Just too Good, I had to share

So, because I meditated/rested through chemo, napped when I got home, and have an all around chipper attitude from hanging out with my plants and family this afternoon, I had loads of energy for cooking. I made this recipe from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. I was a veggie girl for 7 years, til one day, I went by a Outback, and the craving for steak overtook me.

But this book is a bible for integrating more vegetarian recipes into the mix. Pick a vegetable and she knows 50 ways to use it.

I post this for two reasons. One,going through chemo, I need protein, but am not to keen on meat most days. This is a DELICIOUS recipe. Since I had the energy to get myself down to the farmers market yesterday, I had farm fresh ingredients. Two, this goes back to my last post. I LOVE to cook from the local farmer. I feel alive, I feel my hands are cleansed and energized, I feel my body relax and the smell of rosemary and thyme dance around my kithcen. I feel so ALIVE to make food the feeds you down to your bones. So, tonight, I cooked! I am so happy to have the stamina and energy back to do so!!!! And so....may I present:

Lentil Minestrone

2 TB. olive oil
2 C. finely chopped onions
2 TB. tomato paste
1/4 C. chopped parsley
4 garlic cloves, chopped
3 carrots, diced
1 cup celery or celery root, diced
salt & freshly milled pepper to taste
1 C. French Green Lentils, sorted and rinsed
Aromatics: 2 bay Leaves, 8 Parsley branches, 6 Thyme sprigs
9 C. water or Veg. Broth
soy sauce or GF tamari to taste
1 bunches fresh spinach, chard, or broccoli rabe
2 C. cooked small pasta (I did GF Spirals!)
Parmesean

Heat the oil in a wide soup pot with the onion.
Saute over hight heat, stirring frequently, until lightly browned, about 10 minutes.
Add the tomato paste, parsley, garlic, vegetables, and 2 teaspoons sald and cook 3 minutes more.
Add lentils, aromatics, and water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 30 minutes.

Taste for salt and season with pepper. If it needs more depth, add soy sauce to taste, starting with 1 Tablespoon. (The soup may seem bland at this point, but the plaveors will come together when the soup is finished). Remove the aromatics.

BOIL the greens in salted water until they are tender and bright green.
Chop them coarsely.
Just before serving, add the greens, and the pasta to the soup and heat through.
Serve with extra virgin olive oil drizzled into each bowl, a generous grind of pepper, and the Parmesean (we used Vegan Parmesan for Bug).

---------------
The verdict in the household:

All around favorite and must tag and make again over and over. SO good. Bug ate it until the last bit was gone. Great for a crisp fall evening. I would suggest following it up with Baked Apples for dessert. Very simple. Yum

Jenna
(who, in one incarnation in her 20's, was an assistant chef for a very nice restaurant)
Bon Appetite!
Jenna

Readjusting the lense

So, I have been going through a tougher week than usual. Not physical, but mentally. Just getting stubborn, thinking life will just fall back to "normal'. There is no more "normal", my lense has been adjusted permanently, and I am working with a blurry perspective and refusing to adapt. Always, always, always, that created the suffering.

Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun, says: It's also helpful to realize that this very body that we have, that's sitting right here right now... with its aches and it pleasures... is exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, fully alive.

I feel like our purpose of incarnating into these bodies is to learn about the myriad of human experiences. We all hope to skate by, unscathed, and the end, none of us do.

One of my mentors teachers said, "Each day, each moment, there is only ONE purpose, to learn. When we approach all that life hands us with Learning as a fundamental sacred act. We have access to all that we need to learn at any given moment. When fear is replaced with curiosity, suffering falls away."

When I get overwhelmed at what lay ahead of me, petrified sometimes...or when I feel haunted by illness and it's endless possibilities of pain and grief, I remember this....my goal isn't to get through life unscathed by pain or challenge. The goal, instead, is to learn how to never surrender my love of life to the fear of death. This to me is premature death, walking death. Worse than death itself. To waste time alive, being dead.

That all being said, it was a hard week. I went to my darker edges and came back, so much happier. Just a quick, but deep trip, into the world of darker possibilities. As I pull out of it, quickly, I am amazed at the energy that is returning to me, despite the body being tired. Sharon might be happy to learn, I got the fight back in me. Yes, the FIGHT. I feel like a dog, with it's jaws clamped down on the pantleg of Life, and I refuse to let go. Not right now. When it is time, I will with grace. But right now, no freakin' way!!!!!

That being said. This week is the PET/CT scan. After talking to the doc today, it looks like my intution on this going through December is right on. Even if I got a clear PET scan, she would want to continue on, 6 months is the least amount of time she would have me doing chemo. I have some pondering to do. But I am prepared to go through December. I have been since the beginning.

Now THAT being said. All things are pointing to this working. My markers went from 160+ to 75! down is the way we want to go. 35 is normal. What she is looking for is a trend with the number to hold steady...or remission. The PET/CT will show us where it is working and how well. From what we are feeling,most palpable spots are not "there" by touch anymore. All good signs this is working.

