Susan Wilson went out kayaking one day, as she is fond of doing, and as she was soaping up in the shower that night she found the mass in her breast, near her heart. Her pants had become loose over the last few weeks but at the time, she thought it was due to the paddling. Susan received a mammogram and ultrasound right away after telling her husband, Dr. Bob Wilson, what she had discovered. The technicians at the hospital could tell through the ultrasound that it was a cancerous mass.

“I was very shocked,” said Susan. “I was very healthy, and I had no history of cancer in my family. I felt horrible…I am the main nurturer in my family and my first response was: ‘how am I going to do what I need to do for my family?’ I had many moments of fear…over the impermanence of life. I began to cherish the days more carefully and with more attention.”

During her time at the hospital, and as she worked with the physicians and technicians on the best way to combat her illness, she felt as if she was receiving gifts. “I began to see the beauty of cancer. What I mean is that there was so much intelligence, in the medical realm. The entire medical community was there to support me, and I received much helpful intellectual and emotional awareness from the employees. I was being tested very intensely with nuclear medicine, and at first I was terrified of this. But then I realized they were helping me by viewing inside my body without being invasive; they didn’t have to inject or insert anything; it was very safe and the people were kind and understood what I was going through. In such a sterile environment, their humanity shone through in their actions and their kindnesses. Humor played a very big part in those wards, and I will not forget that.”

She felt that the many different art forms she used for helping her heal were gifts, and as she reflected on this, Susan thought that other people who are experiencing some of the same illness-related issues might benefit from her story.

“I had Reiki, after my surgery,” Susan recalled. “Two women came every week for almost 14 months; and two others would join them. The work changed the whole feeling in the house. It felt very calm and safe in the room where we shared the Reiki. It helped me sleep, and dream. It felt like it opened other channels through my whole body. One can’t eat much when you’re having chemotherapy, and the Reiki felt like food to me…you’re sick all the time with diarrhea and nausea. I felt loved and held and fed through the Reiki. it was medicine and support. Chemotherapy kills regenerating cells, so while the medicine was helping me receive the intensity of the drug, the Reiki helped my body obtain nourishment. Also, it really hurt where the 20 lymph nodes had been removed and my breast had been removed, and the Reiki helped as well with the pain.”

Always a person who loved the ocean and the mountains, Susan would go out on 8-10 hour walks and sleep in the forest. She would take soup and water with her on these trips, and sometimes, once a week she would go on night walks. She would wear camouflage and sequester herself in the woods. Susan learned how beautiful the human soul is, and this was another gift. As she walked through the woods on Lopez, even while her cells were dying from the chemotherapy, she could feel the outline of her true soul shining through.

“It is a gift, living on the island and walking amongst the natural world,” said Susan. “My illness was a gift, and allowed me to step outside myself in many ways. I never felt lonely or suicidal. Color was beautiful, from the darkest gray to the most briliiant reds; visuals were huge; wildlife and animals were amazing. It opened up my senses so strongly except for my smell. The drugs affected that, and so seeing and hearing were more brilliant and more clear than ever before. I took my journal with me, and I would take notes and write poems. I learned to celebrate life and I learned about the seasons.” Susan began weaving baskets, because she lost the ability to feel textures, and she was trying to get feeling back into her fingers. The walks took her pain away.

Sound, she said, was another gift. “When I am kayaking, sometimes I snorkel, and when I am submerged underwater, there is a quiet tone that is a type of sound and I became aware of that. The sounds of the rain while I was paddling. The sound of the wind, and the shades of color, especially green.”

Susan stopped chemotherapy in December of 2007. She has been getting her strength and her memory back, although she had three months of a deep melancholy; “Everyone believes that when you finish treatment, you’re well! You’re done!” she said. “And everyone looks at that and thinks you’re fine. But I wasn’t well. I felt very tired, and my body, which was allowed to grow again, was growing and regenerating, and that, too, was very intense.”

The last and best gift she received was arriving at a bonfire and being surrounded by many of her friends, singing and smiling, and welcoming her home.