Interesting Enough To Come Back To...

It has taken me three weeks into January to get back into this driver's seat. Depression, whether you're medicated or not, can be like riding waves on a busted surfboard. Sometimes you fall off the board, sometimes you can ride the wave. Depends on everything- the weather, your mood that day, how you are treated, what the day throws at you, a memory that catches you off guard.

For the most part I'm doing okay. Then something sneaks up behind me and I'm on my knees. But I've still got the surfboard and it's going the right way.

So, I plan on continuing with the Alphabetical Cancer Prevention Blogs, but on a more realistic ONCE A MONTH basis.One less stress at the end of the week, especially during the ski season. I'll try and fill the rest of the month in with update blogs of what's up in our lives. I'll try to keep it interesting enough to come back to.

Surf's up everyone. Hang on.

"E" Is For Exercise and Eggs

Whether we do it or not, we all know that exercising is good for us. But how much is enough to keep things like the cancer cooties at bay?

Women who strenuously exercise six or more hours per week  may reduce their risk of invasive breast cancer by 23 per cent compared to sedentary women, says a study in the February issue of Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention.

"A woman's hormone levels naturally fluctuate throughout her life, and we have found that exercise likely offers protection against breast cancer regardless of a woman's stage in life," said the study's lead author, Brian Sprague, of the University of Wisconsin. "The take-home message for women should be that it is never too late to begin exercising."

High levels of estrogen have been linked to a higher risk of developing breast cancer. Women who exercise heavily tend to produce estrogen for a shorter time, lowering their exposure to the hormone over their lifetime, the researchers said.

It is also possible that exercise helps by preventing weight gain, regulating insulin sensitivity and changing immune function, the team said.

The benefits were only seen in women without a family history of breast cancer. Other risk factors for breast cancer were taken into account. 

While some studies have found a positive relationship between exercise and breast cancer, others have found no relationship at all. Either way, exercise is important for staying healthy and, when it comes to recovering from breast cancer, that's when exercise really becomes important.

Exercise had a positive effect on physical and psychological functioning of cancer patients while in treatment." Cancer patients who exercised experienced fat loss, a decrease in nausea and fatigue, higher self-esteem and better quality of life.


I can sure attest to that! Being fit before I got sick meant I was able to get back on my feet faster, which meant I was able to get those "feel good" endorphins working for me. That's important when you're in one of the more depressing stages of your life. Okay, one of the most depressing stages.

After checking with your doctor first, consider looking into Jill Forrest, a breast cancer survivor, who started Better Than Before Fitness, Ltd. Jill  has created the first rehabilitative/exercise video for breast cancer survivors. The video takes you through the first day after surgery to six weeks later and all participants are breast cancer survivors. Visit http://breastcancerexercises.net/tags/jill-forrest/

for information about the video and to find answers to your questions about exercise.

Whatever exercise you choose, remember that moving your body can help heal both your mind and your body.

"E" Is For Eggs

Egg yolks are home to tons of essential but hard-to-get nutrients, including choline, which is linked to lower rates of breast cancer (one yolk supplies 25% of your daily need) and antioxidants that may help prevent macular degeneration and cataracts. Though many of us have shunned whole eggs because of their link to heart disease risk, there’s actually substantial evidence that for most of us, eggs are not harmful but healthy.

People with heart disease should limit egg yolks to two a week, but the rest of us can have one whole egg daily; research shows it won’t raise your risk of heart attack or stroke. Make omelets with one whole egg and two whites, and watch cholesterol at other meals.

A New Year...A New Purpose

Again, no installment for the Alphabetical Cancer Prevention blog this week. Life is still hair-straight- back with Mother Nature trying to disprove the Farmer's Almanac' s disheartening  prediction of a snowless, cold winter. It has been +2-4 and raining in town which turns to flurries on Hudson Bay Mountain. We haven't had a break from hard-core downhill skiing in 14 days. For the first time in my life, it's the joints beneath my knee caps that are singing. The constant pounding after the fresh tracks of powder have been chewed up and you are determined to keep the 20 to 30 year olds behind you instead of ahead poaching the little patches of left-over powder.  Slam, slam, slam across the quick forming moguls which jar your back and knees. My body has been taking quite a beating. But it feels good to be back doing what I do best! It's my new way of thinking...enjoy what you love while you can, if you can.

The snow is so deep in places that you must use your poles like rudders or balance beams, which at the end of the day becomes very sore on my surgery side. So I don't use my right pole when having to traverse. My left arm does all the work.

