Four O’Clock Noodles

One of the difficult aspects of cancer for me was the task of telling my loved ones that I had this dreaded disease, especially my Mother. This happened shortly before her 88th Birthday and I was fully aware that her first response to this diagnosis would be something like wishing that she could change places with me. That’s how my Mother is, and I believe most Mothers are.

Over the next few days as we picked ourselves up from the shock, I mentioned to her that humour was good for the immune system, so our job would be to find something funny about this situation everyday. Actually I said “it is your job to find something funny every day and tell me about it.”

My Mother has a reputation for resilience and facing reality square on and she is never one to step away from a challenge. So next evening before bed-time, I got a call from Mother. “Trudy,” she said,” I told you many times that you shouldn’t have been eating all that organic food these past 25 years. Now look at what has gone and happened.” We laughed out loud about all my idiosyncracies and fussiness and rules around food. And I blessed her sweet heart for rising to this challenge.

The subject of food, however, often comes up, when people who know me discuss the whys and wherefores of cancer. Things like, how could this happen to you, when you always ate so well? Some people look at it as unfair, as a betrayal of what they had been taught about lifestyle and cancer. I did not. And this is why.

There simply are no guarantees, no matter what we do. There is no formula that can protect us from suffering, accidents, heartbreak, disappointments and ultimately death. I ate what I ate because I believed that it was the best I could do to up my chances for a healthy and good quality of life, while I was alive. I also ate the way I ate because I believed it was good for the small farmers, the environment and sustainable community and because the food tasted better. I never believed that if I ate “only the right things” and in sufficient quantity that my good health was guaranteed.

The funny thing about statistics is that it gives us a snapshot of trends in a large population but it doesn’t address the individual, me or you. I do believe the research that shows the best defense we have against serious illness is to follow the guidelines of eating our fruits and vegetables, moving our bodies, mending our fences, not smoking etc. and when we do all that and still get sick, it doesn’t mean it’s not true. It just means we don’t have all the answers.

In my case, I don’t believe that my body let me down. I don’t believe that there was something else I could have done or should have done that would have protected me. I don’t know why I got cancer. I think it was the luck of the draw. And what I have been told, over and over again, from my medical team is that the best thing I’ve got going for me is my overall good health. (You have to see the irony in that statement) :-) So the good food didn’t “save” me from cancer but it did keep my body in good running order so that I am now better equipped to deal with the treatment. The good food isn’t a guarantee and it won’t “save” me from recurrence or death but it is still the food that I will continue to eat, except of course when I don’t.

Like now. And I find this hilarious. Just this minute I went to the fridge and poured myself a glass of coca cola with an ice cube. And around four o’clock today I will boil water and add a package of the unhealthy type of Ichiban noodles and relish every bite. Why? Because in the week I receive my chemo therapy, most healthy food tastes terrible. What my body seems to want is white rice, white noodles, pop-sicles (not the fruit kind) coca cola ginger ale, que pasa taco chips, certain chocolates, gummy bears, toast. Imagine! I haven’t had a coke since I was 15 and that’s what my body wants now.

With thanks to Camellia, my oncology nurse, I eat what I can eat without guilt. She instructed me to “eat whatever you can eat that first week, and it doesn’t matter if it is taco chips.” And so I do. And by day two of the second week it is a “blueberry bran muffin kind of day.” On that day I feel normal, myself. I even made a pan of those muffins last time. And so on that day I go back to eating the food I always preferred and that is good for me too.

Having cancer has meant for me amongst many things, letting go of all those “absolute” ideas I had about food. Now I am learning to chuckle at the odd combinations of food that my body wants. And to relish the “good food days” when tastes and smells return as old friends.

So now we laugh at four o’clock noodles seeing it as a metaphor for letting go of old notions about absolutely everything.

And someone else wrote me, “What I want is to know your own experience of illness.” Why the interest? People on their ailments are not always interesting, far from it. But we all hope for a – must I say the word – recipe, we all believe, however much we know we shouldn’t, that maybe somebody’s got that recipe and can show us how not to get sick, suffer and die. Nan Shin, Diary of a Zen Nun: Every Day Living

Comments

[sister g]

Ah Sister Dear,

What a surprise for me to land home from delivering in the middle of the night and have this good chuckle. Indeed the vision of you drinking coke at 1 in the morning Calgary time is as funny as 'me' drinking a glass of 'water' on the west coast...which I just did! Not to worry though...I have a jelly bean in the other hand.

Love You and sweet dreams,
G/*

[sister g]

Well its good to know 'ALL IS still right in the world' and you likely are really sleeping right now, as you should be, as I just went back and looked at your date and see it was 1:01PM...not AM. Now that should give you your laugh for today! ...me thinking you were drinking coke at 1am...It surely must be the side effect of this 'water' going into my veins and causing me to be taking leave of my senses!
Still, if you do decide to start swigging back the bubbles in the wee hours, call me, I'll be pleased to give my water to the flowers and join you! HUGS :-)

[patricia ludwick]

my dear dear trudy,
it is you who is keeping me healthy with your humour and your insight and your generosity. Your "experience" of illness is exactly like your experience of well-being - except maybe the "soft spot" expands and deepens, as your awareness of each moment grows to include every blessed thing around you - including coke and popsicles. Being with you each day, with the blue glass containing your name and lavender blossoms, with a candle flaming before the Dalai Lama, gives me a few moments of complete rest. Thank you.

[Lydia Nahold]

Oh Trudy,
you are a hoot!! I LOVE that four o'clock noodle soup story!
And it makes me laugh, because both my children, have inherited my strong leaning, like yours, towards organically grown food - and their friends love to gather at our little home, because they think the food here tastes so good!
As you Trudy and I know, yes, there is the importance of cherishing our Earth and growing our food in harmony with it - BUT there also is, what we put into the pot, the bowl, the platter,when we prepare our meals.
And I KNOW, that the main ingredient for every delicious meal that you and Gottfried have ever created,for every batch of muffins that you have haver made, always was and certainly still is LOVE.
So, here comes a batch of love from me to you!
Thank you for the courage and will to share your every day journey! I LOVE READING every bit of it!
Hugs, Lydia

[Linda Anderson Krech]

Leave it to you, Trudy, to enrich all of our lives, day by day, as you make your way through the challenge of serious illness. Rather than tragedy, we are touched by your joy and your love of life. As you find your way through this new territory, "playing ball on running water",you are lighting up the path for the rest of us. You are making your life into a work of art, Trudy. Grace under pressure, strength of heart and sweetness of spirit . . . thank you, dear friend.