Wow. What a Difference!

I took Benadryl last night to sleep, but it was really fitful. I ended up looking at the clock every so often. So, out of frustration because I thought I'd feel as tired today as yesterday, I took an Ambien at 1:50. Then I slept until 5, then dozed off and on until about 6:30pm.

I must've got more sleep than I thought because I've had a great day. I don't really feel that tired or even groggy.

So, now I think the grogginess was due to me having a beer at my friend's graduation party. I think I'll avoid alcohol while I'm on the anti-seizure medication. It doesn't say to avoid it, but now that it's out of my system, I feel okay today. (Yes, dad, I know you'd rather I not drink at all.) So, alcohol only for special occasions this summer.

What did I do today? I stayed home most of the day. I took Ed to school, then went to the co-op to pick up a facial cleanser (something causing my face to break out) and I saw a friend and visited with her and her two kiddos.

I came home, got my checkbook caught up, paid a bill, made some appointments, cleaned my little 1/2 bathroom (I might have a leaky sink - crap), then finally cleaned up myself, then worked for a couple of hours on my blog analysis, picked up Eddie, then got a pedicure.

My tummy felt a little off today here and there, so it's still recovering from the steroids.

After my first surgery on April 1, I ended up losing weight - from about 142 to 134 pounds. When I left the hospital after my third surgery, I was 134. I weighed about 138 on Friday - thanks to the steroids and eating carbs like crazy and probably some water retention. I had wanted to get below 140 for a long time, so I'm going to try to stay right where I'm at. I am attempting to get back to a better diet, but I still want sweet chewy candy. I think about those almond-paste croissants from Le Patisserie, but as sugar feeds cancer, I am trying my best to avoid them. I start adding flaxseed to my cereal again, too. Now, to begin drinking green tea. I really need to readopt an anticancer diet.

I'm good. I don't feel like lying down. I'm watching Ed play his wii. It's a good evening and a good day. I feel like I should be doing something . . . who knows, maybe start gluing the new mosaic design? If truth be told, I want to get back to that blog analysis. : )

Tomorrow will be busy; two appointments in the am (wound care and physical therapy), then hanging out with Eddie during his school's field trip, then I have an echogram afterwards, then Eddie's school play at 6:30. Eddie is the "producer" for American Ideal (a Christian knock-off of American Idol). Let's hope I get even more sleep tonight. I think I will. My heart rate seems to have slowed down more to normal.

Starting New Habits

I don't usually go through the trouble of New Year's Resolutions. At least, I don't publicize them. However, in my head, I usually make some decisions about ways to change my life.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am recommitting to dietary changes: I'm cutting out sugar, white flour, and processed foods. I am also trying to only have one diet pepsi each day. I have been doing okay in this regard - cutting down on what I consume although I will admit that I haven't entirely cut out sugar yet.

I also decided to start running/jogging again. I started that today. My goal is to run 3 times a week, about 20-30 minutes. I walked half the way today. I could feel it in my thighs and in my right calf.

Plus, my goal is to spend as much time as possible in my Humanities Center office. I have already finished a couple of shorter writing projects and today, I figured out my plan of attack for my book manuscript. I have a contract with OSU Press to compile a set of essays that I've already published on King Island. My goal is to have the finished manuscript by April 1. I also have a few chapters completed.

I must say that I really like this (new to me) office that I get to use. We're in an older brick building; my office is the size of a bedroom. I have an L-shaped desk, another filing cabinet, a book shelf, a side table, office chair, and easy chair, plus a couple of lamps. My windows face southeast, so when we had sunny weather a couple of days ago, I had nice sunlight trickling in my window from outside. I like it because the office is fairly empty - I don't have all the stuff I've accummulated in my regular office. Somehow, the lack of clutter and files is like free my mental space to make room for these writing projects. I chatted about this with the Director and he mentioned that when he used his office, he only brought in the books he needed for writing and that it felt "liberating".

Exactly. I understood what he meant. It's like I can forget all the other stuff that I usually need to attend to. Liberating is very cool.

