Tag: strategy

Blog

Forgiveness

Jothi

The topic of forgiveness came up today in my world. I was reminded that a few years ago, I had anger, grudges and resentment directed at a number of people in my life. In my ongoing quest to heal and recover from cancer, I knew that part of the journey was dealing with my mental/emotional garbage.

I would have conversations in my head to the effect of:

“I’m so mad at so and so for this.”

“I can’t believe you did that to me.”

“I hate you for doing that.”

“You’re such an %$&*!!!”

I realized that I was really the only person suffering from this. Person X Y or Z, who I had a grudge or hurt feelings against, had no idea. If they did know, they didn’t care to rectify the situation. Some of these people I hadn’t even had any contact with for years.

I do believe that mental and emotional hurts have an effect on the body. If someone calls you a bad name or makes fun of you, it actually can hurt you physically, a lot of the time, you feel it in your chest.

I do also believe that there is a mental/emotional component to developing cancer and having cancer. (Certainly going through cancer has an ongoing mental/emotional strain.)

Like most people, I had emotional baggage stored up from my past, it was making me miserable. Why was I doing this to myself?

Mayo Clinic wrote this about grudges:

“What are the effects of holding a grudge? If you struggle with finding forgiveness, you might:

  • Bring anger and bitterness into new relationships and experiences.
  • Become so wrapped up in the wrong that you can’t enjoy the present.
  • Become depressed, irritable or anxious.
  • Feel at odds with your spiritual beliefs.
  • Lose valuable and enriching connections with others.”

So this is how I dealt with my mental woes, in case it can help you deal with yours.

I accomplished this in a couple of different ways, depending on the person, my relationship with them and the level of hurt.

I talked with people, explained my feelings and received an apology. I didn’t go this route very much. In retrospect, a lot of the times, the problem was within myself.

If my hurt was from say my parent or sibling, now that I’m older or now that I’m a parent, I can put myself in that person’s shoes and try and understand (which doesn’t always work) why they did what they did. Sometimes, I would realize that I probably would have done a similar thing in the situation, and that would bring understanding to me.

I would then say out loud, “I forgive you Person X, for doing this, that or the other thing.” Sometimes, I had to say it a few times.

Other times after doing that, I would say to myself, “that sob #*$&#&$*#&#*$&#!!! GRRRRRR…..” and I knew that method didn’t work.

There is a practice of writing things down on a piece of paper and burning the paper up. You can burn it in a fireplace or buy a clay pot and burn it outside (in a safe burning spot!).

You write down all your emotions. All your anger, resentment, rage, sadness, whatever. Write down the situation that happened to you. Write like you are writing a letter to someone, if need be. For particularly hurt feelings, I found for me personally, writing swear words a lot helps.

The key is to pour your emotion into it. Spelling or handwriting tidiness doesn’t matter at all! Finish your page and lite that paper on fire, throw it into your pot and watch it burn. Depending on your level of hurt, you may have to write several pages about the one incident to be rid of it (or a ream of paper). If it still bothering you, keep writing.

“Person X, how could you have done this to me?”

“You are a #*$&#&$*#&#*. I’m so mad at you.”

“You made me feel ___________.“

“You #*$&#*-&#*$! And the time you did this #*$&#+#*!#&$!”

Once I could feel like I was working through it or getting it out of my system, I would write on a new piece of paper,

“I forgive you Person X, for doing x, y and z.” Lite it, throw it in the pot and watch it burn. You may have to write a whole sheet of paper of “I forgive you Person X” for you to have resolution.

Just like that, I let it go and I was free (time to work on the next person or situation). It’s also quite amazing, once you actually forgive someone, how you forget about things. It just melts away.

At times, the person you need to forgive, is yourself. People make mistakes in their lives and can hold onto it, beating themselves up for it. Everyone is human and make human mistakes, bad judgments and thoughts. If I need to forgive myself, I look at myself in a mirror and say “I forgive you.”