I am pondering the damage chemo can do, and reexamining what I can do to keep the damage down. All my blood counts look good all around. My White blood cell counts are well within normal range, my red blood cells are just outside normal, but barely, and for the last five weeks, all of the numbers have been increasing steadily.

I have been reading issues that can come up from chemo. So now my goal is to mitigate them. My other goal is when Christmas rolls around,I have a body that is whole and healthy. My doc won't let me project out too far, she reigns me in. But I do know people who have doing chemo for a year. hmmm. That wasn't in my plan here. So, let's see what magic we can pull off.

The chaplain at the Institute today reassured me of a woman who has been stage IV for 12 years. She raised her daughter, and had long periods of remission, before flair ups required more treatment. Again, this is a managed disease, not cured. I still would LOVE to go for CURED. Wanna help? CURE CURE CURE CURE CURE CURE CURE CURE

This is a long update. But I have been quiet. I needed to be quiet. But now I need people again.

Oh, and just a shout out to my dearest friend Susan in New Zealand. She just went Kiwi side this week. Miss you tons. No one can replace you! And you are missed!!!! If anyone wants to talk about small things, like weeds, carpooling, and burnt out light bulbs, give me a ring ;)


Blessings to all,
Jenna

Repost

So, this is an old post, but seems to be a good time to remember this for me:


I am not my disease.
I think of disease more as a verb, not a noun or an adjective because it is transit as all disease is. It has a beginning, middle and end.
It is just a stop along my way that will teach me and transform me.
It will fall away, and become my past and inform my choices in the future.
But all that matters is Now.
When I let fear in, I remind myself that all that matters is Now.
My fear is usually not of anything present,
but what I fear might transpire.
So I return to the moment I am in.
And the truth usually is:
Now, my heart is beating.
Now, my body is tired.
Now, it is full of energy
Now, I am in intense pain.
Now I am free of pain.
Now I rejoice in the beautiful energy of life.
When I fear what isn't there,
I lose my moment to live Now.
That is all we have.
Moment to moment.
That was true before anybody named my form of disease.
We all have our own brand.
Sometimes, someone naming a passing disease,
just brings that reality of NOW into acute awareness.
We can use that intense awareness of "all we have is now"
like a salve to heal any disease we have in our minds and spirits-
and thus return some strength to our bodies.
Pain, illness, disease are part of life,
suffering is optional.
That is true, even when I forget it.
Please remember this,
I am so much more than a disease.


Jenna

One last thought

Pondering my post today....and it came to me...

Peace can't be forced, but it can be found.

huh...
Jenna

Becoming Still

I just came from sitting on the front porch. My intuition told me "Go outside, right now, sit, be still." As I sat there, watching the ant traverse the stone wall, and a slow moving bee, the last of the season I suspect, collecting what pollen was left on a lone dandelion flower, I became so softly and subtly at peace. Nothing else existed but this moment.

The sound of man was all around. Helicopters, sirens, the highway, rushing rushing rushing.

And the skill of the sage is to turn their eyes towards what they desire. So I thought I would plop my sage hat on my head (still with hair, for all of those with vivid imaginations) and just sat there. I had the choice. Tune into the bustling human-made energy of worry and anxiety, or the quiet, powerful steady flow of nature. Nature won.

The sun, thinly veiled through clouds, still warmed my skin, and the cool moist autumn winds picked up leaves and threw them around in their annual dance of transition. The wind chimes played too. Building their song louder and louder. Leaves scattered, trees creaked and danced, the sound of the chimes grew from a quiet song, into a violent clashing of metal bordering on chaotic. Then, in the same manner in which it began, this small episode of movement and sound became so very still. The chimes slowly, and steadily went from staccato metallic strikes, to softened notes, to a lingering hum, to empty space. Their beautiful music became beautiful stillness. One without the other, and either one would be meaningless.

I found myself, hypnotically falling into stillness, my thoughts slowly and steadily calming with the sound of the chimes and the wind in the trees. And I thought we as human beings should take note. The beautiful song of the chimes would become obnoxious and dissonant without its pauses.

I feel this need, and urgency, in the human condition, for us to...as a whole, find moments of stillness and quiet. It is powerful.

There was a study done, not so long ago, where a LARGE group of people meditated on PEACE in a city experiencing a heightened rate of violent crime. During the time this group meditated on PEACE......the rate of violent crime dropped dramatically. If I remember correctly, it was some in the order of 20% or more. Far beyond any rate of chance.

The world feels so heightened, so anxious. Consider me the canary in the coal mine.....take heed...and take 5 minutes tonight to go outside and become as still as you can, and just LISTEN to the breezes. Don't judge them. Don't judge yourself. Don't apply a label, to the sounds, or to your experience of them.

Just simply let your mind match the rythmn of the breeze.

