After 38 years of near-perfect health (aside from this nasty bout of cancer I have now), I went all anti-Carissa and added yet another healthcare professional to my team roster. I saw a naturopath today, Dr. S. She's young and friendly, lends out her books to patients and gave me her email address. She actually wants me to contact her if I have questions without having to come in for an appointment. It's a revolution, people.
When I arrived at the joint and saw a big cabinet full of pill bottles, I feared I had stepped into supplement central. Not that I'm averse to them - I've been reading up on the good & bad supplements for cancer over the past four months - but I didn't want a new doctor to equal a new monthly bill for pills and powders. With the juicing and the mostly vegetarian diet I'm on now, I'm getting plenty of the good stuff these days without extra help.
Dr. S checked my ears (no potatoes), my temp (textbook), my BP (90/60 - the usual low), my weight (3 lbs lower than my scale - I like her more already), and palpated my abdomen for any alien-like creatures nesting there. We spent about an hour just talking (I said it was revolutionary, no?) about my diet, my family, my stresses, my activity level, my emotions, even my brothers (I said they they were suitably Italian-Irish in their avoidance tactics but gems nonetheless). I talked more about myself in that hour than I have over the past four months of treatment through the cancer clinic and the past 38 years of seeing a GP.
I think Dr. S was a little disappointed that I wasn't a smoker, that I didn't eat Twinkies for breakfast or gnaw on a porterhouse for a bedtime snack, but I threw her a bone with my daily mid-morning consumption of shredded wheat + all bran cereal (but with almond milk, y'all). She asked me to cut that out and replace with steel-cut oats, homemade muesli or honey-sweetened quinoa. I can do that. She also recommended I step up my vitamin D to 2,000 IU/day, boost my vitamin B complex to 50 mg/day, buy some L. Glutamine powder to boost my immunity and recovery time through treatment and gave me some probiotic powder to help repair my digestive system from the chemo blowout sale I get every three weeks.
She didn't load me up with any other supplement recommendations, but lent me a naturopathic guide to breast cancer prevention and care, the address for a blog on wholesome cooking (nourishingmeals.com), told me to email her with any concerns or questions and ordered some bloodwork so she could see my levels across the board and get to know me better. She also said I was doing so very many things right.
In the end I felt validated, inspired and a little more loved by the healthcare industry, and all within a five-minute drive from my house. S'about time, I think, especially since I have to meet with my onc again in about 45 minutes and those appointments are never about making me feel great.
I cried when I read this entry ... not from sadness, but from happiness! I am so glad that someone in the medical profession actually listened to you instead of always giving you things like "these are your options" or "these of the stats for surviving" or "there is another test you have to take". Let's just hope that naturopaths don't ever go the way of the rest of the medical profession .... "your 10 minutes are up .... next".I think you have given all of us disallusioned people hope that positive support can come from others besides family and friends when you need it the most.
ReplyDeletePositive! I'm so happy you found the naturopath a success. It's about bloody time. This is all very interesting. As unfortunate as it is you having cancer, you are teaching all of us every day you write. You are brave, you have strength and you continually amaze everyone around you. I feel I'm riding this right along with you (never done that before); thanks for being so open and sharing. You are already a survivor; count on that. xo
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