In other words, I've had a good few days already. Now, if the satellite tumors would behave and respond to the Herceptin/Abraxane combo, things will be peachy keen!

Darnit!! Not surprised, though

As you all know, I had these new satellite tumors growing in and around the wound. I counted as many as 17 or 18 today. So, I knew my CEA tumor marker would go up. I thought it would by a few points, but instead it went up to 17.1.

Crap. Lost a lot of ground in the last month. My theory again is that Abraxane worked as long as I had a bunch of Herminator-2 cells running around. However, Abraxane is a non-discriminating chemotherapy - it kills bad as well as good cells. So, my lovely Herminator-2 cells have been knocked down by Abraxane - a couple of weeks ago, it was about 1/3 of what it was at the beginning of October. Today, my white blood cell count went back up - it doubled from two weeks ago - but it's still not the strength that's needed.

So, it was necessary to bring in something new - I'm glad we added Herceptin today with the new CEA number. I'm not out of the woods yet. I need to recommit to not eating sugar or processed foods and to practicing qigong and meditation more. I need to do whatever I can to help my body knock out the cancer. I think the high CEA today was a message to tell me to not rest on my laurels . . . or to rely too much on just one thing, like the Abraxane.

It also means starting to say no again to things at work, including any kind of long distance travel. The farthest I want to go is Hawaii or Alaska. I need to stay close to home and rest. I need to keep my life as unstressful as possible. A couple of new things cropped up at work today and it made me feel overwhelmed. So, it's time to retreat.

I expect that I won't sleep well tonight. I might use the time to write and get a bit ahead with work projects. So, I got a plan.

Here's the CEA history:

Anyway, here is the history:

CEA
1/2008 - 1.2 ng/mL
3/2008 - 0.9 ng/mL
6/2008 - 1.0 ng/mL
8/2008 - 1.1 ng/mL (need to double check this number, but it was in that 0.9 to 1.2 range)
9/2008 - 0.5 ng/mL
10/2008 - 0.9 ng/mL
10/31/2008 - 1.2 ng/mL
11/28/2008 - 1.2 ng/mL
12/30/2008 - 1.1 ng/mL
3/2/2009 - 1.4 ng/mL
4/8/2009 - 1.6 ng/mL
5/5/2009 - 1.9 ng/mL
6/4/2009 - 3.0 ng/mL
7/2/2009 - 3.7 ng/mL
8/3/2009 - 4.2 ng/mL
8/31/2009 - 5.1 ng/mL
10/2/2009 - 5.7 ng/mL (or was it 5.8?)
11/2/2009 - 7.6 ng/mL
11/30/2009 - 10.5 ng/mL
12/28/2009 - 13.2 ng/mL
3/8/2010 - 22.9 ng/mL
4/22/2010 - 28.9 ng/mL
6/7/2010 - 46.3 ng/mL
7/19/2010 - 44.3 ng/mL
8/19/2010 - 50.9 ng/mL
10/05/2010 - 41.6 ng/mL
11/04/2010 - 7.1 ng/mL
12/03/2010 - 3.4 ng/mL
12/30/2010 - 17.1 ng/mL

Sigh. No rest for the wicked, huh?

Overdoing It - When Will I Ever Learn?

I stayed home this morning, but worked on a grant proposal because the deadline is tomorrow. I drove to Eddie's school and then walked to lunch. I was supposed to have lunch with a colleague, but he forgot, so I had my Thai green tofu curry with veggies alone, which was fine. I ate the whole lunch - all the rice, veggies, and tofu. Then I walked to my office.

My legs have felt shaky all day and within an hour of getting to my office, was hungry again. I finally went to the bookstore and bought some cookies and tootsie rolls. I have a craving for carbs - I figure my body is trying to fuel something!

I finally found a file I'd been looking for off and on for a couple of weeks. Then, it was a matter of organizing the papers - someone requested a copy of them. The papers were applications for doing research with my King Island community. I figured I needed to figure out what was in that file, too, to get a better handle on all my paperwork regarding the King Island placenames project.

