Hit a brick wall!

Hello, been a few weeks since I've posted and to be honest I've not been feeling that great.
The black dog has been hanging around again and its been hard to motivate myself to do anything other than my womb cancer support stuff. That has to be my priority so when things get a bit tough that's what I concentrate on.

My health has also not been too good recently. The sleepless nights are making the fatigue really bad and that is making the cognitive stuff harder as well. Sometimes I can barely remember what day of the week it is!
The juicing and smoothie making has had to take a back seat as well as my bowels have been out of sorts and I can't risk making things worse.
So all in all, its not been much fun around here for a few weeks.

I've been doing a bit of research in natural treatments for scalp psoriasis, which I developed about 18 months ago. Its gotten really bad over the past 6 months and I think a lot of it is driven by stress. It kicked off just after Mom died at the end of 2013 and has got continuously worse since then.

I don't want to use conventional medication or treatments so am currently using coconut oil and tea tree oil. I melt the coconut oil (put some in a small glass jar and then stand it in a jug of hot water to melt it) and then add drops of tea tree oil. Let cool and then rub into my scalp. Thankfully I don't have it anywhere else apart from a small patch on my face at the side of my nose. I'm hoping that it doesn't spread.

Found a couple of really interesting websites - one especially interesting one was http://www.knowthecause.com/ which is about fungal infection and the link with many autoimmune issues - of which one of them is psoriasis! Going to be checking out some of the Youtube videos on that.

Am going to make an effort to get back to the smoothies and juicing and hopefully it won't affect my bowels too much!!!

If you want to follow my juicing/smoothie journey then check out my FB page here

See you soon!

Taking things slowly!

Been a bit quiet of the smoothie from over the past few days as my bowels have been playing up a bit.
It's a result of my radiotherapy treatment for the womb cancer - might have been almost 5 year ago but sadly I seem to be one of the unlucky ones that have been left with long term side effects.
Usually manifests itself as sudden bouts of diarrhea that I get the day after going out of the house. I rarely go out these days (for this and other reasons!) but when I do it takes so much out of me that my body seems to throw a strop and I get payback, good and proper!!!
So the thought of drinking smoothies wasn't something I was willing to do so I stuck to my usual salads and cooked veggies for a couple of days.
Often, well meaning people suggest eating some thing stodgy to counteract the diarrhea but that just sends me the other way and I get very constipated and then I have problems with the epi gastic hernia that I've got - the one they won't operate on of because of the bowel adhesions from the radiotherapy!!
Now you can see why I have been taking this juice and smoothie thing slowly - I can't afford to make my situation worse by doing the full monty and drinking then every day. In fact I can't afford it literally!! The expense would be enormous!! Its already added about £5 to my food bill a week and I can't afford that on a long term basis so smoothie making is going to have to be restricted to maybe every other day or something like that.
Mind you, I discovered that the MagicBullet is great for making homemade hummus!!

Juice Fest

Well, I've been playing around with the Magic Bullet for a few days now and I'm quite getting the hang of making juices and smoothies.

Sadly I am a bit limited on what fruit and veg I can use; we live on an island off the west coast of Scotland and the range and quality in our local supermarket is not very good. There is a new TescoExpress opening next month and I am hoping that they will have some better quality stuff in there.

I did a couple of juices but found that you get very little out for the amount of veg you out in so have decided to stick with smoothies for now as at least you are getting 100% of whatever you out in there.

So here are some pics of my healthy creations.



Pear, celery, cucumber and spinach juice

Banana, date and almond milk smoothie



Banana and mango smoothie



Cucumber, spinach and kiwi fruit smoothie



Banana, pineapple and mango smoothie



Kiwi and banana smoothie

Doing another shop on Tuesday and hoping to get some grapes and some kale to add to the selection of fruit and veg.

Sadly it will only be 1 smoothie a day for me as its proving to be an expensive habit. However, at least its getting loads of vitamins and nutrients inside me and they taste nice aswell.  

Happy Birthday Mom

Today is not a good day.
It would have been Moms Birthday today but sadly she is no longer here.
She died on 5th Dec 2013 as a result of Cholangiocarcinoma.

Never heard of it? No, neither had any of the family until Mom was diagnosed with it just 5 weeks before she died.
Took me about a week to be able to pronounce it!!

It's actually bile duct cancer - a rare and aggressive type of liver cancer and sadly by the time most patients are diagnosed with it, its too late to do much.
Which is what happened with Mom.

