Cancer FAQs

Hi there - here's hoping you are all well on this blustery Melbourne day.

I have posted a new page, called cancer FAQs, which will  hopefully answer some or many of the questions I have had from you wonderful readers.   It's over on the right.  

Go ahead, read.  There is happiness even in cancer, I promise you.

xoxo happy weekend!

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Radish

Yesterday was a lovely day.  We had breakfast here (a place I highly recommend, and I am not the only one who is a fan - there was a queue out the door when we left) whilst the sun shined.  We went to the food market at my daughter's school, whilst the wind was cold and icy.  I came home and cooked lunch and watched a hailstorm begin outside.   The hailstorm then cleared and the the sky was blue.   Later on daughter went to a Halloween themed birthday party and it rained a bit.  And then a bit later the sky cleared up again.  Just a typical Spring day in Melbourne.

I bought these radishes at the market. Something new for me, I have never bought them before.  Ever.  I think I am scarred by memories of the crudites plus dips my mother served at her glamourous parties in the 1970s. Or something.  But they have a wonderful crispness.  

I have been dipping into the new Sophie Dahl cookbook and she has a very simple recipe for radishes.  I had no truffle salt so I improvised with truffle oil.

You take the radishes and slice them very thinly (I used a mandoline).   Layer them in a dish, allowing their ruby rims to show through.    In a little bowl mix up a tablespoon or so of truffle oil, some sea salt and some very finely chopped mint.  Pour over the radishes and let them sit a bit.  Completely divine.  I had eaten most of them by the time lunch was ready!

I know I have been in some weird places this year, medically, but these radishes reminded me of a brain MRI.



I highly recommend the Sophie Dahl book.   If not just for the chipped Granny's bowl and lace tablecloth photography, and lots of shots of Sophie in flowery tea dresses.  Seriously though, she likes my kind of food - soups, salads, hardly any sugar, chicken and lovely picky things to eat.   I feel that she would be a great laugh to have a drink with.    

Here's to another cancer free week.

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Green Sugar Free Breakfast

Breakfast time for me:

(home made sugar free granola with Greek yoghurt* and rhubarb and a green smoothie)

In Mid July 2011 I gave up sugar.  Specifically fructose.   Why?  Well not for weight reasons, and not for anti cancer reasons, although I have read that cancer feeds on sugar.  Really it was for I Wish I Could Stop Falling Asleep At My Desk In the Afternoon reasons.   And I have found that giving up sugar is not one of those annoying life changes where you only feel marginally better, or a diet change where it takes months and months to kick in.  No not at all. I found within literally days that I felt so much better. 

This is how I got there.

First, I have been reading Sarah Wilson's blog for a while.  If you don't know it go there now. It is informative, and inspiring, in a world where the word 'inspiring' is overused.     She gave up sugar for medical reasons, and is about to issue an e-book on her journey.

Second, I became very tired of the sugar highs and lows I was getting from my sugary cereal with fruit juice breakfast, little bun or muffin at morning tea, more juice at lunch time and then chocolate and more in the afternoon and then maybe a chocolate biscuit after dinner. Or ice-cream.  Or, on weekends, lots of ANZAC biscuit mixture on a Sunday afternoon.   The sweet things are not great but the real culprit is fructose.  Read here about David Gillespie, author of Sweet Poison, and his take on sugar.  

Third, I thought how much I would love to have the same level of energy throughout the day.   So I made a plan. Did some more reading. Thought a bit more. The real challenge is breakfast because it is so sugar dependent.   So I knew I had to find something for breakfast which is quick and sugar free.  

Fourth, I made my cereal, based on a Nigella Lawson recipe.    It is very easy.  Turn oven onto 180, spread two cups of oats over a lined baking sheet.  Get two cups of raw nuts and pulse in a food processor until you have half crushed and almost powdery but with some large nutty chunks.  Put them on the tray too, along with a cup of sunflower seeds.  You can also add coconut (but note it will be brown within about 10 minutes so you will need to take it out first), pumpkin seeds, or really any other seed which can be roasted.  No fried fruit (this is a fructose heavy as fruit juice).  Put in the oven for about half an hour turning regularly until the oats and nuts are all toasty and light brown.  

