Health

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What A Weird Winter It Was…

I started on this crazy adventure on November 12, 2012. Just about the time all our snowbird friends started arriving back in town.  And now, here we are on April 23.  All the snowbirds will be gone within the next couple of weeks.  The streets are already strangely empty. Summer is on its way. What a weird winter it’s been for Paul and me!  I was in the hospital recovering from surgery on Thanksgiving, and also on our 15th wedding...

Medicine is Personal in Mexico

I’ve had a lot of experience with health care in Mexico over the last four and a half months.  Seemingly endless tests, lab work, doctor appointments, surgery, and chemotherapy.  It’s been pretty intense, and I thought you’d be interested in why I love medical care here.  Mainly, it’s because it’s personal. All of my appointments and surgery have been at smaller clinics and hospitals.  I had my surgery at Central Médica Quirúrgica back in November, my chemotherapy at Hospital CEMSI...

Clean Cooking to Kick Cancer

I love my Mexican kitchen and the habits I have developed that make eating foods that are good for us easy and available. Maybe you’ll find some tips here that will help you incorporate more good foods into your diet. I hope so! I have a habit of making big pots of brown rice every few weeks and freezing it in serving sized batches per the blog post here on Summer Tomato. I always wanted to make brown rice but...

Being “out” about Cancer

When I first started dealing with symptoms of cancer – but before I knew I had cancer – I made a decision. That decision was to be “out” publicly about my situation. That means I wrote about it on my blog, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. I made this choice for a couple of reasons. The first is just because it seemed natural for me. The second was because if I came out with a positive attitude to...

Our Trip to Culiacán for Chemotherapy

We’ve made the drive to Culiacan four times for my chemotherapy appointments, and I thought you might like to see what the road between Mazatlán and Culiacán is like. When you travel this road you can’t forget that the state of Sinaloa is primarily agricultural.  We drive the cuota, or toll road – and the tolls are 216 pesos, or less than $20 US each way. What will you see on the road?  Well, to start with… check out the...

My new world

It’s been a while since I’ve posted – don’t say I didn’t warn you!  I am doing well, though… just not spending much time on the computer these days.  I did get my hair cut, though… as you can see above.  It is a good transition between long hair and no hair and I think I’ll keep it short after this is all over.  The doctor told me to expect to lose my hair this week, so I have been...

Life is Good

Life is good here in Mazatlán.  I am feeling better every day and have been getting out and about more and more.  We have been eating out, going for walks, and going to the movies. I’ve attended a couple of meetings, met friends for knitting, and gone grocery shopping on my own.  Life feels amazingly close to normal. I do like a siesta, though. A bit of a break with my pack in the middle of the day gives me...

Time for an update

It has been two weeks since my surgery and I am doing very well.  I’ve had lots of good news lately and I am really, truly, feeling very upbeat and positive.  This is mostly due to the pathology reports showing that the cancer hadn’t spread at all.  What a relief! I’ve been staged at 1A, which is about as good as it gets, really. The oncologist here took out my stitches yesterday and gave me the all-clear to get in...

Gonna be a bit quiet here for a bit

I’ve been in the hospital for almost a week.  The Friday before last I had some pain in my pelvic area. It diminished over the weekend but I headed to the doctor on Monday anyway. In short order I had found out I had what appeared to be ovarian cancer. Many lab tests, ultrasounds, x rays, CT scans and more confirmed it. I have a wonderful gyno oncologist and once all the tests were gathered he performedthe surgery on Saturday. That’s...

Mazatlan’s New Organic Market

I know I mentioned before that we have a weekly organic market here in town.  Every Saturday until the end of May in the Plazuela Zaragoza from 8 am until noon you will find at the latest count about a dozen vendors selling their most excellent organic and homemade items.  You can read the M! Magazine article about the market/a> or if you’re on Facebook, like their Facebook page. This week I came home with such great stuff!  Organic almond...

My first cleansing fast

This is my first ever cleansing fast, and today is day 12. I have learned so much about myself doing this – I heartily recommend a fast for getting control over your eating and cleaning the toxins out of your body. (Although some people shouldn’t fast – for example those who take Coumadin or blood pressure medication) I read the book Clean: The Revolutionary Program to Restore the Body’s Natural Ability to Heal Itself and got further inspired to give...

Poor little lambie

In my past life I used to like to drink a diet coke every now and then. I also suffered from migraines. Little did I know that I was triggering migraines every time I drank one. The artificial sweetener they use in diet coke is aspartame, and I am very sensitive to it. Normally I have a lot of energy and have multiple projects going at once. But the last two days I have been down for the count with...

Ch- ch- ch- chia

I’ve been on a bit of a chia seed kick ever since I read blogger Lindi from Mérida’s blog post about the benefits of chia seeds. Chia is an Aztec superfood that has many fantastic health properties, and is really worth looking into, in my opinion!  I’ve been taking a spoonful now and then myself but feeding them daily to the dogs.  I am pretty confident that chia has pretty much cleared up our old dog Lucy’s chronic goopy ear...

Turning a new leaf

I’ve always been very active… walking a lot every day and constantly on the go.  But somehow or other some pounds crept on since we’ve been living here in Mazatlán.  I think there are a number of reasons  that I’ve gained some weight –  I am really enjoying cooking again – and  there are some wonderful breads here in Maz – and breads are my weakness.  But I have also figured out how to make my famous pizza dough using...

the good, the bad, and the feo

The dress for Consuelo The good: Paul has come through his two weeks of the dengue unscathed.  He slept the clock around a couple of days, then mostly slept the clock around, then became well enough to only sleep half the day, and when we finally knew he was on the mend he was sleeping normally.  He lost his appetite completely for about 10 days, and thanks to the Dengue Diet he lost 8 pounds.  To all of our readers...