imaginary chips with everything

I'm becoming aware of the connection between a healthy appetite and the will to live. My dad stopped eating a few weeks ago when he was at death's door. This is one of the 'old ways' of dying: refusing to eat, not from conscious choice in most cases but from a more instinctive, animal, sense that life, the life force, is coming to an end. Hospitals increasingly acknowledge the need for a dignified death and don't feed patients intravenously at this point. My dad's recovering now, partly through the attentive care of my mother, who has been spoonfeeding him all his meals, adding in fresh vegetables and his favourite ice cream brought in a thermos from home.

Something I've noticed while undergoing chemotherapy is that the chemicals have induced a strange loss of appetite, causing me to go off the fresh, organic, raw foods I had been treating myself with so joyfully for a few months. More problematic: even thinking about certain foods has me feeling queasy. I'm the main cook of our large family's (and droppers-by) main meal. The way I cook, I now realize, is to imagine the meal as though we're eating it and work backwards - so I'm handicapped before I even start. Walking to town to buy provisions for our meal yesterday all I could usefully conjure up in my mind was pizzas, cheese on toast, chocolate mousse - hardly recipes for people with cancer, let alone a healthy life.

And losing appetite has caused this zest for life to wax and wane lately with the three-weekly cycle of chemical treatment. I'm watching it curiously, kindly, learning to nurture myself through the troughs. I'm lucky to have plenty of love and other resources to help me through – I wonder how others, less fortunate, cope with this double-edged treatment, the cure that could as easily kill.

There's some upsides though. I've discovered that my imagination still has a lusty appetite, even if it isn't for things green. Last week while waiting for a friend at the local (chamomile tea the order of the day) I managed to munch my way through the entire menu – in my mind. Roast beef with all the trimmings – aaah. Pizza with chips - mmm. Sandwiches filled with all manner of cheeses, meats and pickles. Washed down with a couple of pints of Harveys. I could get used to this!

a curious lightness of being

A friend of mine who is recovering from cancer commented recently that the illness tends to bring on enlightenment. It's a funny thing to say, but it does stand to reason. Facing the possibility of premature death tends to throw one's whole life into perspective. ‘Am I ready to die?’ is a question that springs to mind. For a spiritual being, it should be a question we ask ourselves daily anyway.

It's like that conversation I used to have at dinner parties that started: if you had a year to live and had no money or health worries, what would you do? Laurence LeShan poses it in his workbook in Cancer as a Turning Point. He found that even terminally ill cancer patients, when encouraged to find their deep passion and zest for a vocation, often stifled, made remarkable recoveries from cancer, or at least had a more fulfilling end to their life. Personally, I've always just tended to do what I wanted to do in life anyway, so there's not much I regret not doing. But I managed to come up with a short list and plan to add to it over time. MORE OF: laughing, happiness, intimacy, friendship, adventures, food growing, holistic beekeeping, dancing, travel to exotic places (well, that will have to be by freighter). START: reading about Einstein, learning to play the cello. LESS OF: chores. It seems like such a sparse, undemanding list, given the opportunity to have my dreams come true. But it is what it is.

If it is possible to be frog-marched down the road to enlightenment, I suspect it might go something like this. Gratitude: As I wrote last week, whatever time remains appears more intense. Little details seem like tailor-made miracles. Judgement and reactions: So what? Life really might be too short. Even those nasty people who are trashing my planet are, to me now, simply ignorant; let it all go. Bad habits: Stuff that; I want to live my remaining days to the full, not lost in a cloud. Forgiveness: It's physically much easier to say sorry than to bear a grudge. Living in the moment: More than ever, so much of the busy-ness we call life and where we put our energies seems rather a waste of time. I can't even work myself up into a lather about the credit crunch; faced with possible death, both the voice of the news and even the voices in my head seem tedious. What remains are the core values that we all live with; love, truth, hope, happiness, which, like the vegan-esque diet I've been on, contributes to a rather curious lightness of being.

The fierce heat of living

I write from my bed, feverish with the mistletoe injected to help repel the cancer. Mistletoe is the most frequently prescribed therapy in German outpatient cancer clinics; it's said to strengthen the immune system while minimizing the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Our ancestors laced ale with it during winter orgies – hence the provenance of kissing under the mistletoe. My fever started at Park Attwood, the anthroposophical clinic in Worcestershire, where I retreated for a week and was fed fantastic food and given foot compresses, massages and hot water bottles. I'll continue with the injections weekly or so for the next couple of years while I recover. Mistletoe is said to support the 'etheric body' – or life force during chemotherapy, which starts next week.

In between fevers I spent last weekend here in Lewes with my family and felt as happy as I've ever felt in my life. God – and not the devil - is in the details. The slam of the door as the children return home. The toot and parp of Dirk tuning his instruments. The crackle and glow of the fire. The sun moving across the sky and casting its light on the buildings around us. People dropping by, chatting outside in the street, organic carrots fresh out of a nearby field making a rainbow winter salad. It's been said a million times, that facing death makes us truly value what we have. But why stop at cancer? Life itself is terminal. Why not fall into love with ourselves and melt in to that fierce heat of living, right now and at every moment?