Cooking

First cooking pot I've used in many months in my kitchen. I made a dinner that required heat from the stove, and use of a pot.

Stomach cancer affects your ability to eat. Fairly basic function. Seems straight forward but it isn't. Does anyone have heart burn, indigestion, difficulty swallowing, pain anywhere along the digestive tract? You might be better at describing the intensity of this experience than I would. I can only tell you that in our house I stopped cooking shortly after Rich's prognosis, after the soups that the 'Soup Sista's' brought over for Rich were feeding me instead. I did not cook because the smell would set off the reaction. Eventually the smell of cooking made me sick to my stomach too.

One of the purposes of the community of Stomach Cancer Warriors is to spread info about this most unglamorous disease. Stomach cancer has a taboo, somehow the patient must have done something to bring it on. Very damming statement. Lifestyle. You'd (mostly) be wrong. Bacteria, genetics, cultural, aided by an uneducated population and medical establishment. Yes. It's cancer. Surely the doctors should know. Nope. Guess work. Process of elimination. Usually too late in the patients life to make a difference.

Age? No. Race? Yes, sometimes. If you are fortunate to have a medical facility that knows anything about stomach cancer. If a doctor is curious enough to examine the potential causes, literally whole families can be 'saved' from the scourge, when it's genetic. If H.pyloria bacteria testing takes place you can also look at the family setting, and being proactive avoid or at least be ahead of the curve.

Usually Stomach Cancer is 'discovered' when it has already progressed to Stage 4. The prognosis is grim. Even the palliative care, the treatment to slow the growth, is grim. What the doctors don't tell you is it is grim for the caretaker as well. I have been in grief since Feb 16th, 2012. I lost my husband even before I knew it. He was so sick in January he needed a transfusion and I had to fight to take his car keys from him, all BEFORE the diagnosis OR prognosis. Richard wasn't buying into the prognosis.

Today I told three more people that didn't know Richard died, or didn't believe what they thought they saw on FaceBook. I cleaned out one closet.

I cooked tonight.

Weird self portrait