Water: The Courage to Cross

*A note to my readers: You may have noticed I’ve been posting less these days. It has nothing to do with my health, which has been very good, and more to do with re-entering life and focusing on work that I find meaningful. I love to write and will continue to do so, but probably less about my cancer experience and more about life in general.

I’ve been working with my son, Nils, on Virtual Reality (VR) storytelling, building a pilot project to deliver VR Headsets to cancer clinics, hospital systems, Veteran Care clinics and hospice centers. When I was very sick and in the hospital all I could think about was getting out to spend time in nature. I feel the VR experience comes very close to the real thing. If it can help alleviate pain, reduce stress and re-acquaint people with nature during duress from medical treatment, my time on this project will be valuable.

And now a story about swimming…

Water: The Courage to Cross

“I’m going to drown!” my 8 year old grandson, Lars, yelled, as he tried to keep his head above water, splashing his arms in a panicked dog-paddle. I was encouraging him to learn to swim in our pool at the apartment complex where Annie and I live. It’s only 3 1/2 feet deep, more of a wading pool for adults in the hot summers of Central Oregon than a pool for diving or laps. Lars had been swimming near the edge of the pool increasing his stamina, sometimes holding onto the edge, sometimes standing up, his 4 foot height enough to feel safe to stand with his head above water.

I encouraged him to swim across the middle of the pool. If he got tired he could just stand up, I told him. This was the rubicon where his sink or swim experience occurred. He started to panic so I yelled to him from the side of the pool, “Just put your feet down. Stand!” “It’s not working! I can’t touch the bottom!” he screamed. He paddled furiously, his face a look of pure terror. Holiday, his 5 year old sister, was near him with a floaty on crossing the middle alongside him. Lars tried to grab on to her hoping her vest would buoy them both up. Instead, her face went under water as she cried “He’s drowning me!” With furious dog-paddling fueled by cortisol and primal fear, he made it close enough to the edge that his feet touched the bottom.

It was the next day that I learned the middle of the pool was, in fact, deeper, slowly increasing in depth from 3 1/2 feet at the edges to 5 feet in the middle. How else would they drain the pool at the end of summer? I felt like a fool. I couldn’t shake the look on his face and the pitch of his cry when he thought he was going to drown. I endeavored to help Lars over the summer overcome his fears in the water, to earn back his trust, and to build a good foundation of comfort in the water before he starts swim lessons at the Park and Rec next week.

The average human body contains 60% of water in our cells with a higher percentage in our brains, kidneys and heart. Our lives began in the womb of our mother surrounded and nourished by amniotic fluid, as high as 98% water. As our cells divide and grow into organs, brain, nerves, hormones and bones, while the nutrient-rich fluid protects us and helps us grow. Our developing lungs take fluid in and out, an exercise for the muscles that move our rib cage to prepare us for our journey into the world and a cycle of oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange from our first breath to our last. We swallow the amniotic fluid so our developing kidneys and urinary tract can form normally and we can urinate, which we do inside the safety of the amniotic sac. We float in this mix of nutrients and urine until our first fateful pee in the delivery room. With our first cry, we inhale our first taste of oxygen, our umbilical cord is cut, and we join the rest of humanity peopling this planet. We immediately latch on to our mother’s breast to replenish our fluids, the milk a replacement for the placenta, the heart in her chest a reassuring beat to ease our anxiety after our violent journey through the birth canal and a bridge to an emotional bond that will, hopefully, see us to adulthood.

I started swimming laps recently at the local Park and Rec center where Lars will have swim lessons and it made me think of my relationship with water since my first breath. When I get into my bathing suit in the locker room it’s clear in the mirror how my body has been altered since I first came into the world. A scar from just below my sternum to my pelvis bone reminds me of the life-saving surgery to remove my cancerous bladder, left kidney, prostate and 92 lymph nodes. I use a large bandaid to cover the hole in my belly button that I pee from, inserting a catheter to release the urine held in my internal reservoir, a neobladder fashioned from my small intestine. The bandaid helps keep bacteria out but also hides the stoma from sideways looks of swimmers and sauna bathers. The bright red tissue that peeks out from my belly button is actually a re-use of my appendix, a perfect cylinder of tissue that can hold the urine in but also let the semi-rigid catheter enter with the help of a little water soluble lubricant. In the water, I float, I swim, I’m free from gravity. I feel at home.

I need plenty of water everyday, especially before and after a sauna and during the high heat of summer to keep my fluid level up. I’m intimately aware of my health and hydration by the color, oder and clarity of my urine. At nearly 62, gliding through the pool water, sucking oxygen with each alternating arm stroke, I’m aware I’m closer to the end than the beginning. I wonder what my mother would think of my altered body, my rearranged organs, and my belly button where we were once connected? After each lap I check if my water proof bandage that covers my umbilical stoma is still adhering to my skin.

My grandson, Lars, is slowly making progress in our pool. After his near drowning incident(!), I promised him I would make sure he would always feel safe in water. We’ve taken it slow, a little progress each day. He swam on my back across the middle of the pool — “Are we in the middle?!” he would yell, as if we were crossing the deepest part of the ocean. I then held his arm as he swam next to me, back and forth across the pool. Each time he needed to know when we were exactly in the middle, the place of trauma. I eventually would let go as he paddled beside me. I watched his face light up with enthusiasm knowing he would make it across on his own. I now count his laps: 1 then 5 then 10, each day adding to his lap count. He’s no longer afraid when his head goes underwater. He jumps off the side, fully submerging, then rising triumphantly. With goggles on, he’s swimming under water for as long as his breath holds out, one hand plugging his nose, the other pulling the water in short strokes as his legs kick, like a tadpol learning he has new limbs to swim with. As I counted the seconds that he was underwater always trying to beat his last attempt, he emerged from the water in the middle of the pool, pulled off his goggles, looked up at me and said, “Did you SEE that! I conquered my fear. Are you proud of me? ” echoing back to me my prediction and promise from the day he thought he was going to drown. “Yes,” I said, “I’m very proud.”

Swimming with Lars brings me closer to the beginning of my journey into this world. He rekindles in me an innocent boyishness I once had, a combination of caution and courage, of tenderness and temper, of patience and insolence, of intelligence and intuition — all attributes I’ve needed to overcome my long battle with cancer. Living through Lars’s experience, indeed all of my eight grandchildren, has afforded me a second childhood and eases my fear of when the end may come. I hope I have the courage that Lars had to conquer his fear in the water so I, too, when the time comes, can make a safe crossing, one I must make alone.