Dear Friends,
I we set out on the journey together, I want to remind the reader that this is not a sad story. There is nothing to be “fixed.” There is no need for pity. My life has become so much richer because of my illness that, if given the chance, it would be difficult to choose a course different from the one I have been led down over the last two years. Over the next few entries I shall begin by giving you a brief description of what has transpired until the present.
I was first diagnosed with liver cancer on January 16th 2012. I received the phone call just as I was preparing to give a series of teachings. The teachings I was giving require you to overcome your sense of an inherently existent self. I laughed several times throughout the teaching thinking how timely the phone call was. It was just the kind of thing that we need to investigate our sense of self with thoughts such as, “Who was this “I” that was ill? If my liver is ill, does that make “me” ill? Is there an I separate from liver to become ill?” Thus, from the moment of my initial diagnosis being ill was a blessing and an impetus for my spiritual development.
The doctors decided that they would like to put me on the liver transplant list and that they would like to let the tumors grow for a bit to get me a better standing on the list. It seemed like an odd choice to me but I agreed. On March 26th 2012 I had a radiological ablation. This basically means they cut into your stomach and insert a probe directly into the tumor that emits an extremely high dose of radiation to annihilate the tumors. The recovery was a bit challenging but at that point I was still physically quite strong.
…to be continued.