Wednesday, January 30, 2008

All Things Are Spiritual


Tonight was uplifting to both my sweetie and me even though right now we can't carry a tune in a tin can. We pulled out the hymnal and sang some of our favorite songs together. Words like I know that my redeemer lives, The Lord is my light, so why should I fear, The Lord is my Shepard, no want shall I know, I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me, When faith endures. What comfort those words and music of the hymns offered. We finished singing. My sweetie had me transcribe some emails he had been meaning to send. Then he was ready to relax for the night.

We are facing many challenges, but the blessings of knowing we are not alone is of most comfort. We have made our peace that the future is in the hands of the Lord and we are accepting of whatever lies ahead.

May those who read this be blessed by the spirit of God to feel His love for them too.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Getting to Know You


That is my feeling on Plant ID. I love plants and I love knowing their uses and characteristics. However, the Scientific names feel like a nemesis for me. Thank goodness 46 years ago I had an excellent Latin teacher or I would be up a creek without a paddle. I am enjoying my Interior Plant class. I am not as imaginative as many of the other students, but I love playing around with arrangements and plantings.

Today we went into meet with the Radiation Doctors. The question of itching that started with surgery and is now a red flat rash at odd areas along the back and shoulders came up. Some of the medications could be the cause and possibly shingles. However, it is not burning pain, rather itching to drive you nuts. We applied aloe vera and a blend of essential oils tonight and the redness had dimmed by bedtime. I will ask the Chemotherapy physician if essential oils can be used on his feet or through diffusion in the room while they treat him starting at the end of February. He will be given IV iron X4 to build up the hemoglobin that has been low before the surgery.

Right now we are having some conflict in that I keep feeling like he is not taking an active role in learning about how to help himself and has all but collapsed. Part of it is the fatigue from the radiation and part from low iron levels. The other part is the medications for pain that dull and depress and keep the patient from being active...they say activity and nutrition is most important then give them drugs that depress appetite, activity, and mental alertness. What is this.

Sigh

Will sign off for tonight.

Oh yes...forgot to note a funny I saw today near the seawall. As everyone knows parking on the beach can end up with some not very nice droppings on the car. Well, today, as I was sitting at a red light, I looked up and saw a cloud of seagulls right over 4 cars. A driver of one of the cars had thrown something out of the car on the ground. Instantly the seagulls arrived, covering the sky above the cars. The other drivers were like....Quick! Light CHANGE!...I just smiled.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Preparation

January is the time to prepare our soil, it is a time of preparation, so, we turn our thoughts to learning about what we want to achieve. If it is production large enough to produce enough vegetables or fruit for canning, then we will need to figure out what how much we are wanting to have canned. For a family of 4 in our Texas area, we need 10 to 15 ft row for Beets. Beet root is a good vegetable for fighting cancer.
Lettuce, a row of 10 to 15 ft. long. I like the Baby Mescalin, "Cut and Come Again" variety by Renee's Garden Seeds. The mixture of light and dark leaf lettuces give a better source of vitamins in the salad mix and is a plant you can cut and will grow some more. You would first plant half the row, then two weeks later, the other half. Beans need a 15 ft row. of 30 plants once again planting at two week intervals so you don't have to harvest all at once. A great source of b vitamins. Squash, allow a space of 4-6 ft square, plant 2-3 plants of yellow and zucchini at 2 ft intervals. Great for salads when small and casseroles when larger and relish if gets larger. Tomatoes 10-15 plants of Roma for canning sauces and dicing canning as they are firmer. We like to also have about 3 plants of cherry-type tomato the Juliet is easy to grow as well as the Sweet 100. Celebrity Bush is easier to control and makes a good slicing tomato about 4 plants. Studies show that diets rich in tomatoes appear to give lower risk of certain types of cancer, especially cancers of the prostate, lung, and stomach. The thought is that the lycopene which gives the tomatoes their color is the source of help. A row of radishes about 4 ft to add some zest to the salad.
We have moved our citruses to the south side of the house where they can have a micro-climate area that may protect them enough from the occasional 27 degrees we get. Eating the citrus with the albedo and pulp give a measure of cancer fighting help against colon cancer. This is interesting reading. http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/bgi318v1.pdf We decided we wanted organic citrus without the cost.
We are adding a few blackberry and blueberry bushes to our sunny fence area. I discovered a study done by Monica Giusti, an assistant professor of food science at Ohio State University, and her associate researchers which discovered from laboratory experiments on rats and on human colon cancer cells that the chemicals that give color to most red, purple and blue fruits and vegetables appreciably slow the growth of colon cancer cells. Well, we must work on making a change in our diet.
I am at the hospital with my sweetie. He just spent 5 days since surgery on an Auschwitz diet. How could a registered dietitian give red colored jello to a patient they are watching for blood. Give him salty greasy broth and a ton of apple juice. The colostomy will change his dietary habits but I have found a great deal of information on the subject that will allow me some leave way in his incorporating healthy nutrition to prevent the worst side effect of the cancer which is malnutrition and loss of skeletal muscle. Now that the surgery which blind sided him is through, we can work on on our adjunct therapy to prevent the chemo and radiation from doing him in.
I say blind sided because he agreed to the surgery based on the information that they would surgically removed the cancer after the radiation and chemotherapy shrank the cancer. Now they are telling him that that will not happen and have told him they are buying him 2 months to 2 years of life. He is not really happy with their morbid predictions and I feel that it is not conducive to cultivating a fighting spirit in a patient to do that to them. Worst scenarios are not psychologically building to those in pain. My belief is and has been, that only the Lord knows the appointed time and you do all you can to treat your body like a temple and let him do the rest.
I know that the year spent fighting to get our daughter free from her addictions and restoring her son to her took a great toll on his health...now we must continue to overcome and he will be healed if the Lord so wills it.

Monday, January 07, 2008

New Year "looking for improvements where ever I can find them"


My sweet grandson found the seed catalog and decided it was time to plan for the spring garden.
It is hard to do so when I see my hero appear to be withering away.
I was upset with the health care system, but my posts seem to be being blocked so maybe I need to wait a bit before sharing my thoughts on that.
I am starting my Interior Plant course...it seems to be interesting.
More at a later time.