Thrive to 105

In working through The Second Half of Life, you have to pass through the Eight Gates of Wisdom.  Who knew, right?  I’ve known for quite some time that I’m wiser than I was 40 years ago; but one would certainly hope that, after all we’ve gone through over four decades, we would come out the other side having learned something!

The first of the eight gates in Angeles Arrien’s book is the Silver Gate:  Facing New Experiences and the Unknown.  I’m sure there are plenty from the Baby Boomer set who would say, “No thanks, I’ll just stick with the familiar and comfortable at this point in my life.”  Personally, I’m intrigued by new experiences; the “unknown” makes it sound a little more ominous!  However, I’m game!

At each Gate in the book we are given a “Task”, a “Challenge”, a “Gift”, “Reflections”, and something we’re supposed to “Practice”.  Apparently, Arrien isn’t going to make it easy for us to get through all eight gates in order to gain all that wisdom.  For the sake of making it a little simpler, I’m going to break down the journey through each gate into one blog post per section mentioned above.  I’m hopeful that some of you reading this will take this journey with me.  As a rule, I think journeys are more fun when you have company!

I’m also holding out hope that for those reading this who aren’t yet in that “Second Half of Life”, they will find it good food for thought.  After all, who’s to say you can’t get a head start on all this wisdom stuff, anyway.

The Task of the Silver Gate includes acceptance of the aging process we’re going through, the aging of both our minds and our bodies.  That’s already a hard one, don’t you think?  This means, as is pointed out in the book, letting go of our egos.  There are times when I tell myself to just let go, that it is too much work to fight it.  Then there is the other side of me that has for years said that I’m going kicking and screaming!  What I find appealing is that in letting go and accepting where we’re headed, we find freedom.

With this freedom comes the opportunity to experience not only our status as “elders”, but also discover new adventures.  Of course, the author tells us we need to:

…see our lives with new eyes so we can begin to prepare for the ultimate new experience, which is our death.

Yeah…I’m not so sure about that “adventure”.  Not that I’m afraid of acknowledging it is on my journey somewhere down the road; I’m just not ready to travel that path quite yet!  I’ve got too much living to do first…too much to discover about the next 50 years of my life!

The “essential” task of this first gate, the Silver Gate, is to live this part of your life “like a river flows” with flexibility and perseverance.  Arrien challenges us, at this gate, to:

…return to a fresh innocence and resourcefulness as we fully explore the spirit of fluency, looking at our world with expanded curiosity.

The poem she quotes, by John O’Donohue, called Fluent does give a very simple, yet attracting way, of looking at how to live life:

I would love to live

Like a river flows,

Carried by the surprise

Of its own unfolding

Float trip anyone?!!

We all know that being overweight is an unhealthy state for our bodies, not just as we age, but all throughout our lives.  Heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, joint and movement problems…and on and on; these are but a few of the troubling health issues that the overweight and obese contend with daily.

Now there is new research divulging another difficulty inherent, it seems, with being overweight or obese.  Previous studies had been done on smaller “samples”; however, for this study, 730 people (70% female), having an average age of 60, were used.  What they looked for in the study was the association between the subjects’ body mass index (BMI), their waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio and the CT measure of their abdominal fat and their overall brain volume.

The study was led by scientist, Sudha Seshadri, an associate professor of neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine.   What was found  was that:

Brain regions key to cognition are smaller in older people who are obese compared with their leaner peers, making their brains look up to 16 years older than their true age. As brain shrinkage is linked to
dementia, this adds weight to the suspicion that piling on the pounds may up a person’s risk of the brain condition.

Other information from the research, which should be a wake-up call to those under the age of 50, is that for those in their 30s who have larger stomachs with a lot of visceral fat, it is highly likely their brains will be smaller as they get into their second half of life (50s and above).  The shrinking of the brain is linked to the fact that added weight reduces not only blood flow to the brain, but also nutrients and oxygen.

These studies are also showing a link between obesity and Alzheimer’s, because the blood of those who are obese generally has too much insulin.  Insulin does not get rid of amyloid plaque as well as blood that is healthy does; this amyloid plaque can then lead to brain damage in the Alzheimer patient.

Another scary fact that a recent imaging study has found is that (on average) the obese participants’ brain volume was 8% lower than those of a normal weight.  Their brains also

…looked 16 years older than the brains of those who were lean; and in overweight people, they looked 8 years older.

Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are both conditions that all of us over 50 think about, especially as we care for parents who are suffering right now from one or both.  It would seem to me that this should be a good incentive to want to take off some weight…added, of course, to all the other health problems I mentioned above.

