Originally uploaded by my.third.eye
My friend Ms. Massf sent this to me today, and I'm passing it on. If you want to grin and feel happy for a couple of minutes, click HERE.
This is a revision of a piece I wrote a little over a year ago. I had to take SOMETHING to my writing group last night, and since I haven't written anything new in quite a while (focusing on photography instead, right now), I found this:
The Delicacies
Standing in the kitchen, Lenore turned her back for all of three seconds, and Olivia stole one of the carrots off the kitchen counter and raced with it out to the yard, so happy. This made Lenore smile. She could never stay mad at the dog. Who could she be mad at, then? She felt determined to be mad at someone as she bit into her toast, licked the butter off her fingers, and scowled at her fate.
Then she took a disposable syringe out of the kitchen drawer where she kept her medications, and prepared to inject the mysterious mistletoe extract into her abdomen. She unwrapped the syringe, broke the glass top off the vial, stuck the needle into the vial, filled the syringe, pushed the needle into her skin, and pulled it out.
Then she swallowed the last of her toast, swigged down the final inch of dark French roast, and was, quite suddenly, surprised by the entirely unexpected arrival of The Delicacies. This was how she referred to her teeming battalion of waking dreams and imagined images, conversations, scenarios, surprises, disasters, ecstasies and possibilities.
Another ridiculously melancholy mood swept over her. She wanted to live. She couldn't help it. A particular memory of green brought tears to her eyes. This was followed by ripples of piano riffs, then the patter of rain on the skylight as it washed away several decades’ worth of self-deceptions. Nobody is in here with me, she thought. I'm alone. Locked in the center of a massive rock that no one else can enter.
She put on her stylish lime green Capri pants that were woven with the texture of leaves, and rallied onward. Her eyelids felt heavy, her brain hurt from all the commotion. Birds thundered by outside the window.
Any minute another sorrow bomb could drop. Any second she might drown in memories that were only that, nothing more. Last night she had dreamed she was sitting in a straight back chair, flying along at an altitude of approximately fifteen feet above the Valencia Street shopping corridor. She had known where she was going and why. But then she woke up to find herself on the couch where she had fallen asleep, and where gravity had resumed its hold.
In the bathroom when she leaned over the sink to spit out her own special mix of cinnamon toothpaste and blood, felt that special, private pain that had been designed for her and her alone, and remembered that yesterday she'd forgotten to check her breasts for lumps – again.
After flossing, she recalled that she'd also forgotten to take her pills, pills that were meant to keep the wolf, with his cancer-ridden fangs, away from the door. Too many people had been making demands, causing her adrenalin to flash in gaudy neon. Clients and co-workers ached inside her neck. She'd had enough of them. Her arms itched. Her chin tingled with a bursting garden of tiny black angers. She wanted to sip a slug of whiskey out of a coral colored trumpet flower.
When Paul sauntered in through her third chakra, she ran a bath and immersed herself in a time when time had stopped again and again, when the woodcutter had held his ax suspended in midair as bees hovered half way between nectar and hive, and she —– Paul's princess, his queen — had held her breath on the verge of bliss.
How fine it felt to once again be falling under the spell of The Delicacies. One by one, the second, third and fourth in a stream of magnificently inappropriate ex-lovers arrived to cast their spells of temptation. Inflamed and on edge, she absorbed their familiar voices. She had no choice but to listen.
"Just receive me," said Paul, cupping both her cheeks in his hands. "That's right, Lenore. Open yourself up and let me in.” She crooned a rainy day ballad to the passing hours. As the cat commenced to snore on the fuzzy bath mat, she was overcome by a bevy of desires.
After her bath, she went back to the kitchen because she wanted to stuff her mouth with a dozen cinnamon donuts, one after another, washed down with gulps of ice-cold milk. She had to find a way to get back all that sugar, the thrill of carbs. Warm, just out of the oven, soft, melt-in-your-mouth donuts, infinitely wrong, infinitely desirable. She had to get something wild back, and she had to be mad at something.
Maybe she could be mad at Jack. Sweet Jack. Maybe that would work. Oh what a despicable thought! Thank goodness he wasn't at home. Thank goodness he had gone to see a man about a truck.
The joints in her ankles and knees were killing her. What did that signify? A side effect from one of the too many medications? Or another sign of her demise creeping far too close, too fast?
She spent whole nights listening to mysterious creakings and groans, or wandering lost and un-enrolled on college campuses, or running from nasty tidal waves. At the crack of every dawn she struggled to swim up from the murky depths, to get herself back into the light of morning coffee. Who knew what? Death and disease had the whole world stumped. Her breast continued to twinkle with migratory twinges and aches, unidentifiable prickles, stinging sensations that randomly came and went.
All the stress had jammed itself inside her feet today, and she had no idea what to do. Too many conflicting opinions on diagnosis and treatment equaled chaos. She wished for some kind of holiness to heal her misbehaving joints and bones, anointing them with the strength they'd once enjoyed, the strength of youth and innocence, heightened states of emotion and passion, no rust, no mold, no dead-end cul de sacs.
Once upon a time she'd had waist-length hair that flowed down and around her head like a waterfall made of Caribbean sand. Heads had turned when she walked down the street, her hair cascading to her hourglass waist. One admirer had called her "an incongruous collage of cool blue sky and rich, fertile soil." Hah! Those had been the days.
The orthotics she'd bought at the drugstore made her hobble and weep a stream of invisible tears that dribbled onto every uphill slant. Whenever she stretched her legs or raised her knees, she grew rapidly older and was forced to claw at the air in an attempt to drag herself back toward the adorable A-frame house where she now lived complete with a lawn, a sprinkling system, a dog and a man with whom she exchanged sweet little everyday kisses. On the top of their toilet tank sat one predictable philodendron. Last Sunday they had spent the afternoon buying a swirly green shower curtain. Their refrigerator contained homemade chicken soup. There were bananas and grapefruits and apples coloring up the kitchen counter with yellows and reds and greens. She hated her hair and the hideous new skirt that made her look as if she were on her way to an Iowa square dance.
A flock of inflammatory memories emerged from behind the arc of an imaginary rainbow. They flew in a great circle above her head and came to roost in the eaves of her discontent. A buzzing vibration nestled loudly into her forehead until finally it was muffled by the thump of heartbeats coming from her neighbors' houses.
She wanted to smack the face of the faceless enemy, but what would be the point of that? She turned on the tiny TV that sat on the kitchen counter, between the olive oil and the blender. This was where she lived too much of her life these days, here in a world that had once smelled of steamy sex but now reeked of Dr. Phil and Oprah.
What was she so anxiously pining for, really? A vacation? A poem by Emily Dickenson? No. She needed more, a hammer or a flood or an out-of-control fire. Or maybe she required a bolt of lightning that would blaze down to strike the mystical soul of her pineal gland. Maybe it was time to force the thundering birds to come tumbling out of the sky, falling every which way until they slammed into their final epiphanies.
Outside the window, red rain-wet leaves were plastered onto the asphalt. She stared at them until flashes of heat blazed into her peachiest, most luscious core, and some weird god smeared her mascara with a chatoyant blur.
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye
This is the path that Olivia and I walk on as we are returning home from the dog park at the bottom of St. Mary's rec center. To the left is the rec field where kids were playing soccer yesterday.
