The Road to Recovery

November 11, 2014| Judi Wolder | Cancer 0

Layer upon Layer…

It’s a really slow road putting yourself together again after cancer. Like Humpty Dumpty – you feel broken and are kinda all over the show- a mixture of viscuous fluid and broken shell. Meaning that your insides feel like jelly and your outer shell is still very fragile. The journey involves building both physical strength and mental strength and I firmly believe they go hand in hand. It relates to how the journey starts. At first it’s a break down of physical strength and then slowly but surely as the body is weakened and weakened, so the slow etching away at the spirit begins.

Many years ago when you were in junior elementary, do you remember how you would win a Judo trophy year after year for showing a strong spirit. Did that spirit come from the confidence of knowing you had the physical strength that to make you feel invincible?

After many years of success as an athlete, what a shock it must have been to realize you were invincible as you had a cancer growing inside you, and what’s more, as the days went by, you got weaker and weaker as the chemotherapy began to wear your body down. Eventually not only were you bed ridden for most of the week with your outer armor slowly stripping away, muscle sheath by muscle sheath,, but your inside army – your white cells gave in on you too as you became susceptible to any germ or infection. Wow! That must have be a frightening experience. And so no wonder, the mind began to weaken. A soldier with no army feels a cold icy fear. An instinctual fear; for his very survival is at stake.

And so as your inner army returns, you need to begin to put on your armor layer by layer- muscle sheath by muscle sheath. Each day a longer walk, a steeper incline. And slowly as the mind and body are partners, as the body strengthens, so will the mind…

But herein lies the crux. The mind can overpower the body. The mind is still the soldier who needs to put on his armor- a soldier who has given up and retreated needs to take that first step- needs to make that first decision to arm himself once more before returning to post.

As you wake up today my child, as heavy as that armor is, lift it, lift it and remember that only you can adorn yourself with its glory and potential. So get up, get going, walk step by step, faster and faster, further and further – make your way towards that post…and that first layer – that first muscle sheath will lay the foundation for the next… and the next… and very soon you will be running – feeling the wind beneath your wings… and when that happens, you will start feeling invincible again in mind and body and spirit.

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