I was on my way out the door from Stanford a few weeks ago, and I was given this document about nutrition. I must confess, I rolled my eyes a bit and said sarcastically, “this ought to be good”.
To be fair, the nutritional advice that I got from my regular provider is “eat a bunch of doughnuts to gain some weight”. Also, during my transplant, I don’t know how many times I was told to eat ice cream and drink gatorade (which I didn’t do). So, I was expecting more of the same advice as I was on my way out.
I started reading and my jaw hit the floor in shock. I told my wife, “Wow, this is actually really good”. It’s so good, that I wanted to share it with you.
It’s solid advice whether you have cancer or you want to avoid getting cancer (or other chronic illnesses). I feel if all Americans adopted this diet, 75% of illnesses would go away or be prevented automatically.
One of my favorite lines from it is, “At least 2/3 of your plate should be comprised of fruits, vegetables, minimally processed grains, and beans”. I think most people’s plates are the opposite or worse. Observe what your plate looks like at your next meal.
Hello, I finally feel like writing again. I’m at +23 on my stem cell transplant today. It has been an interesting past month to say the least. I’m still in recovery mode, and I’m told I will be this way for a few months at least.
The doctor told me that I did better than most. The end result is all that matters though, how much cancer is left or not left. I would rather be more miserable for longer and have a better response. I won’t know that answer for a few more months. I’m praying for MRD negative test result (zero cancer cells in a million).
I did get an engraftment fever, which wasn’t a surprise to me, since fevers are kind of my thing and I usually get them when I’m sick. Fortunately, I was able to stay out of the hospital from that.
Where my picc line went into my arm, that started to bleed one day, which was alarming because my platelets were so low. They put a plastic dressing over the line to hold it in place and keep germs out. It filled up with blood and I had a sack of blood hanging from my bicep. Fortunately, my measly number of platelets stopped the bleeding and the dressing just got changed.
The nausea was pretty challenging. Not surprising, since the chemo heftily kills off GI tract cells as well. I was only able to eat a third of what I normally eat, and that was forcing myself to eat. I managed it with ginger tea and drugs. I was told I could drink fresh vegetable juice if I made it myself (which I do anyhow). I feel like that helped my nutrition immensely, and kept my remaining blood cells alive and kept me away from transfusion.
I engrafted (my blood started growing again) on day +10. To my surprise, I was told I could go home on day +13 (I had to move into hospital apartments across the street from the ER, since I lived outside the “safe zone”). I didn’t need a red blood transfusion and I only needed one platelet transfusion.
My hair fell out as expected. I wear a beanie to keep my head warm. When I look into the mirror, I think I look like Toad from Mario brothers. Oh well, good thing it’s not permanent.
There was a park that was in walking range of the Stanford apartment that we walked to every day. There were some amazing oak trees there. Their branches went out horizontally for 20-30 feet from the trunk. I was amazed they didn’t snap off. Oak wood sure is hard.
One of the oak trees. I had a friend tell me I look like a ninja all covered up 😜.
I’m pretty tired all the time. Go to bed tired. Wake up tired. Tired from doing the smallest things. It’s getting old already. I’m the type of person who does things pretty constantly. I have a whole list of things I’m not allowed to do (due to germ, bacteria and mold risks), and it’s hard to get inspired to do things from what I am allowed to do. I don’t golf, but I’m not allowed to golf for 6 months, I think that one is pretty weird 🤪.
I got the picc line pulled out a few days ago, and today I’m allowed to use my right arm again. Even though I’m tired, I’m really looking forward to exercising again. I have been keeping up on my walking, about a mile every day. Call me crazy, but I did an almost 4-mile flattish hike the other day. I really needed to get out into nature. It makes me feel alive and quite frankly, sometimes I feel half dead these days at times.
Well I’m off to the exercise bike, hopefully I don’t collapse from it 🥴. Again, the only way is forward and I’ll keep on trucking….
Eat your vegetables!
It’s California poppy season and boy are they ever blooming after all the winter rain.
I had a central tunneled catheter placed in my chest for harvesting my stems cells and transplant. I got to the operating area early in the morning and waited for my name to be called. After 15 minutes or so I was called and walked back to the prep area with the nurse.
She gave me a gown and told me to change. When I was done, she asked,
“Do you have a hairy chest?”
“Umm…. Yes?”
“I’m shaving it off.”
“Ok”
So she had me lay down on the bed, open up my shirt, and she got to work. Buzz buzz buzz. It turns out she only needed to shave my upper part of my chest, right above my nipples, all the way across.
I saw myself later in the day, shirtless in front of a mirror. Clear skin on the top and a hair bottom. It looks like I have a tube top on. Too bad I’m not busty. Actually, I take that back, I’m not interested in man boobs.
Speaking of boobs, the way they placed the catheter, I had both lumen ends in my armpit, which was a bit annoying. I was telling my family this, and said,
“I’m going to start wearing a bra just to hold my tubes from swinging around.”
My daughter quickly volunteered to take me bra shopping.
Anyhow, the catheter did its job. It turns out, one of my ends fell apart after stem cell collection and no one noticed. Come to find out, without the ends on, it’s like having a (clamped) plastic vein hanging out of your chests. Due to the infection risk, they yanked it out, only after a few days of having it. A week later they installed a picc line in my arm for the high dose chemo and stem cell rescue procedure.