This path always makes me feel like I'm out in the country, even though, off in the not-too-far distance to the right, is the freeway. . . complete with whir buzz of traffic. But that's okay. The city is the city. You find idyllic slices of nature wedged between soccer fields and freeways, and you rejoice.
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye
A couple of days ago Olivia and I ventured out of Bernal and over to Noe Valley. We walked up and down Church, Chattanooga and Vicksburg streets, between 24th and 20th.
At one point Olivia tugged me over to this man who was sitting by himself on the curb where the streetcar tracks curved toward Church from 20th and Chattanooga (or Vicksburg, I forget...). She doesn't ever tug me toward just anybody; some people are clearly more appealing to her than others, as was this guy.
He had a kind demeanor, which made me brave enough to ask if I could take his picture. I'm trying to branch out to including human beings in my photos, and it's not at all easy to do. In addition to having to ask people's permission, I'm finding that the limitations of my cheesy little point and shoot camera are more obvious when I attempt such shots. Why that is, I have no idea because I understand next to nothing about the technical stuff.
It's probably a good thing, though, that the "portraits" look like nothing more than snapshots, because it'll push me to get a DSLR camera. I'm in danger of becoming stuck in a technically stagnant rut with the point and shoot, afraid to venture beyond f2.8, auto, landscape or macro settings. How dumb is THAT?
I'm writing this as I eat granola from Three Stone Hearth, with raw milk from Claravale Dairy. So yummy and healthy.
Now it's time to trek upstairs to the home office to begin the gargantuan task of dealing with the mountains of backlogged paperwork, bills, accounting, Writing Salon registrations, Writing Salon marketing and PR chores, and probably even moldy food on my out-of-control desk (as well as the entire area around my desk, within a six-foot radius).
The only reason I'm finally going UP THERE to No Woman's Land is that Jack's accountant is coming over this afternoon to work for him for a few hours, in said shared office, and it would be too embarrassing to let her see my half of the space. Ta ta!
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye
We often see Ed and Miles at St. Mary's dog park. Ed has a way with dogs. You can just tell. Miles is a big old sweetheart, the epitome of a loyal, loving canine.
Ed often makes a strange little breathy whistling sound, and while the other dog owners stand clumped together chatting, he sits set apart. To be honest, I don't think he's missing out on much. The chatting gets boring after a while. No one else captivates my imagination the way Ed does. No one else gives me that bittersweet, wistful feeling that makes me
feel more alive than I do when participating in the group's chirpy
banter about dog toys and the stinky smell of the grass fertilizer.
Back to the Future
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye
Moving the Writing Salon to the Mission has inspired me to start tromping around in that neighborhood, as well as my beloved Bernal. I still love Bernal best, but it's fun to go someplace new. That's the glory of San Francisco . . . every neighborhood is a little world unto itself. Is it any wonder I've never gone back to the towns I grew up in? Sameness, sameness, sameness. Block after block after block. Homogenous up the wazoo.
I'd love to ramble for a while, but today's my "make more Writing Salon flyers" day. And first I have to redesign the old one; I've decided I have to come up with a one-size-fits-all generic flyer to replace the assorted variety of flyers that I've been making and updating every session, and which show individual classes, photos of every teacher next to every class, current class dates and times, snippets of course descriptions, etc. etc.
For the first several years that I was in business, I think it was necessary for me to go to these admittedly exhausting lengths. But when 2008 comes to a close, I will have been in business for 10 years, and one reward of hanging in there for this long oughta be that I don't have to advertise as much...or as fancy.
Honestly, I've known for years that I should do this, but I was AFRAID to cut back and simplify -- afraid that this would be a huge mistake, that I couldn't risk it. But you know what? Fearful or not, risk or not, it's time to give it a shot. The only way I'll ever be able to keep this business going for another 10 years is if I learn to work smarter and calmer.
Ah the wisdom of becoming older. When I was 54, I knew nothing. But now that I've been 55 for eight whole months, it has all become clear to me. :-) Becoming an old crone does have some advantages.
Nancy E. Davidson, MD, during her
Presidential Address yesterday, spoke of both the accomplishments of scientific
and clinical research - which have contributed to an annual 2% decline in cancer mortality and a growing
population of cancer survivors - and the multiple challenges facing ASCO (American Society for Clinical Oncology) in the
coming years: Ann Fonfa just sent this email out to the listserv I'm on, for women who are using alternative treatments for breast cancer; I don't think she'll mind if I pass it along:
This article was sent to me by the American Society for Clinical Oncology where more than 15,000 oncologists from all over the world gather to listen to talks and visit ENORMOUSLY expensive Pharmaceutical exhibits (paid for by patients).
It is unimaginable that 2% is considered EXCELLENT but it is. In any other area of life, this would be seen as absurd. But oncology has its own rules.
Visit our website and encourage anyone with cancer to do so as well. Our meeting Second Annual Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Cancer Therapies will be held January 8-10, 2009 in West Palm Beach, FL.
Ann Fonfahttp://www.networkforgood.org/pca/Badge.aspx?BadgeId=106174
Ann
Fonfa http://tinyurl.com/8yw8r
(see this article on us)
President, The Annie Appleseed Project 
www.annieappleseedproject.org
Information,
education, advocacy and awareness on complementary, alternative, natural
cancer therapies. Make more fully informed treatment decisions The
information provided is for educational purposes only. It is not meant to
diagnose or treat any health condition and is not a replacement for treatment by
a healthcare provider.
As I was showering this morning (an activity that often leads me into creative and reflective trains of thought), I suddenly remembered — after having not remembered for the first four hours of the day — that I had a two-hour telephone consultation appointment with a Dr. Bruce B., scheduled for 1:30 p.m. A few days ago he sent me a brief email questionnaire that asked, basically, for a few facts about my medical/health history. Oh, and he wanted to know my sun sign.
My connection with Dr. B. thus far is that I have been using, for a couple of months, several of his essential oils that he has created for his "Spiritual PhytoEssencing" work: "The use of essential oils for deep soul-spiritual work integrating classical homeopathy, modern physiology, Chinese and herbal medicines, Kabbalah and anthroposophical medicine."
Question: Why do I take them and what effect do they have on me?
Answer: I take them because I think they might help me to fight breast cancer on a deeper level than just physical. But as for the effects, I don't know. Nothing "dramatic" has happened since I began using them.
Second Question: Do you think you were "had?" Is this yet another form of mystical mumbo jumbo quackery for gullible, desperate, diseased people who will grasp at anything and everything in hopes of defying mortality?
Answer: I hope not. I don't THINK so. But I have no proof one way or the other. I'm going mostly on the fact that I was drawn to it. How's that for a logical, scientific, lucid and reasonable response?
I have six small but potent bottles of oils. They are:
1) Fragrant Chi
2) Fragrant Mountain Air
3) ImmuneEssence
4) Master Chakra Blend
5) Aura Cleanse
6) Clear Thought.
There are different ways to apply/use the oils (actually, to be precise, four are oils and two are flower essences). Sometimes I put five to seven drops under my tongue and hold them there for 30 seconds before swallowing. Sometimes I put two or three drops in a spoonful of aloe vera gel and rub it into my chest, neck, armpits and the underside of my upper arms. Or . . . I put two to three drops on one wrist, rub my wrists together, and then put my wrist up to my nose, breathe in the fragrance deeply, turn my head to the side, and exhale slowly; I do this 15 to 20 times.
