Hollye Jacobs's Blog, page 12

Anti-Cancer Foods

Anti-Cancer Foods

I wish I wish I wish that there were some type of food or ingredient that could wholly (holy?) protect the human body against cancer. BUT… the Silver Lining is that research shows that your overall diet offers the best protection for your body against cancer.  The most important thing is to eat beaucoup vegetables, fruits, whole-grains, and beans because each of these food groups has amazing anti-cancer effects.

Because you know how much I love lists, here are 5 ways to help your diet be the best protection for your body against cancer:

Focus on plant-based foods: This means eating more vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains, and beans. Plants have more fiber and less fat that most other foods, which is why they are the most nutritious for you. Plant-based foods are low in fat and high in fiber, allowing them to support your immune system and help your body fight off cancer. Try to buy organic produce as much as possible in order to avoid pesticies and other chemicals that strip the plant of its nutrients.
Bulk up on fiber: Fiber is the part of plants (grains, fruits, and vegetables) that your body can’t digest. Therefore, fiber keeps your digestive system clean as well as helps food move through your digest tract smoothly. This means that fiber also moves cancer-causing compounds out of your body before they can create any harm. So bulk up!! Eat more brown rice, whole-grain bread and pasta, fruit, vegetables, and beans.
Cut down on meat: This one was definitely the hardest for me in the beginning becasuse I really love hamburgers! BUT… research shows that vegetartians are 50% less likely to develop cancer. Why you ask? FAT!! Meat has (dangerously) high levels of saturated fat, which has been linked to higher rates of cancer. You don’t have to cut out meat completely from your diet but you should try to keep eating meat to a minimum.

Keep the total amount of meat in your diet to less than 15% of your total calories.
Eat red meat only occasionally.
Reduce the portion size of meat in each meal. (The portion should be able to fit into the palm of your hand)
Use meat as a flavoring or side, not the entree.
Add beans and other plant-based protein sources to your meals
Avoid processed  meats such as hotdogs, sausauge, salami, and deli meats.
Choose leaner meats such as fish, chicken, or turkey.
If you choose to cut meat out completely (which I have), the Silver Linings are the benefits to the poor little animals AND the environment!


Choose your fats wisely

While it is great to cut out most of the fat in your diet, it is not beneficial for you to cut it all entirely. In fact, some fats actually protect your body against cancer. The trick is to know which fats are good for you and which are bad. Fats that increase your risk of cancer incluse saturate fats and trans fats. Saturated fats are found mainly in animal products such as eggs, whole milk, and red meat. Trans fats are created by adding hydrogen liquid to vegetable ouls to make them last longer and not spoil. This is great for manufactures and VERY BAD for you.  The best fats are unsaturated fats which come from plant sources and are liquid at room temperature. These include olive oil, canola oil, avocados, and nuts.

Reduce your consumption of red meat, whole milk, butter, and eggs as these are all saturated fats.
Cook with olice oil instead of regular vegetable oil.
Check the ingredient list on food labels and avoid anything with hydrogenated oils.
Trim the fat off meat.
Add nuts, seeds, and flaxseed oil to your diet.
Limit fast food, fried foods, and packaged foods.
Eat fish once or twice a week.


Choose cancer-fighting foods: Try to eat as colorful as possible! By eating more fruits and vegatables you will boost your antioxidant intake, which helps your cells to function properly as well as protect your body against cancer. The greater the variety of colors that you include in your diet, the more you will benefit from their rich disease-fighting and immune-boosting nutrients. Also, try flavoring your food with immune-boosing spices and foods such as garlic, ginger, curry powder, turmeric, basil, rosemary, and coriander.

Hope that these tips help you as much as they help me.  Eating this way certainly helps me feel better, emotionally & physically.  An additional Silver Lining is that my clothes fit.  Ha!

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Pay Attention

This fall has had me feeling like I am drinking out of a fire hose – literally. While the opportunities are extraordinary, I have been moving so quickly and responding so reactively that I feel like I have whiplash! So, one of the things that I am working really hard on is staying focused and present.

What I am learning is that at any moment, the only true certainty is our ability to pay attention to one thing or another – something in our body, in our mind, or in our surroundings.

