Souljourning

Souljourning 
By Wanda Sabir

As I listened to the women share at Mama Makeda’s 12^th Annual Sugar Water gathering, I wondered what could I share of 2021, a year I couldn’t get to the finale soon enough. It was on your mark, get set. . . 11:59 PM – YEAH! I made it. Made it into what, I wondered as my reflections on what this new opportunity held kept evading me. I had no words for what was in store for this wom(b)an bodied person. 2021 was too much. . . it reshaped my entire being. Before I was a woman; now I was “wombful.”

I never agreed with Freud regarding penis envy. If anyone envied any person, it was the male bodied person envying the put togetherness of the wom(b)an. The tacking on “man” or “son” or some male reference in everything wombful was in itself a tactic to diminish the goddess who was well-assembled, no excess parts needed. She didn’t need a rib or an overseer. She, left to her creative devices, was enough—Aṣe.

However, back to this 2021 story.

It all started in May when I felt crazy teaching five-six college courses online.  The semester was concluding and I felt like I was losing it. I spoke to my friend, who is an Egun priest and healer who shared an adaptagen (Shatavari) and a men-o-pause formula (Pure: Transitions)—yes there is that gendered prefix. I’d read an article about how estrogen regulates everything wombful, not just ovulation and hormonal balance. It also keeps the womban sane.

The herbs really helped me, especially Shatavari, which helped me manage panic attacks—which like Bay Area weather, were not seasonal. (Later I came to really depend on red raspberry tea to calm my insides.)

So I was bleeding and made an emergency appointment to see what was up—menopausal wom(b)an do not bleed. I don’t think I’d had a period in at least 7 years. The gynecologist tried to get some tissue but the cervix was padlocked. She sent me to get an ultrasound. It came back showing the uterine wall was thick, so I was passed onto a surgeon for further exploration.

In the meantime, I was to take estrogen suppositories to see if the cervix would loosen up, so that the surgeon wouldn’t have to make an incision. I read the ingredients and there were parabens in the estrogen. However, this formula was closer to that of human beings than the other which had other ingredients which might be objectionable, so I went with the one prescribed. It worked and the surgeon did not have to cut into the cervix—she let her in.

There was a polyp which she removed and sent to the lab. She said she didn’t see anything irregular. I was hopeful and then I got a call—It wasn’t good news. I met in Zoom with my daughter and Dr. Katz, the surgeon, who was really kind and supportive as she passed me up the oncology food chain. We then met with Dr. Han, who explained what the finding was and the recommended protocol.

When I heard from Dr. Katz, I called all my friends who were uterine cancer survivors. The eldest is almost 90 the youngest 70. My friends are in Oakland and Alabama. I also spoke to my eldest friend’s daughter who gave me language to advocate for myself—“You know cancer is a major industry. Make sure you understand everything recommended and make your own decisions.”  She advised.

My younger daughter called her sister who is a doctor, who called her network. One of her friends was also an oncologist gynecologist—both doctors interned at Kaiser Oakland. My daughter’s friend shared what she knew about the Kaiser Oakland oncology team and who I should have perform the surgery, if I could get him. We asked for a second opinion which was attended by my daughters (one a physician) and Dr. Ciaravino and another doctor, a sister, Dr. Pettway. It was really cool seeing a sister doctor in the Zoom room and later at the hospital before surgery. TaSin asked Dr. Ciaravino if he could take over and perform the surgery; he checked his schedule and said yes.

It was really nice speaking to my friends pre-surgery. I hadn’t realized so many wom(b)en friends had had this kind of cancer and surgery – some uterus surgeries were not cancer related. My male friends also shared stories about their late mothers and cancer.

I was really inspired by my sister friend stories and cancer-free lives 16+ years later. A gynecologist friend of mine told me later that endometrial cancer is isolated in the uterus so the remission rate is high. Mine was low grade, stage 2. At the follow-up virtual appointment almost a month later, I was given the good news. I am cancer free and there no need for any follow-up treatment, just twice yearly check-ups. 

Two months before the surgery, I started back with my acupuncture three times a week for stress and to build up my immune system, especially my kidneys and liver. The tests were kind of brutal. I upped my vitamin C and green vegetables and this vegan person started eating chicken liver. I stopped eating honey and maple syrup. I stopped eating dried fruits like dates, apricots, figs. I stopped eating baked apples. I limited the sugar, started riding my bike almost daily—it was the summer time. I enrolled in a mindfulness based stress reduction class. I joined a meditation group – all in Zoom through InsightLA.  I turned inward and stopped taking care of everyone—I asked grown people to stand up and stop leaning or let them fall.

As I prepared for the CT Scan which was not as scary as I thought it would be and all the blood tests, I used my mindfulness tools to center and relax and put my trust in Allah (my higher power). I also called on Oṣun who told me at Oṣogbo, Oṣun State, Nigeria, that all I had to do is ask for her help and she would be there. I put together an Oṣun medley and played it as I rubbed oranges dipped in wildflower honey on my wombfulness. I remember the fragrance even now, and the honey taste. My prayer was for her to remove all sickness.

She kept her promise.

