New Year's Eve

This year, New Year's eve is really not about confetti, loud horns and champagne. It's been a crushing week and I am eager to spend today quietly and thoughtfully in the safe space of my home with my children. My hope for the new year is that a calm, gentle spirit begins to flow through me - one that will see me through the stress and anxiety that has filled my mental and emotional world these last few months. I dream of a day when I do not need external distraction or comforts to avoid painful emotions. I long for a time when I can lovingly exist in my skin, through good, bad and ugly, trusting my intuition and breathing through chaos.

What I'm proud of today:
Fresh juice: kale, lemon, apple and blue-green algae
Smoothie: wild blueberries, 1/2 banana, 1 date and fresh tangerine juice
AM yoga: 40 minutes

Maia's food:
5 oz raw milk
1 banana
some of mommy's smoothie (blueberries, banana, date and tangerine juice)
NAP
fresh juice: kale, apple-pear, tangerine
pureed squash, brown rice, chicken, carrots and peas
7 oz raw milk
NAP
1/4 apple, a few pita chips
plain yogurt, pureed pears and mixed cereal
handful green grapes
7 oz raw milk
BEDTIME

Running Away

I finally got Mark to go to the hospital today to get hydrated... but the effort and the whole week just took a monumental toll on me physically and emotionally. Today I seemed to be drowning... desparately wanting to run away from it all. From Mark, from the cancer, from sickness and helplessness. I felt completely frozen, paralyzed... it just became too much. And I handled that in the only way I knew how. I yelled a little, tuned out a lot, ate until my belly ached and then curled up in a fetal position... Thankfully, my mother rescued me and the children midway through the day and got us all out to the pool. I felt so good watching their smiling faces splashing and having fun and being out in the world. We've spent so much time in the house since Mark's diagnosis and it was great to just get up and go somewhere. I'm very, very grateful for my mother's presence today. It made a huge difference for me and for the kids.

What I'm proud of today:
Fresh juice: kale, rainbow swiss chard, lemon and apple (Maia spilt half of this on the floor)
Swimming with the kids
Meditation (15 min before bed)

Maia's food:
7 oz raw milk
1 large banana
Fresh juice: kale, carrot, apple
NAP
7 oz raw milk
a few pretzels (out shopping)
Pureed squash, brown rice, carrots, peas and chicken
7 oz raw milk
whole apple (skin and all - she enjoyed chomping on that!)
1/4 banana
1/4 sweet potato
7 oz raw milk

Fatigue and Anger

I slept very well last night. Awoke to morning meditation and a yoga session that was very calm and relaxing. And yet... I'm exhausted. Completely exhausted... eyelids sooo heavy. I imagine my body is exhausted from the mental stress of the last few days. I've found myself bubbling with anger towards Mark. Barely able to look at him. He is suffering so much right now. Not eating, diarrhea constantly, sleeping all day... and yet, somehow I am seething with anger at him in his sick and weary state. And I ask myself all the time... why? Am I angry at him for having cancer? Am I angry at him for choosing to go the conventional treatment route? Am I angry at him for being human and having weakness? I guess it's all of these things.

Once upon time, I imagined that when I remarried, my husband this time around would be my equal - my partner in all things. Smart, able, and ready and willing to function as father, partner and best friend. And overnight, all of that changed. I look at him, and feel cheated. Robbed. I hate that I feel that way because logically, I know that I love him and if I could I would hug him, squeeze him and take away his pain. But I can't do that. I can't take it away and I can't make it better. And maybe that's what I'm angry about... it's something I have to watch helplessly.

I often find that on chemo weeks, I create distance from Mark with a wall of anger or coldness to try to avoid entering that painful space. I avoid looking at him so I can pretend he's not there... he's not suffering. It's not really happening. I think being present, and really making contact with him in this state simply hurts too much.

This was a very raw, honest post. I hope no one finds it offensive.

