Want vs Need

Friday morning. 4:30 am.

I hear the alarm. I know it's on. It will just get louder and louder. Some random song will torture me for as long as I let it.

Just 2 more hours of sleep. You were up at 2 am. Then 3 am. You just want that time back. It's dark and a blue moon is mocking you through the window. Even those damn birds that love to nest right under your ear drums are fast asleep.

It would be easy. Just roll over. You will catch up another day.

But there's the burn. You've had your rest day on Wednesday. Now you complete the week. Push. Push. Push. If you don't...someone will put you in a hospital.

One day ain't gonna do you in.

One leg over the edge. Then the other. Dressing in the dark. iPod clicked in, torn up workout notes in the pocket.

You should drink Gatorade.

Pomegranate juice.
Vitamin C.
B-Complex.
Resveratrol.
CO Q10.
Multi Vitamin.
Toporol.
Aspirin.
Fish oil.

One big gulp.

Lights are barely on. The trap bar awaits. Last day of the light phase month ends today.

Ten repetitions. Water. Now for 20 more.

Cut it. Stop at 10. Rest up. 

20.

Lat pull downs.
Close grip benches.
Dumbell triceps

Rest more. Everyone is talking around you. ESPN is on. You are so tired from the other night.

Twisting sit-ups.

Roll away ball abs

Give it up. You really want a donut. 

Truth is, I REALLY DO want a donut. What happens is that I will eat a bowl of chia seeds and almond milk with blackberries instead. It's not a donut though.

A donut. That would be really good about now.

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/MjIyNTYxODh8MjcyMDQxMzcwOQ/do-or-donut-there-is-no-try?ref=pr_treasury

Jelly, please. Thanks. Leave the box too....

Thankful

A couple of bad nights.

That's all it takes.

A few hours lost and your thoughts wander more than other nights.

The morning comes in like a sledgehammer. You truly are vampiric as light flows over you like safflower oil, flooding your eyelids with spikes of day walker insults.

This is when you dig deep. What is the beast that makes your breath short and your night long?

For me, it's always the same.

I go back to 6 years old. My left hand is taped to what amounts to be a 2 x 4. It still burns where the clot was flushed a few days before. If you don't know what that is, it's when your IV gets a blood blockage. Instead of a re-stick, they 'flush' the IV with more pressure till the clot breaks.

Ouch.

But that wasn't what truly flashed back.

I honestly don't know anymore.

It may have been the nine shots I needed to prevent me from catching chicken pox from the kid down the hall. Or the fact that I had to first watch my dad take a shot in the arm first to prove it didn't hurt. It 'popped' and he blinked. Years later he said it still hurt.

It could have been the sticks, re-sticks and more sticks at 3 am by someone who always asked "How are you sleeping, Dear?"

It may have been the pings, pops, hisses and moans from the machines and other patients as the quiet of night turned into a cacophony of inhuman clicks in an unnatural symphony.

Lately, sleep, no sleep, depression, anger, joy....whatever. I've made a choice.

Call it karma, positive thoughts, praying, wishful thinking or Universal speak but I have resolved to be thankful for one simple fact - I am here.

Three years ago, I was convinced I was dead. That was it. I was to be no more. I never told anyone that before really. I was simply going to die too soon, too young, too bad.

To pull out of a daily tailspin isn't easy, trust me.

It is simple really - I am just thankful.

I often do those Hallmark moment scenes where I look up and I am thankful for a blue sky.

Before a run, I am grateful for a breath.

I am thankful that I can do normal things. I can walk, run, lift, whatever...

I can drive. I can think. My muscles can hurt. My back can ache. I can be hungry. I can be happy.

I can be everything because I am alive.

It's not a miracle. It is this side of hokey.

Some will nod knowingly and others will roll their eyes ruefully.

I find myself laughing at the little things that would bring me down. I cherish those that make my life a treasure around me.

Sure, someone somewhere will find all of this just a tad over the top. Sometimes I catch myself as well but even that doesn't matter. It is cool to be thankful whether it is an ocean breeze, a few words on a page or a 10 minute nap.

Doesn't matter really. It's all good because I am still here.

Words

I'll set the record straight - I am not a public speaker. There I said it.
Stemming back to my college days where I lost weight sweating in my oversized sport coat during a class presentation which no one had that guts to have a Q&A because they all confessed they felt bad for me, I have a fear of being in front of people.
It's not a deep seeded fear of the populace. It's not a deep rooted trauma based on being captured by aliens.

