Category Archives: food & drink

celebration

14 Sunday Jun 2009

Posted by in cancer, change, food & drink, friends, health & happiness, home, hope, life stuff, love, philosophy, photos, tapas

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becerrita(click on pic to enlarge)

On this week’s A Day at the Hospital post I told you that something wonderful had happened and that Nog and I went out to celebrate. Later I told you the reason for celebrating, but I never told you what we did. By the time we left the hospital that day it was almost 2 o’clock and, since I knew I had some extra cash, I decided it was high time I treated Nog to a tapa snack as he has been treating me since I got sick and haven’t been able to work.

And so we took the bus over to Becerrita and had a lovely tapa lunch. Calamares, lamb in honey sauce, potato croquettes and pork tenderloin with wild mushrooms. Then a nice walk home while I thought about the email I was going to send “Bob” that evening.

To be honest, every day has been a celebration since I was given the amazingly fabulous gift of a month to heal. It’s really changed my life and I am suddenly appreciating all the “little things” so much more. I guess I’d been feeling kind of hopeless and at the end of my rope, and so being given this chance to do things the way I feel I need to in order to get better ended up starting a whole series of positive changes. Still taking baby steps, but doing a little every day.

Having hope again is a wonderful thing.

time out…

08 Monday Jun 2009

Posted by in cancer, change, chemo, fitness, food & drink, friends, health & happiness, home, hope, life stuff, yoga

≈ 17 Comments

healing

Remember multi-tasking az?
Well, she is taking some time out.
She needs some time to heal.

I just couldn’t do it all. I’ve spent the past two months going through the horrors of chemo for the second time, trying to organise work projects and find new students to teach, pay my bills, make new contacts … and all it’s doing is wearing me out. I haven’t actually found any work and I know that – things being the way they are in Seville – the chances of anything picking up for me workwise won’t realistically happen until September. So it’s time to stop hitting my head against that brick wall for now and time to start doing what I know will help me.

I’ve spent the past few days “practicing” my new healing method and you know what? It feels great. I’ve been listening to exactly what my mind and body need and then doing just that. And I know that, for me, this is the best way to heal.  I also know that doing this isn’t going to make me one euro, and I have no idea how I’m going to make ends meet over the summer … but I just can’t worry about that now.

This is what I need to do. Follow my heart.

small & perfect

31 Sunday May 2009

Posted by in food & drink, health & happiness

≈ 19 Comments

spinach rollup

I haven’t had much appetite lately. Or better to say that I do get hungry but find I can’t eat that much, so I’ve been doing more snacking than making proper meals. Yesterday I decided that if I am going to be eating less (which is a good thing – would love to lose some weight) then as much as possible I’d like my snacks to be “small & perfect”.

This is what I came up with last night. A garlicky spinach & pinenut rollup with cheese. I’m quite into flour tortillas these days because they add a bit of substance without being too heavy. Honestly, after every meal, no matter how light it is, I end up having to go lie down for awhile. As if even eating tires me out.

If you have any good ideas for smallish & light (and really delicious) snacky meals, please send them along …

day ten

24 Sunday May 2009

Posted by in cancer, chemo, fitness, food & drink, friends, health & happiness, home, hope, tapas

≈ 20 Comments

sun_clouds

It’s day ten after the last infusion and the sun is starting to shine again. Well, in terms of how I feel – it’s actually been nice and sunny here for ages. But it’s around this time of the chemo cycle that I can start drinking cool beverages again, take stuff out of the fridge without it hurting my fingers, and stop feeling so bloody weak and bleh. I could tell it was different when I woke up yesterday morning … can’t really explain it, just that things felt less “heavy and bleak” and somehow less “wrong”.  What a relief!

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protein overload

08 Friday May 2009

Posted by in cancer, food & drink, hospitals

≈ 24 Comments

protein

Today I start on the colonoscopy diet.

For the next two days I will only be able to eat meat, fish, poultry, eggs, dairy products and – for some bizarre reason – biscuits (as in digestive biscuits or similar). I cannot eat any fruit, vegetables, legumes, bread, potatoes, pasta or rice.  The hardest thing for me will be going without vegetables, but it’s only two days and so I plan to make it as interesting as possible. Will be going to the market this morning to stock up on free-range chicken, fresh salmon, calamares, pork ribs (honey & mustard ribs – mmm…) and possibly a nice leg of lamb. What the hell.

Of course, the worst day is going to be Sunday (day before the colonscopy) because I can only have liquids that day and around 4pm have to start drinking the “solución evacuante“. One sachet of “orange-flavoured” gack mixed with 250cc of water … every 15-20 minutes until all 16 sachets have been consumed. That’s 4 litres of water! Yikes. I’m quite used to drinking 2 litres of water throughout the day, but even for me this seems like too much.

And this is supposed to be my “week off” as I finished with the chemo pills for this cycle yesterday. During my last week off I had to have the port installed, and now this time it’s the colonoscopy. Bummer.  😦