I don’t know about you, but “thriving” as I get older does not include dementia or Alzheimer’s (even though there is a history of it in my father’s family).  If you do struggle with weight issues, I hope that this information may be something that will motivate you to think about how you can make changes that will positively affect your future overall health and well-being.

I can’t believe it’s been seven months since I posted regarding The Second Half of Life book!  That means, of course, it’s been seven months since I’ve done anything with it!  In my defense, I’ve been going through the “…abrupt, unexpected changes…” in my life that the book tells us we can go through in order to “…align with what truly touches our hearts and has meaning for us.”

Since writing the post in October, I have been diagnosed with breast cancer (which has been a journey all unto itself), moved into a new apartment (which I told you I’m in love with), continued building my freelance writing business (which is still in its infancy), cultivated new friends and relationships, and even welcomed a new granddaughter, Josie!

In revisiting all my highlighted notes and mini-Post-Its (which I’m addicted to), I’m reminded of the unbelievable insights this book has to offer.  Arrien, the author, tells us that during the second half of our lives “…a fundamental and primal shift from ambition to meaning occurs.”  This shift is, she shares, what brings us to the Eight Gates of Wisdom.  In our search for meaning in our lives at this point, according to Arrien, we must make the “…journey of descent and ascent in which we reclaim the authentic self and release the false self.”

This is not an easy journey!  Who among us really enjoys looking too long or hard at the parts of our inner selves that are less than admirable…maybe even downright egotistical and self-serving!  Arrien does a great job of describing this:

In both directions, we encounter our shadows, the unclaimed, undesired, and un-befriended aspects of our natures.  To become fully developed human beings, we must confront both our demons and our angels.  If we can do this successfully, we free ourselves from the illusion of who we think we are.  We are delivered into the mystery of our true, essential being and are able to generate a new domain of freedom that is anchored in wisdom, love, and faith.

In this section, Arrien references a book that I have not yet purchased (big surprise!!!), Transformation: Growth and Change in Adult Life, by Roger Gould. In his book, she tells us, he explains how hard it is to acquire the freedom referenced above.  It’s especially difficult, as one would expect, on the descent part of the journey, “…which requires us to realistically and honestly look at our lives without denial, indulgence or embellishment.”  Arrien then relates:

To achieve an adult sense of freedom, we must come to terms with unresolved anger, disappointment, despair, fear, and feelings of repugnance concerning death.  We can no longer harbor our illusions, aversions or attachments.  Recognizing these feelings is only the first step.  We have to act, to descend into our inner terrain and dispel all that is false and at odds with our essential being.  The raw experience of descent prepares the way for increased self-knowledge and self-acceptance that are honest and true, anchored in a kind of self-confidence that is neither inflated nor deflated.  The descent allows us to experience the ascent with genuine hopefulness, curiosity, and an ennobled spirit.

I love that last line!  When I re-read this section this morning, it confirmed for me something I’ve already dealt with since my diagnosis…the disease was a gift that forced me to take a long, hard look at what has gone on in my life (especially in the last few years).  It also was a huge motivation for examining my personality traits and how they have served and NOT served me for much of my life.  It forced me to ruminate on my feelings regarding death.

One awareness I have had since my diagnosis is that I have a lot of knowledge, information, and insights to share; and the gift I was given (the love of writing…especially in the first person) is how I’m meant to do that.  It is my passion, and I’ve finally allowed myself the luxury of doing it with a purpose in mind.

If you’re in your second half of life, I hope you’ll take this journey with me.  If you’re not, I hope you’ll listen and learn in anticipation of your second half.  Part of why I’m doing this is so that my children, hopefully, will glean something from my experience that will make their journeys a little easier and less of a surprise when the time comes!

Have you had any significant happenings in your life that have already started to lead you on your journey?  I’d love to hear about them!

WOW…well over a month since I posted to my blog! I guess another apology is in order…this time for human error rather than technical difficulties! It’s kind of like the cobbler’s kid having no shoes; a writer never gets time to write her own “stuff” when she’s busy writing everyone else’s!

For those of you who don’t communicate with me personally on a daily or weekly basis, an update is in order. I’m not sure I had shared in my blog what “therapy” I had been doing very soon after my diagnosis, aside from drastically changing my eating habits, resting more, and lowering my stress. I had been following a protocol researched and discovered by a German doctor way back when, Dr. Budwig, who actually was nominated for seven Nobel Prizes for her research. She found that a mixture of flax seed oil and cottage cheese taken daily had a certain effect on the outer “shell” of cancer cells, which left them vulnerable and able to be destroyed by a healthy immune system.

