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The summer has been moving at breakneck speeds. I can't believe that it is already August! Summer highlights since my last post include having five wonderful house guests (four people and a cat), attending the yearly Midwest Men's Festival in Kansas, and playing soccer again.

My brother Tom will be marrying his long time sweetheart and friend Jennifer in a couple of weeks. I am very happy that they, and their cat, have moved back to Minneapolis after spending years in Chicago. Having them stay with us has been great. Part of me hopes they never move out of our house.

Our friends Don and Sara are throwing a party in Minneapolis to celebrate their marriage with their friends and family in Minnesota; they eloped in Boston earlier this year. They are moving into their new apartment today. JSP and I enjoyed having them with us in our home since their return to Minneapolis a few weeks ago.

Men's Festival was rejuvenating and refreshing for me, as it always is. I spent a week in the woods away from normal life, talking with men in various stages of life. I had some wonderfully deep and intimate discussions with several guys about their lives and about fears and hopes and feelings, which is something that most of the time men don't talk too much about. I experienced a remarkable sense of brotherhood.

Most nights I stayed up until about 5:00 AM talking with folks and then slept until about 9:00 AM then had breakfast before attending community circle (discussion mostly) and then ate lunch before heading back to my tent for an afternoon nap. Then on to dinner and evening events.

I facilitated three sweat lodges over the week. I really enjoy those. There were other rituals including a short but sweet mid-day ritual recognizing the amazing power of the sun. Drumming and chanting and dancing around fires felt very primal under the crescent moon in a star filled sky. The community prepared delicious and healthy vegetarian food and tasty beverages. There was fireworks one night thanks to Leadfoot and the House of Explosive Release. M@ put together a chocolate salon. BamBam created an "adventure game" which was a sort of treasure hunt to encourage us to explore the vast land that our event takes place on. There was an auction too, where I bid on, and won, both a beautiful patchwork quilt made by Cookie Greg and a fantastic knit wool afghan made by Inlakesh. Everyone who attended enriched the event in different ways, sharing their gifts with the community. It was great to see old friends and to make new friends as well.

Although I came home with some slightly itchy chigger bites, I feel rejuvenated. My time in the woods was a reaffirmation of how good it is to be alive. I am reminded of how much I want to work toward continued health in the face of my cancer.

I returned home from Kansas on Tuesday night. On Wednesday evening I played soccer again for the first time since February. After being off the field for six months I noticed that my ball handling skills were a little rusty, but I really enjoyed playing again. I am going to ease back into playing soccer more frequently.

This month I'll be doing another series of tests, MRI and PET scans, and then I will be meeting with two new doctors, oncologists from the University of Minnesota and Mayo Clinic. More on that later.

Labels: family, food, friends, friendship, gender, MRI, perspective, PET, recovery, sport

One aspect of my life that I have power over is what I choose to put into my body. As a stage IV cancer survivor, I believe that food is one of the strongest therapies that I have to help keep the weed of cancer in check.

Friends and family ask me if I am still following the Gerson Therapy. I have never been able to follow the full recommended therapy to the letter, but I have taken principles from what I understand to be the philosophy and basic fundamentals of the dietary approach to healing. First off, I believe that my body is capable of fighting my cancer.

After my initial diagnosis of Melanoma in 1998, I lived in remission for nine years without chemo or any other therapy. To me this means that my body was keeping this cancer weed in check. I was vegetarian and generally ate very well. I was athletic and also drank alcohol but not to an excessive degree. I believe that I without knowing that I still had cancer in my system, I was helping my body to keep it in check via the choices I was making in my diet.

The principles that I follow from the Gerson therapy include

• drink as much fresh organic fruit juice as is reasonable, for me this is about 4 cups daily
• eat a vegetarian diet consisting primarily of fresh and organic fruit, vegetables, and grains
  
• follow an 80/20 ratio of allowing myself to eat 20% of things which are not vegetarian organic things, such as sushi
• avoid refined sugars and flour most of the time
• avoid alcohol
• avoid taking prescription and over the counter drugs when possible
• use appropriate dietary supplements, guided by Gerson therapy recommendations
  
• use coffee enemas twice daily, when possible, to assist the gut with elimination of waste products and toxins
  

I do not see this path a way to "save myself" but rather as a way to enjoy a healthier and possibly longer life. I do not have any hard evidence that following this regiment is helping my body, but I believe that choosing to put primarily fresh organic foods into my body will increase my quality of life, even if it does not prolong my life.

The 80/20 rule lets me justify stepping away from the rules of my diet for a special occasion, or even an occasional craving for Afghani pizza. Flexibility and taking pleasure in eating are equally important to me as putting healthy food into my body daily.

