Rachel's Letter

Rachel’s letter
So I'm finally home from the hospital:) Here is an update so you all know what to be praying for.
And truly thank you for all your prayers. I know that without them I wouldn't be where I am today.


As you all know on Monday, April 18th, I was rushed to the ER at UPENN for extreme constipation and pain. They then determined that my colon was so severely blocked, in some areas my colon had stretched 7cm, that I would need a transverse colostomy done immediately. HOW had I gotten here???

Well I've always had slow moving bowels and over the last 2 months I had been suffering from blotting and constipation, whether from possibly some of my supplement regiment I don't know. But recently because of the pain I experienced earlier in the month I was taking percusets to help with the pain of the blocked kidney. Plus the outpatient stint placement on the 14th and the medications they put me on, it's a fair assumption that my colon all but stopped working. So by the 18th you can imagine that things were pretty bad. I asked the drs. why in their opinion this happened and they really don't have a clear answer, they say that it much have something to do with the cancer that they see on my rectum, but they're not sure. Though I might add that, 1. they're not 100% sure that what they see on my rectum is cancer, and 2. my rectum remand and still remains open?? One thing that they all agree on, is that thought my colostomy is 100% reversible, they don't expect to ever have to reverse it however, because they believe my cancer will over take me before that time ever comes. Well honestly they can go jump off a bridge, because I will walk back in there sometime in the future, cancer free and tell them where they can shove this bag!!!!!


But really, this is hard, harder then anything I've done to date. I want to erase all that I just wrote and crawl into a hole and hide. I'm not an overly vain person, but honestly!!!! Why this LORD?? I guess you could just pray for me that I can adjust and get comfortable with this new extension to my body.


ON THE PLUS side!!!! I did see Dr. Sara in the hospital, she came to visit my a few times and we had a good talk. I appears that the cancer mets on my ribs have stopped growing and are either dying, or walking themselves off. She doesn't believe that they are any more of a danger to me!!! I've only had the medication Zometa, to help with Metastases to the bones, 2 times. SO whether they are disappearing because of the medicine of because of my diet I don't know, but I’m very happy about this!! They told me from the beginning that their worst fear was that I’d start cracking my ribs and be in a lot of pain. SO now that doesn't seem likely:) Dr. Sara also said that this colostomy in no way makes the cancer worse then it was last month.

Please be praying that I know where to move from here. I will be resting at home over the next few weeks, but I need direction on where to go from here. I've decided that I'm not going back down to Mexico in the near future. Mostly because I'm not sure that they have anything else right now to help me. I am looking at a clinic here in the US in Texas, also I have an interview with The Cancer Treatment Center of America in a few weeks to see what they say and get a second option. Plus next week I’ll be going in for a 3rd does of Zometa and I want to talk to Dr. Ford about possibly any alternative treatments that she may know about and practice in her office.

Thank you all again for your prayers!!

A note of encouragement/update on Rachel from my Mom

Rachel is home!!!!

Rachel came home yesterday. We are thrilled. She still is VERY uncomfortable, but is ready to start the food regime again. Though she is emotionally down because of the colostomy bag, it is reversable. Through all this, however, we had a new MRI done and learned that the cancer in her ribs is either completely dead or dying. That is such wonderful news, since they had told her that the ribs would start cracking with the growth of the cancer and she would be in great pain. There is also a chance that the blocked colon was due, not to the growth of the cancer (which the doctors assume) but to stools blocking her colon. The doctors all agree that they really cannot tell what happened. We hope for the best case scenerio.

Soup...baby foods

I spent a lot of my awake time through the night thinking about what to feed Rachel that would taste good and be good for her and easy to digest. So today I will be working on more soups for her.

Pumpkin soup - I hope I can make it look this good!!!

and

 Kartoffelsuppe soup

And just for special we will make her Pumpkin cookies.

Now I need to go food shopping.

First day home

Rachel is HOME!!! Thank goodness...I was going crazy without her and I know she wanted to be home...now she is here. I thought it would be somewhat easy getting in the grove of cooking for her. But all my plans are shot down. Because of her surgery, she is on a limited diet of non gassy foods...NO RAW...What??!!!!