As a personal example, every time I had a meeting with my oncologist, I would generally be ticked off and frustrated afterwards. My oncologist was about 1000 years old, stuck in his ways and if he wasn’t a doctor, he would have been a politician, the way he dodged all my questions (that pissed me off the most).

I would get so mad and I’d walk around cursing his name, #*$&#&#*. Of course, he was completely oblivious to most of my annoyance (occasionally I expressed my displeasure to him 😡). I was torturing myself, and it wasn’t doing me any favors and I was the one suffering.

I wanted to work it out within myself, because that’s where the problem was. He wasn’t a bad person. I realized he was part of a medical system that only allowed him to talk about certain things, so they weren’t sued. I realized he has a tough job, where the majority of the time he fails. I wrote a lot of swear words and situations, and a couple pages of saying I forgave him and watched it burn. It was gone and no longer harassing me.

Sometimes it is excruciatingly hard to want to forgive someone or actually forgive them. It can be one of the hardest things you ever do. It can take so much effort and drum up so many negative emotions that people won’t do it. Forgiveness can and will change your life. It changed my life, my relationships and released me from my torment and I feel so much better.

If you are struggling with the idea of forgiving someone, do it for selfish reasons. Just like how you can be the one suffering the most from a grudge, you will be the one who benefits the most from forgiving. Your life will improve greatly if you can forgive.

Forgiveness comes from within yourself. Other people can’t do it for you, and other people can’t prevent you from doing it. It’s all up to you. Please give it a try….

Blog, Nutrition

My Stem Cell Transplant Strategy

Jothi

I had a simple strategy for my stem cell transplant. I thought about the procedure for a little while, and this is what made sense to me. For me, it’s all about increasing odds and outcomes. I viewed this transplant as a major ordeal for the body. You wouldn’t get off your sofa and do a decathlon! Why would it make sense to get off your sofa and do a transplant? I went into transplant training.

The procedure in its essence is killing off your bone marrow and therefore your blood as well. Trying to wipe the slate clean. It is regrown from stem cells that were collected from yourself previously.

My step one, thinking about it logically, I wanted to have the highest quality possible of stem cells that were going to be collected. After all, this little bag of stem cells is what was going to regrown all my marrow.

I’m a huge plant person. Growing plants isn’t complicated. Give them the nutrients, light and water they need in the right amount and they thrive. Humans aren’t much different.

I wanted to spam myself with nutrition. I tend to do that all the time, but I made an extra effort. Your food is your cell’s building blocks. Healthy grains, berries, a rainbow of vegetables, lentils, healthy proteins and oils. Diversity is the key.

(👈🏼 Bitter melon is great for detoxing your liver, yes, it’s very bitter).

Second, I wanted to detox my body as much as I could, from all the chemo and drugs I had done. I mainly did this using a little personal infrared sauna. I sat in the sauna daily at 170 degrees and let my body sweat out the junk it could. Besides the big nutritional benefit of fresh vegetable juice, it also detoxes your organs, particularly the kidneys, liver and intestines.

Thirdly, I increased my exercise regiment. Walking, running, weight lifting and exercise biking. I also made it a priority to go hiking for miles, as much as I had time for. Sweating and heavy breathing, helped detox. Increased breathing, increased oxygen for my cells. Plus, hiking in nature helped my mental facilities and forest bathing can have a positive effect on cells.

Fourthly, I needed to work on my mental game. I increased my breathing, meditation and Qi gong. I felt it was important to have a level calm head, so I could overcome the mental lows that I knew were coming up. I went over breathing techniques in my How to stop freaking out post.

Meditation is the best way to keep control of your mind. Early in my cancer journey, for some reason, I was resistant to meditation. I kept hearing how beneficial it was, and I eventually overcame my resistance. It was the single biggest reason for my mental U-turn out of cancer negativity. I highly recommend learning a simple practice and doing it daily. Qi gong is kind of like a walking meditation (I’m planning a series of posts on Qi gong upcoming).

