She had her last treatment December 2008, hoping all her cancer would be gone, but 3 lymph-nodes were left so February started the second round of treatments.  (I cannot remember the name right now but will update later).  I decided to stop going to graduate school and come home to be with her during this time while I look for a job.  It turns out that was a very good decision because she really does need my help right now.

My new year’s resolution was to have only raw food for breakfast each day, and what better then Green Smoothies, right? So I began making them every morning in January and my Mom started sharing them with me.  All the super foods I pack into them were helping her feel better and certainly improved her digestion (which has been afflicted with the radiation and chemo).

Water retention runs in our family I think, as my Grandmother has very swollen ankles often, and my weight will fluctuate 5 lbs easily due to water.  One of my mother’s biggest side effects from the chemo has been swelling, especially in her right side.  That ankle is typically twice as large, he blood pressure is notably higher on the right side, and she has even blown a few veins in her calf as a result.  It makes her more uncomfortable because she can only wear sandals since it fluctuates so much, and she doesn’t want to buy larger shoes.

I am frustrated by the water I retain, and upon reading David Wolfe’s Eating for Beauty he has a section talking about the health benefits of cucumbers.  He said they hydrate your body, and as a result cause it to release stored fluids, acting as a natural diuretic.  I made some cucumber juice for myself almost immediately as an experiment and shared half with my mother.

The next morning I woke up and came out to find her sitting and chatting with my Grandmother.  She greeted me and quite excitedly lifted her right ankle saying “look, look! the swelling is gone!”  I was amazed.  Her ankles had been swollen for well over 6 months now, even after she’d take a diuretic and throughout 1 month break from treatments.

You see, the doctor had prescribed diuretics for her to take, but she doesn’t like to add more medication to her body on top of chemo, and used them only when absolutely necessary.  This cucumber juice naturally and effectively reduced her swelling over night.

If you or anyone you know is suffering from swelling due to water retention, I highly recommend you try this juice:

• 1 Cucumber
• 1 Apple
• 4-6 stalks of celery

I made it for her daily ever since for a week, then we ran out of celery.  After 2 days not drinking the juice she began asking me about it frequently because she started feeling bad again.  I think allot of her side effects are related to the water retention.

Moreover, I read of the health benefits of young coconut water and feed her that as often as possible.  I also make wheatgrass juice for the both of us daily, and I am confident all these actions help keep her blood levels from crashing.  Since I have been feeding her these juices and the smoothies she has not needed the shot to bring her red-count back up.  She was receiving it regularly before.

I want to share this information for anyone going through a similar situation, just in case it helps.  Peace and much love to you all.

lasted through January 5.

February 2 – 8 2009

Glad I am on some sort of a cycle now.  Been continuing on raw foods and wheatgrass…

Started Tuesday, November 5 and ended Monday, Nov 11.  Extremely heavy Day 2, and fairly heavy throughout until Mon Nov 4 when it finally petered off.  Diva cup worked fabulous, but when flow is that heavy you really have to change ALLOT.  I am talking every 2 hours min.  So if you are out and about that can be awkward considering you have to empty it out and rinse it.  I like that I am generating less waste though, and it def feeels more natural than a tampon and wayy more comfortable then a pad.  I will have to get used to it to iron out all the kinks with it’s proper usage.

I did have some crazy sex about 1 week before it happened.  The moon was first quarter.  I have been eating allot of raw food in the months prior, but the 3 weeks before this was mostly cooked, though still relatively healthy…

Not too shabby, under a week!

And I highly reccomend the diva cup.

I used to have this problem commonly when I was a teenager (before the depo stopped my cycle).  I would only have flow when i was awake, never at night, unless it was the first day or two n the flow was very intense.  Then the cycle would drag out 10- 14 days… :-/ We shall see.  I know it is prob normal for it to last long esp since now i only get it so rarely, but I thought I had beat the cramps this time!! How strange they show up now, in the middle… I am going to take an aspirin if I can find one… sheesh

very heavy 26, 27. moderate 28 n almost gone 29th n 30 th (spotting)

I bought a diva cup Sat the 27th and I am pleased, it works well, like a reusable tampon.  I am especially pleased at the reduction of waste i produce, and tampons/pads are so annoying to have to keep in stock.

The moon was diminishing getting ready for new moon on the 29th when it started.  Last time this year it began on May 22,  as the moon was shifting from partially full to the last quarter.

just looking for any patterns as to why i get it some months and not others.  I have also been very healthy this past month, eating a High Raw diet and consuming allot of Maca and raw chocolate (and tons of fruits and veggies).   Also good w/the exercising.

