Visualize

I'm trying to use visualization to cope with the episodes of pain. When they first started, I pictured a gang of tiny bikers having a wild party in my abdomen, smashing beer mugs and dancing in their hard-soled boots. I would send them messages to close down the party, sweep up the glass, and take off their boots. The pain would gradually diminish.

After a while, another image came to take its place. I pictured a beautiful waterfall in a green glen, clear water pouring quietly through the pools. I imagined the water washing through my uterus, bathing the lump with its healing coolness. I'm still using that image a lot, it really seems to work.

My friend Meg told me about a boy who had brain cancer in an inoperable spot. After he went back to the doctors, they found the tumor had vanished. They asked him what he had done, and he told them he visualized the tumor as a meatball. People aren't supposed to have meatballs in their heads, so then he visualized alien spaceships visiting him and zapping the tumor.

So, sometimes my peaceful waterfall has alien spaceships. I'm asking them to visit my back, too - it's been aching a lot.

Oh, and the cough is getting worse, so there is an army of scrubbers going through my lungs airways, cleaning and polishing.

If nothing else, I don't lack for imagination.