During the day, I often ask myself: What are you giving your attention to in this moment?

This is a great question because the truth is that whatever you’re paying attention to is by definition your highest priority right now.

Our attention is the source of all insight, learning, communication, connection with others, beliefs, and emotions in our lives.

When I really focus, I realize that the only way for something to enter our minds is for us to give it our attention and thus to invite it in. Working on living our best and happiest lives, and making our greatest possible contributions to the world, are intimately bound up with a simple habit: focusing our attention on those things that are most important to us.

The choice of what we pay attention to is the most fundamental thing in our lives. It literally creates our experience of reality. The Silver Lining of paying attention is that it shuts off the firehose!

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Bookworm: Cy Twombly Paradise

If ever there were a wonderful new art book, it is Cy Twombly: Paradise.

This book accompanies the much-anticipated 2014 exhibition Cy Twombly: Paradise, at Museo Jumex in Mexico City–the first time a comprehensive exhibition of the American artist’s work has been mounted in Latin America. It’s not likely that I’ll be in Mexico City to see the show (unfortunately), but the book is a great Silver Lining. Cy Twombly has always been one of my all-time favorite artists.  When we lived in Chicago, one of my most favorite things to do was to wander the Modern Wing of the Art Institute to drool in front of (rather than over) Cy Twombly’s work.

Anyway, the Mexico City exhibition and book include works on paper, paintings and sculpture that span Twombly’s career, from early works of the 1950s to the Camino Real series of paintings that he completed shortly before his death in 2011. The book includes 57 works of art, along with double-page, full-bleed detail photographs that capture Twombly’s dramatic gestural style and lush palette.

An essay by curator and author Philip Larratt-Smith contextualizes the works and this monumental exhibition. In his essay, Larratt-Smith (quite brilliantly I must say!) considers the abiding presence of Roman and Greek mythology in Twombly’s art: “For Twombly, the myths of antiquity are dreams and mirrors. Mythical characters are archetypes, and the sequence of events follows an oneiric logic that is intuitively convincing even when irreducible to reason. Twombly finds his own passions reflected in the external patterns of myth; the mirroring effect between aesthetic experience and psychic response is profound and generative. His works are never literary depictions of a myth, though myth may suggestively open the work up to narrative. Myth permits emotional expressivity without disclosing biographical origins and, conversely, provides an objective correlative to the realm of sexuality and fantasy.”

The Silver Lining of not being able to make it to Mexico City is that there is an exhibit called Treatise on the Veil at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York. Since I’ve been spending quite a bit of time in New York, I’ll definitely be able to catch this exhibit!

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We Promise To…

Yesterday, I went into our daughter’s restroom in her classroom and saw a poster with this list of promises on the back of the door – bathroom reading, if you will.

Speaking of which, I know that I have been finding a lot of inspiration in bathrooms this week, but hey…it just goest to show that one never knows where divine inspiration will arise!

Anyhoo, I absolutely love this list and know a heck of a lot of adults who could stand a little reminding…just sayin’.

I hope that you enjoy this as much as we are!

 

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The Great Paradox

Recently, I saw this on the wall of a public bathroom of all places. I was equal parts befuddled and inspired.  The timing of this piece is uncanny as I am in a personal place of refocusing my time, energy and passion to each and point that the Dalai Lama makes here.  To me, this reflects the great paradox of our time. I hope that it stops you in your tracks just as it did me.

We have bigger houses but smaller families;

more conveniences, but less time.

We have more degrees but less sense;

more knowledge but less judgment;

more experts, but more problems;

more medicines but less healthiness.

We’ve been all the way to the moon and back,

but have trouble crossing the street to meet our new neighbor.

We built more computers to hold more copies than ever,

but have less real communication;

We have become long on quantity,

but short on quality.

These are times of fast foods but slow digestion;

Tall men but short characters;

Steep profits but shallow relationships.

It’s a time when there is much in the window but nothing in the room.

-HH 14th Dalai Lama

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Musical Monday: KT Tunstall Suddenly I See

Happy Monday!  Hope that you had a wonderful weekend!

