Category: Onwards and Upwards

Onwards and Upwards No. 3

Hello my healing team,

I hope this update finds you well.  Thanks to those that shared your thoughts with me on your motivations for exercise.  I appreciated hearing your thoughts and ideas.

I reflect on how well I have travelled over the past nine months and I am amazed by all the changes that I have morphed through.  Being honest though, I used to get pretty annoyed by some of the changes that I was forced to make.  My diet is something that has been difficult to change.  I say difficult because I loved the freedom to eat what I wanted.  I love chocolate, I loved devouring a 500g scotch fillet steak dripping with tomato sauce, three scoops of Peters vanilla ice cream with two heaped spoons of Milo was just bliss, and most of all I loved buying my 500ml Icebreak iced coffee drink.  These were some of my treats.  For perspective though, I generally had quite a healthy diet. I reiterate, the items noted above were treats and I am very comfortable that by making the changes that I have made, I will walk the earth (and annoy you lot) for a fair while longer.

In March 2014, when I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma cancer, I tried hard to get a lot of information on wellbeing and diet. I had kind friends who gave me reference books such as Radical Remissions, The Fast Diet, The Gerson Therapy, and You Can Conquer Cancer.  These books all had varied forms of diet plans. Some key diet themes amongst them included; removing all meat – red and processed meat especially; removing dairy; removing all processed foods; add lots of leafy greens; add lots of ‘whole foods’; no alcohol or coffee; adopting principally a vegan diet. Aaarrrggghhhh.  The things these books said that I ‘had to do’ was just endless.  I was quite overwhelmed by all of these changes.  Not only overwhelmed, I was bloody annoyed that I had to change so radically, just to live a normal life like the people around me were able to do.  But I realised that I would be better for it.  I want to live!

So what did I do??  I researched more, I sought advise from highly experienced / knowledgeable individuals and I changed in away that suited me. I took control and did it my way. My way comprised a slow progression!!  I found that if I tried to make all of the changes immediately / cold turkey, I became resentful of the change and it became harder to make the change permanent.

My diet journey looks a little like this;

• I immediately removed red meat and milk.  Daisy the cow is now safe from me.
• I cut down my cheese intake.  I still eat cheese occasionally as I really enjoy some cheeses on a platter when entertaining or if it is included in a meal like risotto.
• I immediately reduced my alcohol intake to just 1-2 glasses occasionally, down from 15-20 glasses a week.  I need my immunity to be at its best and drinking a lot (socially) just doesn’t help.
• I eat heaps of fish.  I eat chicken a few times a week.
• I have removed processed foods.  White bread is a big one.  I now love to make a wholesome sour dough loaf in my bread maker.

– I am loving my lettuce, spinach, broccoli, peas, cauliflower, celery, beetroot etc from my organic veggie patch.  The flavours are awesome.

– I now use supplements to fill the gaps.  I take a multi, Vitamin D, curcumin (in turmeric and ginger) and cinnamon to name a few.

– I knew that I needed to remove coffee and chocolate (Cadbury deliciousness). However, it has taken me nine months to reduce these to being just ‘occaisional’ treats.  I eat 70%+ cocoa dark chocolate.

My adjusted meal plan is now part of my New Normal.  I no longer feel as though I am missing out on my treats and I feel great for the changes I have made.  As you can see, as part of my New Normal, I have been able to remove most ‘bad’ food items and incorporate more ‘good’ food items. I was able to do it in small steps over time. With each change I made, I found that it was easier to take a small step by dropping each treat item progressively over nine months, as opposed to being a big step dropping them all on day one. Most importantly, when I occasionally slip up and indulge in some of my treat items, like smashing down half a block of cadburys full cream dairy milk chocolate, I don’t beat myself up or overshadow myself with guilt.  I just treat tomorrow as a new day and get back to doing what I know I am meant to be doing. I get back to doing what I need to do to live for a long time. I eat well.

Before and after photos attached!

I will fill you in on some of the science or theories behind my diet choices in a later update.

Take care

Geoff

Onwards and Upwards No. 1

Hello my healing team,

I hope this update finds you well!

Over the past week or two I have been undergoing my second round of testing to confirm my status as being in Complete Remission (CR). This testing has been completed under the care of Prof. Andrew Spencer (the Nutty Professor), using equipment and methods that can assess my Myeloma with more accuracy and to a greater level of detection.

As it works out, there is a better classification of remission than CR which is ‘stringent’ Complete Remission (sCR). Generally, CR implies that I have less than 5% cancer cells detected in my bone marrow, and no more lesions detected on my bones.  sCR requires the cancer cells to be less than 0.1% using the new highly accurate testing methods.  sCR is important for two reasons:

1. people in sCR typically stay in remission longer and are likely to have an increased life expectancy.
2. new research suggests that people in sCR don’t need to go onto a ‘maintenance’ chemotherapy program, whereas people in CR do need the maintenance. Maintenance chemotherapy is typically low dose, is given to most people who achieve remission and is used to keep the cancer under control so that remission is sustained for a longer duration.  If I achieve sCR, I get a drug holiday and avoid having to ingest drugs on a weekly basis that indiscriminately kill my healthy cells and the cancer cells.

When I was first diagnosed in March, I was found to have 25% Myeloma cells in my bone marrow.  With the recent testing, results suggest I have 0.18%.  Not quite sCR but as good as!!  With this, The Nutty Professor and I have decided to skip the maintenance chemo and see how it all goes.  It really is quite hard to know what is the best way forward as there is no crystal ball and you never know how my body, or rather my temple, will respond. Fingers crossed……again.

As a person with cancer, when I start feeling better (or normal), it is easy to be lulled into a space where I forget that I have a terminal disease. Actually, I never forget, rather it is more that I am not constantly reminded that I have the disease. It’s a nice place, but fraught with disappointment.  The disappointment comes when I get the latest test results and am bluntly reminded that the cancer prevails, albeit in low numbers. I like being in the place where I am feeling normal, but it is a fragile ledge that I sit on as I know that ledge can crumble quickly, with there being only one way to fall.

Last Wednesday, I was the extra special guest on 88.3 Southern FM (said in a smooth DJ voice). My Kinesiologist, Nan Abbott kindly hosted me on her weekly program.  Going on the radio was a heap of fun and a great experience.  We spent an hour talking on my favourite topic……me!! For those that are interested, or those who are so thoroughly bored that they are willing to waste an hour, I have a recording of the program and will post it on the internet soon.

Next week I have an MRI and X-ray on my shoulder to assess how it has repaired.  It feels good.  Let’s hope it is good.

Have a good weekend and I hope you win something on the Melbourne Cup.

Take care team.

Geoff

Photo showing our camping at Cape Patterson on the weekend.  The wind came along and blew my hair in again.