As of now, December, I am back at work 5 days a week and though they are short days, it’s the most “normal” I have felt for a couple of years. This has been a profound journey for me, when I left hospital in January 2005 I was disoriented, depleted, unfamiliar to myself and almost devoid of spirit. Over the last two years I have thought a lot about what my spirit is, what my soul is and what is the difference between them. I had always assumed that they were two names for the same thing, the essence of a person. It was helpful for me to realise that they are distinct things and one can be present without the other.

Soul I think, is the deepest innermost authentic nature of a person, the collection of history and qualities that make them who they are. Spirit is the passionate life force that drives the soul into being and expressing itself in the world. Two Januaries ago, my soul was almost undetectable to me because my spirit was so weak that it was almost not there. I realised that throughout my life up until that point, whenever I needed to face up to anything I could just draw upon my spirit to get me through. I didn’t know that I did that, it was just a natural action. I only realised it in the last week in the Royal Melbourne Hospital, when I needed that energy and motiviation - I reached for it and for the first time it wasn’t there. Empty. That was such a strange, lonely, helpless feeling. I had no capacity to tough it out. It was the absence of it that taught me what my spirit is.

For most of the two years since then, I have felt that helplessness to some degree. At first, at home or at work, it was beyond me to organise more than one simple thing at a time. It wasn’t a crisis of confidence, just that I didn’t have the capacity to take on more than that. My trad. Chinese Medicine practitioner explained that there are two kinds of energy that affect our functioning. There is the chi, the lighter more fluid energy that flows freely when we are feeling inspired and passionate, and a denser more solid energy that is the stamina and strength to back up what the chi is drawing us into. Medical procedures like chemotherapy and the stem cell transplant had reduced both these energies to alarmingly low levels. My chi energy began to return relatively quickly but the denser one has taken much much longer.

I think of this energy balance as being like a bank account with the ability to spend beyond what is in the account. It has taken much careful management for me to build up the dense energy in that bank account but the enthusiasm of chi has caused me to frequently spend more energy than I had saved up. Though I could do this to a degree at the time, later I suffered greatly for the overspending - increased exhaustion, anxiety, pain and sometimes depression.

That traditional Chinese explanation matched perfectly my own experience and I found it very helpful in managing my recovery and reducing the frequency of my “pitfall” periods.

From during my first chemo, I went in to work for the odd day at first, then one day a week, perhaps two. I expected to be able to handle much more work than I actually could. Though I had seen information saying that recovery time from the stem cell transplant could take 6 to 12 months, I thought I’d be able to take on most of my previous work duties within a few weeks. Clearly that was not the case ! I had no idea how exhausted I would be, and for how long. Also, as I have noted previously, the depression was crippling at first. I was able to take on more days at work eventually, first mondays and fridays for 4 or 5 hours per day. Then I added Wednesdays. During that time, I needed to rest frequently and my work day regime was to wake around 7am when Ruth got up for work, then meditate until about 9am, get up and arrive at work around 10.30. During work I could cope with simple tasks, not too many things at once. Exhaustion meant that I would need to take small breaks to keep going. I would need to leave work around 3pm at the latest, head home and meditate for an hour. On my rest days, I would meditate until mid-day or perhaps later. Sometimes my sister Melissa would pick me up and take me home to her place for lunch. Other times, I would sit in the lounge room and watch 4 or 5 episodes of the West Wing on DVD. Now, if I hear the opening theme from that show I get a strong cringe reaction. I still love the series but can’t stand to be reminded of how I felt during that time. This also applies to food or drink that I subconsciously associate with back then, I can’t stand the smells now.