Anyway, I answered Dr. B's emailed questions, and even added that in addition to being a Libra, I am Aquarius rising with a Gemini moon.
And then, this morning in the shower, I began to wonder what in the world Dr. B. and I were going to be talking about for two whole hours. What would the nature of this "consultation" be, for heaven's sake? Why hadn't I been more curious about this, earlier on?
As I stood under the hot stream of water washing my hair, somehow I made the leap to a line of thought that went something like this:
Will our conversation be about mystical stuff? Is he going to try and do some sort of mystical psychoanalytical assessment of my soul? And will this lead to some sort of deduction that will help him to then create a more "customized" oil blend for me? One that will work even better than the ones I already have, which are not customized for my unique soul? Gee, that's quite a tall order for Dr. B. He's gonna have to ask some really fantastic deep profound intensely probing questions, and then be a super-cali -fragalistic-expeeala-docious interpreter of my answers! Man, I can't remember what he said the charge for this would be. Shit. Oh well. Let's see. Maybe he'll ask me if I've ever had any mystical experiences in my life. What will I say if he does? Hmmm.
I then tried to remember all the mystical experiences of my life, which wasn't so hard to do because I've only had two or three. I mean, I've had more than two or three mystical'ISH experiences. I've had lots of THOSE. Watching a sunrise can be mystical'ISH. But I'm talking about the REAL BIGGIES, the Mystical Experiences that knocked my socks off. Those have been considerably fewer and farther between.
Mystical Experience #1:
1977: When I went to the kooky church service (at the insistence of my kooky hippie girlfriend, Elyce) that included a psychic reading with the minister, Pearl, as well as a five-minute "healing" session performed by several of her helpers. During that healing session, one of the helpers held his hands about an inch away from me, holding them for several seconds at a time over different parts of my body. When he got to my forehead, something bizarre happened. First my forehead got warm. Then warmer and warmer. Then it started to tingle and vibrate. Then it began to feel as if it were pulsating...until finally it felt as if I was having sort of a continuous orgasm in my forehead. It wasn't exactly an explosive orgasm, but more of a steady, low-key, but EXTREMELY PLEASANT orgasm.
What's more, it didn't go away when I went back to my folding metal chair. No. It stayed in my forehead all the way home on the bus. Slowly it faded, but whenever I thought about it, it came back. Soon I figured out that I could "summon" this delicious forehead feeling whenever I relaxed and made a focused effort. It was my first real experience with . . . what? Was there a name for this? I had no idea at the time. None. But it occurred to me later, maybe when I was flipping through some 70s era spirituality book that made some reference to "chakras," that perhaps my forehead-clitoris had been some sort of chakra.
I did a bit of research and decided that somehow or other, my forehead chakra, which I also decided must be somehow connected to my pituitary gland, had been -- for lack of a better word -- "activated" during the healing session.
The amazing thing was that I managed to retain this ability to re-summon these "chakra sensations' for several more YEARS. What was the point of them, though? Partly I suppose it was an introduction to the art of meditation. Sort of. But not exactly. And partly I suppose it was something that got me thinking about all the things in life that I didn't understand or even realize existed. Wonders of the world. Mysteries. Other dimensions of reality. Stuff like that. Of course, what I think about it now and what I thought about it then are not the same. What I thought about it then was...hell, I can't honestly remember anymore. It was a long time ago. But even now, once in a blue moon, I can summon that feeling back. This seems important to me. Significant. Worthy of renewed investigation.
Mystical Experience #2:
1979: The day I was walking down Polk Street with my "Portable Picnic" basket (I sold lunch food to shop and office workers, out of a picnic basket; that was my first really cool, oddball San Francisco job) . . . and from out of nowhere, I heard a voice inside my head, and the voice wasn't my own, and this voice said, clearly and distinctly and calmly: "George is going to be the father of your child."
George was a guy I had dated briefly, six months earlier. But that relationship had ended. I wasn't even THINKING about George that day as I ambled along Polk Street. I was so dumbfounded by this totally unexpected voice with its wildly unexpected message, I stopped walking and just stood there gawking on the sidewalk. Just stood there thinking, What the hell was THAT? WHAT JUST HAPPENED, HERE?
You see, the voice, as I said and want to reiterate, WAS NOT MINE. And it had a great, calm authority. It had power. There was no question that it knew what it was talking about.
A few months later, I bumped into George on the street. Pure coincidence. By then I had a boyfriend named Michael. Oh well. In 1983 I gave birth to my and George's son.
Mystical Experience #3:
I'm not sure there is a #3. I mean, giving birth to my son was mystical, in a way. But not in the way I'm talking about now. Not in the woo-woo, other-worldly, quantum physics spirituality sort of way. Having a child is mystical in the sense that the experience of Pure Love is mystical. But not in the sense of exploding pituitary chakras or strangely authoritative alien psychic voices.
I find that I'm tempted to say now, upon retrospection, that my first needle aspiration breast biopsy may have been a mystical experience. Why? Because something about the intensity of my response to the way my breast ached afterward felt strangely out of proportion to the intensity of the ache itself. It wasn't a particularly strong ache. I didn't even take a Tylenol. That's the thing, though. Why didn't I take the Tylenol? Why did I choose to keep feeling that ache? I could have drugged it away. But I didn't want to. I felt a need to focus on that ache. I saw it as my gift: a reminder that I wasn't immortal, a reminder that I had better make the best of the time I had left.
The lump turned out to be benign. Or so the biopsy said. However, three years later the lump got bigger, I had another biopsy, and this time it did turn out to be cancer.
The mysticalness of this experience is murkier, I admit. Maybe it's too much a stretch. I'm not as sure of it as I am of Mystical Experiences #1 and #2.
So let's just let it sit for a while and I'll come back to it later. Maybe I'm missing some component. Maybe clarity will arrive if I am patient and keep taking my Clear Thought drops.
In any case, Dr. B. will be calling me in less than an hour and a half. Upon further reflection, I doubt that he will grill me about my history of Mystical Experiences. What a silly notion. I probably veered off down that riff of a path because I didn't and still don't want to deal with cleaning up the kitchen or going out to buy more cat food.
In summary: These are my unanswered questions for today:
1) What the heck does it all mean?
2) Where will it lead?
3) And how much will this phone consultation cost me?!?
...to be continued...
The following words are my "lay person's" words. I suspect that a doctor might deem them to be overly simplistic. I'm sure they ARE. But even if they are simplistic, they may still be right:
I continue to be discouraged by the amount of conflicting information one finds when trying to understand why most conventional breast cancer treatments order you to: 1) Stop all HRT (hormone replace therapy), and 2) Take estrogen blockers, so that you essentially erase all the estrogen from your body (Note: This is recommended for women with ER+, PR+ breast cancer, which means estrogen receptor positive and/or progesterone receptor positive). Tamoxifen blocks estrogen. Arimidex does too. There are several heavy duty drugs that do this, and they don't all work exactly the same way, but the end goal is the same.
