Dan Gaffney | Author / Teacher / Father
The hidden folds of mystery came to my door nine years ago when I was diagnosed with a bone marrow cancer called multiple myeloma.
There’s no cure, and less than half of people with myeloma survive five years from the time of diagnosis. One in three survive ten years.
When treatment fails, myeloma brings on death through complications like kidney failure or blood clots in the lungs.
Getting the news meant life was shorter than I’d anticipated—my life’s certain course was suddenly truncated, pared back to something less than my imaginings.
First came the body blow. Then the shock and awe. Life’s truth delivered: I will die. For real. And sooner than I’d thought.
More feelings flooded in. Fear. Then anger. And slowly, some version of grief settled in for the death-ride.
Cancer means a cell has mutated and made copies of itself many times over to the point where the mutants crowd-out normal cells and interfere with body functions.
In my case, mutant plasma cells were multiplying in the bone marrow, building pressure in my bones to the point of breaking them.
Left unchecked, they’d eventually invade and shatter the bones in my skeletal system, resulting in chronic pain and disability. Then they’d kill me.
A medical team recommended chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant. Stem cell therapy is a promising area of medicine that harnesses the potential for stem cells to repair diseased and injured tissues, and stem cell transplants are now a standard treatment for myeloma patients.
So now, after nine years of chemo, a stem cell transplant and countless biopsies and blood tests, the pain’s gone, the bones have healed, but the cancer remains active.
Not great but manageable, maybe.
From here the way ahead is the narrowing path of ‘maintenance therapy’, which means monthly chemo-shots, regular tests and consults, and ongoing conversations with doctors, family, and friends about what to do if/when cancer has its way—or I grow weary of being tethered to medical treatment for the rest of my shortened lifespan.
From a soul perspective, cancer reminds me to live mindfully and to prepare the way ahead by clearing the cobwebs from my heart while knowing death is my closest companion.
From this place, cancer is an existential gift—reminding me that life is always having its way with us in an infinitely unfolding mystery. Embracing mystery means leaping into the void. Going into freefall.
For my ego, the void feels like mayhem—a descent that will end badly unless I cling to a fix, a solution, an answer, no matter how presumptive or baseless or foolish.
But I think it would be a mistake to look for answers in certainty.
My soul knows better and is taking me where I need to, even if it feels like chaos to my mind’s desire for solid, reliable answers.
Slowly, I’m being persuaded that engaging in the messiness I feel in the face of mystery is to midwife the arts of living and dying well. And to remember what is timeless and deathless.
There’s no end, no closure, no resolution, no certainty, and wishing it were otherwise only brings suffering.
The fact is life is endless—always morphing and re-emerging from the seeds of last season’s bloom.
—Dan Gaffney (2024)
Editor’s note: Author Dan Gaffney is a former psychologist, teacher, journalist and father. His book and podcast series Journey Home: Essays on Living and Dying is a collection of essays about living and dying with an open heart. Further reading: https://yourjourneyhome.com.au
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