First off I have to laugh because there is no nutritional value in what the Dr.'s have said she can eat and all the nutritional value is on her "don't eat" list. So, now I have to work around this list and try to find her healthy nutritional cancer fighting foods that are will not produce gas:-(

This morning I made her healthy muffins BUT they are too full of fiber...I will be eating them:-)
Then I made her a green smoothie - Spinach, Swiss chard, blueberries, pear and raw honey - still too much fiber.

Now I am making her the butternut squash soup that I had frozen and trying some Sweet Mashed Potato's - cut up and boil Sweet potato's, blend them up with some almond milk and raw honey. I am hoping this will sit well with Rachel.

I just got my

Green Smoothie Revolution book and


Green for Life book

So I will be reading up on how to fill her body with greens - Liquefied sunshine.

Vegan Cancer Recipes

Awesome!!! Just googled for some good vegan recipes and came up with a great site!!! This one looks really good...Low-Fat pasta salad! Dessert...Pumpkin Spice Cookies...looks soooo yummy!!!

Love Thai!!! This one sounds so good...Spicy Thai Soup YUMMY!!!

Add this to the list!!! Vegetable Broth!

Meal Planning

Rachel is suppose to come home from the hospital tomorrow. This will be the first week that I am making meals for her...gulp!!! So here are the meals I plan on making:

Tuesday: Lunch will be a green smoothie, flax seed oil and chocolate almond milk, and healthy muffins. Dinner will be this amazing Spicy corn, sweet potato and bean chowder minus the corn since she is suppose to stay away from corn.

Wednesday: Lunch will always be a green smoothie, flax seed oil and chocolate almond milk and Humas with veggies
Dinner will be Spring Rolls with thai peanut (almond) butter and wild rice.

Thursday: Lunch - Green Smoothie, flax seed oil and chocolate almond milk and guacamoli
Dinner: vegan Pizza - dough recipe and topping

Friday: Lunch - Green Smoothie, flax seed oil and chocolate almond milk and Brown Rice cabbage wraps
Dinner: Ever so nice Beans and Rice

Saturday: Lunch - Green Smoothie, flax seed oil and chocolate almond milk and Spicy Black-Eyed Peas and Collards
Dinner: Oatmeal pancakes

Sunday...she is all on her own!!!

We also have planned out 3 weeks worth of food for Rob and the boys...I need a nap!!!

Idea's for next week - Pita Greek Delight,

Please send me any good vegan recipes that you might have:-)

Along with all of the this week will be juicing a couple times a day for Rachel.

Goals for this week are to start making wheat grass...but I need to get all the supplies ordered...I have been watching the Wheat Grass Trucker because he is funny and if this guy can do it then I sure can. But I must admit...I am a bit nervious!! How long does it take from start to finish??

Wheatgrass...Anyone??

So, my friend Amber texted me to see if I had looked in to juicing Wheat grass for Rachel. I had not but my husband knew all about it and had actually taken it in powder form a couple years ago. I started to research it tonight and found a lot of interesting things about Wheat grass.

1. It contains Laetrile (B-17) which is a huge component for Rachel's cancer fighting regiment
2. 1 pound of wheat grass is equivalent to 23 pounds of your choice other greens (amazing)
3. Helps build up red blood cells in your body to carry oxygen through your body - oxygen fights cancer
4. contains 17 amino acids
5. contains 70% of Chlorophyll which has been shown to produce an unfavourable environment for bacterial growth in the body and therefore effective in increasing the body's resistance to illness.

baby woke up...need to go. Will let you know when I start growing it,

This is it!!!

I am so excited about blogging my sisters journey of healthy eating...cooked/prepared by myself!!

First prayer request... please pray that I learn how to cook/prepare tasty food for Rachel. That's right, I am not the worlds best cook!!! I am scared spitless that I will totally flop at helping my sister in this way but I feel so excited to be given the opportunity and am going to take it and run with it!!

Today I was able to make a vegetable broth that was filled with all the peels I was using for my Butternut Squash soup  and Apple and Acorn Squash soup . I did taste test everything. Was not crazy about the butternut squash soup:-( Not really sure how to doctor it up though.