It seemed easy enough, although I did resort to making it into a smoothie with frozen berries and some almond milk each morning. While I did that, I continued to read and research and found something that I found more interesting and (hopefully) a little more promising. It is a product called Protocel, which was developed decades ago and thwarted by the FDA and others over the years. So now it is sold online as simply a health supplement. It’s taken five times a day (which can be a bit challenging), and more than six hours cannot lapse between doses. The great thing about this “treatment” is that I can be a little more lax on my diet, i.e. I can eat a little meat, such as chicken. I can also have honey and pure maple syrup, and a moderate amount of whole grain carbs. The other stipulations have to do with avoiding certain supplements (high doses of Vitamin C and E, as well as COQ10, which I had been taking) and other alternative treatments.

In addition, I’m taking ellagic acid (raspberry seed extract) twice a day. This is one of the alternative treatments that doesn’t interfere with the effectiveness of the Protocel.

Without getting into any long explanations, Protocel literally attacks the cells themselves and “kills” them; and your body eliminates the dead cells through a process called “lysing”. This elimination can happen in many ways…runny nose, “crusty” eyes, daily body “functions”, etc. Tiredness in the first few weeks is about the only side effect. I’ll take that over hair loss, nausea, and the decimation of my immune system any day!

Oh yes, I also went to see an oncologist finally. It wasn’t a horrible visit overall, and I did learn a couple good facts regarding my biopsy that I hadn’t been told before. I learned my cells are estrogen receptive, which means estrogen feeds them, so I won’t be doing any bio-identical hormone replacement anytime soon. I also learned that they measure the “proliferation rate” of the cells and found 67% of mine were not prone to “proliferate” and only 23% were, which I think is pretty good odds. With what I’m doing right now, I’m thinking I can control that 23% and, in the end, get rid of all of them!

Of course, she encouraged me to do the standard of care treatment (chemo, surgery, radiation), to which I again said “NO!” In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, she told me they would first want me to do a short round of chemo BEFORE the surgery, which made absolutely no sense to me! Why do something that is going to destroy my immune system, then do surgery on diseased cells that will probably be released into my system elsewhere, into an immune system that has been compromised by previously ingested poison! It seems just so ludicrous! I was also asked what is in the Protocel. When I couldn’t tell her the ingredients, she told me I should at least know what was in it if I was going to be taking it. Later, reviewing the conversation at home, I thought, “I wouldn’t know what is in the chemotherapy drugs, but you’d expect me to take them!!!” At least I know I can take Protocel every day for years, and it won’t kill me!

So that’s my update! I’m feeling good, except for needing naps regularly; and I get kind of bored with my current meal plan. Much of that is my fault for being too lazy to prepare different recipes. It’s just easier to reach in and grab the organic greens/spinach, organic broccoli, bell pepper, celery, etc. and throw my homemade salad dressing on it! Bon appétit!

Two nights in a row of insomnia.  It’s currently 4:18 a.m.  I think exhaustion and my Sleepy Time Tea may finally be kicking in (that and an hour of reading Facebook posts and email).

I think part of my problem has to be brain overload.  I’m reading soooooooooooooooooooo much about treating cancer the natural way that some days I feel as though my head is going to explode!  It makes me obsessive at times now.  For instance…my lack of sleep…does not give my body the amount of time it needs to regenerate and get rejuvenated!  If I take naps later today, will that make up for at least part of my lack of sleep tonight?

Do people who are diagnosed with other life threatening diseases obsess over every little choice they make?  No sugar anymore…but is a tablespoon of honey in my green tea okay?  Limited carbs…but is my occasional whole grain baguette with my soup at Bread Co okay?  What if I eat an occasional homemade potato chip in a restaurant?  Am I eating enough “green stuff” each day?  Not eating meat…but damn…someone just told me shellfish are bad.  Alkaline water is preferable and so is organic everything!  No more regular milk or soy…almond milk, instead!  Thank God berries are highly recommended…but what if I can’t find organic ones???  Sheesh!

Of course, all the obsessing is definitely worth the outcome, which I’m feeling extremely positive about every day!  Besides, I can now fit into some capris that I haven’t worn in at least three or four years, so I guess I won’t complain too much!   LOL….

Just a quick little message to apologize for the read-ability of my last post!  This blog “theme” is quite dysfunctional, and I’m currently looking for a new one to replace it that will be not only more author friendly, but also more reader friendly, as well.  I know some people have complained they can’t post comments and can’t subscribe, etc.

I’m very sorry for these issues, and I will be correcting them very soon!!