Try it tonight.

Thanks,
Jenna

Weekends with Help, Scans, and What's Next

Hello all! After a week of feeling low with the cold, a weekend visit from my mom for some relief on the homefront (thank you!!!!!!!!!), subsequent long overdue downtime for Jim, and another round of chemo, I actually feel a bit more normal today!

I spent the weekend half asleep, while my mom ceaselessly played with Bug, and did endless rounds of dishes. Jim tucked himself away downstairs for a long while playing Spore (a new video game) and decompressed after 4 months of a hamster wheel run, and I watched it all go down from my sofa in between naps. It was very nice.

Today, is post-chemo day #1. I think this marks number 13. EVERY week. Wew. Endurance. I AM A CHAMPION! hehehehe. You have to do this to keep this up! I am really hoping that those scans return some good news and I am not endlessly on chemo. It is hard not knowing when it will end. I don't read breast cancer stories too much. They get me testy. 8 rounds, ONCE a month and then they are done????? OH MY GOSH. I wish! Or excited posts from women who say "I am so excited, I am on session 6, I only have one more to go and I am done!" I had NO idea it could be that easy. I am glad I didn't going in. I set myself up with an open-ended, need endurance to ge through this, mind set. Had I read those other stories, I would've been frightened at how I get the "unknown time span" card.

But we are to the point we are ready to do more scans. She said a PET/CT I think. Not the WHOLE slew again. No bone tests, or MRI's. Just the PET is her reccomendation. I think I should've asked more questions. I have them. Like....why not the MRI (beyond her answer of, "I think PET says more.".). There is debate. MRI's DO no harm. PET's put radiation in my and use xrays. All damaging. As one doc put it "You are in this for the long haul. We want you to have a thyroid that is working in ten years". So I have more questions.

But, it will tell me how sites on my liver, lymph nodes, and breasts are doing. We can tell the ones in the breast are so diminished we can't feel them. Same with most of the lymph nodes, I can't find those either.

I asked her the question that has had me worried since the beginning. "If one is going down, is it typical that ALL the sites are going down. It isn't like one will go away and one will spread?" She said typical they do all go down. One doesn't typical head off in it's own direction. However, (ugh, there is it) I have two types of cancers in me. BOTH breast cancers, with one very small difference. She said it shouldn't really mean one will go away and one won't. AND (this is the good part) she can tell from palpations, that it appears both tumors are receeding.

Now folks, this is what I want. I want to be done with chemo. I don't know what will happen if it is all gone. My intuition says they are going to want to keep going for awhile to get what they can't see (as long as my body holds up). If that happens, I will need a FLUX of good vibes to raise me back up and call back my endurance. I am having an easier time with this than most people, but I am also run down now. I am getting run down. SO, I will need the loudest, most peepy, YOU CAN DO THIS cheering squad.

The other scenario is that they see some small spots left, and keep going. Again, same thing holds true as what I just said above.

OR WHO KNOWS, what if they can't find a THING (shock!) and the say YOU ARE DONE. Just come in now once a month for you Zometa and Herceptin???????? hmmmmmmmmm.

Do some praying. PRAY PRAY PRAY it out.
Jenna

Inspiration Station

So, I am gonna add a sidebar section for Inspiration in Art. Local artists, who rock. I may branch out to cool things I find on the web as well. But for now, each week, I am gonna bring you a new local artist to drool over. It is my passion, local arts. I would LOVE to own a art/craft store for NW indie artists to sell through (drooling yet again). It taps into many of my passions, all in one dream. I love to talk to artists, find artists, talk to those who buy the art, I like to display art, I like the community it brings....yup. Passion.

The inaugural artist. Indigo Crane felt artist -Anna Katherine Curfman. I met her while she was still in art publishing, when she turned her eye towards felting. As you see by this picture, it goes beyond felting and touches on sculpture! I think this piece shows her mastery. She gave me the most gorgeous scarf to keep me warm in body and spirit, while going through chemo. ALL the nurses gather round and drool and ask where to get one. They pull other nurses in to "see this amazing scarf!".

I am starting with her, because she pointed me to my repressed inner artist and said "You gotta let her out!". And thus began shifting my life in a way that was way overdue. If it weren't for her, I may still be a cranky, nonartistic, wondering-why-I-feel-unsettled-and-restless, mamma. I really believe my life is better, more free, more fulfilled for having known her. I simply would NOT be where I am, had she not pointed the way and said "GO that way towards art. You will be happier!". She pointed me towards help, and that led me into a world of people who "get" me. A world of inspiration, freedom, and women who shine brillantly.

I can say thank you to her enough. Maybe she really knows this maybe she doesn't.

Also, I've changed the quotes in Quotes from Cards.
AND I have added a new section (which I will begin highlighting in blog entries) on Books to Heal By.

Go check out her work!
Jenna
(and no, I don' t get commission! lol!)