I had some other emails and such to deal with, so I didn't quite make the copy I needed to. I'll get to that tomorrow afternoon.

I walked back to Ed's school - then we stopped by Blockbuster before coming home. By the time I picked him up, I was exhausted. I've been feeling exhausted all afternoon and evening.

I was also achey - my legs and lower back and a bit of a headache. My neck and shoulders are tight, so I know I'm carrying some stress about this proposal.

I've worked on the proposal off and on since. Had a break for dinner - mom made "Aakauraq's soup" - a hamburger and veggie soup with noodles. And, fresh baked bread. I think I ate half a loaf in addition to a bowl and a half of soup.

So, I'm eating healthy foods - veggies, curry, tofu - but also a lot of carbs.

I also took a hot bath to work out the achey muscles. Then I discovered that I didn't take my herbs and Ibuprofen this morning. Sheesh - that's probably why I'm so achey. But I also probably overdid it today. Holy cow. I hope that next time I have a treatment, I can really truly take it easy for a few days. Holy cow I'm tired.

The hot bath definitely helped, but now it's back to this proposal. It's close to being completed. The purpose of it is to organize all the data related to the King Island placenames project. If it's funded, most of our Corvallis based research team will help me organize the data. Wish us luck!

New Daily Routines

As a result of reading this book, Anticancer, as well as visits with my physical therapist, I've tried to make some changes into my daily routine and diet.

I've been eating at least one tablespoon of flaxseed with cereal or on my toast in the morning. The author of Anticancer advocates 2-3 tablespoons a day. He also says that 2-3 cups of green tea are part of an Anticancer diet - I'm up to two. I have a caffeinated version with breakfast and will have a decaf one in the evening. I have incorporated at least a cup of soy each day, either as milk or in tofu. I already take turmeric as a supplement but a few times a week, I try to have a curry. I need to incorporate blueberries more often, but I eat something with blueberries at least once a week as well as dark chocolate. I have a bottle of red wine and over the past week, I've had two glasses. I'm trying to eat more veggies, especially colorful veggies. He also says we should eat "stone fruits" which are things like peaches and pears. I need to bring them in still. He also says that eating things in combination with each other is more effective than eating them singly, so my breakfast is a multigrain cereal with soy milk and ground flaxseed with a cup of green tea. The ground flaxseed has blueberry, cranberry, and strawberry bits in it.

My physical therapist said that I should do my stretches twice/day. I find that that's hard to do. So, I do them at night and have incorporated them into my nightly before-bed routine that includes qigong. I think it helps. On Friday, the palm of my hand started tingling a lot, like it was falling asleep. I kept shaking it to try to wake it up, but that didn't help because the nerve is constantly being compressed with the swollen lymph nodes. What helped was stretching. Once I stretched my left arm, it felt better.

I guess I find, that for me, it's better to start slow and incorporate one or two new things into the routine and once they become routine, then add something else. So, that way it's gradual - and pretty soon, I don't notice it. If I were to go all out, it would be overwhelming. So, a little bit at a time.

I've been trying to phase out sugary candies and processed foods, including industrialized meats and dairy products (meaning, meat and dairy products that have hormones and/or are fed corn syrup and other products to increase productivity, instead of natural range beef and dairy).

I think our whole American society needs to change our diet - like the new TV show called Food Revolution (I think). Yesterday, as I walked around the amusement park, I noticed that at least half of the people (if not more, sadly to say), including children, were overweight. (I noticed this, too, when arriving at the Minneapolis airport after living in London for a few months in 2005. It's really sad - and then I get pissed off at the toxic way that large industrial farms have harmed our diets.) The author of Anticancer says that nutritionists have called the obesity epidemic in this country an "American paradox" - since the 1980s, we have greatly decreased the amount of fats in our diet and yet our society, on average, has gained weight, not lost it. He cites a lot of research, that convinced me, that this is due to the fact that our diets now have about five times as much Omega-6's in our diet due to these processed foods - the amount of sugar and corn syrup in our diets and even in the diets of our meat and dairy. The Omega-6's are "inflammatory", causing an increase in heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer. The idea is to create balance in our diets again by decreasing the Omega-6's and increasing the Omega-3's, found in the anti-inflammatory foods such as flaxseed, soy, blueberries, fresh veggies, green tea, curry and turmeric, and red wine.

