November 2013

A quick post to confirm that I am still alive and kicking !!  I'm trying to get on with life rather than write about it - hence the lack of blogposts. It's also difficult to write when you have nothing of note to write about.  But for those who are interested I'd like to confirm that I am well and continue to manage my tumours / cancer. I have just had the results from my latest scan and all seems to be stable, though the tumours do move and rotate - is that scary or what !  And whilst there is an area that is apparently growing slowly, we don't know what it is. ( it has a different signal to my other tumours, so is hopefully benign ) So the decision is to wait and watch. It could be a small fatty lump, and I am hoping that is indeed what it is. So all is well and I can breathe for another 6 months.

I am not so flippant about this as I may appear. Really I'm not. But there's nothing really to do about it. Just count my lucky stars that I don't need aggressive treatment., and that despite expectations I am still here. So I'm getting back to a more restrictive diet and a steadier, stress managed lifestyle. There's no sense in continuing the slide that time and complacency has taken me on. It isn't easy living mindfully and healthfully all the time , I can tell you. But, if it buys me more life it has to be worth the effort. I am finding it hard to manage my mind at present, and that's the truth, but I am putting a lot of effort into it, so I am sure that calmness and peace of mind will eventually be my normal again. I'm experiencing a slight interruption to service - nothing more.

Updates to my attempts at fashioning a mastectomy nighty. -
                 Sadly I don't consider my efforts so far to be universally successful. I lost the muse for a while in face of the complexity of the task. Perhaps now that the days are short and the nights are long I will reclaim it and muster up the energy to try again. As the man who invented the lightbulb is reputed to have said - I've come up with a number of ways of how not to do it. I just need to keep trying so I can come up with a way that does work.

Update to Gardening -
               I have veg in the ground. But I've been feeling very tired this summer and didn't get down to my allotment so much. Now I'm mightily embarrassed to go down there ! But I do have brassicas to harvest ! Organic, fresh, living veg. They call to me !

I can't think of anything else to report. So until next time I wish anyone reading this a very healthy and happy half year till I report in again.

March 21st 2013

I am a very sporadic blogger. I am what I am. Today I'm posting because I thought of my blog the other day and I haven't thought of it for some time. This year has been a year of new beginings for me. My daughter left home for University and I'm an empty nester now. My husband goes into semi-retirement next week and I'm just waiting to see what that brings. My scan is due and I'm on tenterhooks waiting for the hospital to contact me to arrange it. And today, for a change, the sun is shining and it looks like spring and the start of a new gardening year. To prepare my body for the continued changes in my life I am going on a cleanse. I have prepared. I have bought the produce. I have got my recipes and my schedule in order. Today I begin with a green juice. Pretty basic. Spinach, celery, and cucumber. A squeeze of lemon. Green. Dark Kelly Green. It's OK. As green juices go its very mild. I've a glass in front of me and a small bottle in the fridge for this afternoon. I'll be trying a green smoothie at mid morning and mid afternoon (kale, spinach, broccoli. tomato, lettuce, garlic, cucumber and avocado, and any extras i can think of ), and I'll have soup ( vegetable ) for lunch and supper. I've signed up for Ross's alkaline cleanse on the " Energise For Life " website, and I'm trying his recipes. My own are far from great tasting, so I'm hoping to pick up some tips for making them more delicious. I've tried a green smoothie before and I'm a little trepidatious as I didn't like it. However, I'm going to give it another go. Raw foodists call them smoothies, but having had fruit smoothies I can say that mine was a long way from being anything like what I expected. They are more chilled soups in my mind. The plan is to do this for 7 days. Hopefully that will put me on the right path to juicing again as I haven't used my juicer in some time. And for motivation I have access to some videos Ross has made for the programme. I am also going to be watching " Hungry For Change " which is having a free viewing on the internet for the next 10 days at www.hungryforchange.tv/ Strange - when I've typed web addresses in before it's shown as a link. Google it if you want to watch. I highly recommend it. Another motivational movie I stumbled upon earlier this week is " fat, sick, and nearly dead " It can be watched on youtube and is very motivational. These guys juice for 60 days and undergo a huge transformation. The movie follows them and you get the feeling that if they can do it so can you. So I'm good to go for the next 7 days. I'd say I'll blog my progress, but that's not my pattern of the past. What I will say is that I will post my scan results when they come up. Fingers crossed !!!