Align Yourself for Your Health Battles - July 23, 2009
One of the important changes that has happened through this process, is my renewed commitment to be accountable for my personal health. I think previous to my diagnosis I was a pretty healthy individual. I generally watched what I ate, I exercised, tried to manage stress. I feel compared to the "average" person I was doing all right. However, I knew there was much room for improvement.
There is little research that explains why Brain Cancers occur, so I know that there is little I could have done to prevent my cancer. However, I have no doubt that a big part of why my quality of life has been so good through this can be attributed to two things. First, I took care of myself before this happened, which prepared my body to recover quickly from surgery and treatment. Secondly, since my diagnosis I have taken a very active approach in my own health and key piece of that activity has been my nutrition.
A good friend of mine and my nutritionist Angela Koehler Wright gave me a book right after diagnosis called "Anti- Cancer" - On the cover the quote says "All of us have cancer cells in our body, but not all of us will develop cancer." The book focuses on this concept and I like the idea that we, as individual, have the ability to prevent cancer if we take accountability to make some different choices. I find that idea extremely empowering.
Cancer, in my opinion, is an epidemic. I find it frightening to see how many people are affected. My friend Alison Thomas sent me a cook book with Cancer Fighting Recipes, and on the front page it said there are 420 new cases of cancer diagnosed every day in Canada. My Naturopath (ND) said that he has read articles that predict girls born after 2000 will have a 1 in 2 chance of developing some form as a result of the toxins we are putting into our bodies. In all three of these resources (Anti Cancer, Cookbook and ND), the food that we choose to eat has been identified as a key factor in our inability to prevent and fight this disease.
Before this experience I had always struggled with making the right choices when it came to food. I absolutely used food as comfort and when I tried to make changes I went on a diet. I restricted my food choices with an end date in mind. Although I said I was making “lifestyle” changes, I always looked forward to dropping the weight and then going out for some ice cream or a piece of pizza. Jared (my partner) would tell me that I would never make lasting changes if I approached what I ate as a diet. He encouraged me to use moderation and make good choices day in, day out, meal by meal and focus on all the great things I can eat, not focus on the things I was cutting out. This is the mentality I have adopted, finally.
At the end of the day, our health, our bodies, it's really all we have got.
Moreover, you never know when disease will chose to come to you. Two weeks after I was diagnosed, my father got sick. What started out as flu like symptoms, turned into a serious infection that attacked his entire body including his heart. He almost died. Before heart surgery, the doctor told my mom and brother that typically they like to have patients like my dad on antibiotics for weeks before they do this type of surgery, but that there was no time and they had to operate to give him any chance.
This was not a fight my dad had planned to battle, however he was ready. My dad, at 63 was on no medication, he worked out 4 - 6 times a week, including cardio. My trainer in Calgary trained my dad once last year and still talks about how in his sixties my dad could take most of his clients cardiovascularly. My dad indulged from time to time but generally ate nutritiously. He volunteered, read, had a good social calendar, was active, and had a very positive and optimistic outlook on life.
My dad had surgery on Thursday, May 21 to treat a serious sepsis infection that attacked most of his body, particularly his heart. When I saw him the next day, he was on a 90% ventilator, recovering with a new heart valve. He was on several IVs to control his blood pressure and prevent infection. My brother and I met with the cardiac surgeon who said that my dad was doing better than expected and it was because his heart was robust and strong. By Monday, he was completely off the ventilator, and on Wednesday, they moved him off Critical Care. On July 1st, he came home with still some recovery to do, but considering on May 21st there was a chance that he might die, from a staph infection that he might have gotten from a scratch when he was gardening (we will never know how the infection started) his current state of health is definitely remarkable.
I am so proud of my dad for taking accountability for his own health. I am even more grateful that he cares about his family enough to take care of himself because had he not, well, he might not be here. I think both of our stories demonstrate that you don't get to choose when your health is going to test you. There is a certainty that we will all face a health battle at some point in time, the uncertainty is when and unfortunately you don't get to choose when your fight is going to start.
You CAN choose to start preparing TODAY. You CAN choose to be ready when your time comes.
I am not an expert on nutrition or health. However, I am learning every day and I do feel I am setting a good example of what good choices can look like. Am I indulging? Of course. Am I indulging often? No, and it is about moderation.