There is very little known about this type of cancer and there is only one UK based charity - they are called AMMF http://www.ammf.org.uk/

As I said, today would have been Moms Birthday - she would have been 79 today. It's a hard time for the family, especially as it comes so close to Mother's Day.

In an effort to try and turn something negative into something positive I am running an online auction via Facebook to try and raise some funds for AMMF.

You can see the lovely items that are available to be bid on here https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153021907458394.1073741837.78739178393&type=3
Please pop over and have a look and maybe consider bidding. It is for a very good cause.

I'll let you know how much is raised in the next blog post. xx

Let the juicing commence!!

Well, I have taken the first step in trying to improve my health. I've bought a juicer.
Well, its not a proper juicer, can't afford one of those heavy duty fancy things, and besides I didn't want to splash out loads of money and then find that I didn't like the juice.

So, I've bought one of those magic bullet things. Still £70 which is a lot of money for me but at least it will give me a chance to try it out.

Did a shop yesterday and got loads of fresh fruit and veg - I eat a mainly raw food vegetarian diet anyway but bought extra stuff so I could have a play and experiment with different combinations.

Have just made my first juice - used 2 carrots, an apple and about third of a cucumber. Bit disappointed with the amount of juice I got so I can see that this is going to be an expensive project.
However the resulting juice was nicer than I expected so not too disappointed!!

Going to keep a recipe book of all the combinations I try and see which I like best. Also going to need to keep a costing on them because I can see me spending a fortune (that we don't have) on fruit and veg.
Living on an island means that my choice of where to shop is limited. We only have 1 supermarket, a small Co-op and the quality and range in there is poor. Therefore my choice of juices is also going to be limited.

But never mind, at least I've taken the first step. Have to say that I don't think Hubby will be joining me in my juicing experience. He's just turned his nose up when I offered him a taste of my first concoction claiming he wasn't hungry!!

Right, off to see what else I can juice!!

Small steps!

Been thinking about getting a juicer for ages now but with money being tight I didn't want to splash out too much money on a fancy machine and then find that I didn't like drinking the juice.
Plus I have a feeling that they may well make my bowel problems worse so.

Anyway, finally took the plunge and splashed out nearly £70 on something called a Magic Bullet. It arrived this morning and have just opened the box and washed all the pieces and read the instruction and recipe book.

Just one problem - have got no fruit or veg in the fridge to give it a try. Shopping day is usually Tuesday but had to wait in for the parcel so tomorrow we'll be heading off into town to see what fruit and veg we can pick up from the local supermarket.

Living on a small island we have a very restricted choice of shops so its going to be a bit hit and miss as to what we can get and the quality isn't always very good and don't get me started on the lack of organic food available!!

However, hopefully tomorrow we shall be able to give the machine a run and see what we can come up with.

I already eat a 75% raw food vegetarian diet and we eat very little processed food so hopefully adding in juices won't be too much of a change although as I said I am slightly worried about the effect it will have on my bowels. The radiotherapy has left me with long term bowel problems and although not as bad as they were, they can still have a serious effect on my day to day life, especially if I get stressed out or drastically change what I eat.

Am now searching around for simple and tasty juice and smoothie recipes. I have a feeling that the food budget is about to rise so we have to restrict the juices/smoothies to one a day.

If anyone has any favourite's then please let me know.

Non-Mothers Day!

Well, if you are in UK then you can't have escaped the fact that today is Mothers Day. People all over the country are giving flowers and gifts to their Moms and those that are Moms are receiving them with open arms.

But please spare a thought for the many women for whom today is a day of tears and broken hearts; women who are not Moms, women who can never be Moms and women who were Moms but only for a brief moment in time and not forgetting the women who have lost their own Moms.

Today is a day that some of us would rather not exist because it re opens wounds every year and reminds us what we have lost. Sometimes it is very hard to explain to others.

How can you describe to someone what it feels like to have that aching yearning in your heart for a child that you can never have?
How you can explain what it feels like to mourn the child that you carried but lost before you had the chance to hold it in your arms?
How can you make people understand that although you are grateful that the treatment for your cancer saved your life, you hate the fact that it robbed you of your fertility and the chance to have a child of your own?

Please also spare a thought for those of us that no longer have our own Moms with us. Those of us that have no one to send a card or a bunch of flowers to. No one to say "Thank You" to, for all the things they did for us and taught us. Those of us still deep in grief for the Moms we have recently lost or those who will never get over the grief of loosing that special person.

If you are one of the women I have mentioned above then I am sending love to you today in the hope that you will know that you are not alone. I know your pain because I know exactly what it feels like. xxxx