I also feel that the power of music is underestimated. I worked on creating a playlist of uplifting and positive songs that I could listen to. When you’re down in the dumps, sometimes music can help flip your script. I ended up with a wide variety of genres that clicked with me. I used it to get my positive vibe up, especially while cooking (didn’t you know food tastes better if you dance while it’s cooked?) Although, during the transplant, I mostly listened to my favorite pianists, Ludovico Einaudi and Helen Jane Long (Ludovico’s songs Ascent Day 1 and Nuvole Bianche are epic).

So these were my pre transplant regiment. During transplant, I once more wanted to keep up as much as I could on the nutrition. This was the building blocks of my new cells. I wanted to create good tissue and give my cells what they need to thrive. I was really excited when they said I could drink fresh vegetable juice, I drank it daily.

Besides the vegetable juice, it was also imperative for me to keep up on my fluids. Drinking was also a challenge. I drank water, coconut water and bubbly mineral water for the minerals and it helped with the nausea. I also asked for if fluids every day whether I needed them or not. Certainly high dose chemo is highly toxic itself and the fallout from it is a lot of dead cells. I wanted to flush things out as much as possible once the chemo was done doing its job. You have to protect your kidneys!

(A juice man created by my daughter 👉🏻)

Having my GI tract destroyed was a challenge for wanting to eat anything. I mostly ate my normal breakfast just in a smaller portion. Mung beans and vegetables for lunch and whatever I could get down for dinner (by dinner I usually wasn’t interested in eating at all). I do feel like having the wholesome diet helped a lot with not having extreme nausea and keeping my blood and electrolytes up.

It was also important for me to keep moving every day and get exercise through it. After breakfast, I would do my Qi gong exercises. I would then take a rest and then no matter how tired I was, I’d scrape myself off the sofa and go walking in the park every day. I do believe movement is life and if you want to keep living, keep moving.

I’ve gone back to my pre transplant regiment except for the sauna, which I’m not allowed to do until day +60. I have random pain in some of my tissue, which can be a sign of toxicity. I’m looking forward to some good sweating. My GI tract went back to some semblance of “normal” at around day +27. The doctors and nurses keep telling me how good my blood numbers are. I feel like I got through it easier than some people, from reading their stories.

This is my strategy, I guess we will see where the chips end up. If the myeloma is going to thrive through all this, it’s going to have to do it eating broccoli.

Nutrition

Stanford Nutrition Guidlines

Jothi

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.

Here you go. Give it a try.

Survivorship Nutrition.PDFDownload
Wisdom

Wisdom From The Billy’s Of The Hills

Jothi

I’m not sure who wrote these, but most of these are pure GOLD, enjoy.

𝐎𝐥𝐝 𝐇𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐖𝐢𝐬𝐝𝐨𝐦:

Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.

Words that soak into your ears are whispered, not yelled.

Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong.

The best sermons are lived, not preached.

Keep skunks, bankers, and politicians at a distance.

A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.

If you don’t take the time to do it right, you’ll find the time to do it twice.

Don’t corner something that is meaner than you.

It don’t take a very big person to carry a grudge.

You cannot unsay a cruel word.

Every path has a few puddles.

When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.

Don’t be banging your shin on a stool that’s not in the way.

Borrowing trouble from the future doesn’t deplete the supply.

Most of the stuff people worry about ain’t never gonna happen anyway.

Don’t judge folks by their relatives.

Silence is sometimes the best answer.

Don‘t interfere with somethin’ that ain’t botherin’ you none.

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin’.

Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.

The biggest troublemaker you’ll ever have to deal with watches you from the mirror every mornin’.

Always drink upstream from the herd.

Good judgment comes from experience, and most of that comes from bad judgment.

Lettin’ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin’ it back in.

If you get to thinkin’ you’re a person of some influence, try orderin’ somebody else’s dog around.

Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll enjoy it a second time.

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.

