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Well, I am back home from South Africa, I spent almost a month home, not doing much, just spending time with my mom. It is hard to believe my mom is almost 70! She doesn’t look it or act it. But, she is sick really sick.

She has colon cancer – get checked, this had no symptoms for years :(. Plus because it was undiagnosed for so long she has tumors in her lungs and on her liver. There will be no remission, she will die from this, the question is getting it under control and therefore treating her.

The problems are many. First off is that because she was so tired and exhausted she developed Deep Vein Thrombosis, which means she is on warfarin to treat the blood, which means any iron rich foods are out, and green leafy vegetables and citrus. Then chemo wipes out the good and bad cells, but she can’t rebuild as fast due to diet from warfarin and then she doesn’t want to eat as food tastes gross to her due to chemo, and to add to this she has developed a gluten allergy due to cheme aargh!

I am glad i went home to help and try manage bits and pieces and explain the whys to my mom, we found gluten free bread and pasta. And got her eating lots of other fruit and yoghurt and vegetables. But after I left her immune count went way down, so no uncooked fruit, no going walking in the mall – which we did a lot of, no people, just when she started wanting to learn to crochet to keep her hands busy, and limited cheese and yoghurt. So more stuff to worry about.

I did love being home, seeing my cousins, seeing my friend Paul and just being a place I don’t talk funny 🙂 and I can be understood and I can eat things I miss – french toast with bacon and banana and my weight in granadillas and guavas.

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