August 22, 1999

I am really getting brave now. Not only have I been drinking Diet Dr. Peppers, but a couple of weeks ago I actually ate ice cream. Yesterday, I did it again. I didn't buy it. Someone gave it to me, so that was OK.

I have about a million books on nutrition now. What to eat when you have cancer, what to eat to prevent cancer, what the different vitamins and herbs are supposed to do. I was browsing one at the bookstore, and when I got the the part where it said that there was evidence that certain dietary changes could prevent cancer, but when you already had cancer a change in your diet probably wouldn't make a difference, I put that one down and went home.

I asked my doctor more than once about all these vitamins. He said that he didn't care what I took as long as I continued my treatments, but to not take large doses of vitamins right before chemo because the vitamins would compete with the chemo drugs for elimination from your body. In other words, it would stress your liver and kidneys even more. He said he personally took vitamin e and vitamin c.

I did get something through my newsprofile that said that a group of doctors were surveyed, and more of them took vitamin e to prevent cancer than aspirin to prevent heart attacks.

Gathering information on all the vitamins and herbs became an ongoing project. I wish I had thought of this before I started chemo. Near the end I got the name of a local herbalist, but by then I was almost finished with the treatments and didn't go.

So I can tell you what I came up with on my own to take during chemotherapy, and what I think made me feel better, but you have to remember that I am an accountant. I will leave it to you to look these up if you want to know what they are supposed to do.

Coenzyme Q10.

Milk Thistle Extract.

Green Tea.

Astragalus--actually, the astragalus I was taking also contained some lygustrum. I haven't been able to find it and of course can't remember who made it, but I think it worked better than the plain old astragalus all on its own.

Valerian, occasionally if I was having trouble sleeping AND actually wanted to sleep.

A regular multiple vitamin.

Vitamin E

Beta-Carotene--actually, I ate lots of carrots and sweet potatoes.

I didn't take extra vitamin C and calcium, but I did have the wierdest food cravings--cheese and oranges, and now I realize why. Methotrexate apparently leeches the calcium from your bones (I had a bone density test)(It was fine)(Insist on one, anyway). One day, I ate six oranges. I lived on Chinese food. No wonder I gained thirty pounds.

I didn't take St. John's Wort because I wasn't depressed. I was scared, but not depressed. Everyone treated me like a princess.

I have some vitamins I like that contain aloe vera juice, however, I didn't use them all the time because aloe vera is a natural blood thinner and obviously I didn't need that when my platelets were already abnormally small or too few in number because of the chemo.

Now speaking of aloe vera, here's what I think is an interesting commentary on what people are actually capable of. It is in my category called "I can't believe people say this to you when you have cancer" stories. One day this guy came in the cancer chat room selling aloe vera. He said it would cure everyone's cancer.

Isn't that great? Here we were taking all these treatments unnecessarily.

Some people really got offended because after all, you aren't supposed to try and sell things in the cancer support chat room, that is against the rules. Besides, we all get tired of people telling us that our chemotherapy is killing us and our only hope is to buy their stuff. You wouldn't believe how often that happens.

So anyway, some of the cancer patients in the room asked this guy to take a hike. The last thing he said was, they all deserved to die.

I just try to take all this information with a grain of salt. I don't believe the drug companies and the FDA are in this big conspiracy to keep us from knowing about all the herbs that will cure our cancer. If this were true, then people in countries where they can prescribe herbs like Canada and Germany wouldn't be dying of cancer, and they do. That's just my opinion. Does anyone know if there are any studies in survival rates in these countries?

My chemotherapy protocol is based on a study of Italian women. Does this mean I am supposed to follow an Italian diet? That works for me!

It's funny how my doctor explained this to me. He said in the United States, women are more apt to question their treatments and want to be involved in the decision-making process. Most of the studies are done in foreign countries where the women just do whatever the doctor says. Does this bother anyone else?

After the chemo, I was extremely careful about my diet. Anything that could cause cancer was definitely out, which was pretty much everything. Then I had a personal crisis and didn't eat anything at all for two weeks. After that, I pretty much stopped obsessing over the cancer diet thing.

There is one book that I really liked. If you want to know what it is, please e-mail me. It is about a diet that is based on your blood type. The reason I am sure this is a good book is that, according to this book, people with my blood type are more resistant to illness and survive cancer better than any other type. I think it says something about us being more intelligent and highly evolved.

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But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence is in Him.
He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.

Jeremiah 17:7-8