Heid's New Health Craze

For me a natural part of dealing with my disease is trying to figure out all the ways that I can be more healthy going forward. What I can do to keep the cancer from recurring, etc. I've been doing LOTS of research and reading a great deal to learn about ways I can help my body to be more healthy and to repair itself. I have a book on healing cancer through nutrition and I've found a lot of truth in that book. It just makes sense. I'm now approaching what I eat as 'medicine' in a sense that can heal my body from the damage that has been done and that can help keep disease from returning. Now don't get me wrong, I'm still undergoing chemo and radiation will start in a few weeks, but the natural methods have their place as well.

I'm seeing a natural doctor, aka Eastern Medical Doctor, who specializes in nutrition, whole food supplements, herbal medicine, acupuncture, etc. He's counseling me in my diet and nutrition and I've been following this personalized 'wellness program' for the past month now and I've been really pleased with the improvements so far. We'll see how I feel in a few more weeks!!

The two hardest things for me right now.....I'm off of SUGAR--white refined which is in EVERYTHING you buy! And I'm off of dairy except for limited amounts of organic dairy products. I've gone from drinking 2 gallons of milk a week to drinking barely 1/2 gallon in 2 weeks. I'm being a really good girl but its hard. Especially I miss my ice cream!! I had sugar withdrawals at first but I'm getting used to it now. After all you can make or break habits in 21 days remember.....=)

Here you'll see my new milk, yes I'm drinking Organic milk now. I'm avoiding all things that have any hormones in them!

This is my new favorite water!! Fiji water is YUMMY!! I'm becoming a water snob now...really I drink a LOT of water!

February Chemo Updates

Well I'm finally updating for February and how chemo has treated me. I've really been very blessed this month. Undergoing chemo treatments is no summer picnic, but I'm so grateful that I haven't had a HALF of the side effects that my Dr. warned me I might have. So that's a big blessing. I've been able to do more with my children and I've actually started doing laundry and household chores again (horrors I know!) But I couldn't escape those duties forever. Here you can see our family enjoying our Valentine's Day dinner. Some friends brought us a 'pink' dinner for Valentine's Day and Kaylie decorated the table very festive. We had a nice evening. I wasn't' up to a romantic dinner on the town, so we did our "pink dinner" and then took the children out on a family date for Frozen Yogurt. We went to a new place called Tops Yogurt and the children had a blast making their own creations there. It was a memorable Valentine's Day to say the least.

San Jose Children's Museum

We took a day and went into San Jose to visit some friends and we visited the Children's Museum while we were there. The Water Works exhibit was the children's favorite! Here you can see Kaylie standing in front of her blue ball that is about to go down this whirlpool.

Cameron's favorite was watching the steam from this water fountain as he could control it with the levers...how does that work?

Dallyn just loved collecting green balls and sending them down the waterfalls and into the whirlpools!

Kyler watches as a ball that he sent up the vacuum tube is sailing through the air into the whirlpool. What a fun place!!

Kylers First Haircut

So Mommy wanted to hold onto her 'baby' as long as she could! Cutting Kyler's hair meant admitting that he's growing up!! =( Yes he's 19 months old now but still, it seems like just yesterday he was my little baby!! So here is his before and after photos. I LOVED the curls in the back...still miss those. But Daddy insisted his hair was looking scraggly so he cut it off while Mommy cried!!!

Look how handsome and how grown up he looks now!! And enjoying every minute of the attention!

What's the big deal mom? So I made a mess with my pudding, whose going to clean me up?? =)

Chemo Drama Week 6

Well I've had a much easier round of chemo since January 1st. It's been a real blessing. BUT..this week was BAD! This week something was going on with my veins and it was HORRIBLE! I was like a red light/green light nightmare where my IV just kept stopping! It would drip and then not and then drip and then stop. We had to find creative ways to keep the IV going. When I got my Taxol bag (the last bag which is the chemo drug) it worked for awhile and then all of a sudden I started getting a really cold feeling in my arm. I freaked out as the pain increased and starting screaming for my nurse!! I panicked...I should have shut off the IV but it didn't occur to me at the time. What happened was the chemo started dripping too fast (they think) and so it infiltrated my tissue in my arm. Essentially it burst out of my vein. All I can say is OUCH!! It hurt so badly. The nurses started flushing the line with saline and I just told them it was so totally painful, I couldn't stand it anymore. They took the IV lines out and I held my arm above my head for awhile. They tried 2 more times with different veins and finally found a vein on my hand that worked well. Well, better than the first vein but this vein was small and so the chemo took FOREVER!! What should have taken 45 minutes took an hour and 40 minutes!! I was at chemo literally all day long. It was awful.

All week my arm has hurt and when I got home and took the bandage off I found a very red and swollen area of my arm where it was full of fluid (chemo) that was swelling. The nurses told me my body would absorb it, which it has since the bruise/swelling is gone. Needless to say I'm nervous about tomorrow's treatment though! Yikes..I'm glad to say I'm HALFWAY DONE with Chemotherapy! YEAHOOO!!! Here's some pages I did during my 'free time' on Saturday afternoon. Enjoy!

Boys are Fun!

Dallyn makes a mighty good pirate don't ya think? Complete with the monkey on his back!

I got out some of my homeschooling materials and the boys were excited to play with the fruits! What shall with do with all these??

How about sorting them into 'salads'? Kyler did pretty good at sorting too...except anything round went together. He sorted the bananas and grapes really well though! And Dallyn helped....

Kyler loves cars! His brothers made a great car ramp for him to play with!

Hair No Fair!

Ok, so I'm having a 'no fair' hair situation here!! The treatment I'm on right now is a drug called Taxol. Taxol is a drug that attacks the hair growth just as much as the treatment I was on in Nov/Dec. I thought that since my hair fell out in November and I didn't lose my lashes..I thought I was safe!!!

NO!!! I'm not safe...I am losing my eyebrows and eyelashes!! Shee whiz! I can't believe it. This is a sad day!! =( And to make matters worse...guess what I noticed this past week. My hair on my LEGS is growing back! What is that about??? Like I said it's not fair! How can I be losing eyebrows and lashes but the one place I don't want hair...my legs..and its growing back!!!

That's your humorous cancer tip of the week!! =)
Other than sore muscles & some other strange side effects I'm doing pretty well. I just finished week 5 of 12 of Taxol. I'm almost halfway there! Yeah!!