Doctors will tell you (as will many studies) that these estrogen blocking drugs will signficiantly reduce your risk of having a recurrence, compared to women who don't take them...or women who actually continue to ADD estrogen to their bodies, with HRT.
Well, that's right. But what they don't tell you is that your risk of DYING sooner is greater if you stop HRT and/or block your estrogen. How can this be? It can be because your body needs estrogen to be healthy, and if you take the estrogen away, you end up dying sooner FOR OTHER REASONS, EVEN IF you are more likely to have a breast cancer recurrence.
What you always have to remember is: Survival is primary. Avoiding recurrence is secondary. But doctors are focused on telling you what to do to prevent CANCER, and that isn't necessarily the same as what to do to LIVE LONGEST.
One theory as to why women with breast cancer who don't block estrogen live longer than women who do is that estrogen protects your bones, keeps them much healthier and stronger. This in turn may help to keep you from getting metastatic bone cancer (that is, breast cancer cells that have metasticized to your bones).
So. Let's say you have the following choice. You can:
1. Have a recurrence sooner, and then have to deal with it by, say, having a second lumpectomy or perhaps even a mastectomy. And/or by increasing your alternative treatments, which ARE out there.
2. Not have a recurrence as fast, but end up instead with metastasis to the bone.
My choice would be #1, because #1 is less likely to kill me than is #2. I will most likely SURVIVE longer (and in less pain) if I opt for #1.
Granted, neither choice is appealing. But...tough shit.
Oh, and one more thing. If I end up with metastatic bone cancer, I bet there will be people who say, "Poor Jane, she believed she had a better chance of not getting it if she stayed on HRT, but look where that got her."
But they would be saying that without having all the information. Important information would be this: Immediately after my bc diagnosis, I was ORDERED by the doctors to stop HRT asap. I had my doubts but was scared to death, so I ignored my doubts and did what they said. For the next year I went without the protection of HRT. In addition, I allowed them to talk me into taking Arimidex. Granted, I stopped it after only three weeks (instead of six months or more), but still, those three weeks of "estrogen eradication" really did a number on me.
SO: Basically, during a time right after two surgeries, when I was MOST vulnerable to cancer cells being spread via my circulatory system, after being disturbed by surgery, I allowed my body to get weaker. I went without a crucial defense: estrogen. Also testosterone. Also progesterone.
Do I worry that this was a mistake? Yes. But I try to let that worry go, since there's nothing to be done about it now. All I can do is move forward armed with more and, I hope, better knowledge and confidence in my own judgment.
As I've mentioned before in this blog, I've radically changed how I eat since my bc diagnosis. Since I'm not and have never been much of a cook, this change did not come easy. I floundered madly for several months, knowing that I needed to make big eating changes, but feeling utterly overwhelmed when I attempted to become Little Miss Healthy Organic Super-Nutritious Betty Crocker Cooking-for-Breast-Cancer-Prevention and Immune-Strengthening Kitchen Goddess Extraordinaire.
I fumbled along, trying to find my new food groove (reading this or that supposedly healthy-but-mainstream "cancer prevention cookbook" and/or trying to follow the vegetarian diet guidelines and recipes from the Block Cancer Center in Chicago - where I went for treatment consultations when I was still unsure whether or not I'd do chemo or hormone blockers).
It was a chaotic and confusing time (like I said, I'm NOT a kitchen person), until finally I stumbled upon an internet site for the Weston A. Price foundation, and VOILA, it resonated for me, I started researching their diet, and right around this time I learned, through sheer dumb luck, that a group of Bay Area people were embarking upon a new business endeavor called Three Stone Hearth community kitchen. And what do you think they were planning to do? Make and sell exactly the kinds of Weston A. Price foods that I wanted to start eating. As in: readymade. As in: You place a weekly order and either pick it up at their Berkeley kitchen or have it delivered to your front door.
I HAD learned how to do a SMIDGEN of the things that eating this way requires. For example, I sorta learned how to make bone broths and sauerkraut and crispy nuts -- the key word being "sorta." But I had a long long way to go. The key word being loooooooooooooooong.
So. Three Stone Hearth was a godsend. A miracle. I signed up to be a "member," and have been ordering from them every week for the last two years.
Here are but two examples, taken from their website, of why I LOVE Three Stone Hearth:
Broth-based
Soups and Stews
Each week we offer at least one soup or stew made from a based of slow- simmered bone broth. Bone broths have been made and eaten for millennia because they are so rich in minerals and gelatin, which makes them nutrient-dense and soothing to the digestion and
nervous system.
To learn more about why “Broth is Beautiful”, click HERE.
Each week we offer at least one cultured vegetable such as sauerkraut, kimchee, pickles, cortido, chutney, or salsa. These traditional condiments are lacto-fermented so that they are full of active enzymes and other important nutrients. To learn more about why these old-fashioned foods are so health supportive, click HERE.
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye
Okay, I have to admit I'm depressed about my recent Healthnet insurance payment HIKE. Since my bc diagnosis in Sept. 2005, my monthly rate has gone from $326 to . . . as of yesterday . . . $671. That's with a $1500 non-prescription stuff deductible, plus an additional $250 deductible for prescriptions, which still require an average co-pay of around $35.
$671.00 a freaking month!!!
Now get this. In 2007 my medical expenses were around $20,000 including the insurance payments. This was for occasional doctor visits, lab tests, and mostly a wide variety of expensive supplements or Chinese herbs. Guess how much HealthNet paid for, for the ENTIRE YEAR?
$573.00. Yup.
They don't pay for my Iscador injections or for acupuncture or herbs or Vitamin D or iodine or ...the list goes on forever. And I'm not even asking them to pay for chemo or radiation or Arimidex or Tamoxifen, because I'm not DOING any of those conventional treatments. Even if they paid for all my supplements, it would still be way cheaper for them than paying for chemo and radiation.
ANYWAY, it would cheer me up immeasurably if you'd indulge me by going to this website, where I'm having one of those fun "five minutes of fame" episodes:
ImageKind
So far I am the only person on earth who has bought any of my photos. I have several of them, now framed, sitting on my dining room table. Last week I showed them to five members of my writing group, who all said nice things like, "Oh, these are great, Jane!" or "I like this one," or " "Great colors."
I don't require standing ovations or even money. Just occasional words of encouragement or praise. Especially when I need to get my mind off of the woeful unfairness of our health insurance system.
Jack scanned this photo for me, so I don't know how to make the rest of the white page go away. You should double click on it if you want to see my neck wrinkles better or, oh yeah, if you want to get a bigger gander at our close friend, Carlos. I've got to remember to send a copy to him, because I know he will want to have a picture of himself standing beside Jane Underwood and Jack Carroll.
Here's the last line in "Blogmaid's" comment from the day before yesterday, which I'd also like to respond to:
How can we make you an authority so that others (ie the mainstream medical establishment) will be more willing to listen?
I have no idea. My first thought is "forget ME!"....there are women out there who have been working tirelessly, for YEARS, chipping away at the mainstream medical establishment. Take Ann Fonfa, for example, who created the website annieappleseed.org (the link to which has been in my sidebar every since I began this blog).
Ann used alternative treatments to heal her own breast cancer and is still here to talk about it more than a decade later (and her cancer was NOT mild; she has diligently dealt with numerous recurrences, and she never had chemo or radiation).