After seven days I took the oranges to Osun River in Oakland (Sausal Creek) and made an offering.

I’d started a Wombfulness Gathering for Black wom(b)en three (3) months earlier in March. I was concerned by the state of California’s forced sterilization of incarcerated wom(b)en. I was also concerned about male-bodied persons who were being reassigned to women’s prisons (put in all female born cells) often endangering female prisoners. I thought this gathering would be a supportive space for wom(b)en who have returned home. I also wanted this space to be one where Black wom(b)en could share gifts and stories our ancestors gifted us, which we too often forget we have. We have all we need and more, especially when we are in all wom(b)en spaces together.

I’d started yoni steaming a few years ago which was interrupted by Covid-19. I bought my own steamer and started a practice on the New Moon (Oṣun) and Full Moon (Yemanja). I’d envisioned all the wom(b)en at the Wombfulness Gathering sitting on their pots and steaming together.

So after consulting with Dr. Ciaravino and my health team, I decide to go with the protocol, minus the lymph nodes removal. I was okay with the Sentinel Lymph nodes sacrifice, but nothing else. I also agreed that the ovaries and the fallopian tubes and the cervix could also join the diseased uterus—my girls. I listened closely to their messages and they agreed with the science, even though they knew they were cancer-cell free. I just saw myself worrying myself if I let them stay without an answer.

I called a couple other alternative medical folks, one wom(b)an, a midwife who was also a healer, but she scared me and so I decided to go with people who were kind and explained my options and were not judgmental when I made my choices. 

The CT scan confirmed the doctors’ findings: cancer in the uterine wall. The date was scheduled for mid-July. Earlier in July, I had a Wombfulness Gathering. I invited my daughters and granddaughter, sister friends and aunties, my brother and sister-in-law, my best friend, Kheven and my life partner, Zahir.

We met early morning at Oṣun River Oakland (aka Sausal Creek). Iya Arisika Razak helped me plan and facilitate the gathering. Others like my mom, my auntie and a few close sisterfriends who couldn’t come sent poems and prayers.

We danced and shared stories. There were gifts and food and then we took the flowers and oranges and other gifts to the Goddess Oṣun, the protector of the single mother and the paramour – the honorable woman who takes care of her family the best way she can. It was a lovely morning, and the following week I got my Covid-19 test, another blood test and waited. The night before I washed my hair, took a bath and dressed in white clean clothes. I stopped taking my supplements and then I drank water up to a certain point.

Before we headed to the hospital, I went for a bike ride to the beach to say hey to Yemanja. When I got back, me and TaSin took a photo. She’d made me a book of affirmations printed on lovely pictures of waterfalls and flowers, mountains and other evidence of Allah’s magnificence. I carried the book with me and read it before the surgery which was four (4) hours late. I had my soundtrack stored in Dropbox on my phone: my Osun Medley along with Saint Della Reese, my other angel. These orisha carried me through the surgery and recovery, which continues now with Iya Sojourner Truth.

Sojourner Truth walked 11 miles to freedom. She didn’t run, she took her little girl who was still nursing and walked into freedom at 27. When she took her freedom, she didn’t want anything to do with slavery, so she chose June 1, as her re-birthday. She was still Isabella then, but it wouldn’t be long before she took the name Sojourner Truth.

The youngest born to her parents, Truth named her children after the siblings she only knew by name. Her mother told her they lived in God’s canopy—the night sky. She met her sister, yet didn’t know her until she’d died. There was something about her that reminded Truth of her mother’s hands. She and her brother cried many tears when they learned of this loss, to lose her once and then to lose her twice.

Slavery is so evil.

I am not holding on too tightly to anything and I am grateful for everything, because I did not have to wake up from that ordeal six months ago. I went into a chemically induced dream that had me hovering between life and death—the robotic hand use meant I had to be absolutely still. I remember nothing except the drug which felt like rainbows in my arms—cool and airy and light. And then I was up, awake— sucking a grape popsicle as a sister – read Black wom(b)an nurse told me I had to go to the bathroom before they would let me leave. She rolled me to the bathroom and I had to hold on, I felt like I was going to fall off the chair on to the floor or into the toilet.

I managed to pee and then she, wheeled me back to the bed and called my daughter. I remember someone helping me with my sandals then putting me in a wheelchair, wheeling me down to the front of Kaiser where there were cars waiting for patients—TaSin pulled up and someone opened the door, helped me get in and wrapped the warm white blanket around me when I was about to return it.

They shut the door. I said hi to TaSin, I think?

It was late.

Then I was home and Zahir was there to help me up the stairs. I grabbed a cane I salvaged walking home from the beach one day from the closet where it was hanging.  TaSin left after I was in the bed. She took all my clothes and put them in a garbage bag. The next day she came back with my new grandson. He was born before the diagnosis.  She also brought food or maybe the food was already in the ‘fridge. I’d cooked that week, too.

