At Long Last

Our long awaited, highly anticipated, much talked about trip is starting today and it feels . . . a little odd to both of us!

Early on during chemo treatments, Joshua and I started dreaming about what we were going to do / where we were going to go once all the treatments, surgeries, radiation, and recovery were over. Talking together about this trip throughout the past few years has been a light at the end of a long tunnel - for us both. It gave us something good to look forward to and focus on throughout some trying times.

So the time is nigh for us to get out and play!
Make memories!
Enjoy time with just the two of us.
Do only what we want to do.
We're ready.

Behold: the Power of Cayenne!

Joshua and I have done a lot of digging to find foods and spices/herbs with "superpowers" - that is, ones that do or may contain anti-cancer properties. One of the spices we've increased our use of is cayenne. - Muy caliente!

"In 2010 researchers from the UCLA School of Medicine studied breast cancer cells and found that capsaicin not only retarded their growth and arrested their ability to travel, but also increased the degree of apoptosis."

-Read more about Cayenne Pepper, Cancer & Tumors in this article on Livestrong's website.

Here are some other interesting links about cayenne pepper:

• University of Maryland Medical Center - uses include: pain relief, psoriasis, weight loss, and other uses
• Web MD - uses and effectiveness for a variety of symptoms
• Livestrong - cayenne pepper health effects, benefits (along w/side effects & interactions), benefits of cayenne pepper pills  
• Health Freedom Resources - a link to their cayenne concentrate dropper bottle, which also has information about cayenne pepper + its uses
• Wikipedia article - all about cayenne peppers

You CAN just use plain ol' cayenne pepper.
- or -
If you're a spice aficionado, try this product!
Joshua puts 1-2 drops on nearly everything
except ice cream!
It boasts "100 times hotter than jalapenos" and
"Scoville rating: 500,000" on the bottle.
It even ate through one medicine dropper top.
YIKES!

Joshua has trained his system to tolerate more peppers and hot, spicy stuff than I can handle, so he usually adds and extra dose to his servings. See the picture to the right for how he doses his food with extra capsaicin.

We do not think cayenne (nor capsaicin, the ingredient in cayenne that makes it hot) is a cancer 'treatment.' Yet we are aware that capsaicin demonstrates the ability to inhibit the growth of cancer cells; research suggests that the compound promotes apoptosis -- the death of cancer cells. 

We don't have any contraindications to using it, so why not give it a try? 

- - - - - - - - - -

For the people that like to know more about everything, here's an informative article about the Scoville scale - used to measure the pungency of chili peppers!

It Takes a Village

THANK YOU: 

family, friends, workmates, co-survivors, acquaintances, neighbors, survivors, blurkers, and others - for reading the Ta-Ta Times blog posts, leaving uplifting and humorous comments, supporting, praying, hoping, and believing.

While I personally know many individuals that have assisted us in this breast cancer journey, I am sure there are many more out there I do not know. I appreciate all of you! Your prayers, cards, thoughts, communication with my family, pick-me-up gifts, laughter, tears, girl dates, check-ins, and everything else have been a major well of support upon which to draw during "low" times.

I want to express my heartfelt thanks - which in some ways, I'm sure, is overdue.

I'd be a big, fat liar if I said there weren't dark times looming in my own head about breast cancer since my diagnosis. All your help when going through treatment and surgeries allowed me to focus on my job at hand: to get through it step-by-step. That was a full time job that sometimes took every bit of what I had in me...and then some. Your meals, help with snowblowing, uplifting emails and cards, and so many other "love exchanges" helped me and my co-survivors navigate through our bumpy roller-coaster ride. We had people to lean on. We had lovely surprises that made life easier for us. Thank you.

I'm in awe at the outpouring of support we received. And at times felt unworthy and uncomfortable accepting your support. However, I soon realized we wouldn't have been as capable of dealing with each day without accepting help graciously, which we learned to do. I lost track of the ways people helped, and the list of thank yous, and I've learned to know that is okay. I needed to just accept help - and I did. And I allowed myself to have a free pass at sending individualized thank yous. Sometimes it's best to help others and not expect anything in return; it's also at times best to accept help and know that it's okay to not have to give back what you've been given in spades. Wow - what a concept!


So this is my little love letter to all of those that supported me and us in our time of need. What a gift you've been! Did you know how much your acts of thoughtfulness meant to us? Please let this shed some light on that fact. Our blessings did not go unnoticed. We took note, we are thankful, and we are doing our best to help others in ways we've learned were most helpful to us. I praise you for reaching out of your comfort zone and helping make a difference in our lives.

It took a village...

...and I realize more than ever that our village is vast, steadfast, and full of sparkle.