I know exactly what my issue is. I doubt I will ever get over it.
That sets the stage.
I was asked to be a part of a panel for a discussion on Cancer Survivorship. Basically, it was a conference to discuss the long term effects of treatments. We're in a sort of where are we going stage of the process.
It's a funny thing when I walk into a medical office nowadays.

"Well Mr. Mazzenga....how are things?"
"Too good"
"Excellent. Bloodwork is fine...."  (Awkward silence ensues). "So. How, um, do you feel?"

Here is where I'd love to turn green and go all Hulk on the joint but alas, I don't even stick to walls. No super powers to be had. Just stunted growth, odd body parts, and something they like to call "chemo-brain". I don't like being in front of crowds. Get it?

Twenty four hours before the conference was held, I was told I was to speak. Not answer questions, but speak...walk up to a podium, hold a mic, and talk. I kept pushing this thought off for a day. I couldn't be the one who goes up there and talks. Not me. I don't do such things.

People will judge. They will see flaws. They will whisper. They did when I couldn't go to recess for months. They drew pictures during high school about it. They didn't even bother whispering. It was brought to my attention time and time again. The sick kid with the odd body.

The conference was a blur. Speaker after speaker got up and did their thing. There was a doctor, social workers, and even a priest.

Then there was an introduction. It was for me.

I couldn't be walking in front of these people could I? I don't remember any of it. The last thought I clung to was watching 3 of my survivor friends in the corner table watching me as I emotionally stumbled to the podium.

Trust me - I didn't have a practiced speech. I just knew my story.

A vibrant, tough, outgoing and rumpled Italian 6 year old boy on a hot July summer day gets pulled aside by his father who notices a lump on the side of his son's neck...

I couldn't get the rest of the story out. A wave of emotion swept through me as if I was transported back to that hot day on the cement steps of my old house. I choked on my words as tears started to swell.

I don't do this. The story carried on as a 6 year old boy went through 2 years of "shock and awe" as I often put it. Three decades later, a bad stress test has the young man in for a triple bypass. Six years later, the Chief of Surgery is high fiving his people over knowing "just where to cut" my liver.

It's not a pity parade. I don't want it so don't bother. It's a reality.

I cough, stop, re-collect then choke again as my stutter through my speech.

I tell the YMCA representative.....JUST DO. Someday, some god, doctor or inner voice will tell you can do no longer.

I am done. Speech is over. People stand....at least I was told that. I stagger back to my seat and berate myself over being this way. I was exposed and I didn't like the feeling.

I have many things I need to change. I work, like most of us, on it daily. Some fail more than others.

I don't know what's next. People ask me in different ways every day.

I don't have a lot to say to them. Who would understand anyway? I am better with actions. Show them.

Sometimes what you do is infinitely more powerful than what you say.

Crazy, yes. Sexy? You decide...

Some days you wake up and you want to re-arrange all of your furniture, set the cat out, get your tickets to San Fran and make for the sunset.

Other days you try, what some may feel, a more radical approach. Kris Carr, like others in The Biz, is a flagship spokesperson even reaching beyond the yellow banner heights of Lance Armstrong. She lives with cancer every day and is a devout vegan. 

No, not someone who hits the redeye for Vegas. You laugh. Someone once asked me if vegan meant just that. 

Vegans are that divine group who will allow no animal product to enter their bodies. A noble cause, and at times a difficult one.

I am not of the religion that subscribes to the fact that humans are vegetable matter eaters and nothing more. No, I believe, sincerely that they human body is one of the most perfect machines in nature and being a killer, a honed, evolution developed, killer of all things.

I am not speaking about wars over crosses and temples. I am speaking about survival. Humans eat things. We are animals. And as such we will not go the way of the Dodo. We eat everything.

Okay commence with the eye-rolling. We would not exist at the top of the food chain had we not made up our minds and our stomachs to eat all that crawled, flew, charged, ran and growled. This was our legacy.

Did it go wrong? I am a firm believer that it did.

Kris Carr takes her message in the book, Crazy, Sexy, Diet. She is a raw, vegan on a mission to save not only cancer patients but the human race.

The theory is pretty simple and, if you dig deep enough, pretty ancient. The human body has a Ph – like your pool in the backyard, if your body is too alkaline or too acidic, strange things grow inside you. I am making that the Bozo Button synopsis, but it is the basic theory.