Ann changed her whole life around after her breast cancer experience, and has put all her energies, for all these years, into trying to get the word out about alternative breast cancer treatments. In addition to her amazing nonprofit organization/website, she goes to conferences and symposiums all the country. She does interviews. She writes articles. She is all over the place, as much as she can possibly be considering how little money she has to do ANY of this. I mean, compare Ann's resources to the resources of our pharmaceutical industry!
Ann is a valient warrioress (real word? not sure...) who has taken on a 'project' - a mission, really - so huge it is mind-boggling. I, in comparison, can barely make time to write a few paragraphs on my blog, which is probably read by a grand total of two dozen people, most of whom don't have cancer.
I just typed Ann's name into a Google search. Here's the page that came up:
I hope somebody out there who stumbles across my occasional stabs at helping to "educate" others will take the time to read about Ann Fonfa and all that she does... and has done. I'll mention a couple more women in future posts who, like Ann, have devoted themselves to this herculean and daunting endeavor of advocating for education about alternative healing options. These women ARE out there, but they're fighting an uphill battle that is so steep and so high, I don't know how they find the strength to keep at it. Yet they do, bless them bless them bless them.
Yesterday on the Sundance Channel I watched "Chapters 1, 2 and 3" out of six chapters, each 45 min. to an hour or so long, of the documentary Fear of NOT Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman.
Loved it and would have watched all six chapters at once, but they were only showing the first three. The last three will be on next Saturday at 3 p.m. I can't remember if 1,2 and 3 will air again before that. You should check the Sundance channel to find out. Just Google around 'til you find it.
Here's a comment I received on yesterday's blog post. I appreciate it and want to reply:
I like your comment that criticizing chemo as a treatment for breast cancer is analogous to criticizing the war -- you're not criticizing the troops, just the way they are being led. My guess it that most women are so scared of this disease, that if they are diagnosed with it they want to do something ASAP, and are more apt to follow the advice of doctors who have gone to medical school than they are of lay people who have done copious amounts of research, particularly if that advice differs so radically. There is probably also a sense of being more able to leave it behind once the treatment is finished, and a feeling that they did all they could to fight the disease. All that being said, I admire the way you have been speaking out and taking control of your treatment on your own terms. How can we make you an authority so that others (ie the mainstream medical establishment) will be more willing to listen?
Re: "...are more apt to follow the advice of doctors who have gone to medical school than they are of lay people who have done copious amounts of research..."
We "lay people" are merely researching THE RESEARCH that has already been done by DOCTORS (albeit, by doctors who are still in the minority).
The problem is that most doctors don't have the time, energy or in many cases, the desire...to keep up with the latest research. They are fallible human beings with mortgages and domestic problems, just like the rest of us. And most of them are followers, not leaders. Only a very few are willing to even attempt to upset the status quo. We assume they are as powerful and all-knowing as Gods. They are not. In fact, many of the doctors who DO begin to see the light become so frustrated by the system that they don't have the strength to fight it -- so they drop out...maybe they become "alternative" doctors (who can't accept major insurance, of course, but that's another post).
Another problem is the media, which has such great power when it comes to getting the lastest and most cutting edge information OUT. Journalists, even the ones who are trained as medical writers, can and do write terribly inaccurate stories about anything to do with medicine. A classic example was the study about female hormones that got plastered all over the media a few years ago, and which scared thousands of women into stopping hormone replacement therapy. As it turned out, the study was deeply flawed as well as incorrectly interpreted on several levels. But the media hasn't bothered to broadcast THIS news.
Oh dear, I'm having a hard time keeping this short and sweet and succinct. Darn.
Re: "...a sense of being more able to leave it behind once the treatment is finished, and a feeling that they did all they could to fight the disease."
Absolutely. Totally understandable. But that doesn't make it smart or right. Breast cancer isn't being 'cured' by the prevailing treatments. That's wishful thinking. That's a deep denial of the factual reality. Yes, of course the desire is to leave it all behind. I, personally, would love nothing more! Who wouldn't?
There's also a belief, which I find profoundly sad, in the "no pain no gain" theory. Many people with cancer believe (have been taught to believe!) that the more severe the treatment, the more effective it'll be. It's like: If I make this horrendous sacrifice (get my breasts cut off, accept damaging radiation, fill my body with poisonous toxic chemicals until I'm at the brink of death), then surely I will have done all that is possible, and surely I will deserve a reward; surely I will deserve to live.
Well, no, sorry but that's not necessarily so.
Oops, I'm out of time. This is a work weekend for me.
To be continued....
I like making analogies. Always have. It never occurred to me that there might be people in the world who DIDN'T like analogies, who perhaps even ardently disliked them...until I acquired a boyfriend (years ago, water under the bridge) who despised them. That was an odd time (decade), of me trying to figure out how to communicate with a guy who couldn't stand the way I communicated. I mean, using analogies is CORE to my way of articulating myself. Anyway....I'm heading off in a direction that's leading me away from the point of this post.
The point is that a new analogy came to me this morning as I was thinking about an exchange I recently had with a friend about breast cancer and chemotherapy. Nutshell: I said that chemo is useless in most cases of breast cancer. I don't remember the exact percentage, but of all breast cancer cases, the huge majority DO NOT respond to chemo. It's more than 80 percent. I think maybe even 90 percent. This is documented. This is factual. But because doctors do not know which women have one of the minority types of breast cancer that will respond to chemo, they go ahead and prescribe chemo to ALL the women who have the types of breast cancer that don't respond. Slowly, slowly, some tests are being developed so that they can learn how to identify which women's cancers will respond to chemo. But these tests have been too slow in coming, and they are still not OUT THERE yet.
Most women are still subjected to a horrendous and harmful treatment protocol FOR NO GOOD REASON. The women are not helped by it; they are harmed. Their immune systems are severely compromised. Their hormones get messed up. Sometimes they go into early menopause. Their hearts are damaged. Their bones are damaged. Their nerves are damaged. Their brains are damaged (chemo brain, it's called -- and in many women, the damage is permanent, not just temporary, though the doctors won't say that.)
When I started spouting off about this (not for the first time, I admit) to my friend (and a few other friends who were standing around), I became, as I sometimes do when I get going on this subject, passionate in my expression of my frustration, anger and despair over the situation. This topic is not fun party conversation. Puts a damper on things. Anyway. Okay....
Granted, there was a small breakthrough about two years ago when it was announced at a major annual cancer conference that doctors were over-prescribing chemo to women with breast cancer. So they have cut back A LITTLE. But not nearly enough. Change within the mainstream medical world is slow, slow, slow. And as long as this dependence on such an inadequate and horrific treatment continues, no new and better treatments will be developed. Keep in mind that the drug companies make bijillions of dollars from the chemo industry. Keep in mind that oncologists make the bulk of their income from prescribing and administering chemo. It's all they know.
At one point in my mini-diatribe, my friend spoke up, as she has in the past, to say that she has some dear friends who have gone through chemo and who feel that it saved them. They're proud and glad that they made the right decision for themselves. This was THEIR choice, even though it might not have been mine. She felt, I think, a need to defend them.