I’m at day +5 right now for the myeloma people out there, and I’m hanging in there.
A number of my labs look like this. My poor cells after getting hit with high dose chemo. I hope the myeloma cells are following a similar trajectory 😅…..
The Stanford apheresis nurse called in the evening to let me know if they got enough stem cells. She sounded a little downtrodden, and I started to think, “Dang, I guess they didn’t get enough and I have to go back tomorrow”.
Then she got excited and told me they got a whopping 7.1 units in 4 hours. The goal was 4. For perspective, it takes 2 units for the transplant, to regrow your blood, and they want an extra 2 as back up, in case the first set fails. Guess I could do it 3 times, if it’s fun 🤪?
I guess all those vegetables helped out? It’s hard to get too excited about it though. I feel like I’ve cleared 1 hurdle and still have another 20 to go. Still, I’ll take my small wins where I can.
I get to go home and have a week off before the big test starts….
I’m at the Stanford cancer center right now. I’m sitting in a chair having my blood pumped out of my body. It’s laying across my chest and lap, on its way to a machine to filter out my blood stem cells. Another line, from the outlet on the machine, is running up my lap and chest and going back into my body. It’s rather odd (and maybe a bit grody) seeing your blood outside your body, in your lap, going in and out of your body. At times, I feel like my bones are exploding from the stem cell growth factor drug affecting my marrow.
I had to go to the infusion center last night to get a drug that encourages my blood stem cells to leave my marrow to go into my blood, so it could be collected today.
I saw my chemo chair, this one colored orange. It was in a large room that has multiple treatment chairs in it, separated by curtains, that is typical for these rooms. All types of cancer are treated in this infusion center.
I sat down in the chair, awaiting the nurse to run all the regular pre-checks, blood pressure, oxygen level, temperature, etc. She had to run off to do something else. I scooted my butt back and forth in the chair to get comfy.
The room was mostly empty, since it was at night, except for the chair next to me. Almost as soon as I sat down, a nurse went to the woman sitting next to me. I couldn’t see her, since the curtain divided the spaces, but I could hear everything.
“I have some bad news, unfortunately” said the nurse.
“Your labs just came back. It showed that your kidneys are starting to fail and your liver is in trouble. We need to run an EKG to check your heart.”
“Your tumor burden is too much for your organs.”
“We need to admit you to the hospital right now to help clear out your kidneys and liver.”
My heart went out to this woman. I wanted to get up and go over and give her a hug.
A soft sob came from the other side of the curtain.
“How long do I have to be hospitalized for?”
“We aren’t sure, at least a couple of days.”
My nurse came back.
She started saying to me, “Do you have this problem, that problem?
“No” I said, a bit guiltily.
Part of me felt guilty, I don’t know, humans are a bit odd. I guess, I was experiencing some survivor guilt? My situation has nothing to do with hers, and I suppose I could be in a similar situation in a few weeks with the nuclear bomb drop happening on me (sct).
There is really not much I could do for this person, but I still wanted to do something. The feeling of wanting to control a situation that I have absolutely no control over.
I finished my treatment. I was going to go over and just offer a few words of encouragement to this woman, after she was just crushed. But by the time I was done, so many nurses and even some family members showed up, her area was packed with people and activity.
I’m pretty sure I would have just been in the way, so I left.
I couldn’t help thinking, if my few words would had made any difference for her. Or if I wanted to say something, maybe subconsciously, just to make myself feel better about her situation.
Our time will come for all of us at some point. I’m grateful that I’ve found some peace within myself. It was just another reminder for me to be grateful for what I have and the health I have, whatever level that is.
My blood running through a machine, filtering out the blood stem cells.A snapshot of my specs, I guess I better sit back down, my return is low 😅.
Hot off the press, my latest numbers. Not much new. Although, my ratio of Lambda and Kappa finally are at a normal ratio, which it’s been awhile since that happened. Things do look pretty good though, despite the weekly chemo hammerings.
I’m marching towards high dose chemo with stem cell rescue (SCT) at Stanford, with collection at the end of this month. High dose chemo and stem cells infused back around April 10th. I feel pretty grateful that I’ve been referred to them for this procedure.
My last zap of chemo is on March 11. My self-imposed training regiment begins after that. I want to be in high gear physically and mentally. My goal is to restore and revitalize my cells and organs as much as possible prior to collection.
I have a meeting with two Stanford nutritionists tomorrow, I hope I learn something. The last time I had a meeting with a nutritionist, I was teaching them things. “Oh wow! I didn’t know that”, they said. As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m pretty passionate about nutrition.
But, I would like to point out, because sometimes I feel like I’m on a box preaching about nutrition, with no one listening. I feel like most people, if not all, would say Stanford is pretty top notch, as far as health care. They are making a point about how important nutrition is while you go through this procedure.
I’ve known people who have gone through medical procedures, and they’ve said to me that they want to eat really healthy and well, so they recover quickly. I find it funny, how it doesn’t compute with them about eating good food all the time, and they go back to eating garbage food after they’ve healed.
I’ll get back up on my box and say it matters all the time….
Carrots Over Cancer 