My Great Breast Cancer Adventure

Comin' Home Baby

Here's one happy musical interpretation of how it feels to have your long-gone child come home for a visit. Oh, I did mention, did I not, that my son Will arrived last Tuesday for a ten-day visit. Great excitement! Great joy! Oh upbeat, quickly beating heart!

Plugging (or Peeing) Away at Achieving Ketosis

Yes, I'm still committed to doing a ketogenic diet. Have been at it for about a month now. It's not an overnight thing. It's a transition from one metabolic state to another, and how long that takes varies with each individual's body, state of health, and goals. My own goal is, ultimately, to do the RKD (restricted ketogenic diet) which is at the far end of the diet (most restricted, hardest to do). I am nowhere near that point yet. But moving in that direction.

Every day I have been peeing on my Ketostix three times. Soon I'll move on to using my own little machine that measures both ketones and glucose. More precise. But for now it's the stix:

Considering that I've been able to reach a moderate to high'ish state of ketosis DESPITE the fact that my prednisone use raises my glucose levels (thus working against ketosis), I'd say I'm doing pretty darn good!

Happy Black Friday, Everybody! Don't spend too much money on crap, okay? But DO go ahead and splurge if you find a truly great deal. That's my sage advice. Take it or leave it. (I --well, Jack and I -- have already ordered a new living room coffee table and side table for a chair. So I am not above caving to the pressure. I can't wait for them to arrive! For the last five years, our coffee table has been an old piano bench. And the side table for the chair has been the floor.)

Quickie List with Lots of Exclamation Points

1. Still doing the ketogenic diet!
2. Son home for nine days!
3. Still battling the Evil Rash!
4. Going OUT to dinner on Thanksgiving!
5. Bought two new pairs of pants from Beyond the Rack, my new and dangerous online shopping obsession. $19.99 each. Autumn Spice and Berry (the colors). Love them!
6. Thank god for whipped cream sweetened with Stevia!
7. Coconut oil fixes just about anything!
8. Thank god for Bieler's Broth!
9. Still writing poems and happy about it!
10. Still fantasizing about throwing another huge dance party. The last one I threw was, ooops, 17 freaking years ago!

Because (every day doesn't have to be all about cancer even when you have cancer)

Because

Because the rain was coming down so
hard, and because the dog was whining,
and because there was so little time,
she took out the garbage naked.

Because it wasn't a spider bite or
poison oak like the doctor said, and
because she had a double chin,
and because she'd seen, once upon
a time, the inside of a cloud,
she allowed hope in.

Because it was Halloween, and because
the candle was sputtering, and because she
was a mother still, she put a colander
upside down on top of her head.

Video: Supporting evidence

VIDEO:

@BC » Feature Archive » Supporting evidence

Here's a link to a video that contains some background on the research of Thomas Seyfried, whose book, Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management, and Prevention of Cancer is why I am doing a ketogenic diet (working toward the far end of the ketogenic diet spectrum, which will be more extreme than the less restrictive ketogenic diets that you can read about all over the Internet). I'll be trying to do the "Restricted Ketogenic Diet" (RKD), which would bring my body into a complete "ketotic" state of metabolism.

But before I can accomplish that feat, I have to get off the prednisone that I am STILL taking because of the Evil Rash that I wrote about in recent posts. Prednisone raises insulin levels, which means it works AGAINST ketosis. Wouldn't you know it. So until I'm done with prednisone, I can only go so far into ketosis. But I am hopeful that I will be able to taper off this drug sooner rather than later. Right now, every time I get down to 9 mg a day (down from 20 a day), my rash starts to come back. So...it's a battle. But an interesting one, don't you think?

Published: May 2009

An article in the December 2008 Journal of Lipid Research coauthored by Biology Professor Thomas Seyfried, links cancerous tumors to abnormalities in a complex lipid called cardiolipin. The research reflects new interest among scientists in the work of German physician and biochemist Otto Warburg, who won the Nobel Prize in 1931 for his studies in the field of cell biology. According to Warburg, “Cancer has only one prime cause. It is the replacement of normal oxygen respiration of the body’s cells by an anaerobic [without oxygen] cell respiration.” Warburg’s theory fell out of favor (supplanted by focus on genetic mutation as the cause of cancer) because, says Seyfried, “there was no biochemical evidence that would directly support his theory. Our work provides that evidence.”

Seyfried is part of a research team that includes scientists from Boston College and Washington University School of Medicine. Interviewed by @BC in his Higgins Hall laboratory on April 22, he discussed Warburg, the engines of cell metabolism, and the team’s ongoing work to understand cancer.

Great Way to Start Your Day