For me, it is truly about choices, at every meal, with every craving: a choice to prepare my body to fight this cancer, and fight whatever other disease wants to take a crack at me. With each positive choice, I feel stronger, and more in control of my own health, which is an uncontrollable situation such as brain cancer, is very empowering.
People have asked me, what I am doing, and how have I changed my nutrition. Here are some of the specific choices I have made to take control of my own health.
1. Pop - "mostly" GONE - I used to drink pop every day at work. I knew sugary drinks made you eat more and the non-foods in pop such as sugar and aspartame can cause disease but I chose to ignore the facts. I have now cut out all diet pop and the only pop I do drink is the odd ginger ale, mostly an Organic Ginger Beer as a treat I often mix with some juice and lime. My choice of beverage now is water with lemon, green tea, and a glass of red wine.
2. White Sugar and White Flour - OUT - I didn't eat a lot of this before, but I am trying to get it all gone now. We don't have any white flour or white sugar at our place. We’ve replaced them with more natural options like agave nectar and different type of grain flours such as spelt, coconut, and whole wheat. Anti Cancer (the book) does a great job of explaining how these items, especially sugar, are basically foods for cancer. Check your labels and try to reduce these items in your diet.
3. Raw, Raw, Raw - Veggies, fruits, nuts, and seeds are huge staples for me now. Salad/Fruit is almost at every meal, including breakfast, where if I am having eggs, they always get a big bunch of sautéed veggies. For most meals, 80% of my plate is covered with leafy greens, and beautiful vegetables that keep me satisfied more than cheese, rice, or pasta ever could.
4. Organic Meats and Dairy - Where our food comes from plays such a huge role in what is in our meat. You wouldn't eat rotting spinach, but we think nothing about putting meat into our bodies that are full of steroids and toxins. These toxins are only going to help diseases like cancer spread and grow. I know that organic meat, eggs, butter, milk, etc are expensive, but you can start with small changes. Maybe cut back in other areas like Starbucks, junk food, eating out, or cut back on your meat intake as we tend to eat more animal proteins than we need. Fill your plate with mostly fruits, veggies, and whole grains, and just a small amount of organic meat rather than filling your plate with toxic meat which will make you sick.
5. Healthy Fats - Do not shy away from fats. A lot of the "fat-free" items are packed with sugar, aspartame, and other artificial products to ensure you still have the flavour of full fat. Your body needs healthy fats like good quality oils, avocados, nuts, seeds, flax, etc. Read your labels and consider going back to full-fat items like yogurt, and milk and then change your portions to a regular portion. Think about supplementation with a good essential oil like fish, flax, hemp or other essential oil blends.
6. GET HELP - Find a nutritionist, naturopath, or someone who is licensed, with proper education and training, to help you build a nutrition and health plan that meets your specific health goals and current ailments. Your health is personal to you, so although you can take advice from others, there is no magic “one size fits all” plan that will work the same for everyone. I am not an expert on nutrition and the above recommendations are "advice" based on the support I have received and things I have read or researched. It's working for me, so I thought I would share. I rely heavily on my Naturopaths and Nutritionists for coaching whose services are often covered under many employers' complementary health plans.
You really need to care about yourself enough, to take care of yourself. We all use food as a reward and comfort. We all have budgets we have to manage, busy schedules that don’t seem to have enough time to cook, and making nutritious choices can sometimes seem out of reach. If you are finding it hard to find the motivation, I challenge you to think about the people in your life who care about you, your parents, friends, children, and family, and think about how important you are in their lives. To think about what will happen when your fight comes, and you aren't ready, and you lose. In the case of my dad, I cannot imagine saying goodbye to him – not now, it’s way too soon. I am so grateful that he cared about me, and everyone else important to him enough, to care about himself and do the things he did proactively to win his battle. It’s why I still get to talk to him every day.
It’s thinking about a moment when the people I love, would have to say goodbye to me because I lost my battle with cancer which makes it easy for me to care about myself enough to make the right choices day in and day out. If you are struggling for motivation, picture a moment when the most important people in your life, had to say goodbye to you. Now picture what you could do today, to avoid that moment and you will find the motivation you need to make that right choice and ultimately be ready when your battle comes.
