“Powerful Selfie,” at LACMA, 2010, here Frau Kolb is sporting her “British House Wife Wig.” Dig it?
Cancer Blessings?
How dare Frau Kolb suggest that the cancer might mean an end to your precious life is a blessing?
Well, Frau Kolb is an expert on getting a kick out of whatever life throws up in the way of enjoying life. I am NOT, however a doctor, what you read here is my personal proposal, an invitation, if you will, to join me in celebrating the good and bad news, as good and bad news will bloom in your life like flowers in the spring time.
Here are 23 More Cancer Blessings for you. Enjoy!
24.) Self care is central to success in coping with any major crisis. This is really the time to pamper yourself. So… ramp-up your bath routine. Bath oils, salts, candles, lotions, scrub-brushes, and abrasive bathing gloves. None of it is “expensive,” really but when you really get going you can make a very nice day of being in the tub, especially as you undergo treatment.
25.) Learn something totally unrelated to your new condition. Focus on learning Italian, for example. You always wanted to learn French. This is the moment to go to the public library and take out the Farsi tapes or the Swahili. What would you like to learn? Investing yourself in picking up NEW skills will give you strength to face this new reality.
27.) Plan a no-expense spared trip around the world for yourself. Of course, you won’t go. Yet, you will really think about the trip. How you would travel… Where you would visit… The schedules of luxury cruise ships are available on-line; image yourself in the Penthouse Suite, if this appeals to you. If not… are you backpacking in the Andes? Tell me, where will you go? Read guide books and learn about what to expect when you arrive. The trip should be long and lavish. This is so much more pleasant to focusing on the HORROR the HORROR of treatment.
28.) Throw a PAR-TAY! Yes, I’m talking disco lights in the bathroom.
29.) Soon, you will have access to heavy duty pain medications. Take it slow! Follow directions. But, we gotta be grateful that they exist. They work better than a mallet to knock you OUT for a restful night of much needed sleep. When it really hurts, thank goodness, for Vicodin! Do not abuse your medications. Yet, use them to help you leap across the parts too far from ease to be healthy. In other words, don’t suck up the pain, take a prescribed pill when you require it.
30.) If you live where it is legally available, Medical Marijuana works for nausea and other “chronic,” conditions. It may also help with mood swings and depression, just request the right strains. There are strains, “Indicas,” that put you right “heavy,” state for sleep and other strains, “Sativas,” that help stamina, creativity, and giggles. You no longer have to smoke, the aroma(s) offends, because they have a wide variety of edible: tea, honey, candies, bagel chips, and lemonades infused with THC and immune boosting CBD. Try it only if you feel comfortable with the idea. I LOVE it because it makes me feel like a naughty teen to take a bong hit in my boudoir. Anyway… you might find you like the staff at the dispensaries. (They tend to hire very cute and upbeat people as “bud-tenders.”)
31.) Don’t just cut the cancer out, radiate it, take the chemo: do what you must. Do it fast. Do not hesitate because everyday counts. Cancers are not full of pity. They will eat you, because Honey, YOU are delicious! Embrace the rigors of radical treatment as long as you can and IF your condition is beyond bad… well take your meds, Champagne, and let Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker get the table ready for you when you hit the perpetual dinner party in the sky, do it with panache.
32.) You picked the best doctors or you are getting the best care you can from your less-than-ideal yet qualified, expert, respected, and good looking doctors, personal advocate, and entourage of fashionable, sexy, people. IF you did not put together the perfect care team for yourself, remember that as long as you live you can always make changes. Always. All you have to do is use your words, ask nice, play fair, and be sweet on change to get it.
Side note:
IF you find yourself totally alone, ask yourself “Why?” The answer must be: you. What have you done or failed to do to win the respect and love of others? Are you selfish? Are you self centered? Did you fail to maintain, through constant reciprocation your friendships? Are you simply mentally ill? OK! FINE! Know that whoever and where-ever you are you are worthy of love and if you allow yourself to connect with the universal reserve of good vibes, sometimes called “God,” other times, “Goodness,” and yet other times, “Mother Mary… Shiva… or whatever deity you subscribe to… if atheism is your bag, well LOVE it… because that is a religion, too… you have to do plenty of selective experiencing not to see the intelligence, joy, sparkle, that is everywhere where life nests… Because this is a time when YOU can make a change in the energy around you by being caring to the people that are around you. Let LOVE be the NEW YOU and your last day will be a lovely one. Be available and services will be provided. Remember: attracting good energy to your life requires determination on your part in that you must be willing to be and accept the kindness of others, as function of how you behave, yourself.
Another daring NEW (Cancer) LOOK! Here Frau Kolb wears her, “Ghetto Fabulous,” Two-Tone wig. Dig it?
33.) If you are alone. Face it. Find company within and books will sustain you. Joy is possible, I’m sure, even for vegan straight-edge atheists with no family and no pets. Maybe misanthropes can find strength in solitude. I commend anyone that can find pleasure in who they are, what they have, where they are… It doesn’t matter IF you are a person undergoing extreme cancer therapy; you can still laugh between the vomit bouts. For example: my best friend, the tall skinny spike healed wearing Italian-American, Los Angeles, bombshell, I told you about in the first 23 Cancer Blessings, also underwent cancer treatment. She was invited to a party at the Playboy mansion and she went, bald but looking ravishing, she had to vomit from the chemo therapy. In the rush of vomit-must, she pushed an old man out of the way to get to the toilet. Hah! Everybody thought she was just a drunk party person, needing to puke after too much booze. WE laugh and laugh whenever we recall her moxie. She, by the way, is single… sort-of… Yet, she never let the lack of a steady man worthy of her exuberant beauty, stop her from enjoying life.
