Happy April 26th!

You might ask yourself what in the world is so special about April 26th. Indeed.

Well, here is what we woke up to this morning:

From the front deck

 

From the front deck

Heavy, wet snow.

Do not wipe off your screen - those globs are not dustballs; they're snowflakes. HUGE snowflakes.

And that is what April 26, 2013 looked like in our corner of the world today. As much as we do enjoy winter time, I have to admit my first reaction to this was, "Boo." I'm sticking with that.

Quick quote about nutrition. Yes, I am obsessed.

The following three paragraphs are from the preface of a book I'm currently rereading called One Answer to Cancer by Dr. William Donald Kelley, D.D.S., M.S. The preface was written by Greg Stirling of Vancouver, British Columbia in March, 1997.

 

I have believed for a long time that the American Medical Complex and the Consumer Food and Beverage Industrial Complex have little interest in the prevention of disease. It makes far better business sense to let the population eat, drink and smoke to their heart’s content and then offer seemingly high tech and expensive methods for cleaning up the aftermath. In the United States, the food industry alone generates 500 billion dollars in sales: Bacon, eggs, milk, fast food franchises, soft drinks, fried food, dead food, overcooked food, sweets, treats and canned goods. We have gotten away from simple diets and become human garbage disposals. Sixty percent of the American public is overweight. Clearly the large food conglomerates are successfully marketing to an oblivious public. After feeding your body with dead and processed foods for 20, 30, 40 or more years, things begin to run less perfectly. We have overlooked the processing energy required to digest bacon and eggs each morning, that steak in the evening and the cocktails in between. The result is the current health crisis where one in three will have cancer in their lifetimes — not to mention heart disease.

But instead of educating the public on how our bodies function best, the medical establishment chooses instead to clean out those arteries with drugs and catheters, perform by-pass surgery or cut the problem out (or off) altogether. To be fair, the American medical community has done some wonderful things and made outstanding progress in the last 45 years. But it is simply not in their best interest to prevent disease. They are in the business of treating disease. This is where the money is: Surgery, MRI, radiation, chemotherapy, research and examinations. The doctors don’t want a disease-fee society any more than lawyers want a perfectly honest one.

 

Just enough to make you think, huh?

You can read the entire book here: http://www.drkelley.com/CANLIVER55.html

Nutrition with Pictures

Well, well, well.

Here it is almost a month later than I had expected it to be for my next post. "Oopsie", as we say in the biz. (Greg says that all the time. I'm not sure who "we" is nor to what biz that phrase pertains.)

Anyhoodle, on to the post!

I am often asked, both locally and via the interwebs, what I am specifically doing to treat my cancer through diet. Usually I assume people do not really want to know exactly say, what I put in my salad every day, but recently I've been told differently. So, I have compiled a few pictures to show what I eat, pretty much every day.

To review, here are the things that I have either eliminated or drastically reduced:

anything at all that is not organic - This goes for all my baking ingredients, any packaged stuff, and spices, and anything else we ingest.

non-fermented soy - Some tofu and soy sauces are fermented and therefore safe(r) to eat for me. I try to limit the girls' intake completely. Soy may substantially increase estrogen production and my cancer is estrogen driven. Luckily it appears that the short stint of chemo I subjected myself to last fall actually obviated my ovaries, so I seem to be in menopause and am no longer producing mass quantities of estrogen. This is a good thing that came from a bad thing. See how God produces blessings from burdens?

processed, added sugar - I use raw honey or fruits to sweeten stuff like tea and birthday cakes.

meat - Okay, this one is a bit of a sore spot with my big, manly hunter of a hubby. He is quite peeved that he no longer has a compelling reason to buy guns and camo gear and traipse around in the woods for weeks at a stretch.  In fairness, I gotta say that we do occasionally, like twice a month, add in some clean chicken or fish. I've been told by my naturopathic physician that we could add in some lean, wild game as well. Yay, a reason to continue getting the Cabela's catalog! We're also hoping to justify adding in some shrimp and crab now that the season is upon us.

salt - We generally don't eat processed, packaged stuff, so we can easily avoid most added salt, plus we don't have a salt shaker in the house. That said, in the interest of full disclosure, I currently have a huge weakness for one particular brand of potato chips: Boulder Canyon. Man, those are so good! Fortunately, they offer varieties that are non-GMO and made with olive oil.

dairy - This we have eliminated completely for all of us. No yogurt, no milk, no cheese, no whey, no sour cream, no dairy at all. Here's why: http://www.chrisbeatcancer.com/mutant-milk-kicking-the-sacred-cow/. Lots of helpful links there to even more info. Interestingly, of that whole article, this quote made me think: "Note: Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly bought the patent from Monsanto in 2008 and is now the sole manufacturer of rGBH." I seriously wonder if Eli Lilly produces chemo drugs. That way they'd actually be causing the cancer and then selling you (ineffective) chemo drugs as well. Obviously, whatever they're doing, they're not suffering a bit: http://jagsreport.com/2013/01/eli-lilly-co-lly-announces-quarterly-earnings-results-beats-estimates-by-0-03-eps/

wheat and gluten - Gluten is out for everyone; wheat is also out for me but we are transitioning to have all wheat out for all of us shortly. Even though we give the girls whole wheat, whole grains, they cause such inflammation and I really don't want them to have to deal with those issues down the road just because it was the easiest thing for me to feed them. We are going to start spouting our own grains, grinding them to flour, and making our own bread. Yum!

Alrighty. Thanks for sticking with me this far. I'm hopeful and prayerful that something I post today is helpful to someone.

First things first:
When I get up, I first drink at least one big glass of cold water, sometimes two, and get some hot water going for tea. Then, on an empty stomach, I take my morning supplements which consist of about 15 different things....I've either been directed to take these by my naturopath or I have researched enough to make a good decision on whether to add them in or not.

