What do you mean I don't look like a cancer patient?

WTH!  I will never forget when I was going through my 2nd time going through chemo after my mastectomy for breast cancer when my oncologist exclaimed to me that I finally looked like a cancer patient.  I had been feeling particularly crappy that day, it was 2 days after chemo and I was coming in for my routine fluids and anti-nausea medication.  All through chemo and radiation I wore my normal makeup like any other day.  I didn't want to scare anyone, and I didn't want to scare myself.

No, the real reason is because I wanted to keep things as normal as possible for my kids who were little at that time.  Knowing that I would lose my hair and that other ugly side effects could happen I wanted to keep my appearance as normal as possible.  Not to mention that it is true that when you look better, you feel a little better.  So into the oncologist I would go, dressed comfy but stylish and with my makeup on.

Until the day I just did not care anymore.  I felt so horrible and the kids were at school, so I just went in with no makeup, dark sunglasses and a hat on wearing a matching velvet like tracksuit.  I felt like crap and it showed.  You know that point where you feel so bad that you do not give a Bleep.  That's how I felt, and my oncologist was kind enough to point it out for everyone to see.  Thanks Dr. Reyes. 

I know somewhere in there was a compliment, at least I'm pretty sure there was.  I guess not looking like a typical cancer patient over the past 6 months prior to that days visit was a good thing, making today's raw unadorned face so shocking.????? I don't know, but I do know that her statement stuck with me over the past 5 years of my journey with breast cancer. 

I would like it to be noted that I have not shown up since that day without makeup on.  Just saying.
I don't think I am a vain person, but I know I am not blessed with natural beauty, my face needs a little help and God bless makeup.  :)

There is something to be said for a great shade of lipstick that makes a women feel like she can conquer the world. :)  Even conquering a chemo room. 

Please be sure to subscribe to my blog, visit me on twitter @wondermom76 or Facebook at Thrive Cancer Support Services or on our website at www.cancercutie.com

Cheesy potatoe comfort soup

Potato-Cheese Comfort Soup

Serves: 8

Prep time: 15 min    Cook time: 7-8 hours

Ingredients

6 Cups diced, peeled potatoes (red and russet)

5 Cups water

1 Cup diced onion

½ Cup diced celery

½ Cup chopped carrots

¼ Cup butter

4 Teaspoons chicken bouillon

2 Teaspoon sea salt and ¼ Teaspoon pepper to taste

12-oz Can evaporated milk

3 Tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

1 Cup shredded cheddar or Colby cheese

*If you are a fan, sprinkle some fresh cut chives on top before serving.

Preparation

1.      Combine all ingredients except milk, parsley and cheese in slow cooker

2.      Cover, and cook on high for 7-8 hours, or until vegetables are tender

3.      Stir in milk and parsley

4.      Stir in cheese until it melts, and heat thoroughly

 This soup is seriously one of my faves.  I like to add broccoli and cauliflower to mine.  It should be eaten on special occasion due to the high fat content or if you are needed to add some weight.  It is comforting and soothing to the stomach and throat and you can add more nutrients with broccoli, spinach, bacon, cauliflower, etc. 

This recipe is from our Cancer Cutie Cookbook and is available to purchase on amazon.com or directly from our website www.cancercutie.com 

Cancer is a Fugly B-word

Hello my cancer sisters.  So we all know that cancer is a B*tch, right and she likes to just screw everything up.  So as if all the "normal" junk we have to go through isn't bad enough cancer treatments can make us ugly.  In fact my oncologist told me straight out that she was going to make me ugly.  Gee thanks!  I remember sitting in her office after she said that and just thinking, my God is this woman ever going to tell me something good!
For me chemo made me lose my hair of course, my eye lashes, eyebrows and fingernails thinned extremely, I had bad dark circles under my eyes, and when my hair grew back it was grey and I was only 36!!  My oncologist was paranoid about infections and my compromised immune system so I was not allowed to go to the spa, go to the nail salon, had to throw out all my make-up and buy all new make-up. Thank God for Look Good Feel Good I was able to get some free make-up.  And I had scary and painful looking burn marks all up and down my forearms from my chemo IV, then when they radiated my right side I was almost 3rd degree burned from the radiation which scabbed and oozed.  It was Horrible!  Not to mention all the freaking surgical scars!  I felt like a circus freak and cousin of Frankenstein.  This lasted for over a year, and it wasn't until I had my breast reconstruction that I started to really feel like I was physically looking more normal. 

But I put my makeup on darn near every single damn day.  Not because I am vain, but because I didn't want to scare my kids who were little, I didn't want to look like a typical cancer patient and it's true what they say, that if you look nice you will feel better.  This might sound ridiculous but we all cope in our own way, and for me I needed to have my "face on".  Since I couldn't go to the salon I painted my nails at home when I felt up to it.  My mom and my friends gave me little gifts to help me feel pretty like, fun earrings, bold nail polish colors, leopard print scarves and luxurious lotions.  This isn't much but it helps a woman feel nice, and a little more normal.