34.) FORGIVE! Forgive everybody for everything. Bitter Bitch? No more. Now is time to LOVE and feel one with every nurse, every waiter, every human that comes and that may care for you if you OPEN your heart to loving everybody. Yet, this doesn’t mean that you forget that some people are toxic. Let those people go and embrace the ones that love you NOW.
35.) Don’t forget. Let go of the waste. Say goodbye to human trash, vampires, and other nightmare friends that have sucked you dry for years. YOU know who I’m talking about. It doesn’t matter who it is. IF a person consistently brings you down, bursts your bubble, crushes your mood, erase them from your world. You don’t need a hairdresser that doesn’t listen and has bad breath. You don’t need a boyfriend who has a wife. You don’t need to lie about yourself in order to look normal. Accept yourself. Love you.
36.) Moreover, you may not have tons of money or be the best looking person on earth but you have value and your time is it. YOU have zero time to waste. You must focus your depleted energy wisely in order to make it from one day to the next. Cancer is a serious condition and minimizing it, is a strategy I employ. Yet, I’ve never backed down or stepped away from treatment. I’ve embraced life, thus finding strength that isn’t mine, borrowing it from my husband, my friends, and the world… remembering that my drama is but a drop in the galactic sea of mystery. Enjoying the ups and down, of the eternal “red-wine sea…”
“The Nice Librarian,” another selfie of Frau Kolb on the GO (notice the blur) during chemo in 2010
37.) Visit churches, landmarks, and museums. Enjoy the public spaces of your cities. The grand architecture or natural wonders of the world deserve your attention even if they are only around the corner. Take a bus to another part of town. Shake it UP! You don’t have to be the version of yourself you have been thus far. Part of you will be forever changed by treatment and the new you is yours to chisel into the you, you are now.
38.) Allow the cancer to be a reason why you step into being your true self in public. It empowered Frau Kolb by forcing her to make time for creativity, art, and other sources of profound delight. (Prior to diagnosis, my role as California beach mom was all consuming and I was writing (on the edges of days), yet not painting (because I felt guilty over using materials without a financial return and making art requires lots of un-interrupted work time, which I did not have) When I got the diagnosis my world changed. Cancer can be a license to finally focus attention on loving yourself in order to make ease-rich (the opposite of dis-ease)choices.
39.) In other words, make the cancer work for you. Yes, there are resources assigned and available to people undergoing cancer treatment. Just telling someone, that you have cancer, can make them cut you some slack. This is not a card I advise using frequently but when you must, whip it out with flourish and revel in the fact that there are many CANCER BENEFITS for you to enjoy. (Yet, be aware that some people, the really mean ones, will not care that you have cancer and may try to use your illness and vulnerability, against you… so… be careful and mindful when revealing your private medical conditions.)
40.) This is time… is a time for elemental being to flourish. When your looks are gone, erased, you must learn to paint on a happy face or… be a blank slate. Pick. Do. Make-up is said to boast the immune system. Don’t neglect your basic hygiene. Taking time to brush your teeth and put on a pretty scarf or a big macho cow-boy hat which will make others laugh and question your identity… GOOD MOVE!
41.) Ever wanted to meet someone famous… well, if you are terminal… you might consider addressing a request to their press/public relations representatives and respectfully request a visit from… you are very likely to get what YOU want, now… Brad Pitt… David Bowie… or… Adele. Watch out! Because, you really have the power to pull powerful people IN by being beautiful despite the medical drama. Use it.
(This is another selfie taken while undergoing chemotherapy in 2010)
42.) If you believe in heaven: make a list of all the people you look forward to feasting with in the afterlife. In heaven, I’m convinced that, you can have dinner with Augustus, the ancient Roman Emperor, Ben Franklin, and Anna Nicole Smith, all together, at their prime, forever available, because in heaven YOU can be two places at once, I’m certain of it… IF you like! If you don’t believe, well make a list of who you would like to see if heaven were real and you will tickle (I swear) your grandmother’s spirit when you list her. Go for it and feel the good vibes of every human you list, no matter how “long-gone,” kissing you and loving you no matter how vicious the pain or ugly the bruising… you have the long line of human fortitude to tap into. Revel in the fact that you come from tough people and that tough people bite the dust, too.
43.) Threshold states are FUN! What could be more exciting than being near death? You don’t know when its coming but rest assured it will. If you can learn to enjoy this state you might just live forever. Hah!
44.) Give some money, a dollar or two counts, to cancer research. Hardworking scientists give up their youths, studying, and learning so that they can create effective cancer medications for us. Don’t believe that cancer medications are anything less than miracles and every time you drink a pill down, bless the water.
45.) Be aware that you are now capable of seeing through the “veil of illusion,” which covers day-to-day life. Be proud. You know that the wizard is wears no underwear behind the curtain six-miles-wide. We all suffer. Yet, how we wear our suffering distinguishes and ennobles the gracious ones.
46.) Did you do something BAD, hurtful to someone, long ago… maybe? Write the victim of your misdeed, a letter, ask for forgiveness, mail it to yourself, and IF and only IF after reading it yourself and feeling it would make the person receiving it feel GOOD, then mail it to the injured party. Rest assured that accepting responsibility for the fact that we all hurt others, either on purpose or by “accident,” is a good thing for it allows us to shed the weight of unpaid energetic debts, of love and caring that was absent, when it is the mandate of life that we love, in order to be loved.
Ok… Now you have 46 guidelines for feeling blessed rather than powerless… I write with the intention of providing you with a chuckle or, at least, 69 good reasons to laugh in the face of death, a useful fresh perspectives, and empowerment in these times of turmoil.
Please take care and know that I am thinking of all the people out there; losing their haïr, having breasts amputated, or otherwise facing profound changes; in order to continue to embrace the bliss of breathing.
Best Love,
Frau Kolb