Soy, Green Tea, Blueberries, Red Wine, and Dark Chocolate

Here's an interesting article about diet and how these foods are effective against cancer cells (and even fat!) because they cut off the cell's blood supply. I am going to endeavor to eat these foods more - and even start incorporating them into my daily diet. I already eat soy a few times a week (usually soy milk) and green tea in the morning (will try to start drinking more cups each day). Now, I just need to bring in blueberries more often and dark chocolate - and maybe get some red wine. They say that they work better in combination. Thank you to Gooey and to Chris for posting variations of this article!

What I found interesting is that the researchers found that these foods are as effective (or maybe more effective) as traditional chemotherapy drugs at cutting off the cancer cells blood supply.

That strengthens my opinion that I should avoid chemo for as long as I can. I need to make my body healthier not break it down with toxic chemicals.

Now, if I can just cut out the sugars!

8pm diet update: I had wheat toast and green tea for breakfast; a blueberry muffin and a soy chai for a mid-morning snack; a mandarine orange; a granola bar; turkey sandwich with a few chips and a diet pepsi; red licorice and dark chocolate pieces (mom got a deal on them at the store today); roast beef, with roasted potatoes and carrots; tugayuk (a green from Alaska, preserved in misagaq - seal oil); a drum stick (ice cream cone with chocolate/nuts). I'm still feeling hungry; and a few red grapes. It must be because of the long walk in the sun today - about an hour, maybe an hour and a half. Anticancer foods: green tea, blueberries, soy, dark chocolate, red grapes. Sugar: chai, red licorice, ice cream with chocolate. Hmm . . . I think that was an okay day!

The World is Trying to Tell Me Something

Recently, in the past week, I've read about two other bloggers that are working or have changed their diets so that they don't eat processed foods and especially sugar and fats. I have to admit that while I think I generally have a good diet, I have kept not given up on sugary foods. I don't eat fatty foods hardly at all (occasionally french fries but I'm getting to the point where I don't like them anymore). It's the sugar that gets me.

For a long time, I only had a thin layer of margarine on my toast, but last year, I started putting jam (I had some homemade jam from Kai and I think Agnes M that I used), but after I ran out of the jam, only having margarine on my toast was boring. So, lately, I've had cinnamon toast, which includes a bit of sugar and then cinnamon. Cinnamon is a good spice - I think I read that it has antiinflammatory properties. But, it's the sugar. Also, after lunch or dinner, I do crave some form of chewy candy. Lately, it's cinnamon bears or red licorice. In Norway last week, I ate a lot of milk chocolate. I've also been drinking diet pepsi more, too, for my daily caffeine (I drink chai in the morning, but toward lunch, I have the diet pepsi). The artificial sweeteners in pop (soda) are not supposed to be good for you.

Anyway, since these two bloggers (Jill and Jeanne from NYC) have mentioned getting rid of sugar in their diets and how that might keep their bodies healthier and able to fight off cancer, I think I need to make a stronger effort to eliminate sugars from my diet and cut down on the pop.

Shoot. But there's a greater good there, too, right? Eyes on the prize and all that. I don't think I'll completely eliminate those things from my diet, but maybe cut down on the amount I have on a daily basis. I think my acupuncturist might say that a little bit won't hurt you. Once last year, I mentioned that I had a couple of beers after a softball game and I told her that I know I shouldn't drink. Her reply was, "Did you enjoy yourself?" and I said that I did. And, she replied something that implied, "let go of the guilt. You had fun." I just think that I've been letting go of the guilt a bit too much lately. Time to do more to eliminate a bit more of that stuff from my diet.