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I met Lindsay in 2017 through Mystopia, a large mostly San Francisco based Burning Man camp. She was vibrant. Spunky. Her personality, warm. She rocked big bangled earrings, bright lipstick, and an edgy, super short haircut. New to San Francisco, I thought, this is what cool SF chicks are like. Cancer patient did not come to mind.
Lindsay Jean Thomson is a writer, teacher, and community builder based in San Francisco. She is the founder of Women Catalysts, a multi-city networking forum that connects people, ideas, and resources through workshops, events, and an online community, and she is the leader of the #the100dayproject, a global art project wherein thousands of people all around the world commit to 100 days of creating.
In the summer of 2016, Lindsay was diagnosed with Stage IIIC HER2+ breast cancer, two weeks after her 33rd birthday. Cancer does not run in Lindsay’s family. She kept an active, healthy lifestyle. She was young. It was a lot to take in. Stage IIIC is the final step in the third level before reaching Stage IV, an advancement deemed incurable. Cancer had spread to the lymph nodes in her armpit (making a potential fast track to other organs) and a nodule was found in her collar bone. If Lindsay had a chance of recovery, she needed to start treatment right away.
Once diagnosed, Lindsay had a flood of creative inspiration. “I had the opportunity to find and share my voice, and for people to receive it.” Writing about her experience was healing. Throughout her treatment, Lindsay published an open diary on Vice.
Lindsay went through five months of chemotherapy, followed by a mastectomy, followed by twenty-five sessions of radiation, followed by two reconstructive surgeries. It was a long, bizarre, and challenging experience. But the humor, wit, and tender insight Lindsay shares is enough to make you believe in feminine power and that women can do anything.
I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends
Lindsay’s friends raised money for her to take time off from work and explore alternative healing modalities. She tried just about everything...from speaking to a psychic in France, to learning how to swim like a marine mammal. Lindsay received acupuncture, reiki, and had her breast tissue and lymph nodes massaged before and after her mastectomy by a bodyworker specialized in treating cancer patients.
The most helpful thing Lindsay did was go to Pine Street Clinic, an integrative care provider that works in tandem with Western medicine treatments. Pine Street Clinic offers physical, mental, and emotional support. They put her on a strict dietary program to increase the effectiveness of her chemotherapy. They gave her teas and herbal supplements, suggested meditation retreats and yoni eggs. Above all, they counseled her on the importance of allowing others to help her during this process, to receive love.
“[They] told me that in Chinese medicine, generosity is a learned behavior, so giving people the chance to practice is a gift to them.”
Looking back now, Lindsay realizes she was depressed during the months leading up to her diagnosis. She had been in a terrible car accident. She hit a rock wall driving nearly 80 mph and walked away unscathed. Nevertheless, she was shaken. Morbid thoughts began to surface. “What if I died? Would people care if I died? How long would they care before they forgot about me?” For anyone who knows Lindsay, this sounds uncharacteristic. She is adored by many.
“If you've grown up in an abusive home, or had an abusive relationship, there is often a nagging feeling that can defy logic: No one loves me, or worse, I am unlovable.”
Her community came roaring. “It was a really healing experience for me to have so many people rise to the occasion and support me.” Her girlfriends showed up to her chemo sessions like it was a bachelorette party. They played games and had fun. When she couldn’t shower or lift her arms after her mastectomy, her friends spoon fed and sponge bathed her. That is love.
Learning to receive support was hard for Lindsay at first. But she got better at it and she began to heal. By the time she was done with chemotherapy, her Oncologist was shocked at how well she responded to treatment. “I reduced the size of my tumor to almost nothing.”
On Healing and Wellness
Lindsay describes healing as a non-linear, holistic process that happens not just on an individual level. “Healing is about showing up to what is and doing your best to work with it.”
Lindsay got a lot of unsolicited advice. The most offensive comments and questions came from wellness people. “There was a lot of ‘What kind of deodorant do you use? How much do you drink? What do you eat? Did your parents love you?’ A lot of people try to pathologize you. It’s really disempowering.” When you’re dealing with the side effects of chemotherapy (nausea, numbness, body aches, fluid retention, risk of infection) and someone drunkenly shares their deep thoughts on the energetic causes of disease or how essential oils can cure cancer, it falls flat. We’ve developed these scripts in the wellness space, and oftentimes we just spit them out without taking a pause and being present to what is.
“We’ve become a wellness obsessed culture. Almost in a way that is dangerous. I’ve seen many people pursue paths that have become myopic. Those things are about self-optimization, which is not what I would say is wellness.”
People asked Lindsay if she thought about not doing chemotherapy. It just wasn’t an option for her. She was a level away from dying. Not even. She was a third of a level away from dying. “Some people have so maligned Western medicine in a way I find so dangerous.”
The danger in dualistic thinking is believing there are only two choices: One is right or good, the other is wrong or bad, ie. Vitamins and herbs are good. Drugs and surgery are bad.
There is a middle way.
Can we see illness as part of an inner guidance system and also a totally random encounter? Can the body be vulnerable to germs, disease and decay while also inherently self-healing?
We can miss the spiritual wisdom received through illness when our perception is limited to the mechanization of the body. But we can also suffer - or worse, die - if we ignore the advancements of science and Western medicine treatments. We need both to thrive as individuals and a society. We need surgeons and reiki practitioners; vaccines and echinacea; quantum physics and empathetic hearts.
The Journey Continues...On Covid & Cancer
Since the pandemic began, Lindsay has been experiencing déjà vu, like she has done this before. In a way, she has. Spending months on end at home, doing everything in her power not to get (more) sick. In some respects, it's been even harder. “At least when I had cancer I could hug people.” Lindsay has to be extra cautious because chemotherapy and radiation treatments have impacted her heart and lungs, potentiating a high-risk vulnerability.
Despite it all, Lindsay feels lucky. “I have a safe home, there have been moderate cases in SF, the people I know believe in science and wear masks.”
But still, it’s been a mentally and emotionally taxing year. “Covid has brought up a lot of cancer stuff that I thought I had dealt with... that I have not dealt with.”
In true Lindsay fashion, she is working with what is coming up. She’s turning to her art.
Lindsay is committed to 100 days of writing on the subject Bodied: her body, having a body, differentiated bodies, getting bodied, through flash nonfiction essays and poems.
“I feel like I still have things to say about it that I have not said, or want to say in a different way. There are things about living in this different body that are hard to digest. And even though not everyone will have breast cancer, some of the challenges and experiences are universal and relatable in other ways.”
Lindsay is not sure what the outcome will be. But that is healing...and the creative process. “There are dots I am trying to connect. I will be better for having tried to connect the dots.”
Where to Find Lindsay Jean Thomson
Check out Women Catalysts
Follow Lindsay’s Bodied project on Instagram #bodiedbyljt
With so much love,
Christina
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