Most times, it just gets down to common sense.

Blog

How To Stop Unstoppable Hiccups

Jothi

As it turns out, one of the rare side effects of dexamethasone is uncontrolled hiccups. And guess what? I am lucky enough to have that side effect.

It was kind of funny the first time it happened, years ago now. Hic hic hic. I tried all my normal methods of stopping hiccups. Held my breath. Drank some water. Held my breath and drank some water, etc. Nothing worked. Hic hic hic. I thought they would just go away with some time. They didn’t.

I was hiccuping for hours and things were starting to get hairy. I was hiccuping up stomach acid, and it was getting painful, and I couldn’t get it to stop!

It turns out there is a simple solution for any hiccups, unstoppable or regular. Also, the great thing about it, it stops them very quickly.

Sucking on a lemon wedge. Something about the sour and the sucking motion, wipes out hiccups almost instantaneously. Plus, who doesn’t look great with a lemon wedge there instead of teeth, added bonus!

All you have to do is bite a little bit on the lemon flesh, to release the juice, and suck on the wedge like a pacifier. Make sure you are swallowing the juice as you do it. I was a little concerned when I was hiccuping up acid, adding more acid (lemon juice) to acid, but it stopped them so quickly, I almost felt like my esophagus’s life had just been saved.

Now if they ever start, I get a lemon wedge right away and not let it get that far. There you go. I hope this saves your esophagus’s life or at least some sanity from not hiccuping forever….

I had to add this one, it was too funny. I think I would make a good passport photo, imagine the immigration officer’s face.
Blog, How To

How To Stop Freaking Out Or De-Stress

Jothi

By Breathing of course.

Have you ever given awareness or paid attention to your breathing? Sometimes when I’m watching TV in the evening, I’ll randomly do a check in, to see how my breathing is going. Sometimes, I’m surprised to find that I’m breathing rather shallow. Especially, I notice it when I’m watching sports and I want my team to win. I’m stressing out over something silly, like a sports game, that actually doesn’t matter at all.

Working, driving, family, friends, money, pets, a chronic condition, waiting on test results, any number of things or life in general, can be stressful!

I’ll let you in on a secret of mine.

I’m afraid of needles, especially blood tests. I laugh at the irony of it all the time. Go figure, I would get a blood cancer.

For months, in the last number of years, I have had to go in for weekly blood tests. I could feel myself wind up as the days went by, to see the vampires, got closer and closer. Feeling that heavy pit in my stomach. Sitting there, in the chair, as they put that rubber band on your arm. Waiting as they are about to stick in the needle. Darn! They missed the vein, now they have to dig around for it or stick me again (I actually have easy veins too). Sometimes, I break out in a sweat, heart pounding. Shaking, when it’s all over.

Well, that doesn’t sound like a good state to be in.

I was just put into fight or flight mode, and I need to be in rest and repair mode as much as possible. A person doesn’t think clearly when they are in fight or flight state.

Breathing is the best way to get back into rest and repair mode and stop stressing or freaking out. It doesn’t matter the reason you are freaking out for these techniques to work. Sometimes just giving awareness to your breathing can be helpful. Just recognize and correct the situation.

I would like to give credit first, mainly because I don’t think it’s said enough, to India, to yoga, to preparing to meditate and meditation. Not to our western version of yoga, the real deal thing developed in India, where these breathing techniques come from. I will always be grateful for the life altering practices that I learned there.

Technique 1:

Alternative Nostril Breathing. This is my personal go to. I do it when I feel stressed and need to calm down and reset.

Begin by holding your right nostril closed and breathe in through your left.

Next, close your left nostril and breathe out through your right nostril.

Keep holding your left nostril closed and breathe in through your right nostril.

Then close your right nostril and breathe out through your left.

