How I came to this blog

For as long as I can remember I had been so excited about my 30th birthday. It was going to be a big year for me, I could feel it. I had no idea a breast cancer diagnosis would turn out to be the reason. I was actually told I had "early breast cancer" at 29, about three weeks before my 30th birthday. What I had is called Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS), which is also considered "stage 0 breast cancer." While it was caught at the earliest possible stage, and my life was never in immediate danger, I still had to undergo mastectomy, including lymph node removal, and reconstruction. My birthday came and went a couple weeks before my mastectomy. More than once I looked down at the "F 30" on my hospital bracelet and wondered, "where did my 30th birthday go?" This will definitely be an interesting year.















Monday, April 11, 2011

A New Start, Courtesy of Lent

Lent began just over a month ago on Ash Wednesday, March 9. Catholics traditionally give up something during the observance of Lent, from Ash Wednesday until Easter. I love Lent because I view it as a fun and exciting opportunity to challenge myself and start fresh with a change of pace. I love that Lent comes at the start of Spring. It's the perfect time to make a new beginning by changing bad habits. This year, Lent came at a time when I was also thinking about how to take even better care of my health, to do everything in my power to protect my body from a cancer recurrence or a new cancer. From the time I found out I had cancer, I had slacked off on my healthy eating behaviors and I had developed some bad habits I wanted to correct. I know that alcohol consumption increases breast cancer risk and that this risk increases with increased consumption of alcohol. I love wine and was in the habit of drinking a glass or two with dinner every week, a few nights per week. I also had some food consumption habits that I wanted to break. This year for Lent, I really went for it, giving up all of the following:

  • Meat, 100% (For the past year we've been vegetarian with a once-a-month meat benefit but during Lent meat is completely off limits for both me and my husband. We still eat eggs, dairy, fish & seafood.)
  • Wine (& all other alcohol)
  • The decadent milk hot chocolate from my absolute favorite spot (I'm not giving it away that easy!)
  • Butter (I had been using the best real butter option, Land O' Lakes Light Butter w/ Canola Oil, but have switched to I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Light)
  • My favorite Organic Valley 1% Organic Chocolate Milk (I have limited these to one per day. It was not a regular occurrence for me to drink more than one per day but it certainly happened every now and then. I am limiting these because they are 1%, not skim, and the chocolate flavor means added sugars.)
For more information on risk factors for breast cancer, please see this page from the American Cancer Society website.
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