Ready...set...raw vegan

My mom recently returned from a 10-day cleanse program, and she has come back as a raw vegan. Depending on who you talk to, diet is a cancer survivors best friend. The theory / belief is that what you eat can either keep cancer away, or give it a place to continue to grow and spread to the rest of your body.

I read it in several books about fighting cancer, including the one general cancer book I bought right after my surgeries in 2010. My good friend, KT, had also mentioned to me that her friend that is a nutritionist recommended that I change my diet, which to me sounded a bit extreme because I wasn't ready to cut out certain meats and all sugars, including those from fruit - I love fruit! The major point, from all the resources I had, was to remove the enemy: all processed foods.

When I posed the question to my Endo two years ago, his reply was along the lines of 'no, cutting out sugar might be good for other health reasons, but not for preventing cancer from coming back.' First thing to run through my head was, 'great, point to the fact that I am still overweight, regardless of all the weight I lost via WeightWatchers before my cancer diagnosis, plus all the weight I lost recovering from my surgeries and that god-awful Low Iodine Diet (LID) before getting RAI.' But his answer was good enough for me, so I went on my merry way.

Fast forward to this year/month, and what I did not have the balls to do myself, my mom does. To me, a thyroid cancer survivor, depriving myself from the food I love and enjoy today for a cancer tumor that may not show up until 20 years from now seemed rather pointless when so much life can be lived in 20 years. But to a lung cancer survivor that has been told that she has the highest chance of recurrence in the first year, and that chemo is not an option if she does have recurrence, those odds of living another 20 years, cancer free, are not so good - why take any chances at all? Going vegan means removing all meats and dairy from your diet. There are plenty of proteins that come from plant sources. The raw part means that nothing is cooked, so you get as many nutrients as possible from your food.

My aunt, who worked as a cancer nurse for many years, was the one that encouraged my mom to go to the program and to go vegan. The raw part is from the program itself. I think it is a good thing, not only for my mom, but for me as well, as I can see other benefits from eating like her, like not having to worry about diabetes, high blood pressure, or weight gain. But mostly, I don't want to find out 20 years from now that I've had a nasty thryoid cancer tumor growing inside me all the while. I want to know 20 years from now, when I see my Endo for my semi-annual appt that my TSH and T4 are fine, my Tg is still undetectable, and I am still cancer free.

I support my mom in her efforts to fight cancer with her fork.