Fifth, I found pretty quickly that I got sick of coconut water for breakfast.  I didn't realise how much I relied on the quenching nature of fruit juice.   I really needed that in morning.   Then I found Kimberley Snyder's glowing green smoothie.   I love this so much.  And she is such a relentlessly 'up' person that I feel just that little bit more perky every time I read her blog.  This drink gives me a complete energy boost until lunchtime and it really doesn't even taste very vegetable-y.   Try it - you will not regret it. 

(looks like a science experiment...)

Do I miss chocolate?  Yes oh yes.  And I am still seriously considering excluding chocolate from my list of sugary foods.  However, on the few instances I have lapsed, I find I get a sugar rush from a tiny bit of cake or biscuit and after my mouth feels weird and sugary.   I have filled the hole with sugar free chocolate which is surprisingly nice.   I am not going all crazy about this.  If I  want a piece of cake I will have one.  However the removal of my staple endless fruit juices and sweet lollies has made such a difference to how I feel that I don't think I will ever be able to go back.   

And to be clear, this is not deprivation territory.  You can still have coffee (lactose is okay), beer (maltose is okay), wine (not sure what sugar is in there but it is apparently okay) and fruit (but whole only maximum two pieces a day).  

Go on y'all.  Give it a try. 


xo


* beware of low fat yoghurt - it is loaded with sugar.  I love this Greek yoghurt which is available in all supermarkets - almost no sugar and just like the yoghurt you get in Istanbul which is where I first fell in love with yoghurt for breakfast.  

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Change

Lately I have been wondering whether the last 8 months have changed me.  Objectively I would expect that a diagnosis of cancer at 42 would change me significantly. 

There is no point dwelling on the nasty changes like increased neuroses or bitterness or resentment. (Mind you sadly there has been a bit of that floating around the house this year).  No, I am thinking more about positive behavioural and personality changes. 

And yet I am still not sure really if I am that much changed inside.  I continue to surprise myself - first, on diagnosis I didn't cry and scream for a week in manner of Bronte style heroine with heart broken by cruel man.  Second, I feel so different physically (much better, in fact) that it is a bit odd that on the outside I appear to be the same person (albeit with some Hair Issues).  

When I finished chemo I got a lot of little booklets from the hospital about how to cope with this new period with no treatment (excluding Herceptin, which continues till next April). 

If all the pundits are correct, this is a hard time, where you feel empty and a bit directionless, and even depressed.   The treatment provides structure and something to think (or even complain and moan) about.  Life with no routine treatment means that a large gap opens up, which is there to be filled with horrible thoughts of the future and possible recurrences of cancer.  Every little twinge makes one think 'arggh shoulder cancer, or stomach cancer or foot cancer or lung cancer or mouth cancer or eyelash cancer..........'  My surgeon calls this hypervigilence and it is very common in post chemo patients. 

In the manner of a controlling lawyer I have developed a 6 point action plan to try to get me through the next little period. I have implemented most of the steps, and it is really helping.  I will post on that next. 

But even then I still have moments when I despair just a tiny little bit, and think why on earth has this happened to me?  But those moments then go, and I look at the blue sky, and think that things are probably okay.

These are the areas where I think that I may have changed. 

1. I smell the flowers.

The absence of picking flowers in my garden has been annoying me for sometime.  But if there is one thing my garden can produce in spades it is Daphne.  Here it is looking flush and smelling lemony.

My husband occasionally said to me during chemo 'please don't rush around' and I would say 'you have no idea how completely incapable I am of rushing around.' And now I am still in a rush free zone. Yes I am busy busy of course isn't everyone, but I am deleting things madly, walking slowly, and smelling the world outside. 


2. I feel more empathy.

I think I have always been a reasonably caring person, but now I can feel others' pain more tellingly.  If you have been pregnant you will recall how the tears start to flow when you see images of famine in Africa or lost puppy dogs on TV.  Well I am like that the whole time now.  This of course is the true meaning of compassion - that feeling of sharing the pain, of connectedness.  I still feel raw to the touch, I think, and that makes me feel things really intensely.

I was given quite a nice camera for Christmas. I have barely used it but am now starting to experiment with super close ups of flowers.