Five years later since my first chemo and I still have to fill in my eyebrows, I have many scars, and I am still badly lopsided in my breasts.  But I am alive and I am whole, and mostly back to "normal", and like a lot of cancer survivors I have a new "normal".  I live with my cancer as a chronic disease as mine metastasized and is now stage 4.  I can never be the same woman I was before cancer, this is both a good and sad thing. 

No matter what that B*tch cancer tried to do to me, and how ugly she thought she could make me, I am beautiful.  I am beautiful because I survive, and no matter how ugly I may get from my disease on the outside, nothing can take away the beauty that is in my heart.  So take that you fugly b*itch cancer!!!!!

If you like my blog please visit our website at www.cancercutie.com and check out our Cancer Cutie Cookbook available on the website or www.amazon.com

What does a stage4 Breast Cancer patient look like?

What does a woman with stage 4 breast cancer look like?  She looks like this.  This is me with my daughter, taken about 2 years ago.  I don't look sick do I?  Unless my scars are showing I don't even look like I had/have cancer.  For the most part I look pretty normal to strangers who don't know me.  But what doesn't show is the chronic pain, the scar tissue, the damage from radiation and chemo, the fact that my breasts are still lopsided, the list of daily medications and supplements I take, and the fear that I live with every single day. 

Stage 4 breast cancer looks like a normal mom who takes her kids to school, goes grocery shopping, cooks dinner, has lunch with friends, works, goes to the movies with her family.  Stage 4 breast cancer is not the same as other cancers that are stage 4, and not all stage 4's are the same either.  Mine happens to be Metastatic stage 4 which means that breast cancer cells moved from the original tumor site and decided to grow.  In my case, breast cancer cells moved and actually ate a HOLE in my iliac bone, which is in the lower back and it infected lymph nodes in the middle of my chest.  It was caught and treated but I can never be cured of cancer and live with it as a chronic disease having to manage any further occurrences or as the doctor's like to put it, "flare ups".  My cancer can come back at any moment for any reason, or another cancer can invade my body and I have to live with this every single day.  Cancer is a mean girl, a real bitch and she doesn't give a f*ck how much she destroys.  My job is to be on her ass, making sure she can't get very far, basically I have to be a bigger bitch, which is fine, because I am good at that. :)

So much of stage 4 is underneath the surface.  It's not easy living with stage 4 cancer, it may look that way on the outside, but it's not.  Being proactive in my own care and staying on a cancer fighting diet helps as does faith and knowing God has a purpose for my cancer and I use it to help others fighting the disease. 

The key to living with my stage 4 cancer is maintaining my own nutritional and immunotherapy as well as following doctor's orders and monitoring my body with routine tests and scans.  Stage 4 is not always a death sentence.  It's not a walk in a park, but it can be manageable and a fairly normal life can be had.  I am living proof. 

Don't give up. Part 1

I know it's hard living with cancer but don't give up.  Doctor's may have told you there is no hope for you medically, but you can always find hope in God's word.  Miracles do happen!!!!

Let me start off reminding you out there that doctor's do Not know everything.  Even the one's who act and think like they know everything, they in fact do not.  There is a reason why it's called a medical practice.  They doctor's are still practicing until they get it right, is what my grandfather always said.  Actually, it is because medical science is changing all the time and not all treatments or medications work for all patients.  So it's called a practice, same with a law practice, laws are constantly changing. 

We as cancer patients put so much hope in our doctors that it is easy to forget that they actually do Not have all the answers and can in fact make mistakes.  A few years ago I was so confident that my life was completely in my oncologist's hands.  I looked at her as my life line.  In my battle with cancer during chemo and radiation I lost sight of who really has my life in their hands.  God.  My doctor let me down, my pharmacy let me down, and because of their mistake my cancer came back and I am now stage4 with a hole in a bone.  Thank God, God was watching over me and protected me from being damaged worse due to their mistake.  Doctor's are not in complete control.

I have seen and heard fellow cancer patients and family members share stories of how their doctors gave them a number of months to live and the patient is still alive!  Months, to years after the doctors were so sure the patient would have died.  Miracles Do happen.  Doctor's do Not know everything.  Only God knows your expiration date. 

We can forget our doctors as great as they are, are still human,  and as humans they are subject to mistakes and Not subject to God's plan for you.  God has your expiration date, a doctor may be able to guess a "sell by" date, but God knows your "best used by". 

Remember when the world can't offer you hope, there is ALWAYS hope to be found in God's word.  God won't let you do until He is done with your purpose on earth, until then, don't let anything or anyone stop you.  Enjoy each day you can as it is a gift and never ever give up hope.  God will never give up on you, so don't give up on Him.

