CHANGING DURING RADIOTHERAPY

In previous blogs about my journey leading up to and through radiotherapy I have talked about how I was experiencing extreme weakness. However, when I look back I can see that God was truly carrying me and strengthening me through that time.

Some time after having radiotherapy I did a piece of artwork that became very symbolic to me of how God changed me through my radiotherapy treatment period.

The artwork originated as a pastel work of a flower that I scanned into my computer and then played around with. While doing this, one image in particular really caught my eye. This was it:

To me this picture represented a woman with her head bowed down in submission and surrender. She has one arm stretching out, wanting to move forward; the other arm reaching up to heaven giving thanks to God for His holding her future. To me this portrayed a woman of strength. Even though this isn’t how the world perceives strength, it was very much how my strength was growing.

I had my eye on the future and was reaching out towards it, wanting to move into wellness again. But at the same time didn’t have the strength in myself to do so. It was only in submitting and surrendering to God and allowing His joy to fill me (what the yellow in the picture represents) that I found the strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

10 years on from my having radiotherapy and doing this piece of art, I feel that this picture, done all those years ago, still represents me. I continually want to move forward in my life and to move on from pain and weakness and into a place of joy, strength and freedom. However, in order to do so I continually have to surrender to God and rely on Him for strength. All the while I am being filled with joy - which is what the yellow in this picture represents.

MY PRESENT DAY BLOG

You may or may not be aware that I have another blog running in conjunction to this one. 

It is called kiwibraintumoursurvivor-TODAY and is my present day blog (as opposed to this blog which is being written in retrospect) sharing insights and experiences. 

It can be accessed it through this link: http://www.kiwibraintumoursurvivor-today.blogspot.co.nz/  

MY ART 'THERAPY' DURING RADIOTHERAPY

During the six weeks in 2002 that we stayed at Domain Lodge (a motel for patients undergoing cancer treatment), while I underwent radiotherapy, I was extremely weak. I decided before I began the treatment that I wanted to spend some time each day doing something artistic. That I wanted to do one thing, even though incredibly small, every day. I can’t really explain just how weak I was during this period, and how extremely small this one thing was.

Nearly every evening I would go out on the little balcony outside my bedroom and sit and do a few strokes of colour onto black paper with my pastels. I had chosen black because to me it symbolized the darkness that I felt was hovering around behind me in that Lodge. Even though it was a beautiful building, I was so very aware of the fact, from my first visit there, that everyone there was struggling with cancer and was walking a hard road, so black in the background seemed fitting.

Colours still strongly represented themes to me and I titled the artworks with just one or two words. In the six weeks I was staying at Domain Lodge I only managed to do six pieces of art but they are very symbolic of what I felt I needed, and what I was experiencing during this time.

Each piece of art I did was extremely abstract but was somehow a way of reinforcing in my mind what it represented.

The first artwork was what I felt I greatly needed for that time. I only had the strength to put one foot in front of the other; making it across the road to each day’s treatment was all I could manage. Every day I hoped and prayed that going 

through the radiotherapy treatment would, in time, pay off and that my tumor would either stop growing or recede. I knew I would have to wait before either of these things would be visible.

“PATIENCE” 

The next three pieces were themed around faith.

In spite of having no idea whether the radiotherapy was actually going to work, I did feel faith rising up within me. I believed that even though I couldn’t see or feel any change in my tumour, that it would be halted by this treatment. (The blue in the artwork represented faith and was reaching to the higher lightness that flowed over it)

FAITH GROWING

The following piece pretty accurately summed up how my faith was also being challenged some days. I was too weak to fight these challenges to my faith but thankfully God carried me through it all.

 “FAITH IN A SPIN” 

More than anything I felt completely and utterly washed out during my time of radiotherapy and there were undoubtedly days that it felt like my faith was also washing out.

 “FAITH WASHED OUT”

As I have already said, I was so very weak while I underwent the six weeks of treatment and more than anything I needed God’s strength to get me through.

“Strength”

Finally, the last picture that I did was what I could feel deep inside my being. In spite of no doubt looking utterly exhausted, having a throbbing head 24 hours a day due to the swelling the radiation caused in my brain, and my hair starting to fall out, joy was what I felt. 

