Pre-Existing

Image by Luciana Aranha

32 millimeters.

By the time I discovered the largest of three lumps visually, on a ZOOM I was teaching in October of 2020, it had been in my body for approximately 16 years according to the science my insurance company cites.

“These types of nodules grow 2mm per year according to medical science,” the broker advocate for my insurance company told me.

I felt the tears stream down my face as I listened, silent and receiving every word carefully and solidly.

I did the math and a flash of my “healthy” and oblivious life flashed before my eyes; total disbelief joined the symphony of emotions.

I’ve been stunned since.

The cancer wasn’t discovered until a year later after my perfectly functioning thyroid was sacrificed in a major surgery and by this time the nodule was 53mm; a stubborn overachiever in keeping with its host.

Based on its last year of growth, doing the math, my very special nodule grew 21mm in one year…doesn’t this mere fact debunk the insurance science in my case?

Not. A. Chance.

At nearly 51 I’m learning the harsh reality of the insurance company charade which is to avoid any outgoing expenditures at all cost; my claims have been refused based on “preexisting conditions.”

I’ve been considering the idea of “preexisting,” and it has clouded my usual Pollyanna lens as I think about all of the things possibly “preexisting” in each body; healthy and not now that the curtain has been pulled for me. (“One in two Americans has a pre-existing condition.”)

The magic of our self-healing bodies, and the magic of the story of our bodies: the glorious fact that my body grew a nodule to alert me early of a serious problem is a miracle.  The large nodule wasn’t the one with cancer in the end, it was two other smaller nodules nearby which had a small amount of cancer – and newly discovered in a six-month check-up two lymph nodes too.

Bigger than all of this is the test of faith here, and the teacher in this moment for me.

I’ve lived a life of fitness, movement, yoga, being a vegetarian and careful about my diet and overall wellness: mind, body and spirit, and in this well body lives cancer.

Inside my body also lives a story of how each cell is effected by DNA, environmental factors, and exposure to toxins along the way…a story of preexisting conditions.

This glorious, nearly 51-year-old, beautiful body…is still beautiful, maybe even more beautiful in the kintsugi kind of way with a few new cracks where I’m allowing the light to flood right in…in full surrender and receiving.

Leaning in, always leaning in.