Years and years ago, Jim (my ex-husband and close friend) and I were people watching.  I commented, “Have you noticed that, even though all of us have the same things to work with (eyes, nose, ears, mouth), none of us look the same?”  It’s quite amazing, I think!  Now it’s a running joke between us whenever we’re in a crowd.

That “revelation” should also be carried over to our internal “looks”.  We all (or most of us) start with the same parts:  heart, lungs, liver, brain, intestines, cells, etc.; however, the lives we lead soon make all of us so different on the inside.  Yet the traditional medical community wants to treat those of us diagnosed with cancer as identical!  They recommend a “standard of care” treatment that generally follows a daunting route…surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.  In the traditional medical community, the faster they can get you under the knife and start introducing radiation and chemicals into your body, the faster they can “cure” you (or so they want you to believe).  Worse, if your cancer is in an advanced stage, they make the horrifying mistake of actually giving you a death sentence, turning off your brain to optimistic possibilities, and squashing what little hope you may be trying to cling to in order to get through treatment and RECOVER!!!

As I mentioned a couple of  weeks ago, I am doing a lot of reading about cancer…which I will be sharing in upcoming posts…but two of the most important things I’ve learned in the past two months are:

• People should be made aware that they have OPTIONS!  If someone (a surgeon or oncologist) tells you you have to have surgery, radiation, and/or chemotherapy, you need to understand that those are not your only options!  I’m not here to tell anyone what to do or that they should ignore the recommendations of their doctors…if they feel that is best for them and feel confident that the recommended treatment will make them better.  What I am saying is that you should “Take a deep breath” (which is what my very good friend, Linda, told me immediately after my diagnosis).  Do at least a little bit of research and reading, if only to find out how to make yourself the strongest you can be in order to come through surgery with the best odds of surviving without a recurrence or how to tolerate the chemicals you may be given.  YOU HAVE OPTIONS…AND IT’S IMPORTANT THAT YOU KNOW THIS!!

• No two people are alike.  Now, as you can tell from my story at the beginning of this post, I had already “discovered” this some time ago; but I’d never really considered it regarding my internal problems until my diagnosis.  NO TWO PEOPLE ARE ALIKE INTERNALLY, AND THIS SHOULD BE CONSIDERED WHEN TREATING CANCER. Although there are some things that all people who are diagnosed with cancer should do (which I will talk about at a later time), there are many things that should be assessed individually.  “Cookie cutter” treatment (surgery, radiation, chemotherapy) is not a good “standard of care”.

In upcoming posts, I will share a lot of what I’m learning in my attempt to “thrive to 105“!  I am confident that this little “blip on the radar screen” is not going to set me back or prevent me from getting there.  In fact, it may actually have been something I needed in order to assure I reach my goal!

I have four minutes to make this my weekly, Wednesday Information Junkie post.  I should be in bed by now (don’t tell my watch dogs), but I had to post a client blog; and now I want to do my own!

Since I’m so “in tune” with anything to do with the ‘c’ word, and since spring is sprung (or close enough) and that means barbecues will be coming out, I thought I’d pass along a “Cancer-Quashing” marinade posted in Prevention last summer.  I shy away, as much as possible, from barbecued meat, because I know that it can contain carcinogens.  But I had heard that marinading the meat did cut down on those nasty things.  The marinade should be wine or beer based (this from the University of Porto in Portugal).  According to this study, soaking your meat for six hours lowered the “heterocyclic amines” (that’s the bad stuff in the crust of the meat when bbq’d) by 88%.  A Kansas State University study reported a 77% reduction when rosemary was used in cooking the beef.  So here is the marinade to try when grilling your next steak or hamburgers:

Dark beer (i.e. Guinness), garlic, rosemary, olive oil, low-sodium soy sauce, and dark brown sugar OR

Red wine, olive oil, red wine vinegar, rosemary, and garlic.  Season both of these with fresh pepper.

Okay…here is another interesting bit of info.  I think last week’s Information Junkie post had information on men and getting them aroused.  Truly, I’m not searching out this kind of info; but if it helps somebody with their love life, why should I keep it to myself?

Researchers in Israel found that in men with moderate to severe ED (erectile dysfunction), 15% had chronic gum disease.  Men who did not have ED had only 2% chronic gum disease.  So guys, while your lady is baking you a pumpkin pie and putting lavender oil behind her ears…go brush and floss your teeth!

That’s it for the Information Junkie tonight.  Bedtime!  My wonderful, healthy white blood cells need their rest!

Being an information junkie has its drawbacks, but right now it definitely is working to my benefit.  There is SO much information to be had if you’re open to knowing more than what you can get in a 15-minute visit with your surgeon or other doctor.