On Saturday, I had the great and wonderful and amazing opportunity to meet KT Tunstall. She generously donated her time and talent to the Dream Foundation Gala. As one of the Co-chairs of the event, I am especially appreciative! We had the opportunity to have dinner the night before the event and can I just tell you that she is an extraordinary person. Truly amazing: thoughtful, humble, kind, vulnerable and really – really! – funny!

Her first song of the evening was Suddenly I See. You may remember it as the song from the opening credits of The Devil Wears Prada. It has also been included on Grey’s Anatomy. This song literally made me get out of my seat to dance.  I just couldn’t help myself. I found it strange that just a few other people also hopped up to bebop around.

Suddenly – to my utter horror!!! – KT said, “Hollye get up here on this stage and do the catwalk with me!”  When I heard her say this, I almost threw up!  WHAT?  Me dance on stage?!?!?  Well, there saying “No” was simply not an option. The Silver Lining was that a sweet girlfriend joined me.  The other silver lining was that it was a BLAST!  I’ll tell you more about the event, but in the meantime, please allow me to share the lyrics and video of the song.

“Suddenly I See”

Her face is a map of the world

Is a map of the world

You can see she’s a beautiful girl

She’s a beautiful girlAnd everything around her is a silver pool of light

The people who surround her feel the benefit of it

It makes you calm

She holds you captivated in her palmSuddenly I see (suddenly I see)

This is what I wanna be

Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)

Why the hell it means so much to me?

Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)

This is what I wanna be

Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)

Why the hell it means so much to me?

I feel like walking the world

Like walking the world

You can hear she’s a beautiful girl

She’s a beautiful girl

She fills up every corner like she’s born in black and white

Makes you feel warmer when you’re trying to remember

What you heard

She likes to leave you hanging on her word

Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)

This is what I wanna be

Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)

Why the hell it means so much to me?

Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)

This is what I wanna be

Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)

Why the hell it means so much to me?

And she’s taller than most

And she’s looking at me

I can see her eyes looking from the page of a magazine

She makes me feel like I could be a tower

A big strong tower

The power to be

The power to give

The power to see, yeah, yeah (suddenly I see)

She got the power to be

The power to give

The power to see, yeah, yeah (suddenly I see)

She got the power to be

The power to give

The power to see, yeah, yeah, yeah (suddenly I see)

She got the power to be

The power to give

The power to see, yeah, yeah (suddenly I see)

She got the power to be

The power to give

The power to see, yeah, yeah

Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)

This is what I wanna be

Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)

Why the hell it means so much to me?

Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)

This is what I wanna be

Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)

Why the hell it means so much to me, oh, oh, oh, yeah, yeah? (suddenly I see)

Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)

Why the hell it means so much to me? (suddenly I see)

Suddenly I see (suddenly I see)

Why the hell it means so much to me?

http://youtu.be/9AEoUa0Hlso

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Oscar de la Renta Tribute

He is Gone

by David Harkins

You can shed tears that he is gone

Or you can smile because he has lived

You can close your eyes and pray that he will come back

Or you can open your eyes and see all that he has left

Your heart can be empty because you can’t see him

Or you can be full of the love that you shared

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday

Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday

You can remember him and only that he is gone

Or you can cherish his memory and let it live on

You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back

Or you can do what he would want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

This is the beautiful poem that was read at Oscar de la Renta’s funeral by his dear friend, Anna Wintour.

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Death with Dignity: Brittany Maynard Dies on Her Own Terms

Brittany Maynard, the terminally ill 29 year-old woman who bravely ignited the right-to-die debate with her public decision to end her life, died Saturday at her home in Portland, Oregon surrounded by her family. “Goodbye to all my dear friends and family that I love,” she wrote on Facebook. “Today is the day I have chosen to pass away with dignity in the face of my terminal illness, this terrible brain cancer that has taken so much from me… but would have taken so much more.”

Before I tell you more, I am taking a moment to close my eyes and send my deepest sympathies and condolences to Brittany’s family.