3. I am more aware of how I spend my time.

I am aware every day of how many books I still have to read.  The pile on my bedside table is towering, and that doesn't even include books on my Kindle. 

As an aside, can I recommend another book to you all?  If you read one book this year please make it this one.  In Anti Cancer, Dr David Servan Schreiber talks of his brush with cancer and what he has learned since about leading a life which repels cancer in all ways. This is not just about diet, although that is important (he mentions specifically green tea and turmeric and many more), but about ensuring despair and helplessness (not necessarily stress) have no place in your life. 

So with all these books to read I am trying to rationalise wasted time.  And sadly that does mean less time on the Internet.  I just can't justify it anymore.  I am still visiting you all, just not commenting as much.  I hope you all forgive me.

4. I am less interested in controlling my children's behaviour.

I still have some way to go on this one, but I am learning to pick my battles a bit more.  I have a very strong willed son, and it is exhausting trying to get him to conform all the time.  And what's more, I think it is bad for me and causes me anxiety. 

So now, if they want ice cream for dessert when they haven't eaten 100% of their dinner, then frankly, that is fine by me. 

(son having roll into ball tantrum in the street. One of his specialities)

Do you know what happens when two stubborn strong willed impatient and argumentative people live together?   It is fireworks and that has long been the way for me and my son.  But now, I am trying to learn new ways to manage him.  I am still disciplining him, but trying to be so much calmer in doing so.  

As an aside this is how I get the children to eat meat.  Slit open some little pork or beef sausage and fry gently with some butter and chopped garlic, pressing down with a fork to create smaller bits.  Add half a tin of chopped tomatoes and cook for 15 minutes. Serve with spaghetti and Parmesan. 

5. I want to make the most of things

During chemo I bought a new car. I suspect some people thought that was a bit strange, but once it happens to you, you realise that life doesn't stop just because you have cancer.  You still have to live, work and love.   You can't say 'oh I might die so I had better not do that'.   In fact it is the opposite. 

Next on the list is a little shack with a sea view, something we have always wanted to do but avoided for reasons to do with debt.  Do you know what I say to debt now? I spit on it.  Or laugh at it.  Conservatively and with a fair interest rate of course.

In an ideal world my beach house would be Scandinavian, a bit grey and brooding, salty but with clean lines.  Here is something to really live for:

6. I don't feel as sorry for myself as I used to.

Someone left a comment here about the 'downward social comparator', which is about realising that no matter what you are living with, there is always always someone going through something worse than you.   Like the young woman in my meditation class with three small children who has been told her cancer has spread and that there is no hope for her.  She is on chemo and a drug trial indefinitely, which is of course code for as long as she lives.   Or the woman I met at a dinner with a slipped disc and such chronic back pain resulting from a failed operation that not only can she not lift or hug her children but she cannot even get out of bed without taking 7 painkillers.

To me, these situations make my recent life look reasonably okay in comparison.  And they certainly make my regular Sunday Afternoon Folding And Putting Away 10 Loads Of Washing (something I was a bit apt to complain about) a walk in the park. 



What about you?  Have you been changed by an event? 


(Images (1) Pinterest (6)(7)(8) My Scandinavian Retreat)

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Olley

Vale Margaret Olley, Australian artist who died on 26 July 2011 this week at the age of 88

(Cyclamens and Apples 2005)

(daisies and pears 1978)

She recently sat for a portrait by Ben Quilty, which won this year's Archibald Prize, here it is.

Olley was a figurative painter of great skill, who produced wonderful still lifes, which seem so old fashioned these days and yet full of life and light and substance.  What, really, could be more wonderful than a perfect bunch of flowers and a bowl of fruit sitting in the sunshine. 

(Poppies 2004)



(spare bedroom, 1970, which is at the Lismore Art Gallery)



She always struck me as a very determined person, not at all a flighty scatty artist.   And I love her food \ flower combinations.  Others include cornflowers and pomegranates, cliveas and mandarins and ranunculas and watermelon).

(Quinces and Marigolds 2005)

The older you get of course the more you can get away with saying what you want.  I love this quote of Olley's:

'I’ve never liked housework. I get by doing little chores when I feel like them, in between paintings. Who wants to chase dust all their life? You can spend your whole lifetime cleaning the house. I like watching the patina grow. If the house looks dirty, buy another bunch of flowers, is my advice.'

