Category Archives: Cancer

Sunscreens

Stop with the hormone disruptors, Mom. Sheesh!

Let me first apologize for being SO late on this. For heaven’s sake it’s mid-June and I still haven’t written anything about sunscreens. It’s hard to feel a sense of urgency when it’s raining.

This is one of those stupidly-complicated topics. There’s a lot to cover here, no time to dilly-dally, no messing around, I’m going to get right to it.

First, the Vitamin D issue… We need Vitamin D for bone strength, strong immune system function, and studies have suggested high levels may reduce the risk of some forms of cancer. Many of us who live in the northern territories (rain!) are D deficient. The best source of Vitamin D is sunshine on bare, sunscreen-free skin for about 20 minutes a day.

The best way to prevent sunburns is to cover up. Wide brimmed hats, light-weight, long-sleeved shirts, tube socks worn under Velcro sandals are all a good way to go. OK, you can skip the tube socks, but they epitomize how I feel when I go into the sun completely covered: like a total nerd. I save this special look for working in the yard or any time I don’t really care. Whenever I can go with a completely, or partially, covered look I do. I’m always in search of cute sun hats (that also double as rain hats).

If you’re going to wear sunscreen, the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) 2010 Sunscreen Guide.  is a great resource. When choosing a sunscreen, the first question to ask is: can I tolerate a mineral sunscreen? If yes, the EWG approved mineral sunscreens listed here offer the best protection without any chemicals considered to be hormone disruptors.

Mineral sunscreens are often thick and white and don’t rub into the skin completely. I’ve yet to find one that doesn’t turn Josie’s skin bright blue. I mean bright blue. She doesn’t burn easily and I do my best to keep her covered. If I can’t keep her covered and we’re working in the yard or somewhere she won’t get strange looks, I put mineral sunscreen on her. If we’re out at a beach or some fun place with other people and I don’t want her to look like she just stepped out of Avatar, I occasionally (but rarely) put a non-mineral, well-rated sunscreen, which contains at least one hormone disruptor, on her exposed skin.

Gasp! A hormone disruptor on my baby? This is a good time to remember that we’re trying to decrease the overall toxic load on our bodies across a broad range of categories (foods, cosmetics, air quality, etc). We (and by we I mean I) do the best we can but sometimes we have to compromise even for purely cosmetic purposes.

Of the 500 sunscreens the Environmental Working Group evaluated, they recommend only 39 (8%). Here’s why:

  1. Many sunscreen manufacturers make exaggerated SPF claims that cannot be proven.
  2. There’s new information on two common sunscreen ingredients: Vitamin A and Oxybenzone. A recent study found tumors and lesions develop faster on skin coated with Vitamin A and Oxybenzone is a synthetic estrogen found in 97% of bodies that were tested by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

If you have a sunscreen you use and love, you can look for its rating here.

If you want to buy a product not on the list, here are some things to keep in mind:

  1. Stick to SPF 15-50
  2. Avoid ingredient Vitamin A also known as retinyl palmitate
  3. Avoid ingredient oxybenzone
  4. Avoid sunscreens with insect repellant

In case you couldn’t already tell, the federal Food and Drug Administration still has not issued regulations for sunscreens makers. Thank goodness for EWG.

Now, get out there and enjoy the sun, but for heaven’s sake, don’t tell me about it (rain!).

More Dangerous than the Marshmallow Man

Nothing scary to see here.

I was getting caught up on some light blog reading about cancer treatment, chemicals in children’s medicine, and toxic sunscreens when I came across this fun story about McDonald’s voluntary recall of 12 million Shrek-decorated glasses after complaints of cadmium contamination were lodged with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Cadmium is considered more toxic than lead and even low levels have been linked to health problems including kidney damage and fragile bones. One of those complaint-lodgers was thesmartmama.com.    

Here’s how I imagine this story went down: this woman blogger, goes to McDonalds, orders a Shrek glass full of something or she gets the empty Shrek glass as a promotion, (not sure how that works) anyway, she has the Shrek glass. It’s sitting on a tray. When the guy cashier turns around to get some fries she takes a small Bond-style camera pen-like device out of her inside jacket pocket. Or, even better, she takes out a Ghost Busters PKE meter with the arms that stick out and the little red lights  (Did you know there’s a site that contains instructions on how to make all the Ghost Busters equipment at home? Of course you did.) She points the tool, which detects cadmium, at the ink on the outside of the glass and the thing goes crazy. She’s thrown back by the force of the charge (don’t cross the streams!). Someone helps her off the floor, she takes the data to the CPSC, the glasses are recalled and (spoiler alert!) and the marshmallow man is killed in the end.   

