Life’s too short – eat the bloody cookie!

I had a fabulous massage today from my friend Laurie (thank you!). She asked me at one point if I am on a special diet during my treatment. I answered her the same way I answer every time I get asked that question (which is all the time). I eat whatever tastes good, and whatever I can keep down.

It’s a flippant answer. But there’s so much public opinion out there about what cancer patients should or should not do/eat/drink/do that it’s the easiest answer to stop the conversation. But I have to be honest – it’s a really tricky thing to navigate.

Yesterday I was in Thrifty’s and Brendan grabbed a bag of their oh so good chocolate chip cookies. In the car on the way home, I had one. See I have always been of the mind that life is too short to deny yourself a cookie. Or a glass of wine. Or a bag of chips. I mean, obviously all things in moderation etc etc. But half way through the cookie I had one of those “planted doubts” surface – you know, those fleeting conversations that you have where someone has planted a seed of fear about something you do because of something that they read somewhere. In this case, it’s the theory that sugar feeds cancer. (It does, by the way – it’s a proven fact.) But half way through the cookie I had the thought – what if this cookie is going to be the one to kill me?

I live in a life of catch 22’s. I mean, for everyone it’s like this, but for someone who already HAS cancer, suddenly it all becomes much more confusing. Life is too short not to enjoy yourself. It’s especially short when you are constantly looking at numbers and statistics and prognoses and TIME. So you try to really enjoy the little things.

But the enjoyable things in life could be the ones that are making your cancer grow. There isn’t a single thing I could put in my mouth that doesn’t have a pro and a con with regards to cancer research. Organic vs non organic (and how do I know it’s really organic? And who can afford to eat organic all the time?). White wine or red wine or no wine at all (sob!). Some of the decisions are much easier than others, but then the “pleasure factor” comes into play. Maybe I just really want to have fries instead of salad, because damn it, I like fries.

One of the things they tell you at chemo class is to avoid anything that could break the skin and cause an infection. Like acupuncture. Or pedicures. This past round I decided enough was enough – I was going to just take the risk and get my toes done. In honour of my Ingress team I chose a great blue polish. And look at that. No infection.

Last week when I went to my pre-chemo oncologist appointment, the nurse was going over the regular list of symptom questions, like nausea, fatigue, any changes to feeling in my hands and feet etc… I said – oh, yah, my toes went blue. The guy almost had a heart attack. I showed him my toes and we all had a good giggle about it. Even Jeff laughed. And he doesn’t laugh about anything cancer related.

So – to eat the cookie or not? Maybe that cookie will be the one to kill me. I won’t know. But it was yummy.