(from the biography by Meg Stewart you can read a review of this here).  

She certainly took her own advice because here she is in her studio:

The Sydney Morning Herald's obit is here. 

One of my ambitions in life, if you could call it that, is to reach such a ripe age, say what I want, paint what I want, and clean when I want (or not).

(all still life images from Eva Breuer)

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Rainforest

Location: rainforest north west of Mosman, in tropical far north Queensland.

Weather conditions:  warm and dry.  A bit of tropical rain at night, but what could be nicer. 

Lazy act of self indulgence: being woken up at 6.45 every morning by shouty son, putting him in front of ABC Kids on TV and going back to bed.  

Assignment:  lots of swimming, eating and sleeping.  And standing on rocks.  And running up and down the grass rather pointlessly. 

Participants:  two small wet children, one happy husband, one very happy me. 

Local natives:  Beware of screeching tropical birds in the night. And green tree frogs hopping from pond to deck.  And feral pigs, although the gunshots we heard early most mornings I suspect may have put paid to those piggies.   And watch out for koalas and bright parrots.  Oh, and the large black spiders which crawled into our luggage whilst we were there.   Luckily most of the local crocodiles seem to be quickly caught and sent to the nearby croc farm.   I have had this question a lot though 'Can crocodiles eat people?  Why?  Will they eat me?  Why not?'.

(little bird at our house) 

(A koala doing what koalas do best: snoozing)

(this is the only breeding pair of jabirus in the world. They spent 2 years courting and another 2 looking for the right place to nest.  Just like human beings.) 

Sustenance:  I only have one rule about holidays, and that is, I do not want to cook breakfast lunch and dinner.  Much as I love cooking, that is just too much standing around in the kitchen for me.  For this holiday, we had lunch every day in Port Douglas (mostly here and here).   

Crazy self discipline idea:   do you go on holidays full of good intentions like exercising in inappropriate locations, or not drinking alcohol, or going fat free?  I do.  And that usually lasts about 3 days.   As I have spent most of the last 6 months feeling hungover from the lovely chemo side effects, drinking has not been high on the agenda.   How nice it was on this holiday to enjoy wine.    Oh, and should I mention we had dessert every single day for lunch? With no guilt, no regrets and no second thoughts.   Otherwise what is the point?

 (pistachio kulfi with silver leaf and watermelon salad) 

(dragonfruit ice cream (how amazing is the colour) and creme caramel. Very 1970's!)

(at our fourth meal at this restaurant they supplied the children's honeycomb ice cream in an ice and rose petal bowl instead of a 'normal' bowl. )

Outcome: for some reason it seems as if the children always take some great step on holidays. Is that just because I am paying more attention, or because they relax into it?  The guilty mother in me would say this is because I am around the whole time, not working and not distracted with life.  But I think it is more that they have time to work on things with lots of pushy parental encouragement.   This time round, our son became independent in the water (with a foam noodle of course) and our daughter finally got the hang of diving (as opposed to belly flopping).   


Now it's back to the real world. 

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43 Books

Following my last post where I mentioned the books I read during surgery and chemo, a number of people asked me (a) what I read and (b) how I found the time.

The answer to (b) is that when you spend months hooked up to intravenous poison every Monday morning for 4 or so hours, you suddenly have quite a lot of time for reading.

(a bit of our library)

And the answer to (a) is below where I list my 43 books. 

As I have said before, I found reading a bit challenging this year.  I did not want to read anything life changing which would later remind me of where I was when I read it. 

I also found it quite helpful to read about people battling life and death in an escapist sense because it made me feel that they were in more trouble than me (the same reason I have watched a lot of House this year.  They have what disease?   Just made me feel better that I had simple straightforward cancer).  

And also I did occasionally feel pretty brain dead and something simple and soft was just the answer. 

