Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Just Checking..

After a month of feeling scared with my finger crossed whenever people ask "So, how do you feel?".. After those prayers of need of comfort, bless, and heal.. After the feeling numbness in mind while waiting for another CT Scan.. I finally received my Emmy Award. The hell..??

HAHAHAHA...

It's been a month since my last chemotherapy. I wasn't worry so much during the vacuum weeks until the CT Scan time. All the way from Jakarta to Singapore, I had a feeling that my cancer doesn't go anywhere (or should I say I'm at a Stagnant Stage? where the hell that term comes from..). I went to Singapore a day before my CT Scan. This time I had to beg and drag my sister to come along with me since the trauma of going to Singapore with my mom. Enough is enough! I'm not trying to bad-mouth my own mother, but the last 4 chemos I went with my mom was nothing but a painful trip. Don't ask me why, but I think it has something to do with the closeness between mother and daughter.. and we're VERY NOT CLOSE at all. It's like a Tom & Jerry show - and she should've been lucky that I didn't poison her at all. So, there I was.. beg and drag my sister to accompany me CT Scan and see the doc.

The result of my CT Scan was just like what I thought. It doesn't go anywhere and it stays the same. No improvement, but it doesn't get any worse as well.
Was it a good news?
I think so.. The doctor said it was suppose to be a good news and that I should be happy with the result. I could only sigh when I looked at my CT picture. As usual, my mind went blank and my sister was the one who do the asking and talking - and I could tell the doctor was much happier explaining to my sister than my mother.

Other thing that my onco told me to do was to keep a well-balanced diet. There's no food restriction for me. Eat whatever I want in good portion. The interesting part is that when my sister asked about eating meat. According to my onco: there's no proof that meat causes cancer. Me and my sister were like: ReaLLy??? And my sister told the doc about the article she found about this couple .. the wife had cancer and died because she didn't keep a well-balanced diet (read: she ate meat!), and her husband also had cancer but still alive because he change religion to a vegetarian. And here's an answer that made me and my sister stunned: that person died because of the lack of nutrition. Then he explained in details...

Our body needs the most nutrition we can get. Meaning, not too much of one thing, but enough of everything. There's no proof that meat causes cancer, so you can have some of that, too, once in a while. There's a reason why a cancer patient should eat with well-balanced diet. Imagine this (since I don't know how to put this in nice phrase): Cancer hates veggies and fruits, right? (Well, this is according to what people believe to fight cancer). If we control ourselves by eating veggies and fruits only and becoming a true vegan, the small and annoying cancer cells are more likely to get use to it and more likely to be healthy (because we're feeding them with only veggies). And when the cancer cells eat more of that veggies and fruits, our body will have a deficit of nutrients (note that our body needs various kinds of nutrients so that we can stay strong). Now, if the cancer cells eat our food, then we don't have the food to stay strong. More over, if we're not strong to fight this bloody cancer, we can die.. eventually. And that would be dumb if people die because of lack of nutrients.

My onco also said that a lot of times we hear, "Hey, that person also had chemo, and she died anyway. So, chemo is not that good, right?"
That depends:
What did she/he eats after the chemo?
Just fruits and veggies?

Well, good luck dying with lack of nutrients.

Unfortunately, chemo is the necessary bitch to fight cancer! That's the way my friend, Felicia, put it. And I have to agree to that term.
YES. Chemo is the necessary motha'fucka' bitch to fight cancer.
It sucks, but it works. But if when you're done with chemo and still lack of nutrients, then that settles everything: die.

And the "eating" point that my sister and I understood from the 15 minutes conversation with the onco:
Eat whatever you want and have fun, stay healthy.
Eat everything in moderation and have a balanced portion of everything.

But in my point of view, YEEEEEEHAAAAAAA...! Party on!! This is the time where we should watch and see by consuming the right food.
And what I do to myself is ...
I still drink that Starbucks Caramel Frappucino..
once every 4 months, and only if someone buys it for me.
I still eat spicy Indonesian food.. Unfortunately, spicy food does prevent cancer, believe it or not.
I still sip nice cold soda.. Never finish the whole thing. A sip or two would do just fine.
and.. ALWAYS include the greens and the colorful fruits in any meal.

As for me, I still choose to be a moderate vegan. I splurge myself with whatever I like on a month of my family birthday. Say, this month we have 3 celebrations: my birthday, Christmas, and my brother's birthday. That means I have to choose 1 day that I can eat whatever I want (and that's suppose to be my birthday, tho..).
It's much more exciting for me this way and I still live a good life..



ps: Thanks mbak DDQ and mas Ray for the company to the hospital. Love you both and you guys rock.!! God Bless You.

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