Hope4Cancer: Day Eight: Only a Step in the Journey
NO PONGAS PAPEL HIGIÉNICO EN EL INODORO
DO NOT PUT TOILET PAPER IN THE IN THE TOILET
I would love to talk about the day they presented me with the prospect of The Coffee Enema. Like Halley’s Comet, it deserves the respect to be referred to as a proper noun.
(Breathe)
In the physical therapy room, I was presented with a bucket, a brown solution, gloves, and a gigantic tube of gel. I looked at the nurse sideways as she spoke the words “coffee enema.”
I stood there smiling and shaking my head, yes, but it was all new to me, and I found myself trying to read her lips to be sure I understood her as each word rang in my head: Coffee. Enema.
The most extraordinary part, however, was when she said, “You’ll have to do this back at the hotel, in your room.”
Now, as a nurse, I had given enemas to others but had never even considered giving one to myself.
“…back at the hotel, in your room.”
What? Crazy talk! I was trying to make sense of these words. I was overwhelmed. I started breathing deeply and thinking, “Okay, this is going to be okay.”
Then my mind bounced between images of my carefully folded white underwear and the best body contortion to ease the process.
I’m guessing they’d seen many a blank stare from their patients after this particular request. And it was kind of funny, but it wasn’t funny.
Finally, I transformed my reflex reaction of Help! to “I can do this!”
For the first attempt, I’d give myself a D — sporting a mere 2-minute retention, but by the end, I’d graduated to a B — and had mastered an 8-minute retention of the 15 minutes required. (I don't know if A is attainable, but I hear it's a thing.)
The second half of each enema procedure was an injection of 50 ccs of ozone through a small tube to be absorbed through the walls of your colon because cancer cannot live in oxygen. The great news is, after the mini traumas of performing the enemas, the ozone was like having a party.
This experience was an awakening to say this will not be done in three weeks. This is going to be done at home. And this is definitely a journey of hope.
But for the hope to stay alive, I needed to take control and manage my time and my thoughts. Because in that hotel, sitting on the floor in the bathroom and even just thinking about giving myself this enema… well, I surrendered and wept for the first time, asking God, “How did I get here?”
And God answered, “It's not how you got here; it's how do you live each day? How do you live each moment?
That returned me to the present, to the gift of being here at Hope4Cancer and with experts in the field. These doctors, nurses, and staff have all become angels in my life, and I celebrate them!
As I performed these evening rituals, it made me appreciate another form of angels at Hope4Cancer: the cleaning crew. Evelia, Uris, Caqui, Norme, and Reyna, I have learned a new respect for you all.
My bottom-line takeaway from this experience that kept moving me forward was that this procedure is simply part of the journey.