In the spring, Brittany – a previously healthy, newly married young woman – was diagnosed with stage 4 glioblastoma, a particularly aggressive and especially nasty form of brain cancer. This type of cancer grows quickly and spreads shockingly fast. Glioblastomas grow so quickly because they create their own blood (i.e., “food”) supply. Though there are some treatments (e.g., surgery, chemotherapy and radiation) for the disease, there is no cure for it.  I remember standing in the bookstore reading her cover story in People magazine with tears pouring down my face, knowing what she was facing.

As a hospice nurse, I have cared for all too many people with glioblastoma. It is a a particularly gruesome way to die. People are plagued by seizures, changes in mood or personality, trouble speaking, loss of bodily functions, unrelenting & persistent headaches and difficulty speaking. I remember one woman for whom I cared who – whenever I entered her home – screamed (loud enough for neighbors to hear) the most shocking and stunning obscenities at me. While it was hard to take in (especially when she used my name in conjunction with the obscenities), I reminded myself  that her behavior was a direct result of her cancer. Additionally, her tirades were dispensed from her couch (because she was unable to walk), while wearing diapers (because she had lost control of her bladder and bowels).

Knowing that this was the likely end of her disease and after being told that six months to live, Brittany moved with her family from California to Oregon so that – when she was ready, on her own terms – she could take her life with a fatal dose of barbiturates under the state’s Death with Dignity Act.

Please allow me to explain this process because to have a logical discussion about it, I believe that we all need to understand the issues.

The Death with Dignity Act Law allows mentally competent (meaning that a person understands and can articulate the cause and effect of his or her actions), terminally-ill adult state residents to voluntarily request and receive a prescription medication to hasten their death. Right now, three states have legal physician-assisted suicide. Oregon and Washington have had it for a while. Vermont legalized it recently. New Mexico and Montana have court opinions that indicate that it wouldn’t be against the law to do physician-assisted suicide in those states, but they don’t have policies in place for doing it.

Several safeguards in Death with Dignity laws ensure all patients are protected, and if they wish to use the law, they’re in full control of the process. These safeguards and the request process ensure that there is no chance for patients to be coerced to hasten their deaths. Below are the specific eligibility requirements that must be met before a lethal dose of medication can be prescribed:

A person must be 18 years of age or older,
A person must be a resident of Oregon, Washington, or Vermont and provide the attending physician proof of residency according to the states’ laws. There isn’t a timetable associated with establishing residency. Proof can include a state issued ID such as a driver’s license, documents showing the patient rents or owns property in the state, state voter registration, or a recent state tax return. The attending physician must decide whether the patient has adequately established residency. There is no minimum residency requirement. A patient must simply be able to prove he or she is a current, bona fide resident of Oregon, Washington, or Vermont.
A person must be capable of making and communicating health care decisions for him/herself;
A person must be diagnosed with a terminal illness that will lead to death within six months.
Two physicians must determine whether these criteria have been met and follow this timeline:

First oral request to your physician
15 day waiting period
Second oral request to your physician
Written request to your physician
48 hour waiting period before you can pick up your prescribed medications
Patient may pick up prescribed medications from the pharmacy


A patient must be able to self-administer and ingest the prescribed medication.
Additionally, a person can rescind the verbal and written requests to the physicians at any time.

The law further requires…

The attending physician must be licensed in the same state as the patient.
The physician’s diagnosis must include a terminal illness, with six months or less to live.
The diagnosis must be certified by a consulting physician, who must also certify that the patient is mentally competent to make and communicate health care decisions.
If either physician determines that the patient’s judgment is impaired, the patient must be referred for a psychological examination.
The attending physician must inform the patient of alternatives, including palliative care, hospice and pain management options.
The attending physician must request that the patient notify their next-of-kin of the prescription request.
Use of the law cannot affect the status of a patient’s health or life insurance policies.

The states’ departments of health enforce compliance with the law. Compliance requires physicians to report all prescriptions to the state. Physicians and patients who comply with the law are protected from criminal prosecution. Physicians and health care systems are not obligated to participate in the Death with Dignity laws.

Oregon has had their law in place for 14 years. According to public records, since the law was passed in 1997, a total of 1,173 people have had prescriptions written and 752 patients have died from ingesting medications prescribed under the law. To date, Oregon’s experience has been without abuses. The critics of Oregon tend to be outside of Oregon. They don’t tend to be from the state.