I think she was trying to say to me, in essence, "When you denigrate chemo (note from me: for breast cancer, not every kind of cancer) you are also, albeit indirectly, denigrating the women who chose to do it. You are, in a way, insulting them, their intelligence, and their right to opt to follow the advice of their trusted doctors."
I understand how I could be coming across this way. It's as if I'm not supporting other women who have breast cancer. It's as if I'm criticizing them, saying, "You did the wrong thing. It's as if I'm saying, "My way is the only way, and you blew it."
Well, here's my analogy, finally. It's like when you criticize the war, and the war-supporters get upset with you because you're not supporting the troops. But you're not really criticizing the troops per se; you're criticizing the war and the leaders who got us into the damn thing.
By the same token, when I criticize chemo as a breast cancer treatment, I am not criticizing the women who have chosen to do it. I don't mean to disrespect or dismiss them when I'm up railing away, advocating for change. But I can't, in all good conscience, not speak up. Loudly. Insistently. I think that many very intelligent, courageous women have been bamboozled by a system that doesn't respect their right to be given ALL options for treatment -- a system that has patronized and misled too many of us, with too much misinformation.
While I'm at it, I may as well add that I am also critical of our mainstream breast cancer fundraising organizations (ie. the Komen Foundation) because unfortunately their money goes mainly to "research" that I do not support, and their information is totally conventional. They've got thousands of women out there walking and marching "for breast cancer," but I can't get behind the pink ribbons and uninformed party line jargon. These organizations support an ongoing lack of good solid information and education. Women have a right to so much more than these heartfelt but misleading "rallies."
And on that unpopular note, I shall move on to breakfast.
Tonight at my biweekly writing group meeting, one member read another installment in his ongoing, memoir'ish travelogue about his yearly cross-country trip to spend a long four-month summer in Provincetown. I forget how many years he has been writing about this back and forth adventure. He never seems to run out of things to say about it, because he has one of the most active, interesting, meandering minds that I've ever had the pleasure to be privy to.
As he recounts the here and now "reports" of this or that restaurant meal or stretch of freeway or roadside rest area, he also makes associations that lead to a plethora of memories, thoughts, speculations, reveries, questions, anecdotes, and philosophical obversations about just about everything under the sun. People. Relationships. Culture. Animals. Plants. Music. History. Fantasies. Whatever! I am fascinated by the places that his nimble mind goes. As his body travels from San Francisco to Provinctown and then back again, along with his wife and their two dogs, his mind travels too, and man it goes freaking everywhere.
Even when his well of ideas for "what to write about, what to write about" seems to be drying up, he admits that he can always fall back on this one, increasingly primary "writing vehicle." His travelogue has become his way in. His way into EVERYTHING.
Meanwhile, it is becoming increasingly apparent that another of our writing group members has a talent for writing about her life as a retail bookstore manager in downtown San Francisco. Her various tales of oddball customers and irritating clerical chores are mounting into rather a quirkyly entertaining collection. She too, it seems, has found a wry and sarcastic way in. A way into saying quite a bit of what she has to say about, well, if not everything, a LOT.
This has got me thinking. What is my own way in? I suspect it is right under my nose, so close it's hard to focus on it. But let me digress for a moment.
Last night I went to a Santana concert. At one point Santana said something like (I'm paraphrasing here), "My music isn't a job. It isn't a career or a vocation or a mission or a vision or a profession. It's a WAY OF LIFE."
I was mesmerized by that one simple statement. Wow. A way of life. That's what I want to have. A way of life. A connecting of all my own idiosyncratic dots.
So I'm thinking maybe I need to work harder at this "breast cancer" blog by trying to better express how what started out to be a quest to "beat" breast cancer turned into a desire to "heal" breast cancer, which then began to turn into a desire to heal more than just breast cancer.
The whole concept of healing has taken on a new and bigger and greater meaning for me. What am I REALLY attempting to heal…and why? How far will I travel? Where will I go? What will the trip be like?
It really IS a journey, corny and cliched as that may sound. I'd venture to say that it's about on the same par as the journey of motherhood. It goes that deep. It feels that earthshaking, that far-reaching.
Let's see if I can get better at talking about it, because I do now see it as, well, as a way in. . . and also as a way of life. A perfectly good way of life.
Benefits of Hormone Replacement on Breast Cancer Survival Are Durable: Presented at ASBS
"Benefits of Hormone Replacement on Breast Cancer Survival Are Durable: Presented at ASBS"
By Carole Bullock NEW YORK -- May 9, 2008 -- Breast cancer survival rates for users of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) continue to be significantly better after at least 5 years compared with nonusers of HRT for at least 5 years, researchers reported here at the 9th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Breast Surgeons (ASBS). In a previous study that evaluated the 2.5-year results in women who used HRT and in nonusers, the researchers observed that women who used HRT lived longer and that tumours detected in these women were significantly smaller, lower grade, and more often node negative. Now, the study's 5-year results show that survival is maintained over the long term, with survival rates of 92% for HRT users versus 84% for never-users ([P = .02), reported Rodney F. Pommier, MD, Professor of Surgery, Division of Surgical Oncology, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon. Long-term use of HRT was associated with a significantly higher probability of having a tumour detection by mammography (P = .02), even though the frequency of screening mammography between HRT users and never-users was similar.
Among patients with mammographically detected tumours, HRT users had 100% survival compared with 90% for never-users (P =.03). And no differences in survival were seen between HRT regimens, Dr. Pommier said in an oral presentation on May 3.
This significant survival difference between HRT users and never-users with mammographically detected tumours indicates that this is not due to better screening among HRT users; rather, it is consistent with a favourable biological effect of hormones on the tumours, he noted in an interview.
"Patients with greater than 9 years of HRT also had 100% survival regardless of mode of tumour detection," he added.
In complementary basic-science experiments, the authors measured the effects of oestrogen and medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) on breast cancer cells in vitro.
For the in vitro studies, oestrogen-receptor-positive and progesterone-receptor-positive breast cancer cell lines and those with oestrogen-receptor-positive and progesterone-receptor-negative cell lines were treated for 5 days with oestrogen (1-10 nM) and/or MPA (0.1-250 nM).
"The addition of MPA did not change the effects seen with oestrogen alone," he said. "Many of the concentrations and combinations were growth inhibitory for breast cancer cells. Our in vitro results support our clinical findings that [oestrogen] or [oestrogen] plus MPA do not worsen clinical outcomes."
[Presentation title: Improved Breast Cancer Survival of HRT Patients, Regardless of Regimen or Length of Therapy, Is Durable After an Additional 5 Years of Follow-Up. Oral Presentation]
I'm reprinting today's article on "Evidence-Based Medicine," from the Ralph Moss newsletter, Cancer Decisions:
One of our newsletter readers wrote to us this week about the term 'evidence-based medicine.' "I am hearing this phrase more and more often," he wrote, "and typically I'm seeing it used as a means of putting down alternative medicine, as though only conventional medicine has the right to a place at the table, and anything else lacks legitimacy."
Certainly 'evidence-based medicine' (EBM) is an interesting and somewhat loaded phrase, the unambiguous implication of which is that medicine comes in two varieties - the kind that is based on a solid foundation of objective evidence, and the kind that is not. Because of the apparently stark good-versus-bad division it suggests, the phrase lends itself well to being used as a pejorative by those who are outspokenly opposed to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). To such people, anything other than standard conventional medicine is by definition unproven, speculative, founded on dubious premises and inherently inferior. As our perceptive reader pointed out, the term 'evidence-based medicine' is often used by such people as a rhetorical weapon, a means of devaluing anything that cannot be clearly identified as mainstream conventional medicine.
