SUGAR!

Well, I have been addicted to sugar as long as I can remember. It is truly scary how addictive it is and how it is in everything.  From the full blown candy bar and ice cream to ketchup, meats, and  milk.  Several months ago, before I learned of CDH1I embarked on my first Whole 30.  If you’re unfamiliar, Whole 30 is basically a reset to help you determine what foods you do and don’t do well with.  For 30 days you eliminate all added sugars, dairy, alcohol, grains/gluten, and legumes to reset your body and bowels. Then after the 30 days you can slowly reintroduce these things back into your diet to help you determine if any of those food groups are causing you problems (i.e. bloating, gas, etc). Okay, So I started this January 1st of this year with a group of friends at work.  So I really learned how to read labels and if he different sources of sugar.  Well,  I was loving it and going strong. I Felt so good about it and was totally planning on doing the legit reintroduction after the 30 days were over.

Well, January 8th, I learned I had his genetic mutation of my CDH1 gene.  If you’ve read my earlier blogs you’d know my gynecologist nor myself had any idea what this meant.  Even after googling for a couple of hours at work the next day I decided not to let this affect my Whole 30 journey. I was going to wait until I saw the genetic counselor to really figure out what this meant. That was the longest 2 weeks of my life thus far.  After the genetic counseling appointment, which was January 23rd, it took me a few days to realize I wanted to eat whatever the hell I wanted to eat and didn’t care about this Whole 30 bullshit. I mean, who knows if I’ll ever be able to tolerate added sugar again (which is my pitfall and I’m totally addicted). So I had a cookie a couple of days before Whole 30 was over. And instantly regretted it.  I was doing Whole 30 for a reason and still wasn’t sure where this CDH1 journey was going to take me.  So I finished Whole 30 at that point but then did not do a proper reintroduction. Which I’m totally fine with.  So, as you’ve learned I’ve been over indulging a bit and not having much will power when it comes to sweets.  Which I was totally fine with. Other than the fact that it’s very emotional difficult for me to gain weight. I’ve been up and down with my weight my entire adult life and was finally getting into a good groove and balance of eating healthy and staying active and feeling good about myself...and now I’m just going to gain a bunch of weight?  So I’ve waffled back and forth with mixed feeling of ‘I’m going to enjoy eating’ and ‘there’s no reason to overindulge’. Until recently (about a week ago actually), I had yet another epiphany.

Let me back track a bit.  So I had my upper GI with biopsies at the NIH in June.  I’m thinking my TG will be in March. That’s 9 months.  I’ve learned that 9 months in the CDH1 world can be absolutely devastating.  I’ve read and heard countless stories of people having negative biopsies on EGD and then several months later finding late stage HDGC.  In my personal family the only person we know of that had HDGC is my dad. And he was 46 years old.  I’m 34 years old.  So logically it makes sense that I should be able to wait a measly 9 months and be fine. But I’ve also learned that this CDH1 mutation is not logical. There is so much they still don’t understand and I would hate to regret waiting 9 months. However, I’m not ready. There are still things I’d like to do before surgery and am trying to make peace with that decision.

Okay, now to back to the sugar epiphany.  If I’m afriad I already have cancer and that it’s going to advance so rapidly in 9 months, why would I provide it’s favorite source of fuel...SUGAR!?!  We all know cancer loves sugar so what am I doing eating so much of it!?  So for the last week or so I have looked at all my favorite sugary treats in a very different way.  I’m not cutting it out cold turkey at this point. Just drastically decreasing my intake just by being aware of what I’m putting in my mouth.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about sugar so feel free to leave a comment.

Until next time.

Family vaca update (sorry it’s so delayed!)

Wow.  I guess life has been passing by as I forgot to write an update to our vacation!  I completely thought I had and just checked it today and realized I haven’t.  Life has hasn’t changed much in two months as you can imagine. I’ll update you on our vacation and then fill you in on the little things.

Portland was absolutely amazing.  I’m sure you’ve heard ‘vacation with little kids isn’t really vacation’. Which is so totally true in the sense that you don’t really relax much.  I tried to go in with a mindset that we’re on vacation with no agenda or time requirements.  And this totally prevented lots of frustration and anxiety. You see, I have a tendency to plan every moment and be very punctual. Which is basically impossible with little ones in and of itself. And then add vacation to that and all bets are off.  So I just reminded myself daily that all that matters was our family time and our sanity.  Haha. And the trip was amazing!!  

If you remember our goals for the trip I’m sure you’re wondering if we accomplished them. Well, the kids definitely went to many many parks!  I think we might have missed one day of going to a park the whole time we were there. And then some days we went to multiple parks. So I think this evened it out and we’re safe to say they were able to go to a park every single day. The weather was amazing and we love enjoying the outdoors so I was totally happy hanging out at all these parks.  My son and I were even able to go on a nature walk with a friend and some family.  It was basically in the woods so we were able to enjoy the shady awesomeness. 

As for my goal of enjoying good food and desserts everyday was not difficult to accomplish.  At this point I can’t really remember what restaurants we went to but I do remember enjoying all the food we ate. Including the home cooked ones which were amazing.  And all the time spent with family made it all that much better.  

I don’t think my husband would say he accomplished his goal of eating lots of really yummy ice cream. We went to Salt and Straw once. I totally would have gone back but he didn’t seem too into it. When we got there there was a line out the door and around the corner. Which apparently isn’t uncommon and speak to how amazing the ice cream is. I was told by the guy behind us that he once waited for 45 minutes to get his ice cream.  We probably waited about 25 minutes. And let me tell you it was well worth the wait.  I got a berry, goat cheese, habenero ice cream. Sounds weird, I know.  But it was decadent.  So rich and sweet and spicy.  Yum!  My mouth is watering just thinking about it.  My husband ordered the typical chocolate brownie something or other.  He liked it, but didn’t think it was anything special. Haha. My daughter got the same (she sure does love chocolate just like her daddy). And my little man decided on a coconut strawberry and ate it all up like there’s no tomorrow. It was really yummy.  Man, I want to go back just for the ice cream.  Haha.  But my husband did buy ice cream at the store and ate it almost every evening we were there. Haha. So I’m gonna day he too accomplished his goal. 

I love that the kids just wanted to be active and outside when we were there and then Matt and I just wanted to eat. Haha. How priorities change when you get older.  Don’t get me wrong we enjoy being active as well. And there is not much better than being outside enjoying amazing weather. 

Trip home went extremely well just as it did on the way there. I’m so proud of my husband and I for keeping it cool and going with the flow on almost everything. Of course the week wasn’t perfect but we were able to enjoy it immensely!!

Okay, so as far as normal life is going. Like, I said, not much has changed.  My daughter did start first grade and does not like it at all. Haha. She is a bit of a drama queen and says ‘it’s so hard.  All we do is work.  We work every second of every day’. Cracks me up. I’ve been trying really hard to speak to her with as much positivity as possible. She has the tendency to be very negative and grasps onto any negative energy she can.  And boy has it helped!!  I can see the mind shift in her and it really makes it so much more pleasant to be around her. I just hope we can keep up this momentum. 

My little man slept, for the first night last night, in big boy undies and woke up dry!  He was so excited!  He will be 4 at the end of January and this has been quite the process of night potty training.  And I think we’ve finally done it!! Woohoo little man!

Okay, I will try my best to post in the next couple of weeks (instead of waiting 2 months) 😬