Cancer Survivor, writing about Health and Fitness as you age

I recently did what so many of my friends have done- I went to the salon to get my hair done. I don't usually do that, in fact, the last time I had a proper spoil up was when I had my hair coloured the day I stopped wearing hats, wigs and scarves. Since my hair has grown, I usually get a very basic haircut, and in fact, the tip alone was twice what I normally pay to get my hair cut. But of course what I was paying for, was not just the haircut.  It was the ambience, it was the mimosa they offered on Saturdays, it was the 3 hours without children or family or expectations, it was the hand massage or the cucumber on the eyes, whichever you chose. It was the service, and having the stylist actually make a recommendation about a suitable hairstyle. It was all of it. And boy did I pay for that experience. And since your hair never looks as good as it does as when you have just come from the salon, I had to run home and get G to take a picture right away!

This past summer, three years ago , I received the diagnosis that changed our lives. It was the week before we were planning to leave for Germany on a family vacation. My dad was flying in from Trinidad to make the trip with us, and we got the news that I had stage III breast cancer the Wednesday of the week he arrived. We had to cancel that trip and I went straight into treatment. This past summer, almost to the day, we finally made that trip to Germany... Here I am on the ferry going to Denmark My dad was not able to go with us on this trip, but it was a wonderful experience to see Berlin again, and see it with the kids. They were great travelers! Helped by the chocolate breakfast bars with Nutella that we got on the plane, no doubt! My first visit to Germany, pre-kids, was all about the places -  my husband's University, Deutsches Eck, Munchen visiting friends, the hospital where he was born, Opa Willie's grave. This time around, it was about family and the food

Some time ago I had blogged about my magazine problem here . Well, this past week, Cosmo has seen it fit to provide me with, not one, but two complimentary copies of their magazine - one of the regular US Cosmo and another of the Latina edition. Now, I don't know if it is my bias or not, but my jaw just dropped when I saw this article below. Now I read a lot of magazines and I have not, in the last 5 years, seen any magazine not say to substitute brown rice wherever white rice is mentioned, except this one. And they are saying white rice is good for you because of the manganese content (which brown rice also has).  And potatoes? "High in vitamin C, potatoes can boost immunity to cold-causing bugs." This is an obvious endorsement of foods without the usual qualifiers (in moderation, better with X substitution, etc.). In fact, I don't think I've ever seen any item in this list promoted as being "good for you" except maybe coffee in some inst

This past weekend I took my younger son on a Mama-son special weekend away. We were at a water park and while he was playing around I did my favourite thing to do - people watch. It reminded me that there are all kinds of people in this world. I saw a family with a clearly autistic son and another family with a child with Down's Syndrome and they were all playing and happy. I saw a dad several times over the weekend and each time he was on his phone conducting business, even while his family was around him. Phone to his ear, arms gesticulating, as if the world depended on the deal he was working. I marveled at a family with a fairly young mom, with 4 kids ranging from teenager to toddler - and was amazed at her stamina and relative composure. I saw families lining up for s'mores, with small children holding mini pitchforks with marshmallows on the tips, moving towards the open fire pit and then waving their pitchforks away once the marshmallows were toasted. High-risk man

Living with cancer is not easy, and that coming from someone who, on a scale of 1-10, probably only had a difficulty of 4 or 5. It is the afterwards, the afterwards that also poses a challenge. Why am I feeling tired? I didn't feel that pain before, I wonder what it is? Should I call my doctor? I missed my spinach smoothie this week, I hope I am not endangering my life. I wonder if I am exercising enough? I'd really love to have some bread pudding, will that doom me? It's time for a checkup, I wonder what they'll find...? The endless stress of trying to manage, well, everything sometimes gets a bit too much so I've decided to take a break. So what does that look like? For me, it means I haven't been taking my gazillion supplements (vitamin D, calcium, curcumin amongst other things), I've not been making my spinach smoothies, AND I've just decided to watch only shows I've seen before. So right now that means I am binging on Smallville.  I h

Primary care physician (for general care) Well woman exams Dentist Dermatologist for the vitiligo Oncologist Breast Reconstruction Surgeon (still continuing) Lymphoedema Masseuse Various tests scheduled by any one of them And these are just MY appointments, far less the schedule to include the kids' appointments. To get everything in and still be somewhat productive in my job requires precision coordination around early morning appointments, lunch appointments and late afternoon appointments. Sometimes I feel being spontaneous and taking the day off or going out to lunch is out of my reach and scary - who can afford to be spontaneous when everything hinges on the wheels turning just so at the appointed time? Perhaps spontaneity is overrated, but I sure would like the opportunity to try it every now and then.

What do we have to do today? I am looking at the list of special things my kindergartner has to bring, dress as or do the last week of school. Each day it is a different thing. Don't they know the challenging logistics this poses to parents who work? Worse, if we take turns with the morning routine, we both have to be aware of the plan. And today is...dress as your favourite book character! Crap!  "How about Batman?" We have a Batman costume we can use, and  I bet I can find a batman book somewhere in this house. "No" "What about Spiderman?"  I know there must be something in the house, even if I have to put him in a red t-shirt and blue jeans and a Spiderman mask. "No. I want to be Jack from Jack and Annie, Magic Tree House" Jeez! What costume do I have for that? I run around the house looking for cheap party sunglasses so I can pop out the lenses and use for Jack's glasses, no luck. I have 10 mins before we have to leave.