Yet this was not at all the intended meaning of the term as it was originally conceived. The Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group (EBMWG), a research collaborative of clinicians and epidemiologists from Ontario's McMaster University, who first coined the phrase in 1992, were not attempting to draw a contrast between orthodox and unconventional medicine; far from it. They were in fact trying to change the medical profession's entrenched tendency to cling, mainly out of habit, to procedures and treatments for which there was little if any solid evidence of effectiveness (EBMWG 1992).
According to David L. Sackett, MD, one of the original McMaster group, and author of numerous subsequent papers on the concept of evidence-based medicine, EBM is intended to be "the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. The practice of evidence-based medicine means integrating individual clinical experience with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research" (Sackett, 1996).
These are laudable aims, to be sure. We all want medical care that is based on the best available evidence rather than on unyielding habit or diehard medical tradition. But exactly how far has medicine come towards that goal in the decade and a half since the McMaster University team first advocated the adoption of EBM? Are most current medical treatments backed by solid evidence of effectiveness?
Very Few Treatments Are Effective
The venerable British Medical Journal has an offshoot publication, BM Clinical Evidence, whose mission is to provide physicians and patients with the best available evidence, garnered wherever possible from randomized, controlled clinical trials (RCTs), which are considered to be the most reliable and rigorous standard for measuring treatment effectiveness. The journal describes itself as "the international source of the best available evidence for effective health care."
"What proportion of commonly used treatments are supported by good evidence, what proportion should not be used or used only with caution, and how big are the gaps in our knowledge?" asks the publication's Web site (BMJ 2007).
Of around 2500 treatments so far reviewed by the journal's distinguished team of advisors, peer reviewers, experts, information specialists and statisticians, only 13 percent have been found definitely beneficial. A further 23 percent are rated as likely to be beneficial; 8 percent can be classified as a trade off between benefits and harms; 6 percent as clearly unlikely to be beneficial; 4 percent are likely to be ineffective or harmful, and a whopping 46 percent - almost half of all treatments reviewed - are rated as being of unknown effectiveness.
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Reproduced by kind permission of BMJ Clinical Evidence |
As the journal acknowledges, these figures suggest that most treatment decisions rest not on solid evidence obtained through properly conducted clinical trials, but on the individual preferences of clinicians, unsupported in the majority of cases by any concrete evidence of benefit.
So, given that very few of conventional medicine's standard treatments have been demonstrated to have any clear benefit whatever - and conversely, that a substantial proportion have been shown to be potentially harmful - it is somewhat ironic to see the term 'evidence-based medicine' used as a war cry by those who are virulently opposed to CAM.
Is EBM Compatible with Individualized Patient Care?
Another aspect of the EBM debate that bears close scrutiny is the question of whether it is always in the patient's best interests to be treated according to standardized EBM protocols. On the surface, it seems obvious that patients will benefit when physicians prescribe only those treatments that have been proven through clinical trials to be effective. However, there are those, like Erich Loewy, MD, a bioethicist and professor of medicine at the University of California, Davis, who argue very persuasively that things are not nearly as black and white as they seem, and that EBM, as it is currently practiced, may actually not serve patients well.
In a thought-provoking article for the online medical forum Medscape, Dr. Loewy cites the danger of using EBM as a standard protocol into which any patient with a given disease can simply be plugged. He writes: "To me, as a bioethicist and…a physician who has observed the evolution of EBM, I am impressed with the danger to physicians, patients, the educative process, and, ultimately, to the behavior it encourages. Mindless reliance on EBM does exactly what we do not want our students to do: convert what is a suffering human being, with a unique personal life-history, into a specimen of pathophysiology or a heart murmur" (Loewy, 2007).
Dr. Loewy lists a number of ways in which EBM may ultimately result in decisions that are not in the best interests of patients. For example, he writes, "EBM protocols start out being considered as guideposts and end up being considered as straightjackets - and straightjackets that are welcomed by many physicians." One physician actually went so far as to tell Dr. Loewy that he was enthusiastic about EBM guidelines precisely because they saved time and did not require him to think.Dr. Loewy points out that EBM, as practiced in large institutions, can have the highly undesirable effect of stifling thought and constraining good diagnostic and clinical judgment. Doctors who 'think outside the box' and who feel that a particular patient is uniquely suited for a treatment option that is currently not listed as standard EBM, risk being disciplined by their institution. "EBM is basically anti-intellectual," Loewy writes. Thinking, he reminds us, is among the physician's most important tasks, and EBM protocols, which often consist of nothing more than standard check sheets, actively discourage thinking. Worse, because of the potential for EBM to result in mechanistic treatment decisions that take no account of individual variation, this method "threatens to separate the patient's uniqueness further from the physician and would support looking at the disease instead of at the patient who happens to have that disease."
The essence of CAM is its focus on the individual and its insistence on the rationality and centrality of individualized treatment. Of course it is extremely important to establish treatment guidelines, and to conduct rigorous research into the effectiveness of currently accepted standards of treatment. Teaching physicians to evaluate available treatment options according to whether or not such therapies actually result in measurable benefit to patients might go a long way towards improving care (and reducing costs). But when evidence-based medicine becomes a means of strangling diagnostic skill and reducing patients to algorithms or numbers on a checklist, medicine can no longer call itself the art of healing.
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye
This morning, as a new addition to my first round of pills and other health-building supplements, I swallowed (proudly, I must say) one of my homemade raw liver "pills." It took me half a Saturday (well, probably three hours) to cut up three pounds of raw organic grassfed beef liver into dozens upon dozens of small, capsule-sized pieces. I lined up all the "pills" on squares of tin foil, maybe 50 pills per foil.
Then I stacked three or four of these foil squares one atop the other, and slid them into a large ziploc freezer bag. I ended up with a fairly large stack of these freezer bags, which I then put into the freezer. After two weeks (time enough to kill any bad bacteria by freezing), I am now able to pop one raw liver pill per day.
Liver is one of those "super" foods. It contains more nutrients, gram for gram, than anything else. Not only that, it also contains the mysterious "anti-fatigue factor." You can read more about it here.
In addition to my liver pill, I also took my: cod liver oil, Chinese herbs, Vitamin D, Vitamin E, Vit. B12, selenium, Iodoral (iodine), mammary PMG, and Immuplex (the last two are special/unusual supplements that I order from Standard Process, via my doctor Thomas Cowan. If you go to the Standard Process website, you can see what these pills contain; it's interesting, particularly if you're working to strengthen your immune system and fight breast cancer.
When I eat breakfast, I'll take another round of goodies: Curcumin, COQ10, more iodine, Super Eff (another unusual one from Standard Process), Spanish Black Radish (another unusual one from Standard Process), and Vit. B3.
Breakfast today will be a smoothie made from: plain kefir, Odwalla supermonster blueberry drink, one raw egg yolk from pastured chickens, a tablespoon of high quality coconut oil, a tablespoon of high quality green powder from Wilderness Family Naturals (dried but not heated at high temperatures, to keep enzymes intact), and a quarter tsp. of Vit. C powder.
