... visualize world peace... visualize whirled peas... visualize Ballard...

Visualize food making  me feel better.

I have always loved food, no doubt there... getting it into me seems to be the daily task at hand. It is as though I have to be very intentional about what I eat. That means I can "treat" my self to a comfort food, like mac n' cheese, or ice cream if I can justify it with having coupled that with some nutritional quotient. Protein, veggies, fruit juices; pancakes, sour dough bread and english muffins get in there too, mainly as an appetizer (to get the stomach ready to feel like eating), and to hold other things together. I have over the years reduced my gluten intake considerably and have not to my knowledge been intolerant. However, even though the docs say "eat anything, just don't lose weight (paraphrased)" I take that to mean good weight, I don't aim to pack around empty pounds just too satisfy a scale. Last year at this time I had a workout partner and we were going to the gym for 2 hours a day 4 times a week and enjoying the sauna/steam room which is good for your lungs and really helps in the winter months with cold and flu prevention. I really did not want to continue going over 213 as I had always had a somewhat slight frame and trying to hold a guitar with a beer belly ain't my cuppa tea. I had my self getting to a strapping 185, and starting to shape myself the way I never could before. I was feeling good despite anything else and getting stronger. Then they asked me if I had been losing weight lately.... well yeah, but I was TRYING to. Good thing you are strong they said and were working out they said "you're gonna need that."

Now some have had the idea perhaps that this is about fighting the cancer. Not exactly... in fact the chemo is doing that because my body was losing the war. Very likely the mutation had been held at bay to some extent (while it spread all over), until my immune system had to fight too many virus's while aging, amid the stress of other survival factors which many people are facing or in the middle of currently. The body often does not recognize an antibody in the lymphatic system as being a threat, usually it is not. Hence the body does not "go after" them when they just lay around doing nothing. The mutation is that they do not develop to full function, so they do not know what to do (eliminate disease), but they are equipped to reproduce. This is what makes the tumor: healthy but dysfunctional cells that do nothing while consuming and reproducing. Someone quipped that, "oh, you have teenagers."