What I'm proud of today:
Fresh juice: rainbow swiss chard, romaine lettuce, lemon, apples [big glass today]; blue-green algae with water
AM Meditation (6 minutes)
30 min yoga

Maia's food:
2 oz raw milk (she threw her bottle on the floor wanting mommy's green juice!)
fresh juice: rainbow swiss chard, romaine lettuce and apples
1/4 banana, slice strawberry
NAP
6 oz almond milk (going to the farm today to get more raw milk)
sweet potato, plain yogurt and applesauce
NAP (about 15 minutes in the car)
5 oz almond milk
a few spoons mixed cereal
pureed pears
7 oz raw milk
BEDTIME

Chemotherapy

Ordinarily, what would you say if I told you that every other Monday, I watch my smart, able husband voluntarily drive his car to a place where someone inserts a tube into his vein and poisons him for a period of 3 days? Poisons him so ruthlessly that the blood drains from his body leaving him a shade of pure white mixed with some light green? 24 hours later, his face turns a hot, flush red and swells and his fingertips go numb? Wait... there's more. You see the pain and suffering continues for at least another 7 days. After the 3 days of poisoning are over, then he barely has the strength to get out of bed other than for several long trips to the bathroom (30-45 minutes each) which exhaust his weakened body further? But wait... there's more. He can barely swallow anything - even a simple drink of water is impossible (even after warming it in the microwave so the cold doesn't make him feel like he's choking), and his lips are permanently curled into a position of pure nausea and disgust. Food? Forget food. Yesterday's bounty? He ate one orange and a small bowl of canned peaches.

And why does he do this? Because the doctors say it's good for him. Because the doctors, after many years of arduous research, don't know what causes cancer, how fast it grows, or how to get rid of it. So they cut it out, and poison the entire body hoping to kill what's left behind. No, this isn't the seventeenth century. This is modern medicine. Or should I say modern drug company paradise - filled with obedient white coats with fat pockets. America the beautiful. Put on your blinders and keep paying - pay the insurers, pay the drug companies. They run the damn country don't you know... Pay for accupuncture or a nutritionist to help with disease? Pay for whole, organic food and herbal supplements? NEVER. But pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for poison pills? Our pleasure. Keep taking them, keep getting sicker, and let the cash keep rolling in....

Sometimes I feel like I'm drowning in Mark's suffering. Like there's no space to breathe. No way to escape. Those are the times I dream of running... running somewhere safe and warm and beautiful. Some place... any place... but here.

What I'm proud of today:
Fresh juice: carrots, apples and rainbow swiss chard
30 min elliptical, squats on bosu ball

Maia's food today:
7 oz raw milk
fresh juice: rainbow swiss chard, carrots and apples
1/2 banana
NAP
sweet potato with plain yogurt and applesauce
7 oz raw milk
NAP
fresh juice: apple
mixed cereal with 1/2 banana
finger foods in restaurant
7 oz raw milk

Change

Change ...

The willingness to change (the humility to accept that what you were doing isn't working) and the committment to change - despite discomfort or backlash from other people made uncomfortable by your new behaviors. That's what I've been thinking about today. And that maybe things aren't really as you perceive them. They are only your perceptions of reality. And that can change too if you are open to it.

What I'm proud of today: Fresh juice: collard greens, red kale, dandelion greens, lemon, green apple, and blue-green algae
AM Meditation (8 minutes)
30 min yoga tape
15 min weights (upper body)

Maia's Food:
6 oz raw milk
1/4 banana, handful cheerios
NAP
fresh juice: collard green, navel orange, carrot
sliced strawberry, 2 squares oat cereal
7 oz raw milk
NAP [woke her up after 3 1/2 hours - sheesh!]
pureed chicken, peas, carrots, pasta, broccoli and cauliflower
grape juice
7 oz raw milk; a few spoons of mixed cereal; 6 oz raw milk

Insomnia

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Insomnia.
Insomnia who?
At this hour of the morning, who really cares? Slam the door shut for heaven's sake.....

