Words Fail

Dear sneaky friends who have overwhelmed me with more love and good food than a girl deserves,

I have tried to sit down a few times tonight to try to sum up in just a teeny way how grateful I am for what I am coming to understand (and I still don’t FULLY understand) is an overwhelming effort to try to get me to stop eating Panda Express and stopping for a latte and an Old Fashioned donut on the way into the Pentagon. The problem is every time I sit down to write my tears fall on the keyboard and I start thinking I am going to start talking in cancer clichés and I think how can I EVER thank all of the wonderful amazing people in my life who have reached out and touched me at this time.

When I was a kid I was sick one Christmas with strep throat or some run of the mill croupy illness and I remember my Dad sitting with me watching “It’s a Wonderful Life,” the Jimmy Stewart movie which at the time had not been turned into a Hallmark card and mass marketed at Christmastime (this was the mid 70’s, mind you). I always loved that movie – and I always welled up with tears in subsequent Christmases when I would watch it – mostly because it reminded me of my Dad and this notion of wanderlust and the question what if you had never been born. When Eve gave me a hint one night about all of you banding together (knowing what a hopeless cook I am) and finding a nutritionist, who won’t look like Edward Munch’s “Scream” when she heard what I liked to eat on a regular basis, I burst into tears on the phone with her – sobbing because I felt like the little kid in Jimmy Stewart’s arms as all the old friends and towns folk came to his aid after he lost all the bank’s money – all the friends who showed up unannounced. I am so overwhelmed by the idea that you would take such steps to help me get back on the road to wellness that I am speechless.

Last night “the nutritionist” came to my house and after perusing my 5 day food log, pronounced that it was a nearly perfect diet – Omega 3’s all over the place – no saturated fat – a bunch of Chia seeds and flax up the wazoo – whole grain, no pesticide, no nonsense. All I could think of was the Virginia Slims commercial: “You’ve come a long way, baby.” In fact I am even eating some concoction of oatmeal that Lila made for me that some Amazon tribe eats every morning before they run 100 miles and tear their toenails off so that they can run further on this stuff.

I am going to be insufferably healthy when this is all done and my gift back to all of you is that I will be preaching back to you what I have learned! And you know me – it’s all or nothing so unfortunately in this case I’m all in. And I am going to be such a BORE to have dinner with! In all truth I am really excited about all of this nutritional nuttiness right now. I have read a lot about how it is the single best way with exercise to prevent a recurrence of Triple Negative breast cancer. And as we all know this sucker doesn’t stand a chance.

Better go – my keyboard is getting wet again.

Words fail.

xoxo

Jennifer