TaSin made lamb stew, which I didn’t like. She made really great chicken liver and sugarless granola, oatmeal cookies, acorn squash soup, green beans and broccoli, and really yummy garbanzo beans roasted with garlic. Soon the honeymoon ended and I was hungry. A friend down the street brought me some greens, but I ate oatmeal for many days after that.  I am so happy I can cook again. I can go shopping for food when I am out. Zahir would shop for me and do my laundry. And then I started doing my own laundry and after three months could make my bed. I still have trouble vacuuming and mopping the house in the same day. It is a bit much. I can do one or the other.

I practiced mindful walking inside the apartment the first couple weeks—I’d place one foot in front of the other tracing the outline of the carpet and then down the hall past the bedrooms, bathroom, through the kitchen and back—one sunny day, I got dressed and Zahir and I walked around the block.  I would take a step and then see how I felt before the next step.  We would pause and watch the monarch butterflies frolic before continuing rounding the block.  I think I looked up the facts to see how many blocks would make a mile. My goal was getting to the beach; how many of these circuits would I have to master to make it there.  One day, Zahir suggested I walk farther than I was able and had to wait for him to get the car and return for me. TaSin told me, don’t push myself because I’d have to call the police to take me home, that she could not rescue me. TaSin does not bluff, so I was careful and only got scared once that I might not be able to make it back home—I could see the water and it was calling me. I said, not now, next time as I willed my legs to work.

Zahir went back to work after two weeks and would visit me on the weekends.  During the week I’d call and tell him how much farther I’d walked that day until I was up to a mile and then two miles and then at the beach. Don’t get excited. I think it took a couple months.

I remember when I would worry I wouldn’t be able to cross the street before the light changed. It was not that long ago. I remember my first bike ride after the surgery. It was a couple months ago. I remember trying to make oatmeal and not being about to finish cooking it unless I was seated on a stool. I remember feeling guilty I had to take prescription potent Tylenol pain meds when the Curamin (herbal) medicine was not strong enough. I remember the nightmares. I remember the short temperedness. I remember the isolation, I remember wondering if I would ever feel like Wanda again—well no, I am a new model. There is no going back, only forward.

I also remember buying the entire season for “Touched by an Angel” with Della Reese. I would watch the programs and feel encouraged. I think it took me through August and September before I finished the last episode. I’d play her song, “Walk with You” and swing my legs off the bed and try to get up. “How Great Thou Art” was another favorite. Sometimes I was in so much pain, I’d crawl back in the bed and take medicine and hope it would start working fast.  I read the bottle and I thought I needed to be off the meds during week three so I skipped doses. I soon realized that that was not a good strategy and started taking it as prescribed.

One of Della Reese’s songs was written as she was about to go into surgery—loved that one too.  I felt her strength as I waited as she had waited and survived. I read her autobiography and children’s book and her daily meditations. These books were within reach of my pillow. I surrounded myself with 19^th century African American women spiritualists, preachers who believed in a creator who was bigger than death. I have an extensive library now, full of wom(b)en stories. I have added to this library elder Buddhist nuns’ poetry, “Therigatha.”  My friend, Sister Fola told me that Allah could cure anything. I would repeat this to myself often daily. I still repeat this as I reach for these stories to sustain me even now.

Faith is an oft-repeated prayer.

Six months is a short time, it’s a long time. It’s a lifetime, and then it’s a blink of an eye. However, it’s mine and I am glad I am still here. I was supposed to have a vaginal exam this month, but Covid has put everything on hold that is not absolutely necessary. I had a nice talk with the nurse practioner who does the six month check-in.  We will see what the virus transmission looks like in a couple months.

I started a painting and mixed media art class. It’s called “Healing through Art.” I also started a poetry class through the SF Jung Institute. We are writing poetry from the inside out. I was accepted into a MFA graduate program for August 2021 and then they said it was on campus not virtual. I am looking at other graduate doctoral programs still. Busy is good.

I have taken other workshops like Self-Compassion and classes and groups to stay busy and positive. I am still reading a lot and writing daily my emotions and feelings which are not always clear. I have become a better listener and I have also learned how to ask the right questions. I hear my body best when I am still and turn off the mind program.

I started taking Qigong pre-surgery and have continued post-op along with Tai Chi Chih. The Qigong is at Alameda beach, the Tai Chi Chih is online in Zoom.  The first a referral was though Alameda Community Acupuncture, the second through Women’s Cancer Resource Center.

There is a lot available to help us heal. This journey is challenging; however, the people in our lives make coping so much easier. Many of us are alone and because we are immune compromised, we have to be careful.  I am an older Black wom(b)an who has more years behind her than in front of her. I am not putting off my life any longer. I am going to the National Parks this Spring and I am walking Sojourner Truth’s freedom walk in New York State. I am going camping and living my life to its fullest now.

I am really grateful that some family and friends distance and do not participate in certain activities which might bring disease into our homes. Wellness is an agreement and involves sacrifice. I am blessed to have a few special people who value my company and want to show up in the flesh for me.

Flesh is important, believe me. I think 2020 will stand out the most for me because I don’t remember any hugs after February-early March. That was a long year and here we are two years later. 2021 had its own challenges and blessings. I have had lots of hugs. 

I am also happy to still be on this side of the veil for now.

  

© Wanda Sabir, 2022
All Rights Reserved