Labels: food, juicing, Melanoma

Continuing on the theme of friends, food, and fun, last night we had our married friends Barbara and Phil over for a dinner of sashimi and negori. I had hoped to photograph our endeavors because it was the most raw fish I have ever purchased, prepared and served at a single time. We bought five different sashimi quality fish: ahi tuna, orange fatty marlin, bluenose, Scottish Atlantic salmon, and halibut totalling about three and a half pounds of rawly delicious fish. Thankfully our dinner companions had appetitetes as large of those of JSP and me. Between the four of us, we methodically and with much pleasure made all those pounds of fish disappear. Our table discussions ranged from birding and gardening to healthcare and politics. The night flew by in a barrage of words and flavors and before we knew it, it was time for our guests to leave. They walked to their car under the light of the full moon.

I treasure the friendship of so many wonderful people. I feel fortunate to have the number and quality of people touching my life and expressing their wishes for me to continue surviving my cancer.

Labels: food, friends

On Friday evening I saw an old friend that I grew up with that I have not laid eyes on for perhaps 15 years. Perry, a neighbor from my childhood had heard about my cancer through his grapevine and had tracked me down. He came over with a bundle of organic produce and we talked about the paths our respective lives, and the lives of our family members and common friends had taken in the last fifteen or so years.

A few of hours after Perry went home, another friend, Keenan, stopped in to crash at our home, having just made the journey from Madison, Wisconsin. He was being a good son for the weekend and would help his father repair some broken fencing the following day.

Saturday morning JSP planted at least 50 seedling plants in our back garden. I was amazed to walk out in the back garden to see the black soil that seemed almost lifeless the day before transformed into a garden full of green plants. The garden is infused with new vegetable life.

Artists in Northeast Minneapolis have a yearly open door weekend called Art-A-Whirl each spring, and this weekend was Art-A-Whirl. On Saturday JSP, Pat Morgon Mae, Marcos, Jaime, Connie and and I toured the Northrup King Building which houses about 150 artists in four floors of studio spaces. It was a fun afternoon.

We started, without Jaime and Connie, at our home and then went to lunch at The Vegetarian, an unassuming Indian restaurant with a fantastic buffet in Columbia Heights. The food was delicious and it was hard to choose when to stop eating. Palak paneer was on the buffet and I indulged in the flavors that I crave. I was thrilled to see a completely vegetarian buffet where I can choose from anything on the buffet instead of only one or two vegetarian options.

Eventually we connected with both Connie and Jaime and meandered through Art-A-Whirl's largest venue. I picked up a number a cards from artists and got an idea about what artists I might be interested in buying from in the future.

After trekking around the artist studios for several hours we re "arted out." We went to the Holy Land for dinner. I got a plate of tabouli and a plate of humus that went wonderfully with pita bread. My companions chose a variety of food and everyone seemed very satisfied with their choices.

That night I played a thoughtful game of Go with my friend Keenan. One big error on his part late in the game allowed me to take one of his groups and win the game. I love playing with Keenan because he plays Go frequently and improves between each game that I play with him.

On Sunday morning Keenan, Pat and I had breakfast at the Seward Cafe which is always nutritious, organic and delicious. Sometimes I marvel at the number of choices that I have in the Minneapolis restaurant scene in terms of being able to get organic vegetarian food in so many places. I do not take this gift for granted and it reminds me why, despite the cold, that I love Minneapolis. I decided on organic huevos rancheros and organic freshly made yogurt. I was not disappointed as both were magically delicious. My companions again were very pleased with their food choices, and the thing that stands out in my mind is the cold pressed coffee, steamed to perfection, that they enjoyed during our breakfast.

After breakfast and saying goodbye to my friends, JSP and I began our journey to Grantsburg, Wisconsin where our friend Vanessa was graduating from high school. Georgianne, Vanessa's mother, had invited us to come with her to the graduation ceremony and to enjoy the graduation party that followed at their home. After the ceremony, we were treated to beautiful weather delicious filled cupcakes and delicately layered cakes that tempted me to eat them despite the fact that they are not allowed contained lots of refined white sugar and refined white flour. Georgianne and Vanessa showed that they could be fantastic hostesses as it seemed the whole village of Grantsburg filtered through their home over the course of the afternoon.

During our drive back to Minneapolis, we noticed that the silver moon was almost full. The moon is completely full tonight.

Needless to say, JSP and I slept deeply last night.

Labels: art-a-whirl, arts, entertainment, food, friends, friendship, garden, Northeast Minneapolis