My Wild Guided Imagery Cancer Adventure

On the morning I began chemotherapy, I met my cancer in a dream, and he was wild. Not smart, but crazy, aggressive, and scary as hell. He was in my house, waving a broom to bludgeon me with. He was only in the front hall. He hadn't made it upstairs, into the living room, or the kitchen. In my dream, I ran outside in terror to get reinforcements. I knew I couldn't get him out myself, but I knew that the four men outside would come in and carry him out.

When I had that dream, I hadn't had my PET scan yet. After the dream I was confident that I was safely at Stage III, only locally advanced. A friend suggested that I attack the wild man with fierce little monkeys. Always ready to run away hand in hand with my imagination, I decided that I didn't even want to see the scary bald man with the sharp teeth in my house. I imagined him in a vast, empty white space, being slowly put to sleep until he was in a coma.

Then, I changed the image to a beautiful landscape, vast and green, with dozens of little waterways running through it. Marring this scene was a huge, ugly gray slag heap, with two smaller ones next to it. As the Adriamycin and Cytoxan entered my veins, an army of busy little purple Ewoks, chattering cheerfully, marched in and went to work on those slag heaps. I decided that they needed some bigger, stronger help, so I called in the Wookies. It was a busy scene there! They loaded up the mess that came off the heaps into barges, which were carried away. Every time I had an infusion, there would be a couple of days when my breast would flush, and be extra red. Then it would subside and the sheet in my breast would feel softer and smaller. These tumors went from 11 centimeter and 2 plus centimeters to less than a centimeter and less than a millimeter by the time I had surgery. This was the AC. I came up with different visuals for the Taxol and herceptin when that time came.

I was of course concerned about white blood cells. One day at the Infusion Center I watched another man get sent home, unable to have his treatment because his white blood cell count was low. I knew that I could not allow that to happen to me. I could not give the aggressive cancer I was fighting any opportunity to regroup and become resistant. Not one bad cell could survive! So I needed those white blood cells and I needed plenty of them.

Oh, they were so beautiful! I love my white blood cells. They emerge from the rich brown earth (my bones) and take shape in pairs. They are strong and powerful, a male and a female sent out into the world of my body to keep it safe. They look like Greek gods, dressed in tunics of white and gold. They are very tall, and they have wings. They are noble, and they are relentless. Any intruder is destroyed immediately with a beam of gleaming light like a thousand suns that comes straight from their hands. If two of them are not enough, they communicate telepathically to other pairs of guardians, until there are enough to surround the threat completely. To this day I am grateful to these majestic and fearsome protectors of my body.

I was taking Neulasta shots to jump start my bones to make white blood cells. By the fourth infusion, my dose was cut in half. When I started Taxol and it was neupogen (a slightly different medicine) I needed a reduced dose of that one as well.

I met my objective. My treatments were uninterrupted. My body stayed the course, and I will always appreciate my body for its loyalty and patience. I admire it so much for not allowing that terrifying breast cancer past my lymph nodes to escape into my organs and bones. I am amazed and grateful that it withstood years and years of relentless stress before succumbing to a persistent invader. Even then, my body was still there for me, and I finally learned how to be there for it.

My beautiful white blood cells are still there, protecting me.

Related Content from Elizabeth Danu:

Riding the Chemotherapy Wave

Understanding the Treatment Protocol for Inflammatory Breast Cancer

Using Imagery to Enhance Standard Cancer Treatment