Where I am, and where I am going

So today was a really great day, as I was able to accomplish my own NSV (non-scale victory).  I was able to walk for 9km.  I have been up to a lot this year, and am really trying to find a way to become who I was destined to be.  I am getting ahead of myself, let me backtrack.

Last year my fiance was diagnosed with testicular cancer, and was a huge emotional turmoil.  We have been fighting, and after all of this we have risen above and decided to focus on ourselves.  At one point, we were told that M had a 40% chance of living greater than 5 years;  I was devastated. I had to see a therapist and discuss my fears, as well as how I got to where I was up to that point.

During all of this stress, I failed out of nursing school, and was kicked out.  Deservedly so, however, this only added to my stress.  I know this is a nut-shell, but my purpose of this blog today is not to dwell on the past, but to focus on the future, which started 4 months ago.....

In the beginning of May, M and I went to see his doctor, and we were hoping to hear good news.  Well, we did hear some good news, M was not producing anymore tumor hormones, and the chemotherapy we had just endured had worked.  The bad news, a few of his tumors in his abdomen had actually grown and needed to excised.  We were then referred to a specialist for a pre-surgery appointment.  This was beginning to get even more exhausting, we thought we were done suffering through this, but no, we have to go through another surgery.

So, off to the surgeons office we go.  I was trying to be strong for M, but I have never endured so much turmoil before.  Once we met the surgeon, M has now been told that he has to  undergo a surgery called RPLND, to summarize, this surgery basically requires an incision from the xyphoid process all the way down to the pubis.  Once open, they cut out his entire lymphatic system and his tumors.

To prepare for this surgery, M needed to go on a low fat diet, extremely low.  He was not allowed to have cheese, high fat foods, deli meats, fried foods etc.  This was really hard.  We have used oil and margarine to cook for ages..... How do I cook now. So the plan was to be extremely healthy, and try to have a no fat to less than 20g per day.  The trade-off, our salt intake sky-rocketed! I cooked in broths, I didn't know other-wise.

In the first month, we both lost about 10 lbs, and have been eating healthy since.

I will continue this story on my next entry


Hugs
~Nicolyn