As a hospice nurse, I was asked on more than one occasion to hasten a person’s death. People asked for prescriptions – they told me – to have a sense of control, to give them the motivation to face whatever difficulty that laid for them at the end of life. In the face of unrelenting suffering (on behalf of the patient AND family), Did I think about it? Yes. Did I actually hasten a person’s death? Absolutely Not. I did, however, work with the patient’s health care team to do everything that could possibly be done to provide physical, emotional and spiritual comfort at the end of their lives. Our efforts were not always enough, though. Witnessing (let alone experiencing) such suffering is excruciating, beyond anything a healthy person can ever – in their wildest and most abhorrent dreams! – imagine.

At this point, I am unable to say where I stand because I don’t think that the issue is clear-cut or black and white.  What I believe without a doubt is that this dialogue needs to continue.  I am so very grateful to Brittany and her family for giving this topic such light.  I’m just so sad and sorry that it happened the way that it id.

Additional information on the Death with Dignity laws can be found here:

Compassion & Choices of Oregon
Compassion & Choices of Washington
Vermont Ethics Network

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts!

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Enduring Love

One of my favorite Silver Linings about writing the blog is having the opportunity to meet extraordinary people who do remarkable things, especially those who are passionate about helping other people. Mary Landberg is definitely one of those people! As a hospice nurse and photographer living in southern Oregon, her mission is to speak to as many people as possible about how to ease the fear of death, help define the purpose of life, inspire to live and love fully, and to encourage conversation about death and dying so that people can best plan for the end of their lives.

Her book, Enduring Love,  is a collection of over one hundred portraits of hospice patients with family and friends embracing love and life. Mary Landberg is devoted to helping hospice patients and families live fully until the time of death.  Through photography she has found a way to offer this special population a gesture of love and a lasting memory to carry forward.  The portraits are accompanied with grand love stories, conversations with the dying, their advice for living, and the wisdom their illnesses have gifted them. Having been a hospice nurse for over a decade, I am so grateful to Mary for capturing the compassion, love, strength and peace that so often comes at the end of a person’s life.

This idea stemmed from an interaction that she had with a patient of hers. Mary snapped a photo on her iphone of herself holding hands with a dying patient and texted it to the patient’s grandson. When she recieved a moving and touching response back, she knew that she had to continue capturing that priceless moment of unwavering love that endures between people living with terminal illness and their families.

One of the biggest Silver Linings about her photography is that it is complimentary. Her no-charge policy is a way for her to give back to the community and encourage other hospice nurses around the country to offer the same service to their patients. It is her hope that her portraits will raise awareness of the value and importance of hospice care AND inspire people to live life fully while they are alive.

Here are a few of her beautiful photos:

You can find more images and inspiration here:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/hospiceportraitsbymarylandberg
Twitter: @LandbergMary
Instagram: mary_landberg
Check out the Enduring Love website: http://www.enduringlovebook.com

 

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It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

This weekend, we will be watching It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, the third Peanuts special.  Oct. 27 marked the 48th anniversary of this iconic book!  I know that we will not be alone in watching it.  After all, in 2013, seven million viewers tuned in to watch Lucy, Linus, Charlie Brown and of course, Snoopy.

This year, Peanuts devotees can watch it along with a beautiful new hardcover edition of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: The Making of a Television Classic, out now from HarperCollins. The book is filled with anecdotes and details about the cartoon’s production, the full shooting script from the show, and a collection of beautiful art from the special.

Who is your favorite character from Charlie Brown?  I’d have to go with either Snoopy or Woodstock.  But I do love Lucy as well.  Truly, I love them ALL!!!

My favorite life lessons from this book are:

“Never jump into a pile of leaves with a wet sucker.”
“If you try to hold my hand, I’ll slug you!”
“Nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see.”
“Everyone tells me you are a fake, but I believe in you. P.S. If you really are a fake, don’t tell me. I don’t wanna know.”

All of us can benefit child-like faith … an unshakable belief in something …even if it is the Great Pumpkin!

Hope that you have a safe and Happy Halloween!

 

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