I have to mention the role of my Kindle in all this.  Whilst I love to hold a real book in my hot little hands, the Kindle has so many advantages.  Two in particular I mention: the first is that if you are stuck somewhere and don't feel like reading what you have, you can in 30 seconds download another book.  The second is cost.  On Kindle, most paperbacks are $5 to $7, old classics are free, and even new ones are about $11.  Compared to a shop price of $29 for a new paperback that is a major saving and explains why I could do crazy things like read the balance of the Lee Child oeuvre.  ( I bet not many people put 'Lee Child' and 'oeuvre' in the same sentence). 

So, fully categorised and colour coded, here is the list.   

This post is dedicated to Anton, the lovely silver haired man from the country I met in the oncology suite who reads military history and was always interested in what I was reading.  I hope you are doing okay.  


A mixed bag of fiction

Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
One Day by David Nicholls
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak 
The Flaneur by Edmund White
When God was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman (thanks Simone xo)

US loner ex military cop adventures

Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child
The Visitor by Lee Child
Without Fail by Lee Child
Tripwire by Lee Child
Bad Luck and Trouble by Lee Child
Persuader by Lee Child

I am addicted to Jack Reacher and his slightly improbable but impeccably plotted adventures in the US heartland. 

Self Help and Cancer

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle  (first and last self help book I will ever try to read)
C: Because Cowards get Cancer too by John Diamond
Crazy Sexy Cancer by Kris Carr
The C Word by Lisa Lynch

A classic fast paced WW2 thriller

Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett
(I also read 'A Dangerous Fortune', epic banking family revenge saga set in late 1800s London).  

Soppy and Likely to Make You Lose Respect for Me

A Special Relationship by Douglas Kennedy
Temptation by Douglas Kennedy 
State of the Union by Douglas Kennedy
The Moment by Douglas Kennedy (this is his latest book about a doomed romance set in a 1980s separated Berlin.  I don't know about you but I fully loathed the main character by the end of this story - whatever you do don't read this book)
A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve (always love her work although her earlier stuff is superior I think)

Venetian Detective

Wilful Behaviour by Donna Leon

2 new US legal thrillers

Innocent by Scott Turow (this is a sequel to Presumed Innocent and is quite brilliant.  His writing is so calm and powerful, and this is a marvellous depiction of a marriage in decay as well). 
The Confession by John Grisham

Adventure for 12 year old girls (and me)

What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge
Night birds on Nantucket by Joan Aiken
The Witch of Clatteringshaws by Joan Aiken
Midwinter Nightingale by Joan Aiken
Mandy by Julie Andrews (actually I read this to my daughter but it still counts)

You may think this is a bit odd but proper children's literature can be read by adults, I think.  And I may have been regressing just a bit in hospital, so I went on a bit of a Joan Aiken splurge.  These books are amazing, they feature a little Cockney adventuress, Dido Twite and are set in an alternate history in the 1600s and feature a range of kinds (Good King James III and in Midwinter Nightingale a dying King Richard and a baron-werewolf bent on taking over the throne).   You can read about Joan Aiken here. 

Cornish and Scottish Bohemia

Wild Mountain Thyme by Rosamund Pilcher
Coming Home by Rosamund Pilcher
Day of the Storm by Rosamund Pilcher
September by Rosamund Pilcher
Winter Solstice by Rosamund Pilcher


I read The Shell Seekers 20 years ago and it is one of my favourite books ever.  I bought lots of her lesser works on Kindle, some of which are okay, especially Coming Home which is an absorbing story set in Cornwall and London and Malaysia over the 1930s and in WW2.  

Mixture of Non Fiction

At Home by Bill Bryson
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell 
The Big Short by Michael Lewis 
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
Love Wisdom and Motherhood by Jessica Rowe
Is there a Nutmeg in the House? by Elizabeth David 
Smile or Die by Barbara Ehrenreich

Two Rock and Roll Tales

Just Kids by Patti Smith
Life by Keith Richards (still reading this one)

Code
One of my favourite books - have read several times now
Not their best work 
Unfinished
Need to be in the right mood for this 
If you want to read something completely different...?

Finally, a very big thank you to Simone from Bottom of the Ironing Basket.  You see, I won her incredibly generous 500th post giveaway of 16 yes 16 books and they have been arriving in my office in twos and threes over the last couple of weeks.  Here are some of them.   Thank you very much lovely S.  xo 

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