This completes one set. Try and count to yourself the same number of counts breathing in and keep it the same number breathing out. Whatever number is comfortable for you. (I’m pretty sure I missed my calling as a nose model, what do you think? 🤪)

I also do a version of this, for at least 10 minutes, every night before I go to sleep. This version must be done when you are calm and not stressed. It’s the same except, you hold your breath for a count of 1 after you inhale both times.

Technique 2:

Sigh Breathing. I really like this one too. I do enjoy a good sigh.

  • Sit up straight.
  • Take a deep, slow breath in through your nose, filling your lungs to full capacity.
  • Hold your breath for 3-5 seconds.
  • Release your breath through your mouth with a sigh (or a good groan 😜).
  • Repeat until you feel better.

Technique 3:

4-7-8 Breathing. This one is amazingly good and quick for snapping you back into instant clarity. I think maybe it has to do with the lack of oxygen coming in at times. Again, alternative nostril breathing is my number one choice, but this one is really helpful in certain situations.

  • Start by exhaling completely.
  • Breathe in for a count of 4.
  • Then hold your breath for a count of 7.
  • Exhale for a count of 8.
  • Repeat. I find that it usually only takes 5 times or so to be re-centered.

A quick note on counting. Make sure you are counting the same way, with the same timing. I can count to 8 in the same time as 4, but that defeats the purpose of doing these breathing exercises. 8 should be twice as long as 4!

Technique 4:

Square Breathing. I don’t use this one much, but I know people who really like it.

  • For this one, the number count doesn’t matter, do what works for you, but the number has to remain the same (i.e. a count of 4 or 5).
  • Start by exhaling completely.
  • Breathe in through your nose for the count of 4.
  • Hold for the count of 4.
  • Exhale through your mouth for the count of 4.
  • Hold again for the count of 4.
  • Repeat.

Technique 5:

Straw Breathing. This is a fantastic one for kids.

  • Breathe a full breath in through your nose.
  • Puff up your cheeks with air and blow out slowly through your mouth like you had a straw in your mouth.
  • Repeat.

For me personally, I can get through my bloods tests and IV’s fine now (and most other things), without freaking out. I’m still very much a work in progress.

I was trying to think of a number 2 for de-stressing besides breathing. Breathing is number one on my list because it’s so effective, it doesn’t cost you anything, and you can do it anytime and anywhere. I would say that exercise would be number 2. But it’s funny though, if you’re exercising, give awareness to your breath, and you’ll notice you breathe very deeply and rhythmically, usually the same count in as out. So in the end, is it breathing again?

Breathing is so amazingly simple and it is so amazingly effective. This should give you a number of tools to help you get through life or de-stress. I hope you find one that you like.

Breathing will help you regain yourself when you lose yourself. But if you want to keep a level head and not lose yourself to begin with, meditate daily, but that’s a whole other topic…

Kabaam!
Blog, How To

Tips For Radiation Therapy

Jothi

(And I suppose they mostly work for chemotherapy and life in general.)

It’s one of my goals to write more practical every day posts and I have a bunch of them in my head. Here is the start of hopefully a good long line of helpful things for people going through it.

I had 10 days of radiation treatment to my pelvis and sacrum area, years ago. There are drug options for side effects, but I always prefer to do it naturally as much as possible, since they generally don’t have additional negative side effects. Here are some (hopefully) helpful tips.

Constipation:

When I think of unusual constipation, the first thing I think of is psyllium husks. Nothing but 100% pure fiber. (I use Anthony’s organic psyllium husk, from Amazon) Mix 1-2 tablespoons with a full glass of warm water, stir and drink it down. Usually within a few hours, your symptom will be relieved. You can use a tablespoon of psyllium husks with a glass of water daily if you know you’re going to be challenged.

You can combat normal constipation by just drinking enough fluids a day. I personally start my day by drinking 24oz of water and rub my kidneys. I’m always shocked to hear how little some people drink through the day. Your pee color will tell you if you are drinking enough. If it’s not light yellow or clear, DRINK MORE!

