Look for Positive Signs - in life and in dreams - the dream that gave me confidence

[Dee58]

Hi,  thought I'd share this awesome dream I had after my cancer diagnosis.  I've had ultrasounds, biopsies and CT scans and today I am having a PETscan to try and find the primary cancer.  They found where it spread but not the main villain.  I liken it to killing a vampire... in movies you have to kill the "first" vampire if you want to kill the rest that follow from him 🙂  So we are vampire hunting today... 

Anyhow - after my diagnosis I went to bed that night and asked for guidance... a sign... anything... and I had this dream:

I was lined up in a queue at a post office, with  a HUGE bucket full of mail and parcels I had to post.  I was first in my queue waiting my turn.  But this was not any ordinary post office - it was a makeshift structure on a lawn with NO walls and only a flimsy tarpaulin for the roof.  Just then a young and very aggressive and rude young girl came up and roughly tried to push me out of the way so she could go next - a very aggressive pusher-inner!  But in my dream I elbowed her out the way but she kept at me until I grabbed her by the arm and with all my strength flung her away.  She looked surprised... but left.

Just then it was my turn but before I got a chance to do anything with all that mail I had, I leaned against one of the struts holding the flimsy roof up and the whole thing collapsed.  So NOBODY could post their mail!

Then in the next scene of my dream I'm standing to one side looking at the collapsed post office and a male standing beside me - who in the dream seemed to be someone I knew fairly well but in real life I wouldn't know him from a bar of soap!  He said to me, "don't worry, they'll rebuild the post office and then you can go and post your mail."   And in my dream, i knew that to be true.  I agreed with him.  Yes I would wait until the post office was rebuilt and just go post my mail then... but this time, I told him,  I was NOT going to offer to write up all the mail in the post register and was going to make the post office person do it themselves, after all, it was their job!  And he agreed with me so enthusiastically that I looked at him and just as I thought, that was a bit of an over the top enthusiastic reaction... I woke up!

For those who haven't studied dream interpretation, this is what this dream meant:

The makeshift post office with no supporting walls and a flimsy roof for protection represents me - my body.  All the mail represents my bucket list, my to do list, my life plans, my obligations and responsibilities, the rest of my life basically.  The aggressive girl who roughly tried to push in and stop me posting my mail is the cancer.  The collapse of the makeshift post office is the collapse of life as I knew it.  The friend in my dream may or may not have been a guide or just a dream character - I'll let you decide 🙂  Him telling me, and me confidently knowing whilst in the dream, that I COULD and WOULD be able to continue and "post my mail" once the post office was rebuilt - means I will rebuild my life more strongly, more healthily, and be able to continue my life.  Me stating that I was not going to write all the letters up in the post office register and would make the clerk do it is my determination that in my new life I was not going to be doing things for others that they can and should be doing for themselves.  

I have always put myself last.  Always put myself out for other people.  Being taken advantage of.  You know that type?  I bet many of you are that type too!  We need to learn to set boundaries for ourselves and say NO.  Stop being so helpful.  We can't save the world.  We really only have an obligation in this lifetime to save ourselves.

So that was my dream.  I know as horrible as this experience may or may not become, that I AM going to come out the winner.  

I look at myself in the mirror and I tell my healthy killer T-Cells to go get em... to seek out and destroy the sick cancer cells.  And I tell those cancer cells, how dare you?  What a gall you have appearing in MY body, and don't plan on settling in and staying long because I've got news for them, and its all sad!  🙂  

BUT while I do this, I also feel compassion for those cells and I THANK them for appearing, for telling me its time I took better care of myself with eating, mindfulness, etc so that I am FORCED to improve my lifestyle... it's no longer something to do on my to-do list... I must make those changes in my life NOW... and if it wasn't for the cancer, I would still be putting it off.

Sorry for waffling... I hope some of this might inspire someone else or help in some small way.  My thoughts and prayers are with all of you... xxx

[OzStu]

I had a dream shortly after my chemo and radiation finished.  In the dream they told me that the chemo and radiation had failed and that I would need surgery.   They told what they were going to cut out and said all should be ok.   Then I went straight to surgery.   Well,  it was a dream after all.  Anyway,  I woke up after surgery and there is this doctors face looking at me.  He told me that during surgery they discovered much more cancer then they thought and had to do far more radical procedure.   He said they kept cutting and cutting but kept finding more cancer, so they made the decision to cut my head off.  My head was being kept alive by some machine that pumped oxygenated blood and nutrients into the arteries from my neck.  He said not to worry because I can live indefinitely like this and at some time in the future they might be able to transplant my head onto a donor body from somebody who died of head injury.   I tried to talk but nothing worked, all I could do was look around by moving my eyes.   When I woke up,  just for a minute while still half asleep,  I actually thought I was just a head with no body. 

[mensana]

It's good having a dream that takes you through your current issues and promises a brighter future. It makes the hurdles look not so bad. I've done more first aid courses than I care to remember. Seen plenty of changes. But one thing that's been constant in the courses: 'if you don't take care of yourself you won't be able to take care of anyone else'. It makes a lot of sense.