So, tonight is like many nights. I fall asleep relatively early and then wake up a couple of hours later (usually after the baby makes some noise on the monitor). And then.... I toss and turn and breathe and try and fall back asleep but the hands on the clock seem to be turning faster than usual and I lay there awake for 1...2...3 hours... until I finally get up or read and give in to my new, unsympathetic and unrelenting friend.... Insomnia.

Some nights I think I am just filled with too much energy and excitement to sleep. Thoughts of new things I'm learning, recipes I want to try, what the next day holds... it's like a lightening bolt of pure energy racing through me and my mind is running.... Other nights, I seem to be thinking out of exasperation at my failure to reenter that ever-elusive sleep state once more. So, is it a physical, biological thing? My body acting as a middle of the night theif of slumber because it doesn't want or need the rest or has better things to do at those wee hours? Or is it my brain dragging and torturing my weary body awake in order to act out the "wild monkey" dance of a mind filled with anxiety and searching for answers and new ways to distract itself? Chicken or egg theory I suppose. Interestingly, on my post-insomnia days, I tend to feel that live-wire electrical energy throughout the early part of the day... even though my eyelids feel like they weigh ten pounds and seem to be begging to close.

Will training my mind through meditation and learning to relax more deeply with my yoga practice ease the insomnia? Will I simply need less sleep on a mostly raw food diet? (I've heard testimonials that people require as little as 4 hours sleep when eating purely live food). We shall see as this journey continues.

What I'm proud of today:
Fresh juice: red kale, collard greens, celery, apple, lemon
Meditation (5 minutes)

Maia's Food:
8 oz raw milk
prunes and mixed cereal
NAP
Fresh juice: collard greens, grapefruit and orange juice
Homemade puree of chicken, pasta, peas, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower
tangerine slices
5 oz raw milk
NAP
Smoothie: 2 soaked dates, 1/2 banana and plain yogurt
Slice of quesadilla made with sprouted tortilla and raw cheddar cheese
7 oz raw milk
BEDTIME

Journaling my Journey

So I've been very impressed with the number of blogs appearing online lately... from respected authors to well-known holistic health scientists and researchers, and well, it just seems like so much fun! Add to that my life-long love of the written word and all it can inspire and convey to others, and my belief that early morning writing is a wonderful release of the anxieties built up in the silence overnight.... and voila! My journal is born.

As Mark and I have gone through the ups and downs and in-betweens of lots of different emotions regarding his diagnosis and treatment, I've noticed that we've also learned to focus on other things, people, etc. to avoid the pain of really saying or feeling things in the present. We can much more easily focus on Gideon's behavioral difficulties and band together to find him quality therapy than we can really sit down and talk about what we are thinking or feeling about the cancer and its strangle hold on our current life and our fears about what it portends for our future. We can much more easily join forces to lament my mother's most recent antics with the children and her daily diatribes than we can talk about the horrible toll chemotherapy is taking on his body and how we would feel if the cancer came back after chemo is over....

And so, all the more reason for me to put my energies into continuously shifting my focus back to the present through the hard work of journaling, clean food, yoga and meditation. Simply because I know that the hardest part of this disease is the constant unknown... the waiting game... the uncertainty at any given time about what the little invisible monsters are doing inside his body. And because there is nothing I can do today to make that go away, go faster, go slower, or disappear, I want to put my energy into being as whole, peaceful and present as possible. To make sure I do not add to my family's already weighty burden by raging or disconnecting. By ensuring my own peace of mind and body, so my children know that things are okay. This journal is about taking care of myself first, because the demands on me from my children and my husband can be crushing if I don't insist on that. Every day.

What I'm proud of today:
Bio-k probiotics (dairy-free)
Fresh juice: Beet greens, apple, lemon, E3live blue-algae
AM meditation (6 minutes today which was an achievement for me) and stretching
20 min elliptical

Maia's food:
7 oz raw milk
fresh pureed papaya with brown rice and vanilla yogurt
fresh juice: collard green, pineapple and orange
1/4 banana
NAP
5 oz raw milk, 2 oz rice milk
fresh pureed papaya, applesauce, brown rice and vanilla yogurt
slice avocado
6 oz raw milk
BEDTIME