my winter garden

Hi everyone

I finished my hyperbaric treatments on Monday of this week, and am doing pretty well.

The bleeding is still present but much less that before, from approx 1/4 cup a day down to about a teaspoon. Sorry, somewhat graphic.....

I am pretty much back to almost a normal diet. I just have to limit the amounts of certain things.... other wise I have more pain.

The testing that was done for Lynch Syndrome was negative, ie my cancer tissue did not show signs of lack of mismatch repair. I did end up doing a lot of reading about Lynch syndrome and they say that only 5% of families likely to have this genetic predisposition for cancer, have been diagnosed. So if you have any family members with an early colon cancer, (ie under 50 years old) OR an early endometrial cancer (under 50), you may want to look into this, it clearly could be life saving for some.

From the photos you can see how my winter garden is coming along. About 6 weeks ago I started several veggies in the greenhouse in flats, mustard greens, spinach, Kale, broccoli, cabbage...

Ken recently finished the high tunnel, and this week we got the plastic in the mail to cover it with, so I have planted all my seedlings in the high tunnel.

For colder weather it will essentially have two layers of plastic (ie when the temp drops down below freezing), and when it is above freezing it will only be one layer.

From the pics you can see that the entire thing is covered with plastic, and then we have also covered the raised beds with plastic, and I will keep the plastic off the raised beds unless it gets really cold. (we figure that this high tunnel cost about 150 bucks to build)

The plants all seem to be doing well inside, despite the plants outside starting the frump now.

I chose the 10 best basil plants and transplanted them into pots and have them in the greenhouse. I also have moved some of my tomato plants that were in pots into the greenhouse. The other 70 plants I have harvested the green tomatoes and they are in boxes in the dark, ....ripening.... I hope.

I have harvested all the pumpkins and made pumpkin puree and dried the seeds. I have made fruit leather from the puree. I have read that pumpkin has anti prostate properties. Not that I have a prostate, but there is one in the house.....

I am seeing the gastroenterologist next week, I had hoped to tell him that bleeding was stopped, because he was so doubtful of the hyperbarics, but not so.

I am so fed up with all of this, I am contemplating getting the laser treatments to stop the bleeding completely if this does not go away.

Anyways, have a great day...

love

janet

jankenb @ gmail.com

6 more treatments to go

Hi Everyone

Have completed 3 weeks of hyperbarics and it has been very hectic, as for the last while I have been driving back and forth each day. I have 6 more treatments and I have to say that I do believe they are doing something. There is this fear of saying they are working for fear of jinxing the whole thing, but the bleeding has been MUCH less for the past week.

PLUS I have been walking long distances and it does not seem to have had an effect on the bleeding.

I am pretty much healed up from my surgery, the left breast is still quite sore, but surgeon said it would likely take longer to heal as the surgery had been much more intensive getting the ruptured implant out.

I just found out yesterday that though peace health had decided to hire me, but it was based on me getting hospital privileges, and though the credentials committee voted in favour of that, the medical executive committee would not allow me to apply for privileges.(because of my board certification status)

So was quite disappointed, however at a conference Ken and I were at last weekend, at least 4 different "entities" expressed an interest in me working for them. From a hospice director in Portland to a doctor asking me about joining his group, 2 nursing homes.... so I do have some options.

The genetic counsellor has requested that the pathologist reexamine my cancer tissues for evidence of "mismatch repair" MMR, which is the first step in determining whether I have the gene (or rather LACK OF) which causes Lynch Syndrome. I should be getting the results of that back on Monday and from there if that were positive, I would go on to genetic testing.

There are 4 subtypes of the mutation and so the first person in a family tested, they determine which subtype it is, and then offer testing the remainder of the family, for just that subtype.

So I will keep you posted.

I have canned about 30 jars of tomato sauce (got the recipe from the Barbara Kingsolver book "animal vegetable miracle"), as well as about 20 jars of other things.

I hope to can another 10 jars tomorrow of the tomatoes.

By for now

Love

Janet

jankenb @ gmail.com