“Abundant Joy”

ONE OF THE GREATEST BLESSINGS OF HAVING GONE THROUGH RADIOTHERAPY – TERRY WHAITIRI

Near the end of my radiotherapy a dear old family friend gave me $100 to go and get my hair styled around my bald patch (from where the radio-waves had entered), a cut that it would conceal it. I chose to go to Servilles, one of the top hair salons in Auckland, in Mission Bay.

A lovely female hairdresser, the head of the business, cut and styled my hair brilliantly so that my bald patch was completely concealed. At the end of my cut she invited to come back whenever I wanted to get a free head massage from a junior in the company, Terry Whaitiri. I accepted the invitation and went back to the salon on a regular basis, in spite of the great distance from my home to the salon.

A close friendship developed between Terry and me and through his kindness I would go and get my hair cut and dyed for a ridiculously low price for many years to come. Those years included from 2004 – 2007 when I gained 40kg in 14 months, and those hair styling sessions were like pure gold to me. I would often go into the salon feeling in an utterly exhausted emotional slump but would always leave feeling a million dollars and with my hair looking fabulous. It really can’t be overstated the power that being made to look good has on making you also feel better.

This I think was the philosophy behind a charity group that was started in America in 1987called ‘Look Good, Feel Better’. This group works with women undergoing cancer treatment, teaches the women how to apply makeup properly and pamper themselves and then sends them away with a bag full of top of line cosmetics. ‘Look Good, Feel Better’ was a blessing for that time. Terry Whaitiri has been a blessing, and a friend, that I think will last for a lifetime!

Terry is now also a makeup artist and since October 2009 has come down to my home (an hour’s drive each way) and does my hair, gives me a full makeover and has a meal with me. We have had many a laugh when he has done ‘themed’ makeovers and He truly is one of the greatest blessings of these past 9 years.

Truly there are treasures to be found in any dark roads we may have to walk down in life.

MY PATCHWORK BLESSING THROUGH RADIOTHERAPY

Prior to my starting radiotherapy a dear family friend made the most incredible gesture of love for me. She had made a stunning patchwork quilt that she wanted to give to me.

On one side of the quilt were colourful, bright tropical flowers that had been magnificently patch-worked into hexagons. The backdrop to the hexagons was an amazing quilted black background. This was bordered with beautiful tropical flowers.

The other side of the quilt was a solid block of differently coloured hibiscus which weren’t quite as bright as the patchwork side. When I had severe headaches, or when extra visual stimulation was too much, I would turn the quilt over and have this side up.

 

To add to the beauty of the quilt, everywhere there were flowers was stitched with a variegated thread. This varied in colour so that it showed all the colours of the rainbow winding through the quilt. What inspired me through this thread, even though a thread is such a simple thing, was that it didn’t stop changing colour. That made me think about how my life wouldn’t stop changing ‘colour’ either, that I would move on from the exhausted ‘dark’ time I was experiencing and into a brighter future.

Since my time at fashion design school colours had very distinctly symbolised different things to me. In my mind blue symbolised peace; yellow symbolised joy;  green, a combination of both peace (blue) and joy (yellow), symbolised hope;  red symbolised passion; orange, a combination of both  passion and joy, symbolised strength to me and white, symbolised purity.

Having this thread, which changed colour from one inch to the next, showed me the ‘thread’ that ran my own life - that life would always be beautiful. Even when I was moving through periods of darkness, just around the corner peace, passion, joy, hope, strength, and purity would always be there for me to see. 

This quilt was given to me to take to Domain Lodge (the Cancer Society Motel opposite Auckland Hospital) and was such a beautiful ray of sunshine for me. It was the first thing I saw when I entered my room and it just brought me such joy to look at while lying in bed during those 6 weeks of treatment.

I will be forever grateful to this wonderful friend and for the precious gift she gave me.

“THE LOST RADIOTHERAPY TAPES – “GOD IN ALL HIS MAGNITUDE....”

“God, in all His magnitude is not too majestic and mighty to move and guide all our ways … even the most minute and intricate of details.”

THE LOST RADIOTHERAPY TAPES - "THE MOST UNEXPECTED OF JOYS..... OUR BRIGHTEST MOMENTS"

"It is often the most unexpected joys that make the brightest moments in our lives."