listening to your body

I’ve had it with cruciferous vegetables.

I’m sick of brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, watercress, and other vegetables like artichokes and garlic and peppers and beets. I’m tired of walking the Green Mile for produce and minding each health-conscious bite.

close up photography of cat — One more cup of green tea and “kitty” will puke.

When you are not a cancer patient (and I am impatient, wanting this to be over, which perhaps it never will be), food is an ally, a benevolent companion. You buy and eat, and cook and eat, in a set of light, repeated gestures that do not cause much pause.

cat paws in shallow focus photography — These are actual paws.

Cancer shifts the scales. Food becomes more fraught. It becomes more heavily weighted with meaning, assessed on a scale of its antioxidant values and not of taste or flavor. I have found myself looking up food names and “cancer” many times during the course of a day in order to reassure myself that my meal is fighting free radicals. Searching for “maitake mushroom” and “cancer,” for example, brings up a list of products, research, and formidably-medical sounding articles that paves the way for each reassuring bite. I have felt, at times, a zealous worshipper at the secular altar called “health.” Too much. A person can become obsessive or worse, self-righteous.

Certain foods can become “good.” Some “bad.” And these judgements can extend to ourselves. You are a “good eater.” (Healthy, weight-conscious, working hard to resist with produce.) You are a “bad eater.” (Steak, chips, soda, sugar. Meh. Pass the beer.)

Well.

To. Hell. With. That.

I am starting a new diet called the Ice Cream and F&*k It Diet.

person holding ice cream with cone — Hold that mother high.

Because, sisters and brothers, you’ve lost enough. You’ve worried enough. You’ve googled and read enough. Stayed up late through the night, scrolled through your phone, lost a body part or tissue, reeled through waves of nausea, stayed in while your friends played, lost a sure future, and wondered-what-you-did-to-cause-it enough. You know what? Here’s the answer: We don’t know. People who jog and do yoga and eat vegan get cancer. People who smoke and drink live long lives. This isn’t an excuse to chuck all effort, but it’s a way to give yourself a break.

In that spirit, which is the spirit of We Don’t Know, So Go Ahead and Live, here are the essential principles of the Ice Cream and F*%k it Diet:

There are no essential principles.
Eat what you want.
Cruciferous (which means, by the way, “of the cross,” as in crucifix, a cross to bear) vegetables are great, but they will not save you.
Because:
We will all die. (Don’t say this at parties.)
Is there syrup on it? Frosting? Fat or sugar? You know what to do.
I know I know– “not every day.” Of course.
Popcorn with butter first, then the seats. Bonus if you scarf it before the trailers end.
I am so tired of caution.
What is the food for danger? The Carolina Reaper? The Naga Viper Pepper?
Read Derek Walcott’s poem.

And do what he says, and live. With culinary and sensual abandon, in whatever forms those take.

I wish you a great feast.

I am recovering from my fourth cycle of Xeloda and Taxotere, and I’d like to talk about how things are going. This treatment plan is for a recurrence, a 5 cm tumor that showed up during my annual MRI in March of this year. The goal is to shrink this tumor in order to make it operable, and therefore remove it.

I receive Taxotere every three weeks, and, on the same day as the infusion, begin a two-week cycle of 4000 mg of Xeloda. Four pills in the morning, four at night.

As of today my eyes water constantly. My nose is an incessantly dripping faucet, causing me to wipe, drip, wipe, drip, and because of this I’ve become wary of cooking and paperwork. Restless legs make it difficult to fall asleep, leading to a cycle of fatigue and sleeping until 9 or 10 AM that has thrown my summer for a loop.

bed bedroom blanket clean — This is not my bed. Artfully decaying foliage plays no role in my sense of decor.

So far, I feel fortunate that I haven’t experienced Hand/Foot Syndrome, a common and difficult side effect that causes peeling, itching, and can cause the permanent removal of fingerprints. And so far, I have no neuropathy. Knock wood.

But the fatigue. I’m writing this to share with others in treatment, other survivors – you will know what I mean when I talk about the crash, the far, low tide that comes with waking and feeling as if some deep core of bones and blood has been removed, and all that remains is an easily-toppled monument of skin. You become a heap of unmoving muscle, resolved only to rest. Rest and sleep are what the body orders. Mail opening or reading an email becomes an orbit of language that revolves but does not land – I can’t wrap my head around any cognitively demanding tasks after infusions. Give me TV, give me easy magazines. Youtube cat videos and naps.

close up portrait of cat yawning — The National Enquirer!

I find myself cueing up bingeworthy shows: old episodes of The Office, Handmaid’s Tale, Sherlock Holmes, and soon the latest Orange is the New Black. Some of these I watch at night when my husband and daughter sleep. Others I fall asleep to. Dr. Phil is another favorite. After all my losses, I can at least assure myself that I am not duped by internet Don Juans, or that no one in my family has been kidnapped by a cult.

The fatigue, it comes and goes. It is unpredictable and when it comes it must be honored. This is one of the many lessons of cancer: Listen to your body. It is its own untameable animal that requires tending, and if you listen it will lead you well.

How do you deal with fatigue? What are some ways you pass the time when your body says Stay?

Tag: listening to your body

The Ice Cream and F*%k it Diet.

Taxotere and Xeloda