Weight Watchers again

I joined Weight Watchers for the second time in 6 years.
Last time, I lost 10 pounds and then got stuck and could not lose any more. So I quit. I hated it because I could not stay within my points guidelines and it made me feel like a failure. I was hungry all the time.
But this March, after watching the video of my concert at Berklee and being horrified by how fat and old I looked, I decided it was time. I re-joined March 2. This time, although i am allowed fewer daily points, they have something called Weekly Points Allowance which gives you 35 extra points to play with so you don't feel deprived and can still lose weight. It's working. I have lost 10 lbs. again in 6 weeks. I need to lose about 25 more. Not sure I can do this. But I have to control SOMETHING about my life. I was eating for comfort ever since C. was diagnosed. WW is teaching me how to eat healthily. Truthfully, I had lost my taste for food, but I was still shovelling it in. Now I enjoy eating more. I've become a vegetarian (except for fish and seafood because I need a source of lean protein besides tofu) Reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan did it for me. I can no longer support the meat and poultry industry in this country--animals are tortured and made to live in abominable conditions.
So...losing weight, becoming an addicted denizen of the WW message boards.

Also meditating again for the first time in over 10 years. It calms and comforts me. I read a chapter of Pema Chodron or Chogyam Trongpa before my sitting practice. They explain how to be a warrior (one who is brave--not one who kills people)
I have been a warrior all my life according to their description, but I could be a better one. More practiced. More dignified.
Less afraid to face things. I will never get it all together, but I will be precise, experience joy and the genuine heart of sadness.
Everything is manangeable, workable, they say. Even cancer. I come up against the wall of my fear and guilt about not supporting C. enough and losing patience with him. I am compassionate with myself, over and over. But I am still afraid. Of the future, with a bad economy and not enough money, with debts I have to pay. With a boyfriend who will be sick for a very long time. I often feel I cannot bear it, but escape is not an option.
"The Wisdom of No Escape," a remarkable book by Pema. I have read it several times. She brings Buddhism down to a mundane, everyday level. It is comforting to know that she does not have it all together after many, many years as both a Buddhist nun and director of Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia. Trongpa's book, The Sacred Path of the Warrior, is a little more arcane and abstract. Still, it's unquestionably full of truth. The Dharma speaks to me much more than Judeo-Christian theology. More later, it's too late at night to write any more...

Staring into the abyss?

I might be.
Or, more accurately, we might be, Curtiss and I.
C. has had more pain (significantly) in the past few days. He feels it in the esophagus and when he swallows.
This should not be happening. I thought that the radiation shrank the tumor. How could it have grown? If, in fact, it did grow?
We are waiting for the results of the PET scan. I am feeling a sense of dread.
I don't know if I can endure this much longer.
There is no end in sight.
Tonight, when I played at the Island Merchant in Hyannis with Bart Weisman, I ran into 80 year old Sal at the bar, who says he had stage 3 colon cancer back in 1980, refused to have chemo, and is miraculously still with us.
I also found out that Bart's brother, who had a bone marrow transplant 2 yrs ago and was doing well, is no longer doing well and may only have months to live.
Cancer is a vicious, capricious fiend.