Perhaps it didn’t happen quite this way, but this part is the truth: this woman has her OWN Thermo Fisher Scientific Niton XRF analyzer. Total rock star. She tested all of the parts of the glasses herself. The worst offender: yellow lion of Puss in Boots. Like Mr. Stay Puft, I don’t think I’ll ever look at the lion the same way again.

Housekeeping

This might be my favorite picture ever.

Happy Birthday! This has become a standard greeting in our house. Josie wishes me one at least 10 times a day, sometimes with song, sometimes not. I’ve stopped explaining that mine isn’t for a few months and hers isn’t for another six months. I’m rolling with it and thought I’d share the love with you.

Also: interesting conversation in the comments section of My Love of Pockets about why conventional blueberries, which used to be on the consistently clean side of the list, are suddenly #5 on the worst list.

And! In the ongoing quest to find organic BPA-free tomatoes we have a new provider, or at least we will soon. To get caught up on the other sources you can read the comments on this post Hey Everyone Let’s Panic and the next follow up Suspense (and BPA-Free canned tomatoes!). And Muir Glen just announced that with the next tomato harvest they’ll be using BPA-free can liners. Oh gluten-free joy!

My Love of Pockets

Stuff that grows on docks (not really) part VII

I guess I have a thing for pockets. I was mining my notebook for nuggets of entertainment, humor or trivia (slim, very slim) when I came across this little bit about things I carry in my pockets (Elmo undies, sleep caps, dog poop bags, tissue).

A Pocket for Corduroy was my favorite book as a child (so glad I could solve that little mystery for you).

There are times in life when pocket space is at a particular premium, like when I travel. When Paul and I were on our 8-month, round-the-world honeymoon, my pockets were always stuffed. In hot climates I carried a sweat rag. I carried room keys, luggage locks, bits of paper with addresses and locations, translations for cab drivers, bus tickets. The most valuable tool was the compass that Paul carried. We both have a terrible sense of direction. We got very good at reading maps, retracing our steps and communicating with locals in hand gestures and puppetry when all else failed (little games of charades all over the world!). Anyway, where was I?

Yes, parenthood is another one of those times when pocket space is at a premium. There are snacks to carry and sippy cups, barrettes and beads that are pulled out of hair on long car rides. There are little toys, mini monkeys that little girls get from coin machines at diners where their daddies take them. There is lip balm for the chapped-lip types like myself. There are napkins and used bandages and some unstuck stickers in case a certain little girl uses the potty. You get the idea. There’s a lot of stuff to carry but that’s not my point. There’s another point I’m getting to here…

The most valuable pocket tool of all time: the Environmental Working Group’s list of the “dirtiest” and “cleanest” conventionally grown fruits and vegetables. The top of the list contains produce that, even when grown conventionally, doesn’t carry a heavy load of pesticides. The bottom of the list contains the most pesticide-laden fruits and vegetables. You can lower your pesticide intake by 4/5ths if you avoid the conventionally-grown versions of the 12 most contaminated items on this list.

Take a look. Do you see peaches, apples, strawberries and blueberries at the bottom? Berry season is here and the peaches, the peaches are coming. Print it off. You don’t really have to carry it in your pocket but I would recommend carrying it in your purse, or your wallet, or wherever else you carry things because it’s important.

A New Story

We have things to do.

The past few months, when I’ve thought about my approaching five year cancerversary (anniversary of diagnosis), I’ve considered all kinds of ways to celebrate. But the truth is, that week, that whole month in fact, was busy. Real busy. I could see it coming well ahead of time with the events/commitments/fun all piling on top of each other on the calendar – Paul’s ship party, my mother’s birthday party, my mother’s back surgery, a night of sailing, a friend to pick up from the airport, a writing retreat.

Then there was a blog post to write. At first I thought I would tell the story of the breast cancer diagnosis and of the day I found out it was Inflammatory Breast Cancer and the sensational article I stumbled across, during my first terrifying breast cancer awareness month, that stated in simple terms it wasn’t an issue of if but when the cancer would come back and that there was a 90% chance I’d be dead in 5 years. But I don’t want to tell these stories again. They’ve all been written and told. Instead I want to tell new stories.

I want to tell the story of my mother’s birthday party. There’s my great husband who struggles with a punctuality problem who, of course, forgets he’s supposed to leave work early. There’s his meeting that runs long. There’s the changing of the child into her party dress in the parking lot of my grandmother’s retirement home. There’s our late arrival. There’s my daughter’s uncharacteristic disinterest in her grandparents, her inability to eat dinner, her intense dislike of her own chair. Then there’s my daughter’s barf, all over my great husband, all over the table and the carpet. There’s the rushing to the bathroom and changing out of her party dress and into the ugly and too-small backup outfit. There’s the rinsing of the party dress in the sink and the janitor cleaning up the carpet. There’s our return to the dining room for just long enough to say our goodbyes and go home and feed our dog who is starving and exhausted after a weekend of long-distance swimming adventures.  