This is an older photo. I've added several things and taken out a few as well since then.

I had a hard time keeping things straight for several weeks so I got these guys. Even though it helps, I don't think this is the best system. I may tweak this before I'm happy with it. I take so many things, that sometimes they don't all fit in the little boxes for that day/time.

I'll have to tell you more about each pill I take in a later post.

Before I get to have my own meal, I make breakfast for the girls. This morning, they had packaged waffles (non-GMO, soy-, dairy-, and wheat-free... and of course organic) with this fruit syrup on top. That's a frozen, organic berry medley and a glop of organic, raw honey. Amy would suck this through a straw if I let her.

Breakfast:
This is typically my one hot meal of the day. I put organic olive oil in a fry pan/wok and saute non-GMO and organic veggies - garlic, potatoes, leeks, carrots, peppers, mushrooms, green onions, cauliflower, broccoli, and whatever else we have lying around.

In this first set of photos, I've got a colorful mix in my sturdy ceramic pan. We've got red onion, white potatoes, red pepper, orange pepper, mushrooms, zucchini, celery. I think that's it. Oh, and carrots.

Here, I've added in the spices - garlic powder, black pepper, turmeric, cayenne, and dill. Yes, it's weird, but it's so good. My mouth is tingly for quite some time after eating this dish. Garlic, turmeric and cayenne are three of the four best spices for fighting cancer. Oregano is the other, but it kind of alters the flavor of this dish in a bad way. I take an oil of oregano tablet instead each day.

Here I've got a different blend. Let's see, there's potatoes, celery, yellow bell peppers, and those round, dark things are purple heritage carrots. There's also leeks, and green onions.

Oh yes, I see the mushrooms in there too. Then I add the same spices, sometimes leaving out the dill and many times using chopped garlic from a jar or fresh garlic instead of the powder.

Today, I forgot the dill, but I did have broccoli and cauliflower in the mix as well as most of the other stand-bys. Veggies that I view as compulsory are: leeks, green onions, broccoli, cauliflower, and garlic. If I don't have those, I feel like I haven't done all I can in the way of good nutrition, so I'll eat extras of those at lunch or as snacks.

Speaking of lunch...

 

It's usually a salad every day. Greens, kale, spinach, cukes, tomatoes, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, carrots, leeks, green onions, red onions, whatever peppers we have. Kind of the same as breakfast, but not cooked. Sometimes I'll use Chris' salad dressing recipe (drizzle olive oil, splash of apple cider vinegar, and liberal dashes of oregano, cayenne, turmeric, and lots of garlic). I also add flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and maybe some almonds. And probably dill. Sure love me some dill.

 

I did learn the hard way that even though "lots" of salad is good for you, "lots" of salad takes a long time to eat. I'm not usually very hungry after my big breakfast, so I had to pare down the size of my salads. I focus on chewing every bite until it is almost liquid in my mouth before swallowing and that really takes some time. I didn't want to be eating all day long, but it still takes me a good 90 minutes to eat it all.

 

Dinner is a smoothie, a fun way to end the day. I use a half can of organic, full-fat coconut milk, a handful of frozen berries, some probiotics, my Vitamin D emulsion, my multi vitamin in powder form, sometimes a banana, and some broccoli powder. If I am really craving something different, I'll add a splash of vanilla and/or a dash of cinnamon, both organic of course. Or I'll make it with chocolate almond milk. Oh, golly - I also take a liposomal vitamin C (I call it 'the goo') and that goes in the mix too. That is my key treatment right now - the 1000mg of sodium ascorbate (vit C) I get from this supplement.

 

Through the day, I drink at least one mug of strong green tea, one mug of detox tea, and one glass of devil's club tea. Plus I do juice even more fruits and veggies several times a week.

 

When I'm ready to mix it up a bit, I'll have beans and rice for dinner, and my smoothie in the morning. Or I'll put an egg in my morning potato concoction. All I really strive to do is eat as many veggies as possible, take all my supplements and powders, and not eat too many chips.

 

Easy peasy, right?

 

I get blood work results back soon, so we'll know if I'm on the right track. Stay tuned!

 

PS: Here are some hair pictures so you can see for yourself that I am alive and well, with HAIR! It's so long it's messed up on my left side. Still missing my ponytail, but it's easier to believe it will come back one day after seeing how fast my hair is growing right now. I think maybe the healthy food is helping it grow in faster.

 

My mom who is several time zones away is curious as to what color my hair is coming back. I keep saying it's beige, but maybe you have a more creative suggestion? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks!

 

 

A few weeks ago a pastor at our church asked me to share my testimony at a churchwide retreat. This was the day after I got back from California, after my visit to Oasis of Hope, after the flight with Drunk Guy and Middle Seat Guy.

For those of you not privy to this particular Christian-ese term, testimony means story.

My portion is just the first few minutes of this (maybe 10?), but it could take quite a few minutes to load. Be patient. Be still. Just wait. Enjoy the story.

http://chapelbythelake.org/downloads/sermon-2013-02-24-sun-eve.mp3

 

 

In other news, I turned 43 right before the trip south.

 

I was worried Gwen was going to put her hair right in the flame.
Can't smile when you're trying to remember where the extinguisher is, right?



Greg and the girls got me this beautiful Rie Munoz print. Perfect in the kitchen!

Amelia wasn't sure if she was in the picture or not. Better pose just in case.
The old print behind me is by another local Juneau artist, Michelle Morrel.

My hair is way longer than this now. It's so long I have to brush it. And it is often all messed up in the mornings. Bed head! It's been so long since I had that! :)