I won't go into a lot of detail right now, but I do have a good excuse. Mom's pneumonia didn't go away, so we took her to a specialist. He said that mom's problem wasn't pneumonia at all, but the tumors in her lungs had grown. A lot. He said they were stage IV and there was nothing they could do and we should just call Hospice.
That was over 2 weeks ago.
Since that time, she has started an herbal treatment and a very strict diet......and she's gotten a bit better every day. In a few months, I fully expect to be writing next chapter of her story in "God's Miracles----Part 3". I hope you all will come back and read that. I wish I knew when to tell you it would be, but everything is really slow right now.
Meanwhile, I need to post a blog. So, I thought to myself "What's going on in my life right now that's different?" This diet! When mom started her treatment, dad and I promised her that we would be with her every step of the way. Although we can't take the tea that she's on (because you have to have cancer), we are following her diet to the letter.
It's in no way a "fun diet". I don't know about you all, but I have never enjoyed dieting in any way, shape or form. I love to eat too much. Pizza......pastas......breads......sweets.......you know. All the stuff that tastes awesome but is't good for you in the least.
Let me tell you a bit about me and the way I liked to eat. First off, you should know that I was a caffeine addict. Seriously. A year ago, I was drinking 3 or more 44 oz Dr. Peppers per day. I would drink about a glass of plain water once a week.....maybe. I thought it tasted horrible! I ate out for breakfast every morning, and some of my favorite things were McGriddles from McDonalds, Monster Biscuits from Hardees, Breakfast pizza from the convenience store, and Breakfast Burritos from Sonic. I got one of those things every morning. EVERY morning. Not because I don't know how to cook, and not because I don't like to cook, it was because I craved fast food. Mom and I would catch breakfast on the way to the store, so that put me eating breakfast about 9:30 AM, which was good, because my caffeine headache would have kicked in by 10. Then usually for lunch, I'd grab some tacos or a cheeseburger, and it was never at lunch time, because I wasn't hungry at lunch. It was at least 1:30 or 2 before I'd eat. Supper time came and I'd get home about 6:30 and either start cooking or eat, depending on whether or not Dan had started it. Normally we'd have some kind of meat, and either rice or noodles.
Now, I loved this diet. Loved it. I felt like I was eating all this wonderful stuff that I loved and I had nothing to worry about. But........in the 3 years that Dan and I were married, I had gained 30 pounds. I reality, that's only 10 pounds per year.......0.83 pounds per month......0.03 pounds per day.......Anyway. It's not a lot......but for an woman in her early twenties, it's a lot. Plus, I would wake up sick every morning. That was the main reason that I didn't want to eat until 9 or so. I seriously felt like I would throw up every single day. People would tell me that it was the way I was eating, but I paid them no attention. I was constantly warned about the trouble of drinking so much pop every day, but I ignored them.
It really hit me about the first of the year about how much that I had gained and how that was probably really the cause of the problems I'd been having physically. So, I made a "resolution", if you will, that I would gradually ween myself off caffeine and I would only eat out once a day. And that's what I did. After that, I only had one 44 oz caffeinated pop per day for several weeks. Then, I went down to just one 44 oz pop.....period.....for several weeks. It was hard! And I had lots of pop cravings. But, I was determined and stuck with it. Then it went down to a 32 oz once per day and stayed there for a few months.
During this time, mom got sick and we stopped eating out so much, and eventually we didn't eat any fast food at all. What surprised me about this, was the fact that after a couple weeks of eating no fast food at all, when I did decide to have a burger or something, it tasted pretty bad. And honestly, when I ate a McDonalds burger, I got sick to my stomach.....while I was eating it. That had never happened before. Something else that changed was that I wasn't sick every morning anymore. I was hungry within 15 to 20 minutes of waking up, and I wanted my meals on time. I was even being hungry between meal times.
I gradually went down to a 20 oz soda per day, and only ate fast food about once a week.....maybe. That wasn't an all the time thing. Just once in a while when neither Dan or I felt like cooking, or we wanted pizza. That I can remember, pizza was one thing that never got old or tasted bad.
After mom had the brain surgery and started recovering, we ate a little more fast food than we had been. Not a lot, but a little. And when she got sick with the pneumonia, there were very few things that actually sounded good to her, so we'd give her whatever she wanted. Mostly, it was Chicken McNuggets from (of course) McDonalds. While I didn't eat them every time, I did eat more fast food than I had in several months. I started becoming sick again, though only on days that I had eaten fast food the day before.
By now we're closer to the current time.........when the strict diet kicks in. Almost three weeks ago, when mom was told she had Stage 4 Lung Cancer, we heard of an herbal treatment that has worked for many people. The only catch is you have to completely change the way you eat for it to work. And I do mean completely.
When she agreed to take the treatment, I made her a promise that I intend to keep, and I have done it so far.
Here's the diet:
The "don'ts"
- No meat.
- No sugar. (That is white refined sugar. Honey is alright, so is a sweetener called "agave"
- No dairy. (The exception to this rule is you can have straight from the farm goat's milk)
- No breads.
- No nuts (except almonds)
- No jams, jellies, condiments or salad dressings of any kind. (except the "Bolthouse" brand)
- No flour.
- No soda
- No artificial sweeteners of any kind.
- All the vegetables we want. (Organic is best.)
- Certain fruits are OK, but nothing high in sugar. (Pineapple, Strawberries, etc)
- Organic or Cage Free eggs are fine.
- Organic brown whole grain rice is great for this diet.
- Organic oatmeal with goat's milk, sweetened with honey or agave is wonderful for this.
- Lots of water.
I'd like to say right off, that, I'm sure some of you out there read this list and are saying exactly what I said when I got it; "Yuck." I never said that to mom. I am always reinforcing the fact that we have good reason for doing this, and it won't stay like this forever. We don't intend to go back to eating as unhealthy as we were before, but it will be more like normal than it is now. I've never been a big vegetable eater, anyway, so if we couldn't have eggs.....I probably would starve. Of everything, I think the thing that I was most resistant to try was the goat's milk. Milk is something I've always been very particular on. I like Hiland brand. End of story. So when dad told me he was going to buy goat's milk.......I wasn't very excited. I had pretty much decided I would just do without milk until mom was cured and thing would go back to normal. But when dad brought the milk home and we tried it, I was shocked! I couldn't believe it was so good. After that, things started getting a bit better. However, I do miss the bread.....and the meat......and the cold cereal......and the....oh, never mind. It's awful how when you're on a diet everything looks good. It's kind of disgusting......and annoying all at the same time. Sometimes I dread to even watch TV because the commercials make me hungry. And walking through the grocery store? Forget it. I have to keep repeating to myself what I'm in there for, otherwise I'll catch myself looking at something and thinking "Oh, that would be good!". I'm weak. I've been that way ever since I was 13 and went on my first diet. I've always been chunky, and sometimes just down right fat, but I've never had the restraint to keep myself from eating all the foods that I love. I will, however, make it through this time. Because I'm not doing it to loose weight (even though I am losing some), I'm doing it to keep my mom. And that is my strength.
As an aside, if anyone has any vegetable only recipes, I'd love to hear them. We're running out of ideas! lol
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