When it comes to the medical nuts and bolts of cancer, there's not a whole lot I can tell you that will be knew and enlightening. There are so many different types and every case is different. If you're reading this blog, chances are you already know the horrors of chemo and radiation, and there's not jack I can say that will pretty that up. In a nutshell, he started radiation on June 22. He was supposed to start Xoleda at the same time, but our insurance denied the chemo. I'll repeat that: Our insurance denied his chemo. Don't think about that last statement for too long or little capillaries in your eyeballs will explode.

So the chemo was about two weeks late getting started, and wouldn't have happened then if not for a wonderful man named “Tim” in Dr McGee's office who battled those demons. I got to pick up the Rx at the pharmacy... a rather large brown plastic bottle, as Rx bottles go. It was $3,432. With my co-pay only $75. I felt a bit weepy with the gratitude of being able to afford it.

I took the giant horse pills home, poured them into a beautiful glass container with a silver lid. I curled up in my big, fluffy magic chair, held the container in my cupped hands and infused our pellets of hope with 45 minutes of Reiki. Three pills by mouth, three times a day, with a whopping dose of radiation to the pancreas every day at three pm, Monday thru Friday.

For a long time, Rich was managing well, I was able to continue working, which was a good thing because I had very little PTO built up. He drove himself everyday to radiation, and could manage not only his own care but took pride in accomplishing a few household chores each day (with the exception of cleaning the cats' litter box!)

The miniature dachsund I adopted a few months prior has become increasingly needy (as if that were possible), so every morning I make sure she gets thirty minutes on the treadmill so that when I leave for work she'll be too tired to bark non-stop to get Rich up to give her attention.

By July 7th he's starting to lose his appetite, and he no longer wants to participate with the Willard's Water and Protocel that we started in May. It's hard for me to be patient with this. He's religiously following the radiation and poisoning that the medical profession dictates, but my holistic efforts are the first to be rejected. I'm trying to be grateful that he's still allowing me to juice for him with the Vita-Mix I ordered the week he was diagnosed. (Seriously—if you have a Vita-Mix, juice IS a verb). Every morning since he got home from the hospital, I prepare a disgustingly healthy smoothy and have it waiting for him in the fridge. Every day I come home and feel complete if I see that he has consumed it. Some days I wonder if he just poured it down the drain to spare us both—his agony if he drinks it; mine if he doesn't.

I soon discover that nutritional value is inversely proportionate to yummyness. I awake each morning with the goal to find the perfect balance between the two, not always with success. It is not as easy as one would think. Honey can only do so much. Tofu is easy, brewer's yeast is tricky. Beets and tomatoes are surprisingly easy to hide, being complimentary in both color and flavor. Parsley is ruled out on the first try. Wheat grass shows tremendous potential for flavor and nutrition, but it has a very short shelf life. Besides, I cannot explain how off the chart yummy a drink has to be to offset the fact that it's green. ( And before you jump to the obvious, I need to state that I am Irish and I find green beer on St Patty's Day to be as sinful as it is disgusting.) I make countless attempts to find the perfect partners to broccoli and brussel sprouts, and my frustration with repeated failures takes my determination to higher levels. I just about give up on broccoli, and even brussel sprouts require a 5 to 1 fruit ratio to make it tolerable.

To answer the obvious question—Why not buy the new fruit/veggie drinks now on the market? Because they are expensive, packaged in plastic, they are processed, and they are full of artificial chemicals, flavorings and preservatives. They serve a useful purpose, but not the purpose I need to serve. Don't take my word for it, check with Jack LaLane and Montel Williams.

We've always eaten healthy, but since the diagnosis nutrition has become my religion, and organic is my dogma. And like any religion, there are times when my best efforts feel like a placebo.

I become a master of supplementing everything I cook with extra vitamins, minerals and nutrients, and nothing is exempt. From tuna noodle casserole to oatmeal cookies I can hide substances—drug mules have nothing on me.

The good news is that while his appetite diminishes with each day of chemo and radiation, he is completely free of nausea and vomiting. Facial hair is not affected by chemo, so there's no danger of losing his famous bushy mustache, and as he said himself, “I'm already bald, so THERE!”
This is tough, but not only are we tougher, we're greater than the sum of our parts. Each day we continue to believe that we are going to beat this.