Diarrhea:

Try the BRAT diet, which stands for bananas, rice, apple and toast. I definitely had some bowls of brown rice and bananas when my intestines were getting hit by radiation on the way to my bones. Coconut oil or shredded coconut can also help take care of diarrhea.

Coconut oil or ghee topically can help tremendously with a sore butt from all the trips to the bathroom.

Dehydration:

The World Health Organization fluid replacement electrolyte solution is 1/2 tsp of salt, 3/4 tsp baking soda, a cup of fruit juice, mixed with 1 liter of water.

Obviously water is also important to drink and mineral water is also helpful (especially if your stomach is queasy).

Dehydration will happen from either the diarrhea or vomiting. Make sure to stay on top of your hydration! Try to drink a 8oz cup, per trip to the bathroom (diarrhea). Don’t start replenishing fluids from throwing up until you can keep them down.

Fatigue:

Exercise exercise exercise. It’s hard to get up and move your body sometimes, but it does help out tremendously. Keep in mind that you are going through a lot and not to push too hard or too fast. Just walking every day can be helpful. Give yourself permission to rest and get some help when you need it.

Dry skin/burns:

I’ll start with, Do Not put oil or lotion on your skin in areas that are actively being radiated! What until your treatment is complete. Oil with radiation will cook your skin and burn you, Kentucky fried human.

Make sure to be your own advocate for shielding your other body parts that don’t need to be radiated. It doesn’t hurt to make sure you get the best care/protection possible.

I used coconut oil and Vitamin E on my skin. You can just get Vitamin E capsules and break them open. Vitamin A cream is also supposed to be very helpful (I haven’t tried it though). It definitely took awhile for my skin to recover fully. Keep at it.

Blood counts:

As you know by now, I’m huge on nutritional diet. Vegetables can have an amazing effect on the quality of building blocks your body uses. Fresh vegetable juice gives you a large quantity of vegetables in a less filling application. Juice carrot, beet, green apple, ginger, turmeric, greens, celery, pomegranate and sprouts. Any combination works. Vegetable juice can also rejuvenate and cleanse your organs and combat constipation. Feed your blood!

Nausea:

I use ginger for this. I cook with it, I make tea with it. I put it in my vegetable juice. It works super well for me. Try have some ginger tea. Take 1/2-1 tsp of ginger powder and boiling water and pour it into a cup. Stir it a little while you wait for it to cool and that’s it. You can also take fresh ginger, cut it up into pieces and put it into a pot and bring to a boil. Either work. Try it.

Eating bland food or dry food can also be helpful. Not all nausea is the same, sometimes you just have to experiment with it.

Other things:

It is said outside of conventional medicine that a low glycemic diet while undergoing radiation therapy can make a huge difference in effectiveness. If you’re going to do it, you might as well try and make it as effective as possible. Sugar increases growth factor IGF-1, which suppresses cancer cell death. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying it, why wouldn’t you?

Again outside of conventional medicine, Ashwagandha. Ashwagandha is said to make cancer cells more sensitive to radiation and protect healthy cells. You do have to take ashwagandha with at least 5% withanolides. There is a lot of ashwagandha out there, withanolides are the active compounds of ashwagandha. It’s not worth taking without the 5%. I did not use it while I did radiation, only because I didn’t know about it. Ask your doctor and make your own decision. I have taken lots of ashwagandha at different times in the past years. It does help calm and can help you sleep. It had no negative effect on the chemo I was taking.

Best of Luck!

Blog, How To

My Power Breakfast Recipe

Jothi

I touched on my breakfast recipe in my post My Diet – Part Two. Here is the whole thing. I have additional information at the bottom. Please read the notes.

