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–Tem
How Astrology Helped Me Cope:
In May of this year I went to see my doctor for my annual physical. During the examination, she palpated my throat and became suspicious that something might be going on with my lymph nodes. She told me that there were plenty of things that could go wrong in that vicinity, but most of them are not serious. She suggested a sonogram to help diagnose the problem.
The sonogram was unrevealing. The technician said that he had not been given any guidance about what to look for, just the general instruction to check the area of the throat. So, my doctor prescribed a CT scan (my first) of the head and neck.
Two days later, my doctor called me into her office to discusss the results and told me that there was a nodule (lump) in my thyroid, which was not at all what she had been expecting. She also told me that the lump was most likely benign, but there was a small possibility that it could be precancerous or even malignant. (If it turned out to be benign, no treatment would be necessary.) I could choose to ignore the issue and have another scan performed in three months (and again in six months) to see if the lump was increasing in size. But I chose certainty; I chose to have my thyroid biopsied. In any case, there was no indication that anything had spread beyond the thyroid, so even if the lump were malignant, the treatment would be simple: surgery to remove part of my thyroid gland.
By this time, it was early June. At this point, I decided to check the ephemeris to see if astrology could shed any light on this business. Being a novice astrologer, I needed to use simple methods to get a sense of what was going on. I noticed immediately that Saturn (one of the usual suspects) was retrograde and within two degrees of conjoining my natal Chiron at 21° Libra in my 6th house. Saturn would go direct on June 25 at 22°45′ Libra. This slow motion meant that he was within 1–2 degrees of my natal Chiron the entire month of June and into July (and 2–3 degrees from my natal Mars at 20° Libra ). Once he went direct on June 25, he would finally move into Scorpio on October 6. In other words, Saturn would not return to conjoin my Chiron again.
This gave me hope that I was merely being tested by Saturn. In these cases, patience (a form of discipline) is always a virtue. I had to wait a week to get the biopsy performed, due to scheduling problems. But I decided that it made no sense to drive myself crazy with worry when the whole thing might turn out to be nothing. Indeed, it was probably nothing. And even in the worst-case scenario (cancer), it would be curable.
I explained to the radiologist who conducted the biopsy that I was not an experienced patient. I was certainly not used to this level of attention. There were four people in the room: a sonogram technician, a nurse, the radiologist, and a pathologist to interpret the findings. (As far as I could tell, the nurse was chiefly there to hold my hand when the going got rough.)
When I first called my doctor’s office to get the results of the biopsy, I discovered that she was on vacation! So, I waited another week to get the results. “Fine,” I thought. “I will pass this Saturn test. I may not get an A+, but I’m sure I’ll pass.”
Surprisingly, the second week was easier than the first. Still, I knew that my body was stressed out (even though, psychologically, I seemed to be coping rather well). I took medicine to prevent the migraines that had plagued me the first week, causing me to lie awake in the middle of the night thinking negative thoughts — something I was trying to avoid.
On June 25, the very day that Saturn turned direct, I received the news that my biopsy had shown only normal tissue. No further treatment was needed.
There is no doubt in my mind that astrology helped me to cope. I am sure that I would have experienced more anxiety about the outcome, if I hadn’t found out that Saturn was only making a temporary stopover in my 6th house, just long enough to teach me a lesson about patience and maintaining serenity in the face of uncertainty. Thanks, dude.