Thursday
[Journal not posted until 7:40 AM on Friday since I just got tired last night before I could finish. Sleep simply had to come first.]
High-Level Journal Summary: Input on my diet during chemo from several friends -- a nutritionist who got her start at Whole Foods and another who has respected contacts in the world of macrobiotics.
While incredibly new information to me, a structure for thinking about foods is provided that makes sense and gives me places to hang new information as I get it. For example, "In Chinese (and other systems) of healing and medicine, food, like so many things in life fall into these categories of yin and yang." Valuable input just goes on from there.
It took me a while to get through this material, but there is stuff in here that actually resonates with me regarding diet. Very, very interesting information.
Countdowns:
1.) Day 11 of 28 in my 17th 5/23 Temodar chemotherapy cycle.
2.) Bi-weekly hematology report on 2/4/07 to see how my blood levels are doing.
3.) Monthly meeting with my local oncologist, Dr. Dipti Patel, on 2/6/07. The purpose of this meeting is to review my latest Hematology Report and see how I am progressing in my 17th cycle of Temodar chemotherapy.
4.) Inova Brain Tumor Support Group Meeting on 2/6/07.
2007 Seizure Activity:
1.) Last Simple Partial Seizure, or SPS, was 8 days ago.
2.) In 2007, I have had 2 SPS's so far.
Actual Journal: In my 1/28/07 online journal entry, the importance of my diet DURING chemo week emerged. I wanted to know answers to questions such as:
- Can I better counter anti-nausea medication?
- Can I better counter the toxic taste I have on my tongue by the end of the week?
- What should I be eating when?
The power of a network
In addition to Messages posted on 38 Lemon, I get hundreds of e-mails. In fact, I've gotten thousands of e-mails from friends, family, and other patients/caregivers since 38 Lemon was created.
Some of the personal e-mails I get have solid information that help me in unexpected ways. Things just unexpectedly pop into my inbox that influence my thinking, nudge me in another direction, expand my core knowledge.
One of my "therapeutic principles," if you will, is that I feel much better when this information is exponentiated rather than just kept to myself. Why should I be the only recipient of this information? If it is helpful to me as a brain cancer patient, can I be the only person to whom it would be helpful? I doubt it.
So it is that I post information from this network of people who all have investment in helping to fight brain cancer (in some way, shape, form). It helps me to better digest this information, and based on some of the feedback I get, the process has value to others, as well. Further, the process encourages even more thought and responses from others. There is a degree of snowball effect on certain subjects.
New information about diet
So it is that I am sharing the following information from a nutritionist and friend I met prior to my 5/5/05 brain surgery. She got her start at Whole Foods when the entire staff could fit into a single photo, somewhere back in the late 70's. She is nationally recognized and I trust her. Here is what she had to say about diet during my Temodar chemo treatment:
Hope you don’t mind but I have some thoughts to share with you on yin and yang.
Probably you are very familiar with the energies of both: Yin is considered to be female energy. Its properties are cold, wet, and expansive. Yang energy is associated with male energy. Its properties are hot, dry, and contracted. In Chinese (and other systems) of healing and medicine, food, like so many things in life fall into these categories of yin and yang, with yin foods being cold or cooling, wet and expansive. Examples are fruits and vegetables, leafy vegetables and sugars. Yang foods, on the other hand, are meats, root vegetables, cheese, salty foods, and dry hard foods (think beef jerky!) - Adding heat (cooking) to fruits and vegetables increases their yang qualities, therefore adding balance.
Drugs, whether recreational or pharmaceutical, are always extremely yin. More so than sugar. In these systems of healing, if one is exposed to drugs that create yin conditions in the body, the diet to best balance yin is yang. This means increasing hot, cooked foods such as stews, roasted chickens, baked fish, miso soup, hot cooked grain cereals such as oatmeal, cooked vegetables and baked fruits. The foods, however, should be easily digested. Soups and stews are perfect for that. If sodium levels need to be kept low, simply adding heat to raw foods (cooking vegetables and baking fruit) adds a more yang quality. In the winter, adding yang foods help us stay internally warm.
Drugs can be life savers but they also carry risk of toxicity (nothing a strong person can't overcome) – to counteract the toxic nature and taste on the tongue, ginger root tea made from fresh ginger root may be useful. Also useful may be a simple little plumb paste called Umeboshi (available at Whole Foods Market). It is made from salted, pickled Japanese plumbs. It is highly alkalizing to the system and has been used for centuries to counteract nausea, acidity, and toxicity. In fact, it is commonly used in Macrobiotic Cooking.
(See Umeboshi for more information on this.)
Having a diet based on hot cooked foods such as whole grain cereals, stewed meat (lean) and chicken, high-mineral bone broths (made from chicken or fish for example), baked or steamed fish, miso soup, cooked vegetables, baked apples and pears (no sugar added), cooked root vegetables such as carrots, onions, turnips, and rutabaga and some EFAs (essential fatty acids) so necessary for the human brain, is a good diet for one undergoing chemo. EFAs are found in flax seed oil, walnuts, pine nuts, evening primrose oil, unprocessed safflower oil and fresh, wild fish.
My reaction
This explanation -- from someone I already know and trust -- resonates. One of the main reasons is because I was given a structure for how to think about all the foods out there, yin and yang. I always need a basic framework for where to put thoughts as I expand my knowledge about them, so this "yin and yang" framework makes sense to me. It is simple. It resonates.
In addition to all that, there is a Whole Foods Market within miles of my home. Perhaps I can enter the store with a different perspective the next time I go there for food. Before, there was so much "information" (i.e., food types) whenever I entered Whole Foods that I was overwhelmed. Now, things can at least start to look a bit different as I start my basic education.
One last bonus
In the reference to "Umeboshi," an indication is given that Umeboshi is commonly used in Macrobiotic Cooking. Well, since my 1/28/07 online journal entry, I have also gotten e-mails from another friend, currently based in California, who has contacts in the world of Macrobiotic Cooking (a topic I could not even explain right now). Here is that additional information which I may use, as well.
From: Meredith McCarty
Subject: Macrobiotic Diet
Thanks for communicating with me about your friend. Yes, I do nutrition counseling by phone for people at a distance, and would be pleased to work with David, but in this case I think he would benefit from meeting with Michael Rossoff, an acupuncturist and macrobiotic counselor who I've known and respected for many years. Michael lives and practices in Bethesda, Maryland and is an excellent resource. You can visit his website at www.michaelrossoff.com.
In looking at his website, I noted that The Associated Press has published a national story on macrobiotics featuring Michael Rossoff, so there is some external "mainstream" credibility, as well.
We'll see where all this input leads...even for a rookie like me.