The next day there’s a sick baby (and I do mean ‘baby’ here, not toddler, because when she’s sick, she will always be my baby) and soup to be made and my mother’s surgery and flowers to be gathered to be taken to the hospital, and hospital rooms to be visited and doctor’s appointments to be made and none of this. None of it is for me.

This story, and my life right now, is exactly as it should be.

On Not Being Shipwrecked

Stuff that grows on docks part V.

Doug and I have been racing small sailboats on and off together for about twelve years, since right after I moved back from Chicago, a punk kid talking trash about roll tacks and gybe angles. (No, you don’t need to know what these things mean to understand this post, just appreciate how those words sound together.)

We went through a period where we bickered like teenage sisters – yelling at each other at starts and mark roundings, anytime things got a little stressy. Then something happened. Maybe it was maturity. Maybe we’d learned how to communicate from our significant others. Maybe we started talking to each other on and off the water. Maybe it was all of these things.

He’d tell me what he expected as the skipper, the decisions I should make, the information he needed about wind shifts, compass headings and fleet position. I told him how much notice I needed and the tone of voice I required.

We’d just started the sailing season five years ago when I was diagnosed with cancer. My oncologist told me I should try to keep doing things that brought me joy, even while (especially while) I was in chemo. Since I sailed every Tuesday night, I scheduled chemo for Wednesday mornings so Tuesdays would be my best, strongest, least nauseous day. I marched through the summer, a freaked-out skeleton, covered in sun screen and topped with a wide-brimmed hat. Sailing was, and has always been, my thing. It was one of the few things I held on to.

I don’t remember talking about cancer on the boat. I couldn’t. I had to sail. When we’re on the boat it’s all about wind pressure, sail trim and right of way. It‘s complete immersion that demands physical and mental devotion. It was my only escape, the only time when my long-term survival drifted to the back of my mind. I didn’t miss a single night that season.

I happened to be having coffee with Doug this winter when his doctor called to tell him he had Medullary Thyroid Cancer. We talked and emailed over the following weeks and months through his surgery and follow up scans and blood work, about the world of cancer in general and his cancer in particular. Our diseases were different but the ever-present fear of recurrence is now something we share.

The 2010 season started a few weeks ago. Doug is through with treatment and cancer-free. He’s light a thyroid now, his upper body strength isn’t what it used to be, and his vocal cords were jimmied enough during surgery that he has a hard time speaking loudly, but we were out there. We didn’t talk at all about tumor markers, scans or surgeons, only about lifts and headers, lay lines and mark roundings. We spent some time working on the coordination of our roll tacks – pushing all our combined weight to one rail to turn the boat then jumping to the other side to flatten as the boat accelerated. Even when our coordination was completely off, everything felt right. We were doing exactly what we should be doing, watching the wind move across the water, and holding down the rail of that boat.

Too pretty for just one picture.

Good News for the Hystericals

Stuff that grows on docks (or doesn't anymore) part IV.

Breaking news: John Oliver of the Daily Show reports chilly neck breezes to be the leading killer of British people.

I could write a post about the importance of scarves or, as John Oliver argued, ascots, for everyone, not just the British. Some days it seems like almost anything can be proven hazardous or healthful if the right study is conducted by the right (or wrong) people.

But I’m not going to write that post because I can write about this: last week, President Obama’s cancer panel  filed a report stating that the contribution of chemicals and pollutants to the growing rate of cancers has been “grossly underestimated.” New hope and validation in the land of the hysterical.

The report also said that “With the growing body of evidence linking environmental exposures to cancer, the public is becoming increasingly aware of the unacceptable burden of cancer resulting from environmental and occupational exposures that could have been prevented through appropriate national action.” Appropriate national action… That would be so awesome.

This from a Washington Post article: “Children are particularly vulnerable because they are smaller and are developing faster than adults, the panel found. The report noted unexplained rising rates of some cancers in children, and it referred to recent studies that have found industrial chemicals in umbilical-cord blood, which supplies nutrients to fetuses. ‘To a disturbing extent, babies are born ‘pre-polluted,’ the panel wrote.”

The end result was a recommendation that the government overhaul the laws regulating the chemical industry. Wouldn’t that be something? 

The Basics

I'm not always good.

Over Easter weekend, Josie’s grandma sent her a beaded bracelet. I was sitting at Josie’s little table, my knees tucked comfortably under my chin, when Josie decided Mommy should wear the bracelet. I pulled my fingers together and she slid it onto my wrist. Then she took one step back, crossed her arms, tilted her head to one side and then to the other and said, “Oh, cute!”