Ingredients – one serving

  • 1/2 Cup of Rolled Oats
  • 1 Tablespoon of Quinoa
  • 1 Tablespoon of Amaranth
  • 1 1/2 Half Cups of Frozen mixed berries
  • 1 Tablespoon of Goji berries
  • 1 Pinch of Clove Powder
  • 1 Pinch of Cardamom Powder
  • 1 Tsp of Cinnamon Powder
  • 1 Tsp of Ginger Powder
  • 1 1/2 Tablespoon of Coconut Oil
  • 10 Soaked Overnight Almonds
  • 1 Tablespoon of Chia Seeds
  • 5 Tablespoons of Flax Seeds
  • 3 1/3 Cups of Water

Boil 1 1/3 cups of water in a small pot. Once boiled, add the Quinoa and Amaranth. Turn the heat to low. When the Amaranth gets shiny or drops to the bottom of the pot (about 5 minutes), add the rolled oats. Remove the almond skins, add to pot and stir. Cooked when water is gone.

In a separate pot, add the goji berries, mixed berries, spices and remaining 2 cups of water. Stir the mixture every couple of minutes to have the spices well mixed and cook (enhances flavor). Bring to a boil. Turn off when goji berries look fluffy and blueberries start to lose color.

Add the chia and flax seeds to a coffee grinder and grind for about 15 seconds until you have a smooth powder. Dump the powder into a large eating bowl. Add the coconut oil.

Add the berry mixture into the bowl with the flax mixture. Mix together and let it sit for 2 minutes to let the chia and flax absorb some of the berry mixture water.

Lastly, add the cooked oatmeal mixture. Breakfast is served!

A couple of notes.

I use frozen berries because they are less expensive than fresh ones. Either is good. Mixed berries sometimes have a lot of strawberries in them, which I try and keep to a minimum (trying to keep my body balanced, low on acid foods, it’s an Ayurvedic/Chinese medicine thing).

Sometimes, I add or just use mini wild blueberries (from Canada, usually). They are slightly different in nutrition. I’ve heard they also remove things like radiation. I especially like to have them after getting scanned.

As you saw, I add coconut oil to my breakfast. It is a healthy fat, antibacterial, antimicrobial. Everyone needs healthy fats to their diet. This is one place where I get part of mine, which is the reason it’s in there. If you don’t need it or want it, don’t add it. Don’t substitute poor quality other oils.

Flax! I have a lot of it here in my breakfast, as you can see. It’s really amazing stuff. It is so good for you on so many different levels. That being said, there are cases where this level of flax is too much. For instance, people who have breast cancer. One tablespoon max of freshly ground flax can stabilize and bind excess estrogen, beyond that, it can potentially cause undesirable consequences. Please get educated about your condition or ask your doctor. If in doubt, just use a tablespoon or two.

I don’t use sweetener of any kind. I do believe that added sugar fuels cancer growth, among other things. My taste buds have adapted to a very low sugar diet (which is quite amazing, but that’s a whole other story). If you need some sweetener, try add some raisins.

If you are having trouble with your appetite, try and add more water. I find that watery food is easier to intake than thicker food.

I hope you give it a try and like it. If you want, leave a comment about any tweaks in the recipe you enjoy 😊.

Blog, Nutrition

My Strategy

Jothi

One of things that is a challenge for me with myeloma is that it is generally an older person cancer and most of the data out there is based on someone much older than I am. The median age for myeloma is 66-70. Only recently has it been showing up in younger people.

I’ll confess that I’m a bit of a data/numbers/stats person. How do I know if a certain set of data points are the way they are because it’s just myeloma or it’s because it’s off of someone who’s 70? The answer is, I don’t.

Most of the oncologists I’ve talked to like to say, “You’re young, you can take it”. Umm gee thanks, I get extra drug abuse because I’m young and can take it???? It’s a fine line between dying of myeloma and dying from drugs meant to kill myeloma. I like to keep that in mind.

The 5 year survival rate for myeloma is about 40%. Obviously, like most people, I want to be on the side of the 40% that is still alive. I want to be a myeloma person who is still alive in 10 years, 15 years, 25 years. 

What’s my strategy to achieve that? A strategy that I believe can help a person who is any age.

