On A Road to Somewhere

June 11, 2021

Infusion #2 is done and dusted. I’m happy to report no side effects, except I’m so tired….

Worked all day yesterday– real tough, being on Zoom calls from 8:30-4:30– but at 3:00, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw an ashen face staring back. I grabbed one of those 15 minute power naps and finished the day, but, whoo-howdy, it didn’t feel fun.

It’s very strange, graduating from a daily to a twice-monthly visit to the cancer center. They sent me out with a sheet of paper containing a detailed diagram of the Mediterranean diet, which is the recommended way of eating to live with, and prevent, cancer. I’ve also left with the weight they wanted me to gain, not a fun party favor, and the caution to not try to lose weight for at least a month after finishing radiation.

What about Covid? I haven’t gotten a ton of specific advice. Even though I’m fully vaccinated, with my white cells back into normal ranges, caution is my game. I’m staying masked, away from crowds and out of stores. Last month, the NY Times had an article, With Hugs and Haircuts, U.S. Epidemiologists Start Returning (Carefully!) to Everyday Life. Despite the positive title, I didn’t see a many of them doing much that’s different from how I am living now. As I said to the doctor Wednesday, I want to see what the numbers look like two weeks after Memorial Day. Today, our county is double the number of cases from two days ago.

What to do as a post-treatment cancer person is basically a no-person’s land.

Many support groups for cancer folks are a trip to another land. There are gurus out there, for example, the retired Spanish professor who sternly tells people anything they post on her Facebook group must be research-based. She researches people’s questions about whether they should eat X mushrooms or Y vegetables, supplements, etc. and has many opinions <ahem>. She has a list of foods cancer people must eliminate completely: 

• all packaged and processed foods,
• all red meat, including pork (if you absolutely have to eat red meat for a spell, eat only pastured, grass-fed beef, etc to minimize omega-6s and increase omega-3s) chicken and other fowl,
• all white flour products (breads, pastries, pasta, etc.),
• white baking potatoes like Idaho and russet,
• all dairy (yogurt, cheese, cottage cheese, whole milk, low-fat and skimmed milk, ice cream, cream, butter and, if I’ve left any milk product out at all, put it in this group, but not in your mouth),
• corn oil, cottonseed oil, sunflower oil, palm oil, lard, butter, margarine, soybean oil, coconut oil, ghee,
• all refined sugar and products containing refined sugar, all soft drinks like Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, etc., 100% fruit juices except tart cherry, pomegranate, purple grape, apple, lemon (all with absolutely nothing added),
• all decaf coffee processed with chemical solvents, tap water, bottled water in soft plastic containers (glass container bottled water is okay). If your diet has been rich with any or all of the above and you are feeling overwhelmed by the need for such a drastic overhaul (which might not seem so bad when I list the food/beverages you should be eating, then you might want to check out the Keith Block, MD website www.lifeovercancer.com. The LOC website will give you a 7 day plan to help you transition from a heavy animal, sugar, refined carbohydrate, high -fat, chemically-laden diet to a low and healthy-fat, plant based diet and give you a 7 day meal plan.

Sorry, I’m not giving up milk in my tea. And maybe she hasn’t noticed the publication date of that book, but it’s not what I would consider current.

Mostly, I’m going to steer VERY clear of the guru scene.

There is a group of people with one of my genetic mutations. They share experiences with drug cocktails, stages of their diseases, research studies, etc. There’s advice thrown around, some of it good, some not so good. My doctor said that a difficulty is that people read about specific circumstances and generalize information to a broad swath, which is sort of like taking information out of context and declaring it absolute truth. I see that– research studies generally focus on a specific question regarding a small population; I am careful about what I read.

Then there’s a Portland-based group of primarily Stage 4 folks, who are aggressively seeking to prolong a good quality of life for as long as they can. I like them and will hang out with them, all while taking their advice and comments with a LARGE grain of salt.

What I see is that people with disease that’s more advanced than mine need to find hope, a sense of control. They do what they have to to find those things.

What I’m paying attention to is Diet, Nutrition, Physical Activity and Cancer: A Global Perspective, 2018, and, a related publication, Physical Activity and the Risk of Cancer (2021) For your own information, here’s an excellent summary of cancer prevention recommendations. Those are the recs that folks like me need to pay attention to, in order to avoid recurrence. There aren’t many:

The 2018 report summary has great info about cancer on a cellular level and all kinds of other fascinating stuff. I’m going to stick with these publications for now, especially when I see them cited by folks like the American Cancer Association.

So, it’s a fallow time. A learning time, I guess. A time of situating myself in the time and space that is living with cancer. And maybe napping.

Thanks for reading.