After meditating, he naps.

We convene for lunch at one o’clock. While I prepare his anti-cancer meal of fresh veggies and fruits (many from our garden) plus an open-faced sandwich on Salida Bread Company’s whole wheat bread slathered with pesto (also from the garden) and yogurt cheese (made from our own yogurt), we trade events of the day.

After lunch, I write while he naps or works on a project. Around three-thirty, we walk hand-in-hand to the post office, five blocks away. Back at home, he naps again and then suits up for ten minutes on the Nordic-Trak to keep his muscle and bone mass from wasting away.

I make dinner, another meal high in the kinds of plant chemicals and other food components that help keep us both healthy. Tonight’s was freshly harvested garden greens sauteed over chipotle salsa and olive oil with local eggs poached in “nests” in the cooked greens. Yum!

After we eat, we settle in for a quiet evening. “Quiet” for me may mean working, as in writing this column, or reading, or preserving garden bounty. Richard helps in the kitchen, picks up his sudoku, reads, or naps.

There’s a kind of grace that comes from building an ordered existence even in the most difficult times, a life that nurtures body, mind, heart and spirit – and our ties to community and place. That grace can help carry us through whatever comes with our love, and our souls, intact.