One of the coolest things that has happened during this project involved my visit to a gynecologist who specializes in women's breast cancer issues. It was the best encounter with a health care provider that I have ever had, and I've been mostly happy with all my health care providers, but after going to this one, all the others now pale in comparison! Dr. S was so thorough in everything she went over with me. I felt like she was looking after me in all the areas of my health. When she saw in my family history that there had been multiple DVTs on my mom's side, she made recommendations and referrals for my sister see a coagulation specialist. She referred me to a dermatologist and assured me that this dermatologist was very aware of the correlation between skin and breast cancer and her beliefs in prophylactic removal of any sort of worrisome mole, and that she would be emotionally sensitive with her digital photography and not make me stand naked in front of a camera, then stick the pictures in my chart. :) She was also the first physician that actually addressed nutrition in a more emphatic and thorough way. She made suggestions of diet programs and the importance of lowering my body weight to prevent cancer. From personal experience and my own personal experience, I have noticed that providers tend to avoid suggesting weight loss or making nutritional changes. It's always really bothered me. I couldn't understand how nobody had told my mom the connection of red meat consumption with breast cancer or suggested to her any kind of nutrition and exercise changes. That seems like the cheapest way to do it. And it gives the patient some control.
While no one really likes to hear from someone else that they could lose some weight, it actually was refreshing for a provider to address it. It kind of was a wake-up. It wasn't the media telling me to lose weight, or my ex-husband, or my critical voice. It was an objective physician who is watching out for my health and well-being.
I was just so impressed when this physician sat down and went over all of these things with me. It really made me feel like I wouldn't slip through the cracks. I was being looked out for while I was also being expected to take responsibility for aspects of my own health. I might not be living in Durham a year from now, but I would seriously consider flying back for my yearly appointment with this physician.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
In sight, in mind
I've been thinking I wasn't following through with my plan very well because it was too complex, but I just looked back over my outcomes, and they're not as many of them as I was remembering. I think the big lesson here is that I should have been reviewing my goals and outcomes on a more regular basis than every two months. I think my next action plan will be to make a few copies of my outcomes and strategies list and post them around (my kitchen, bathroom, breakfast table, car, and purse). That away the stress and energy that goes into trying to remember what they are (and as I've seen, my mind doesn't do that great of a job of remembering what they were anyway).
I am going to simplify one of my strategies, though. I no longer going to use the food chart from Beck's The Beck Diet Solution to write each food down that I eat. I think I viewed that as too tedious and time consuming. For my project, it's more important for me to make sure that I'm getting plenty of fruits and vegetables in my diet than to know how many calories I'm taking in. Weight loss is only a secondary goal for me, while the increased fruit and vegetable goal is a main outcome. I also think that my rebellious side kicks in when I say I can't have this and can't have that, so I'm going to focus on what I NEED to eat, and I figure if I'm eating 7-9 servings of vegetables a day and drinking at least 64 oz. of water a day, I probably won't have as much room as I usually do for the "bad" stuff anyway. So my food and exercise diary is now just a tallying each day of fruit/vegetable and water intake. It's back to the basics. Move more than 30 minutes, eat vegetable, drink water.
I am going to simplify one of my strategies, though. I no longer going to use the food chart from Beck's The Beck Diet Solution to write each food down that I eat. I think I viewed that as too tedious and time consuming. For my project, it's more important for me to make sure that I'm getting plenty of fruits and vegetables in my diet than to know how many calories I'm taking in. Weight loss is only a secondary goal for me, while the increased fruit and vegetable goal is a main outcome. I also think that my rebellious side kicks in when I say I can't have this and can't have that, so I'm going to focus on what I NEED to eat, and I figure if I'm eating 7-9 servings of vegetables a day and drinking at least 64 oz. of water a day, I probably won't have as much room as I usually do for the "bad" stuff anyway. So my food and exercise diary is now just a tallying each day of fruit/vegetable and water intake. It's back to the basics. Move more than 30 minutes, eat vegetable, drink water.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Simplification
I think my original plan was over-ambitious in that it was too complex. There were too many things going on with it, too many things were the focus in one day, making it easy to become lost and overwhelmed in it all. When I had a decent amount of time and energy to devote towards that complex plan, it was fine, but that's not sustainable. It's inevitable that life is going to bring about periods of high stress and time demands, so it's important to keep the plan simple enough to accommodate for that. It can be that the whole plan is simple or that there is a clearly laid out, simplified plan when time availability is significantly limited.
catch-up
Seeing that my blogging took such a hiatus, I feel a need to do a recap of the past two months.
Well, I definitely have seen that no matter how motivated and ready I think I am to take responsibility for doing what I can to control how my genes are expressed, there are some external factors that make that goal hard to maintain! Change is so hard no matter how much I want it. Humans are creatures of habit, and over the years, I've created some habits that aren't so conducive to my well-being. So this is a period of relearning.
I started out so motivated and excited and then lost momentum about after one week. Then when school demands were high and emotional life rough (winter weather, performance anxiety of being a beginner at something (nursing), not having an outlet for dealing with the illness, suffering, and death one often sees as a health care professional, etc.), my personal primary prevention project became lost its position as a priority and dropped down to a faint existence.
And it's so easy to be hard on myself. I get so frustrated when I realize how I put such an important thing on the back burner, but I would like to remember to be gentle with myself. Otherwise, I'll only end up with a backlash and rebellion against my new habits.
In summary, change is hard no matter how much you think you want it. So I plan on working on strategies to help me overcome this because will power alone won't do it. I need some tools and some support and a simplified plan.
Well, I definitely have seen that no matter how motivated and ready I think I am to take responsibility for doing what I can to control how my genes are expressed, there are some external factors that make that goal hard to maintain! Change is so hard no matter how much I want it. Humans are creatures of habit, and over the years, I've created some habits that aren't so conducive to my well-being. So this is a period of relearning.
I started out so motivated and excited and then lost momentum about after one week. Then when school demands were high and emotional life rough (winter weather, performance anxiety of being a beginner at something (nursing), not having an outlet for dealing with the illness, suffering, and death one often sees as a health care professional, etc.), my personal primary prevention project became lost its position as a priority and dropped down to a faint existence.
And it's so easy to be hard on myself. I get so frustrated when I realize how I put such an important thing on the back burner, but I would like to remember to be gentle with myself. Otherwise, I'll only end up with a backlash and rebellion against my new habits.
In summary, change is hard no matter how much you think you want it. So I plan on working on strategies to help me overcome this because will power alone won't do it. I need some tools and some support and a simplified plan.
recommitment
Wow. So I knew I had not been very diligent on my quest to reduce my cancer risk recently, but I think I was in complete denial about just how long I've let it go on. Two whole months have gone by since my last blog entry! While I have not been documenting my progress via blogging in the past two months, I haven't completely been neglecting my pursuit. Although, it hasn't felt like I've made working towards my fitness goals much of a priority either. But today's a new morning and an opportunity to recommit myself to the project.
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