I have been trying to get on a regular sleeping schedule (for the first time this month) and have been relatively succeeding, but around the full moon it was completely out of whack again (staying up until dawn and sleeping until 1 pm) and the past two days it has been absurd, adhering to no sort of schedule at all…

not sure if it is the moon, detoxing,  perhaps these herbs I have been smoking instead of cigarettes (mixtures of rosemary, damiana, mugwort, yerba sante, and skullcap)… we shall see

not too heavy the first day. I even slept with someone that evening unbeknownst to them I was bleeding.

today it is definitely heavy, but really no pain. mild mild discomfort, but that is it.

it is very thin and the color is bright red

I am very happy I did not decide to take the stupid hormones the doctor wanted me to take. I am sure the depo provera I was on from the age of 15 to 21 had something to do with my lack of a period, and I do not believe the way to fix it is with more hormones.

note: I have been taking wheatgrass I grew myself daily for 2 weeks now (blended in the VitaMix), and started taking MSM supplements about a week ago

update: it is almost completely gone now.  so that is May 22-27, with heavy days on the 23 & 24.  no cramps, just mild discomfort (on the light days)

Starting Depo

When I was 15 years old I became sexually active, and a few months later came down with a urinary tract infection. I thought my urinary problems were related to my sexual activity, and refused to say anything to my parents about it for fear they would find out I was having sex. After a month of the horrible burning and constantly feeling like I needed to urinate, a became drastically feverish as a result of the bacteria having spread from my bladder to my kidneys. I was hospitalized for a week while they pumped me full of antibiotics and ended up confessing to my Mother that I’d been having sex.

Very soon after I went to the gynecologist for my first exam and we discussed my birth control options. I am naturally a very absent minded person and did not want to trust an issue as important as staying un-impregnated to my ability to remember to take a pill at the same time every day, and the Nuva-Ring hadn’t come out yet. So I thought Depo-Provera sounded great.

I had never had regular periods. They came every month or so (usually a bit longer than a month between) and would on average last for 10 days. The first day or two the pain was usually pretty terrible. I come from a family that was raised not to complain about things like pain or fevers though, so I would try and take an aspirin as soon as I could and get on with my life. After about 6 months on the Depo my periods stopped completely. Occasionally the first few years I would have some spotting at the end of the three month cycle when it was close to the time for my next shot, put pretty much I never bled after that.

I thought it was great. Little did I realize what the Depo was doing to my body. By the time I was 19 I began having decreased sex drive, I would get emotional fairly often in a depressed way (which is not in my nature, I am very optimistic), and I started to gain weight. I can not directly blame the Depo for all of this, but I am very suspicious of it. Other girls I spoke to talked about having similar effects from it, and when I realized the Depo may be causing these things I stopped taking it and switched to the Nuva Ring. It was April 2005 and I was 21 then.

I had had the same, first, last, and only long-term boyfriend throughout this, and getting off birth control completely was not an option for me. But then a few months after switching birth controls we broke of our 7 year relationship. Nothing particular happened but it was just time for things to end. After being with someone 7 years it can become much too easy to stay together than to break up… but that is a whole other story!

Switch to Nuva Ring

I continued on the Nuva-Ring sporadically, thinking it would straighten me out as I would get periods when I used it. They were never longer than 4 days, and no pain really (like before the Depo). Then I read that periods when you are on birth control are not really periods, the lining doesn’t really build up when you’re on birth control. I had continued struggling with weight issues, weighing over 150 in 2005, 160 in 2006, reaching 170 in 2007. I heard from friends of mine that they lose weight when they stop taking their BC, I never knew this as I had never stopped completely before, and as I was not in any relationships I quickly realized there was little point to my taking the BC. Summer 2006 was the last time I used the nuva ring. I also quit smoking cigarettes Aug 2006, and started running again regularly. I should also note that upon turning 21 in 2005 I began drinking heavier than I ever had before. I am sure that did not help my weight issues.

I only got my period twice on my own in 2007, and once following a Plan B contraceptive. Some stupid asshole I decided to sleep with snuck the condom off in the middle of sex without telling me. BEWARE!! even if you make a guy use the condom they can be sneaky assholes. I suppose that is why you should not have casual sex, but I digress.

Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome

I was kind of concerned that something may be wrong since I do not menstruate regularly, so I had all the appropriate tests done to see if everything was okay. All the lab results were fine, (and STD free =) ) but since I wasn’t getting them the doc diagnosed me with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). Nothing was actually wrong with me, but this is kind of a catch all diagnoses they give women with irregular periods when there is no other diagnosable reason (which is why it is called a syndrome and not a disease). In my particular case I have no other symptoms other than irregularity.

He said all my hormone levels were fine, so I was building up a lining, but for some reason my body was not shedding the lining. This made allot of sense, as the only 2 times I did menstruate in ’07 were very shortly after having crazy monkey sex with someone. I always jokingly thought they’d knocked something loose up there, and the doc qualified that for me, haha. He wanted to put me on a 10 day course of progesterone (what the Depo is made of) and see if he could jump start my period. I did not want to, so I asked what would happen if I didn’t get my periods. He said bad things could happen later on in life, but at my young age it wasn’t an issue yet.

That was all I needed to hear to not take the meds. It was the first time I was straight up not going to listen to my doctor, and I was a bit apprehensive initially about it. I had just gone through a 2 year long battle trying to get my body back to normal (weight wise) from those stupid hormones. Why on earth would I want to take more now?

I know my body and I am quite confident once I decide to settle down and start having regular sex again my body will start shedding that lining again. I then read recently there is a link between nutrition deficiencies and your period, so that is why I am blogging. To see if there is a difference.

OVERALL

I am going to try and avoid introducing any more of these hormones into my body. I do not think it is a good idea. But if I had to go back, it would be the Nuva Ring. It is very convenient (once a month) and you don’t feel it/notice it in there. Just a word to the wise, be careful when switching from higher dosage BC to lower dosage (I belive NuvaRing is one of the lowest) because you do run the risk of ovulating (especially if you are in your early to mid twenties and in good health). It happened to a friend of mine because they’d discontinued her regular BC. Just be careful!