I never did any of this stuff before my BC diagnosis. It's kind of amazing how many things I do now that I didn't do before BC, including walking all over creation several times a week, and taking photos (these two activities go hand in hand, actually, and so I would have to say that gettting BC indirectly "caused" me to take up photography. Or served as a catalyst. Hmmm. I guess I should thank my BC for "encouraging" this new creative outlet. I DO thank it, actually. Oddly. I also thank it for turning me on to far infrared saunas! And for helping me learn how to stress less about stupid work stuff.
Must get to work now.
Two
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye
Sound of the dog bowl
alive with disappearing kibble
your passive aggression
in the background your
rustling Sunday paper
Hiding behind locked door
lukewarm coffee by the side
of the bed, I slip and slide
riding rough shod over past
resolutions to do better
My big dream: To live in a cozily isolated dwelling, surrounded by a moat, with a great huge drawbridge between me, my peaceful solitude, and the world at large. I am a recluse at heart. A solitary being. The dynamics, the messy and often distressing demands of socializing and "relating," whether "casual" or "heavy duty," don't appeal to me. Call me lazy, call me unfriendly, call me cold, I don't care. They are just too much fucking work.
I have a hard enough time trying to scrape past the surface of mySELF, trying to understand mySELF., let alone anybody else. Why would I want or attempt to understand the other crazy, mixed up people all around me? Or, god forbid, control them? Or have them try to control ME? What a nightmare. Jesus, I'll mind my own freaking business, and you mind yours, okay? And never the twain shall meet, comprendez? You go your way and I'll go mine. End of a nice and solitary short story.
Enter the HOA. God how did I get myself into this? What blinders was I wearing when I went from what I thought was the worst hell on earth – renter's hell – to this new "I am a member of a homeowner's association" hell?" What veil of illusion did I allow to blanket my big wide innocent hopeful eyes? I bought my own home because I thought that meant freedom from having a landlord breathing down my neck and, on a very basic survival level (roof over my head) controlling my destiny.I thought I would finally be free to have control over my personal space and also over my business space. I would be able to do whatever the hell I wanted, within those private boundaries. Finally!
Well, crimeney and motherfucker. I'm starting to think this is a fate thing for me. A karma lesson. Some joker has put me on earth to suffer through battle after battle with my desire to NOT have to deal with the crap of human interactions. I dream of hermit heaven, and find myself smack dab in the middle of running a business that throws me into one annoying or frustrating or infuriating or mystifying human interaction after another. . . with, all too often, some fucking stranger who is either a busybody, a manipulator, a whiner, a liar, or...let's just lump everyone into the lovely all-purpose category of asshole.
I know, I'm being a cup-half-empty kind of a gal today. My vision is short, my perceptions are skewed, my insight into my Higher Self is cruelly limited. So sue me. Go ahead you mealy-mouthed, anal-retentive, pea brained moron, sue me!
Is there really anything worse on this earth than our having to learn how (or even just attempt) to walk through this world ACCOMPANIED? My dear (but also demanding of my time, energy, effort and attentions) Significant Other (aka Jackie Pie) believes in getting to know his neighbors. He's such a nice and friendly and giving guy. He willingly approaches this Herculean task (I see it as a Herculean task...daunting...viciously annoying) with great good will and optimism. I, on the other hand, must be dragged kicking and screaming, every single day, to the intersection of myself and Others.
To be continued (sheesh) . . .
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye
Yes, I do occasionally look at and photograph people and animals, as well as at a plethora of inanimate objects. Jackie Pie and Olivia are my two favorite "animated" subjects. My son Will would be another, if he were ever here. I had a note from him yesterday, btw, saying he'd be leaving for New Zealand today, for almost three weeks. Then to Arkansas (go figure). Then Sweden.
Speaking of inanimate objects, well, I don't really think of them as inanimate. I try to see the soul of things. Seriously. I walk around with my camera, thinking "Look for the soul, Jane. Look for the soul." It's quite the challenge.
I'll have more to say about soul later, actually, in relation to the "phytoessential oils" that I ordered yesterday.
Other breaking news: I finished doing my taxes. Also, one of the women who moved into my cottage came by yesterday with a pair of my shoes that she found somewhere in the house, left behind. I have no idea where they would have been and didn't have a chance to ask her, because she gave them to Jack when I wasn't here. They're good shoes! Red ones. Comfortable. Almost new. So sweet of her to bring them over!
And...on Saturday I go to UCSF for an MRI. Fortunately I'm not claustrophobic, so lying there in that big enclosed tube doesn't freak me out; it's just really really boring, and you have to be really still. Last time I did it (two years ago), I counted the seconds and minutes, literally. It takes about an hour. They shoot a toxic contrast dye into your veins which, I read recently, changes your DNA. But I decided to do it anyway. I'm skipping the mammogram and ultrasound, though. Did you know that mammograms exert around 40 pounds of pressure on the breast? Doesn't it just seem logical that if you had a tumor in there, which is about as strong as a vitamin gel capsule, it could be mashed OPEN by that much pressure?
Anyway, what I find more difficult than the actual MRI procedure is the wait, afterward, for the results. It's stressful. Every test takes an emotional toll, which is another reason I don't want to go overboard with monitoring. You can make yourself crazy with fear of what the next test will say. And much of the time, the tests are inconclusive. Our medical system OVER-TESTS. In my opinion. We put too much store in tests tests tests.
One good doctor is worth a whole bunch of stupid high tech tests. I saw one of those good doctors last week. Milton Rosenberg, urologist. Yes. I'm 55 and I go to a urologist. I last saw Miltie two years ago. He did a five-second manual procedure that FIXED me! (I was peeing a billion times a day, and oh how tiresome that was.) Miltie did not prescribe drugs or shots, although the TV commercials would have you believe that those are your only options for dealing with this issue. Not so, ladies. Not if you go to dear Milton R.
Not only does Milton fix you. He talks to you like you're a real person with a real mind. It had been two years, but as soon as he saw me, he started asking about Jack and Olivia. He also asked about my breast cancer (which he didn't really have to do, since it is totally unrelated to my reason for going to him). We chatted about ThreeStone Hearth, too. And I asked him how HE was, and he told me about his most recent health issue (now resolved, thank goodness). It was lovely. Personal. Human. AND: I didn't have to wait. My appt. was for 2:30 p.m. and that's when it happened. I was out of there by 3:05 p.m!
I've noticed that the wait time for my alternative docs is none to minimal. The more conventional the doctor, the longer the wait. At one point I said to Milton, "I don't have an oncologist. In fact, you and the the breast surgeon are really the only conventional doctors I see, now."
He chuckled and said, "I'm not really all that conventional." And I realized this was true. He looks conventional. His office looks conventional. But no. He's way more savvy and wise than that.
The other thing I now think about choosing doctors is that you have a better chance, when forced to choose from conventional docs, if you choose someone who is 50 or older. On first thought, I might have thought that younger docs would be more open to alternative stuff. But if they have been trained in conventional medicine, I doubt it. I'd rather find a doc who has had 30 or more years of experience, and who, from that experience, has figured out that medicine and healing requires a whole lot more than a battery of tests and a