I don’t know exactly when she saw me do that but it was clearly me. No question. We’ve moved into the mimic phase. Speaking of little mimics, I have a funny story to share: one day when my sister went to pick up her two-and-a-half-year-old from daycare, my niece pulled a baggie of snacks out of her bag, held it up and said, I kid you not, “These aren’t my f*cking goldfish.” Gee, I wonder where she picked up that sentence construction and vocabulary. Ah, I do love that story.

My point: I’ve been trying to be a good girl. I try not to curse… often, I wash my hands frequently, and I try to eat well and get plenty of sleep.

I haven’t always been a good eater. I was on an elimination diet – no gluten, dairy, soy, sugar, egg or nuts – when I was diagnosed with cancer. I had chronic abdominal pain and gi problems and I thought of food as something that made me sick. I ate plain chicken and steamed vegetables. I drank distilled water. That was it. I was all knees and elbows and weighed 30 pounds less than I do now.   

After my cancer diagnosis, a nutritionist pointed out that if I didn’t start eating, and stop losing weight, I wouldn’t be able to get chemo. And then where will you be? Not much later, I saw a naturopath who told me the most important things I could do were eat and sleep.

These two statements revolutionized my approach to health. I had always thought of diet and nutrition as vaguely important, but in my previous healthier days, I ate primarily for pleasure or to fill my stomach. Gradually, I began to think of eating as an opportunity to stay healthy through chemo and to boost my immune system.

Even when I got busy and run-down from treatment, my goals were clear. Meal planning, grocery (and sometimes handbag) shopping, and cooking, activities that used to be conducted on a time available basis, were suddenly worth cancelling plans to accomplish.

Let’s just stop there and think about this: cancelling plans so you can go to the grocery store.

Is there anything more important than your health? Eating and sleeping, these are the skills I want my little mimic to learn.

Now tell me about you. Do you make eating and sleeping priorities? Have I told you how much I love it when you leave me comments? Have I mentioned how cute you look today?

48% Fatter

Perhaps you're wondering where that spare tire came from.

One of the things that bloggers are supposed to be good at is taking the news, quickly distilling it, providing an opinion and sending it back out into the world. The key word here: quickly. I’m just catching on to that whole idea. I tend to read something, mull it over, check my email, read about it again, maybe eventually write something, take some pictures, send it to someone to proofread, eat some dinner, then maybe, eons later, post it.

The news on high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has been one of these issues. There’s lots of mouth-breathing going on over here (and not just because I’m thinking hard, but because Josie is potty-training and you know what that means: poop. Lots of uncontained poop.)

All this to say: oops, sorry for the delay but here’s the news in case you haven’t heard.

A Princeton Research team discovered that rats with access to HFCS and rat chow gained 48% more weight (mostly in the abdomen) than rats with access to cane sugar and rat chow. Did you hear that people? 48%. I did all that thinking and mulling and mouth breathing for nothing because I just don’t really have anything to add. 48% kinda speaks for itself, no?

One more thing, along with the weight gain came an increase in circulating triglycerides, and an increase in risks of developing, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, diabetes and (wait for it wait for it) cancer. Doesn’t it always come back to cancer?

Redesigned

I love this photo becuase it says so much about Judy.

I think I mentioned that I went away, into the woods, the weekend before last, no? What I didn’t mention was that I was with a group of women I met when I was in treatment. We were all diagnosed young. We were all scared. Now we’re all lucky enough to be at least 5 years out (well, almost for me).

We’d met that way before, in a big house with a gigantic deck and a hot tub where we could talk about our issues and have them be normal and relatable. We talked about our multi-racial families, about problems with the medical establishment, about our friends who were, very noticeably, absent. We didn’t talk about the mound of vitamins I took with every meal, or my bottled water, or my sleeping pills, it’s one of the few situations where these conversations don’t need to happen.

But my favorite part of the weekend was when we’d all been in the hot tub for about 30 minutes and Judy told us about the tattoo she got for her 41st birthday and 5 year cancerversary (yes she was diagnosed on her birthday).

She tells us how she brought the tattoo artist photos, images of buildings and sculptures, paintings and artwork for inspiration. When he outlined the design on her shoulder, they stood in front of a mirror and looked at it from every angle. She moved her shoulder and flexed, first her deltoid where the design curved around the muscle, then her bicep where it straightened. Then she opened and closed her elbow where the ink rolled into a coil and unintentionally pointed to the vein where blood is drawn.  

I love this story. I love picturing her there with the tattoo artist studying her arm, watching the lines change as they slide over muscle and bone, redesigning themselves with each  movement. And I love hearing about the creation of art, I think it may be what I love most.