So towards the last weeks of school I dropped my little one to school and I had forgotten something for him so I went back to the car to get it, after leaving him with his teacher. On my way back, I passed one of his friends and his dad, and made some bland comment about the weather being rainy after a long weekend making it more difficult to get kids out the door. Then ran off to drop the item for the little one. On my way back I saw them still making their way slowly to the school, and the dad exploded at me about how I am always giving him crap about being late for school with his kids. Hmmmm. So I started to say that whatever he thought I meant, I certainly didn't mean to imply anything by it, but he interrupted me with "No more!" He was shouting at me, in front of his kids, about how I am always doing that, every time I see him. Mind you, I think I had seen him about 5 times in the school year on the way to school and the most I've exchanged was "Hi, how ar

So my husband and I had gone to a movie on Friday evening and came back home to find this note on our bedroom door: Yes, they did say they were coming to wake us up at 6:00 AM, and yes, they were bringing guns. Needless to say, we felt it incumbent upon us to assert our parental dominance by being ready for them. My husband got the nerf guns ready - these are the fully automatic ones with ammunition clips. We each had one and laid it out by the side of the bed, ready for the morning. Needless to say, we went to sleep with smiles on our faces, in anticipation of the morning's delights. Since my boys are not really able to be ninja-like, no matter how much they may think they are being quiet, we were up and had the guns ready when they opened our door. And we let them have it. It's moments like these that keep me young and makes me think that maybe we are not doing too badly in the parenting department.

Well, I know I am one week late with this post, but I was enjoying my Mother's Day and remembering my own mother. Anthurium lilies were her favourite plants, so it was hardly surprising I picked up a plant on my last trip to the grocery store. Mother's day was on my mind. If my mom was alive, I wonder what she would think of her grandsons? I imagine she would not be able to stop hugging and kissing Liam who is at that very sweet age - interactive, but not giving any backchat, loving and still wanting hugs and kisses. She would sit with him and look at his art work and praise him. And tell him he is not eating enough. With Lucas, I can just picture her reflecting on how much he is like or unlike my brother. She would say how tall he is growing and how much he is getting big. And she would ask questions about his homework and smile and nod even if she wouldn't understand half of what he was telling her. She would probably scold him for being too rough with Liam, as

Every now and again, I get caught up in life and don't get around to updating my blog, but mostly my life is so boring I haven't had any recent stories to post out! I thought I'd just give a quick update on my most recent reconstruction shenanigans. I present exhibit 1 - the medical charge. This is for a 1-hour surgery that was done with local anaesthesia, that is, no general and no "light" twilight zone drugs either. Sooo I've blogged before about medical costs here , but it was shocking even to me, that the hospital would charge my insurance $9,000 for a 1-hour procedure. This excludes the doctors fees. All I can say is, pray you don't get sick without insurance or have to go to the hospital, even for an hour apparently. Which brings me to my dad's recent visit. My dad stayed with us from November to April. We have no health insurance for him and he was 84 and turned 85. Any number of things could have gone haywire at any time and bankrupte

Maybe it's because I live in Texas? Not sure, but my husband and I decided to do something as a couple for our anniversary and we did a pistol class together! To be honest, I'd never held a gun before and I was literally shaking when I had to hold the gun and load the clip. You can't see it in the pictures, but my goodness I was nervous! Nervously trying to load the clip  It was a lot of fun, we learnt about the basics of handling a gun, how to stand, shoot, safety and a bit about the gun laws. Then, after the in-class session, we went out to the range to shoot. Real, actual guns! I ended up hitting the target, so that was more than I'd hoped for, so I was pretty pleased. My husband was very impressed with my results when we retrieved the target! We shot at 2 different distances,  7 feet and 15 feet. I ended up shooting a .22 and a 9-mm glock. Here I am posing for this shot, largely because with the eye and ear protection and the wind blowing my h

Soo..., after having our after-school sitter for our boys for a bit, her schedule changed and we had to find someone else. We decided to go with a manny (male nanny), because for one thing we had a manny apply! While he was not able to stay with us long unfortunately, it was a very interesting experiment! The dynamic between the boys and our manny was different than between them and our female sitters. For one thing, the play time was much more rough and tumble. More fighting and wrestling, jumping and punching. When they were not fighting with him, he was less likely to intervene if they were roughhousing with each other. The female sitters would have stepped in much earlier. You may see this dynamic in your own household when Dad is in charge vs Mom or if parents have two different parenting styles. They also interacted with him differently - they saw him more like a buddy rather than someone they had to listen to and respect, so that made his job a wee bit challenging. He had

So I remarked to my husband recently that 6-odd years ago, when I was staying home with my younger son -  my older son was in elementary school, I would see moms in their work outfits and I suffered terribly from shoe envy . Because, you see dear reader, I would be walking around with the baby in a sling and I was somewhat disheveled by the efforts to get both children ready for drop off. However, now that I am working again, and dropping my younger son to elementary school, (the older one is in middle school),  I can only see moms in their workout outfits on their way to the gym or a run or bike ride while I am in my work clothes, and hustling to get to a meeting/conference call on time. Hmmm. Maybe it is just me. I am not quite sure how good a job I am doing (just hoping not to mess up horribly), but every now and again, it seems necessary to reiterate what NOT to say to a working mom. And since I have to admit, sometimes other people can say it so much better than I can, I wan

My dad is staying with me for the next few months and in the few weeks that he has been at home, I've noticed a few things about him that heralds the aging parent. We don't have a spare bedroom, so we've invested in a bed and a privacy screen and installed him in the "game room" space outside my sons' bedrooms. I thought I'd recount some of our conversations. "You know Daddy, ah tink we should get ah little privacy screen to put up by yuh bed. Yuh know, so anybody comin' up de steps doh see you on your bed, an' give you a little privacy." "Nah, what ah go do wit dat? Ah doh need no privacy screen. Why was'e yuh money? If ah want someting like dat, ah go put ah box or someting or tie ah piece ah sheet across if ah want some privacy." It went on like this for a few days and I ignored him and got a 4-panel folding privacy screen. The evening it was delivered and I set it up, my dad said this: "Yuh know, de sc