An update on the boob for all those seated at the edge of their chairs wondering what the NEXT outcome will be, is the MRI showed there was still fluid in the right breast. While in Terrace for my hysteroscope, I heard my BC surgeon DR. E was around so I asked the nurse to tell him that a younger woman wanted to flash her boobs for him. He came by, all smiles and squeezing my big toe like he does, and asked if he and a student could examine me. He was surprised to hear there was still fluid after a year and jiggled the breast with his ear bent over it to listen. He said it was probably good there was fluid, which would keep the breast inflated versus collapsed like my girlfriend's. She faces reconstruction.
After three weeks though, some shrinkage has occurred which I figure means the remaining fluid has hardened into scar tissue. It looks smaller than the left breast and doesn't fit my bra as well. I have quit wearing thin tight shirts, preferring thick ones that mask the deformity.
I still think its better than not having a breast at all, which is some women's choice. Not mine.

The anti-depressants work amazingly well...except for the side-effect of a low libido. The libido hasn't been back to normal since the surgeries,  over a year now. My side remains numb and uncomfortable. That can work against me, but, there are many days when the Old Deb returns and the saying "There's nothing like good food, fine wine and a bad girl"comes true for Barry.

I am sorry to say I have had three friends battle cancer over Christmas. One with a breast cancer recurrence who went through chemo and radiation, meaning the same bald Holiday for her that I went through in 2010. Another got to re-coop on the couch from a uterine-cancer forced hysterectomy and the third, the removal of two cancerous tumors and over 30 lymph nodes in her breast area.

And the beat goes on...

Meaning once the snowing slows down, I will be turning my attentions back to getting Running From The Cancer Cooties published and those Cancer Prevention blogs on track! Its my way of  helping the next woman in line.

Here's to a New Year and a new purpose in my life. I look at it as I had to go through breast cancer to discover how I could help the world be a better place. I'm sure I'm not the first person whose life has been changed for the better by surviving something so depletingly debilitating.

 But it's new for me and I welcome the chance to give back with open arms.
After skiing, of course!

A Christmas Surprise

I can't believe it is raining out? That's very unusual for us at this time of year. The snow is determined to cling to the grass though so there will be white for Christmas, although not nearly as much as usual. Enough to keep that Christmas feeling. Some of us don't go to Mexico during the Holidays for a reason.

We arrived in Terrace last week for the hysteroscopy. The gynecologist performing the procedure had met with me six weeks prior and we discussed the options of getting to the bottom of the continual menstrual-like cramping that has been on-going since taking the Tamoxifen. A side effect of taking Tamoxifen is uterine cancer. I kid you not!

Signs of uterine cancer are cramping , back pain and spotting. I do have the cramping and the lower back pain (from skiing the hard bumps at the ski hill possibly, or is it something else)The fear of growing more cancer was eating me up.  So to be sure, the doctor was going to go in with a camera and take pictures to assure both himself and me that all was clear.
When he asked to examine me, I politely opted out , telling him my regular doctor and girlfriend Dr. V was very thorough and had just examined me days before. He smiled at my ploy and let it go, saying there had better not be any "surprises" once I was on the operating table. I assured him there wouldn't be.

 I haven't had to flash the old wahzoo at a man other than my husband for over twenty years and was not looking forward to it. Fortunately when this doctor would get to look at it, I would be under a general anesthetic and not having to grin and bear the moment.

That's why I decided to decorate my south pole, complete with a Santa cap, white beard, red mittens on the inside thighs and plenty of Christmas stickers wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. I hear it was a hit and a good laugh for everyone.

The good news is that the pictures looked excellent, with no other surprises. Now we await results from the samples taken.

I went off the Tamoxifen the day after the procedure. The Zoladex that I take by injection every three months should be wearing off and my oncologist and other two doctors want to take me off everything to see if I am in menopause yet. After the chemotherapy and the drugs I should be by now. If I am, they can take me off the Tamoxifen and put me on something far less carcinogenic for the rest of the five folllow-up years. That would be VERY comforting. Although like with everything else I have been through, this comes as a trade-off. It means I am not protected from feeding my estrogen-receptive cells and so I am avoiding all soy products, all alcohol, as much sugar as is humanely impossible during Christmas and hoping I don't do what I've done all through my life and do harm to myself. It's easier this time because there is more than myself at stake these days. There are my children's children to live for. It's funny to love people that haven't even been conceived yet, that much, but I feel it. It's real and I need to do all that I can to make sure I'm around to welcome them all to this amazingly complex but wonderful world.

Wishing everyone a few good surprises for your Christmas as well!