Life in Cancer

There is life in cancer.  This might sound weird to some but it is true.  You have to see it and choose it.  As a mom of two young kids at the time of my breast cancer diagnosis I was terrified of dying from my cancer.  It was once I truly believed that God was using my cancer for His glory to help others and would carry me with His grace that I could see that there was life in my cancer.  I cannot say that over the past 5 years of my cancer journey (I was diagnosed in 2011) that I have seen life in my cancer every single day or that it has been a picnic.  It is a roller coaster and you can only take things day by day and sometimes even hour by hour.  But, it CAN be done.  And honestly it can only be done with Christ. 

People often tell me that I am the strongest person they know, and was called a real life Wonder Woman.  While I love that as I am a Huge Wonder Woman fan, I cannot take credit for this strength.  I wish I could and when I was younger I thought my strength was mine that I was a "badass".  It is now with maturity and spirituality that I can say my strength is not my own, it is Christ.  God has given me my strength, has made it possible for me to go through aggressive chemo not once but 4 times!  To go through horribly painful radiation when I didn't think I could go on, to be disfigured for over a year from a mastectomy and all the awful side effects of the medication and treatments.  And as awful as it was for me, it wasn't what it was predicted to be by the doctors and statistics because God covered and carried me with His grace.

We have all heard that God doesn't give us more than we can handle right?  And there are times where we tell Him that we can't handle anymore, we can with His help.  I have felt that I was at my limit so many times.  All I can say is I thank God for God.  I can't survive life much less a horrific disease without Him. 

There is life in my cancer because of Christ.  I am alive to enjoy my children and my friends and family.  I am still in chronic pain and have to monitor my cancer but there is life.  I go to church, I read my bible and even on my bad days I see that there is life in my cancer every time I see the people I have brought back to Christ.  Seeing my children go to Sunday school, talking about how God has helped me in my cancer with others.  Life is more than a day you are alive, life is seeing God's blessings all around us.

You can survive cancer.  But you can't do it alone.

10 Good reasons why everyone should take a probiotic everyday

Probiotics are valuable, living "good" bacteria that stimulate the gastrointestinal tract. Some of the important benefits of this association include the prevention and treatment of vaginal yeast, eczema, food allergies, irritable bowel, ulcerative colitis, diarrhea (including antibiotic-induced) and inflammatory bowel disease not to mention the overall general health benefits. 

As a cancer survivor I can attest to the amazing way I felt and the proof of better test results in my blood when I started adding a probiotic to my daily routine.  My side effects lessoned and I felt better, I also wasn't getting sick as much when my kids got sick.  I have used echinecea for years as an immune system booster but combining echinecea with a probiotic has made a world of difference and I won't ever go back to not taking a probiotic!

Hard to believe up to 80% of our immune system, is found in our digestive tract, but it's true and makes it our central defense structure when it comes to illness.  If you are good to your body, your body will be good to you.

10 Good Reasons to add a Probiotic to your day

(1) Enhance immunity - a double-blind clinical test involving patients in intensive care proved that viable (alive) probiotics prevented multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS), the number one cause of mortality among intensive care patients.

If probiotics can do this, what can they do to prevent chronic flues and colds and allergies?  A lot!  I am living proof probiotics work!

(2) The immune protection of mother's milk is enhanced if the mother takes probiotics during or before pregnancy. If breast feeding is impossible, then adding probiotics and prebiotics (what probiotic bacteria feed on) to a baby formula free from fluoridated water and sweeteners can be tried.

(3) Probiotics can reverse ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, inflammatory bowel disease, and other gut inflammations that occur from a lack of sufficient probiotics.

(4) Celiac disease or gluten sensitivity (GS) symptoms are handled by adding probiotics.

(5) Processed foods and low fiber diets allow the pathogenic bacteria to overwhelm the good guys and diminish colon function. It's important to add probiotics even if you drop the standard American diet (SAD).

(6) When pathogenic bacteria upset the 85/15 balance of probiotic to bad bacteria, like yeast infections can grow.

(7) A healthy gut balance helps prevent cancer by nourishing enzymes that inhibit tumor production throughout the body.

(8) Sufficient probiotic intestinal flora prevents radiation damage from X-rays and CT scans to the large and small intestines.

(9) GMOs are used in many processed foods and antibiotics are in lots of our non-organic meat and dairy products. They both destroy probiotic bacteria, making it necessary to add probiotic materials back if you've had any of those foods.

(10) There is a medical theory that a cure for autism can be had through a diet that restores probiotic levels and heal inflammatory conditions. While I am unsure as to this "cure" I do believe that this will help manage autistic symptoms we well as many other ailments.

*I am not a licensed doctor and this blog is not intended as medical advice.  I am a certified nutritionist and health coach.  Always seek medical advice if you have a medical condition.