In their book called, Getting Well Again, Carl and Stephanie Simonton outline their research and an actual six-week program for helping those who are sick to use their minds as an aid to their healing process.  It’s a “step-by-step, self-help guide to overcoming cancer for patients and their families”.  Carl is an oncologist; Stephanie a psychiatrist…a powerful combination for the kind of work they’ve been doing for over three decades!

Part One of the book is titled:  The Mind and Cancer.  The first chapter is: The Mind-Body Connection; A Psychological Approach to Cancer Treatment.  It starts out dealing with the will to live, talks about the “whole-person approach” to treating cancer and discusses putting theory into practice.  My big takeaway from this chapter was:

It is our central premise that an illness is not purely a physical problem, but rather a problem of the whole person, that it includes not only body but mind and emotions.  We believe that emotional and mental states play a significant role both in susceptibility to disease, including cancer, and in recovery from all disease.  We believe that cancer is often an indication of problems elsewhere in an individual’s life, problems aggravated or compounded by a series of stresses six to eighteen months prior to the onset of cancer.  The cancer patient has typically responded to these problems and stresses with a deep sense of hopelessness, or “giving up”.  This emotional response, we believe, in turn triggers a set of physiological responses that suppress the body’s natural defenses and make it susceptible to producing abnormal cells.

WOW! As so many who are diagnosed with cancer must feel, I wondered “why” and “how” when I first heard the ‘c’ word.  But it made a lot of sense after reading the very detailed explanation in this book.  Eighteen months prior to my diagnosis (or possibly 24) I had the whole laundry list of events in my life that cause the most stress: I moved, I got married, I lost my job, my stepmom died, my relationships with the people I loved were strained, I got divorced.  At times I did feel a sense of hopelessness.  It makes so much more sense now.

Now understanding how the cells can become “abnormal”, it isn’t a hard segue to start wondering if it isn’t possible…with the right kind of physical and mental forces applied…to transform them into “normal” cells again.

We shall see!

As I alluded to in a FaceBook status posting recently, I’m a book addict. I LOVE books, and I love to buy books.  The only problem is I don’t always have time to read books, thus I have a ton of them.

In the initial days of living in my new, wonderful apartment, I opened a box of books to unpack. On the top of the pile was a book I don’t even remember buying. It’s title…Making Miracles: An Exploration Into the Dynamics of Self-Healing (How 11 incurable patients battled illness – and won). If that wasn’t a ‘sign’, I don’t know what is!  I immediately found time to read this book!

In this day and age with millions of people out of work and millions without health insurance (like me), our initial reaction when faced with health issues is that our options are very limited…go into deep debt or get sicker! But yesterday morning it occurred to me that this is one of the “whys” of my path right now…to learn about different options and to share them with others like me or others who know and love someone like me. Our bodies are miraculous in and of themselves, and we seem to forget that reality as we go through the motions of everyday living. But this book is inspiring and enlightening!

One of the most well-known subjects in the book is Norman Cousins, who was the Executive Editor of the Saturday Review and an advocate for world peace, as well as the healing powers of our bodies. He cured himself from a terminal illness through massive doses of Vitamin C and laughter, literally restricting himself to a hotel room where he watched funny TV shows and movies and had a nurse read humorous stories to him. Years later he also recovered from congestive heart failure and a heart attack without surgery.

Here is a quote from the Norman Cousins’ interview with the author (Dr. Paul C. Roud) of the Making of Miracles:

The doctors would call my absolute confidence denial, but it can be beneficial to deny, to defy the verdict you think is attached to the diagnosis. If you can recognize that the diagnosis is a challenge, not a verdict, and that there are resources to work with, and not all of them lie outside yourself, you can liberate the body from the complicating factors caused by fear. It seems to me that this frees the healing system – whatever that is – to assert itself and also creates an environment in which medical treatment can do its best.

I doubt there are many of us in this day and age who aren’t aware of the terrible toll that depression and stress can have on our physical well-being. Unfortunately, our health insurance and national healthcare systems aren’t helping the sick feel confident, calm, and upbeat. But maybe if more of us become educated in the option that moves us away from dependence on strict, scientific medical treatments, we can help ourselves!

Again, from Norman Cousins:

Panic, fear, and depression inhibit the ability of the body’s own apothecary to function properly.

Helplessness is a product of our education; we seem to be convinced that serious illness always proceeds in a straight line unless interrupted by some outside agencies. It’s a kind of education that prepares us for weakness rather than strength. We’re not educated in the essential robustness of the human body. Consequently, victory seems to be very elusive.

Personally, I refuse to feel helpless, fearful or depressed! I refuse to let victory elude me!