Life In The Fast Lane.......Zoom

It was with relief and not just a bit of joy that I celebrated my 52nd birthday this week. As usual, I was spoiled, even more so this year with people trying hard to make sure I knew how much I was loved. I get it everyone, although I always did know. I'm sorry about the depression and sinking as low as I got.  The anti-depressants are working wonderfully. I seem to be able to be myself, while maintaining a sunnier disposition. They don't seem to mess with my mind, I'm not walking around numb or in a bubble. I am able to sweep aside any darkness that gathers and in some moments, stay in the darkness to sort a few things out before retreating again.
2011 had to have been the worst year of my life. But that is changing!
We spent the last week in November visiting good friends in Victoria and meeting my daughter's fellow for the first time before heading to Vancouver to watch the BC Lions capture the coveted Grey Cup! What a weekend. While down there I had my first breast MRI since getting the news I had breast cancer. A week later we got the results. Not the green light I had hoped for, but not a red one either. I'm to have a follow-up MRI in 6 months, not a year due to some fibrous tissue that is a little "suspect." There is also some fluid still floating around which we'll be talking to the surgeon about. Hmmm. So I don't get to pass "go'" and collect the $200 . Fudge.
I am leaving in the morning for Terrace for a hysteroscopy- a procedure where they knock you out and insert a telescope-like device into the uterus where they can take pictures and samples to rule out any cancerous tissue. There has been a constant cramping since being on the Tamoxifen- a known carcinogen that causes uterine cancer. Just another precaution...
 Once bitten, twice shy, as they say. I am thankful for the thoroughness of our medical system.
But I also wonder if it will ever end? Maybe I was too quick to think I would be "over this" in a year. I blew that deadline in August. Maybe we could set my 55th birthday as a deadline.
SPEAKING of, the deadlines for the next alphabetical blog is once again on hold. There are simply too many other things happening at once- you know the drill. The Christmas shopping, getting the parcels and cards out, decorating the house, baking for sales and then for yourself. My time is not my own these days, but I will try and get back to you again in the next week...or so.
Happy running around to you, as well!!

"E" is For More Excuses

I am pleased to say the Grey Cup adventure was so much fun that we arrived home hoarse from shouting "Hurray!" and exhausted from all that excitement. Yet, still on a roll,, we unloaded the BC Lion paraphernalia and donned our skis and gear to head up to the beautifully snow-submerged Hudson Bay Mountain. Alas, while visions of steep and deep danced in our heads, the winds outside our cozy abode decided to turn cyclonic and bash and crash and bang every hanging snow shovel, every wooden sign or flag pole rope. It was hard to sleep and even harder to ski in the wind crusted crud left behind. Only the brave or downright foolhardy made their way down the ungroomed slopes that morning. Once broken up by people ahead of you, you could make some turns, but your ankles were continually getting grabbed hard enough to break them. So we called it an early day, only to return to it in the morning well after the sun poked its head out. Slightly softened, the skiing improved as did the sheer grin of ecstasy crossing my face. My thighs burned in protest, my lungs sounded like I was a 3-pack a day hardcore, but I was back doing what makes me feel more alive than anything I have ever done in my entire life. I was free. I was a rocket. Unstoppable, feeling like I was one with the mountain and the snow beneath me. It held me up as I threw my knees left and right and left and right, riding the hard snow and drifts like  waves on an ocean.

But because of all that, I am pooped and am trying to sit here and write my latest blog in the alphabetical series. It IS half done, but I need some rest. Tomorrow will be the typical whirlwind Monday. I accidentally blew my blood test appointment so will have to try and get in for that as well as do the last of the Christmas shopping list for those far away. I set my birthday as the deadline for parcels to go out- and that's Thursday where we will be back up the mountain. What better way to spend a day getting older than doing what makes you feel so young and so downright healthy?

 So hopefully Monday night I can get the next blog done done. Because Tuesday I'm wrapping prezzies all day before boxing, addressing and shipping.

"E" is for exercise (as well as excuses.)

"E" is for EEEKKK in The Alphabetical Cancer Prevention Series

EEEEEEKKKKKKKKK! It's Sunday and I not only don't have the blog done for this week, but am on holidays next week as well.
"E" is for Exercise, and I am exercising my right to I.O.U. the blog until December 4th.

Tonight I have company that helped cheer on the BC Lions to win the Western Finals.Dinner is over as is the game and I excused myself to fill you in on the excitement in my life.

The win tonight means we get to watch the BC Lions live on the 27th as they play the Winnipeg Blue Bombers for the Grey Cup. We bought tickets months ago, hoping but not sure if BC would be playing. It's a dream come true! We watched the Lions beat the Montreal Alloettes in 2006 in Winnipeg and we would be ecstatic to see them do it again in 2011 right in Vancouver. Watch for me- I'll be holding a bright orange sign saying "We Believe" on it.

I'll also be having my second breast MRI while in Vancouver. If this one comes up clean, I think I will finally be able to relax a bit. I'm having a uterine scope done with a camera December 13th which will also get me over the anxiety hurdle I've been stuck on. I seem to have lost all faith that I am well. These tests will give it back to me.
But while we wait for results, we will be whooping it up in Vancouver and Victoria with friends, eating well, cheering and having the best of times, all without a sip of alcohol for me. I don't even think that's strange anymore, or even worry that it won't be any fun. I am PUMPED and ready to rock on for the Lions!

I'll be back in December. Until then, be well, be safe and think before you drink too much.