To that end, Kris illustrates what certain foods, say meat, for example will do to the human condition.

I won’t judge a person who is living with cancer. Until you understand that point of view, then you will never understand what it is to be desperate. To eek out a few more moments of your life. If it means wearing clown paint and singing the Star Spangled Banner, you will do it.

If it means buying a juicer…you will do it.

As I read through her book, I still get the nagging sensation that everyone who contributed to the work was probably either at Woodstock or, quite possibly, was conceived there.

Peace, love and veggies is Kris’s slogan. I might have a distorted image of myself (ask my shrink), but I’ll probably never be confused for a hippy.

As I tell all of those who ask, take things in baby steps.

I am what some would call a pescatarian or, what seems most popular nowadays, a flexatarian. Over 90% of the time I am a vegetarian but I do eat fish now and then and every five or 6 months, I venture into a lean cow.

I do what I do for health reason as well. Here is the new level, however.

Baby steps.

First. Replace coffee with juicing.

Take that beautifully organic dark roasted goodness that embraces the spirit every morning and replace it with a torridly orange, Martian green, thick, watery, some pasty textured drink.

Okay I am being melodramatic but this is trauma for me. First it was just for one day in the week. I won’t go into what sort of zombie with orange lips I was that day.

Next, 2 days juicing, no coffee. I decided to use my juices for breakfast. That’s right, you read that correctly – no chewing for me. No way. For 2 days, no organic oatmeal, organic omega-3 eggs (blasphemy) or egg whites. No apple juice infused cranberries or wild blueberries.

Just me, a concoction and a straw.

The funny thing about baby steps however, is that you wake up and the change is already upon you.

I don’t know how far I’ll take the body cleanse. I’ll restate that I do what I do for my own health. That’s not to say I wouldn’t take out a cub scout carrying a devil dog or knock over a Dunkin for a Boston cream. Trust me, the spirit is there. I just choose to not listen – much.

Next week, 3 days juicing. Wish me luck.

Crazy? To some, yes. Sexy? I’ll leave that to you…

Exercise your options...

Special guest blogger: David Haas.

You can find more about David at http://about.me/haasblaag

The common link between physical fitness and cancer prevention has been proven time and again, though lack of a regular exercise program is acknowledged as only one potential risk factor. Still, it is one of the risk factors that individuals have control over, so the emphasis is justified. Cancer experts have found through a number of studies, both clinical trials and epidemiology, that fitness is just as important during treatment.

Exercise during breast cancer treatment, for instance, has been shown in over 30 studies to reduce the common symptom of fatigue, improve quality of life scores for patients and reduce the risk of recurrence. Unfortunately, it has likewise been shown that a diagnosis of breast cancer typically results in lower levels of physical activity.

Similar findings have surfaced for other common forms of cancer, including hormone-based and colorectal cancers. Exercise is an important adjunct to treatment, capable of reducing the problems caused by cancer and treatments. Loss of self-image can cause emotional disorders, and chemotherapy often results in a mix of symptoms, like nausea, insomnia and poor bowel function. Exercise provides relief from these problems in otherwise healthy people, and modern medical research found that it works just the same for cancer patients.

Risks of Exercise During Treatment:

The primary reason exercise is not being adopted faster by cancer clinics, despite recommendations by the leading research organizations, is patient safety. Doctors worry that patients can be injured or may reduce their body's tolerance to treatment. While it is true that certain forms of exercise are inadvisable in certain conditions, such as high-intensity aerobics during mesothelioma treatment; all patients are capable of and will benefit from the use of a regular exercise program.

What that program looks like depends on medical evaluation and the patient’s own preferences. Most breast cancer patients will be able to engage in moderate-intensity workouts like walking, while those with bone cancer may be steered toward a no-impact exercise, such as water aerobics. For those facing a terminal prognosis, exercise can still provide benefits by reducing symptoms. The more the risk of exercise increases, the more imperative it is to seek the services of a fitness expert trained in cancer care.

Role of Personal Trainers:

A growing number of clinics and insurance plans are providing physical therapists for patients after surgeries, because specialized exercises have shown valuable in speeding up recovery time. Personal trainers can do much more though, especially when working as part of the clinical team. They can give suggestions on the most appropriate forms of exercise, as well as share knowledge of local resources. They are also skilled in helping patients stick to the program. Check with clinics to find one that provides fitness experts.

As always. We have the bullet in our hand - JM