My weight is...

I have been careful not to really discuss my diet these last few weeks. Partly I didn’t want to sabotage myself also I still hate to use the word Cancer. When I started this blog, I weighed over 265 pounds. That is the weight of 6’4” San Francisco 49er Tight End, Vance McDonald—to put things in perspective.  I fasted, raw-vegan-ed, juiced, and walked. In one year I dropped below 210.

Perhaps I would have hit my goal of 185 which happens to be 5’10” SF Giant Pitcher, Sergio Romo if not for the complete immersion into my mortality.  The best diet in the world will not stop destruction of prolonged years of stress.

My first indicator was a stress related heart attack a month before my husband’s death. Test showed no heart disease thanks to my healthy diet. But the stress took its toll.

After the passing of Paul, I ran off to Taiwan to mend. The month overseas helped me find my smile and reduce my fits of crying. Once I returned the world of work and bills, life piled up on a fairly battered ego. I found a lump in my left breast eleven months after my heart attack. My job ended. I returned to my home to deal with the cancer treatments that are brutally administered to kill the mutant cells.  The doctors pulled me off of the raw vegan to prevent bacteria entering my body and placed me on cooked comfort foods. 

My weight jumped from 208 to 247 in less than four months. Between surgery, chemo, and radiation, I could not stay awake longer than four hours, my left arm could not move higher than my shoulder, and I had less hair than Bruce Willis.  Chocolate, my best friend.

I found a new job. New responsibilities within my church and interests. In May, I started to reclaim my diet and my body. 

My biggest challenge was not my diet but my belief. After Paul’s untimely death, my heart attack, and subsequent cancer, I no longer thought about the future. The future held nasty possibilities—strokes, more cancer, if not cancer more tests for cancer, more discussions about cancers, death, dying, mortality, the end.  Wow. Heavy.

I did what I needed to do. I went to Neptune Society, paid for my funeral, and moved on with my life. ONE DAY AT A TIME.

Today’s Menu:

Breakfast: ½ c Raisin Bran w/almond milk.  Coffee with agave syrup and almond milk.

Snack: Blueberry Bagel at regional meeting. No cream cheese or butter.

Lunch: Veggie Sushi, Seaweed Salad, and wait for it…apple strudel… bad, delicious but bad.

Snack:  Cantaloupe.

Dinner: 2 Fig Newton cookies at church bible study.

Snack: Carrots.