By doing what is good for my body, down to the cellular level and bad for cancer. It’s funny how things that are really good for us are also good at getting rid of cancer cells (and other chronic illnesses, I might add).

The biggest foundational piece to health is diet. Without a healthy diet, as the first building block, it’s hard to have success with anything else. Everything builds off of food and drink. It’s easy for me to point to having a poor diet as part of the reason I’m in this mess to begin with.

Feed your body nutritional food that is GOOD for you and don’t feed yourself food that is good for cancer growth. It’s just common sense if you think about it.

NF-KB is the primary pathway for growth in Myeloma, regulating inflammation and immune responses. Doesn’t it just make good practical sense to eat an anti inflammatory diet as to not give myeloma what it needs to grow. We know sugar, dairy, highly processed foods, meat and alcohol are inflammatory for the body and feed cancer cells.

1. I choose an anti inflammatory diet that is plant based whole food which is anti cancer. Food that is full of life/prana/qi and not something that expires 6 months from now.

Some people call a whole food diet, full of vegetables and fruits, legumes, healthy grains and healthy fats extreme. If you stop and think about it, I eat the same way as my great grandparents did and every generation before them. Does that sound extreme? If you had a time machine and went back in time to the 1800’s and asked someone if they have an extreme diet, they would look at you like you were crazy. In fact, I eat better then my great grandparents, because I have access to so much more variety. Only ignorance holds people back.

2. Next, I make sure that I drink purified water. You only have to glance at the news to read about stories of toxic water in whole towns (Flint MI, South Shore KY etc.) that is undrinkable. The local governments come out and say “my bad”, leaving you to deal with the fallout. I use a RO water filter currently. We have pretty good water here in California, but when we change the filters, they are really disgusting. Filter your water!

3. There are basically two thoughts of dealing with cancer, killing it with chemotherapy, surgery or radiation or to block it metabolically (starve it). Metabolically makes the most sense to me, since cancer cells are just your cells gone wrong and I can’t kill my blood without killing myself effectively. Truthfully, I’ve been hammering away at this metabolically and I haven’t been able to get the results I want. The best I got the oncologist to say is “Your myeloma isn’t behaving as expected. You are a high risk patient who is behaving like a standard risk patient”.

I’m currently mixing both worlds of chemo and metabolic blocking. I do take supplements such as Curcumin, Reishi, D3/K2 among other things that inhibit myeloma growth (they inhibit other cancers as well).

4. “Sitting is the new smoking”, they say. Move your body! I stay active everyday, walking, hiking, gardening, bike riding and Qigong. Some say cancer is cause by stagnation of the body, in areas that lack oxygen. Exercise has lots of benefits such as increased oxygen, blood flow (looking at you revlimid non-blood clots), increased heart rate, plus it can get you out of your own head!

5. Speaking of heads, I’m pretty sure I suffered some sort of ptsd with the cancer diagnosis. I took me a couple of years working through stuff to overcome it. It was a big growth experience for me. Getting out raw emotions, breathing techniques and meditation is what worked for me. I still keep up with pranayama and meditation daily for upkeep.

I have had plenty of seemingly one sided conversations with God. One of the things that I’ve gotten back is, an overwhelming sense that I’m meant to go through this (for reasons that are still a mystery to me), so that is very reassuring for me.

6. Detoxing. I’ve spent a significant amount of time working on detoxing my body (and mind). I done detoxing methods from naturopath methods and I’ve gone to India twice for a major full body detox called Panchakarma, which is a month long process each time. I’ve definitely had some raunchy stuff come out of me. Of course we live in a toxic world and I’m continually having toxins come in no matter how much I avoid it. I use diet and infrared sauna to keep on moving things out that aren’t supposed to be there.

To sum up my strategy, I do what is good for me and bad for cancer. Using chemo when I need it (trying to stay away from it as much as possible). Keep moving and living. Hit the myeloma with certain supplements. Keep working on my head and remembering why I want to keep living.

Eat Your Vegetables!