Snack Mountain Blog

A new amazing health food store opened two blocks from my parents house last week. I can’t tell you how convenient it is! I mean, it may not be Erehwon but its big and has pretty much everything I could ever need. It even has produce!

Another new health resource is this unbelievable iPhone/iPad app that Sloan Kettering created called About Herbs. It is so beautifully designed and resourceful. You can look up different herbs and foods and it will tell you the clinical summary as well as potential drug interactions and more. It also has both professional and consumer view depending on the level of scientific information you want. Here are some screenshots.

I would use this app even if I wasn’t a Sloan Kettering patient. It’s free. I’m seriously addicted to looking things up and it makes me more in love with Sloan Kettering than I already am.

In other silly news, over the past few days I’ve been acting like a 14 year old girl snapping photos of myself in the bathroom. I guess I just want to capture my fun hairstyle while it lasts. This one I took in the middle of the night. Sometimes when I take Ativan to sleep wake up in the middle of the night and am really talkative or do weird things like take pictures of myself in the bathroom.

This one I took at the bathroom of the Sloan Kettering Integrative Medicine Clinic when I was getting a massage yesterday. I bought this fun stripey dress from American Apparel so I wanted to capture my “stripey look.” Haha.

Tomorrow will be a special day because I am going to see a pain specialist at Sloan Kettering. Yes! Please make the pain stop! AND! I am going to have a sleepover with my dear friend Rachel (the Leukemia survivor). I cannot wait to spend quality time with her!!!

Hello out there. It’s been awhile since I posted. As you can imagine, I had a pretty crazy week. Doctors, hospitals, pain, fatigue, etc. Over the week I also had a lot of doubts about posting about all this stuff on the blog. Or I’ve been thinking about what exactly it is I want to share here. I do see value in sharing my experience and having a place for friends and family to keep up with how I am doing. I think part of my questioning was becoming overwhelmed with people finding out via the blog or word of mouth while also coming to terms with my diagnosis which as you can imagine is not easy. Maybe that felt like a lot at once. Anyhoo, above is a picture from last week that my mom took in the garden at my parents building. Thought you might like to see another haircut shot!

Steve arrived last Wednesday and just left a few hours ago. It was so amazing to have him here! We had so much fun together and I didn’t want him to leave!!! On Saturday we went to Fire Island for the day with my parents. Here he is standing on some newly built stairs on the beach.

I brought out my Canon T3i which I got for my birthday a few years ago. The camera has an old Nikon 24mm lens from high school on it but really need to read the manual and figure out how to use the camera. I was having issues with the focus point and there’s so much I need to learn about digital SLRs. Here’s a shot of out beautiful kitchen at Fire Island with the coolest tiles in the world.

I was happy to see that my beloved red Schwinn bike survived Hurricane Sandy.

We had the classic Fire Island lunch of tunafish! It’s so damn good! My salt levels were very low last week so I also indulged in potato chips which is something that I don’t usually eat.

We also went on a short walk on the beach so I could collect some shells and stones for painting and drawing on! Kids always paint shells and sell them at the beach. It’s one of my new favorite things to collect!! I want to experiment with some fun techniques I learned in the Clayton Brother’s Art Center class I took last fall and draw some fun characters on them too!

I don’t have a picture right now but my crystals and healing stones collection is growing quite nicely these days too. I’ve got them all next to my bedside table for healing power! In other news, amazing care packages have continued to arrive so thank you to all those out there who have been so kind to me.

Yesterday we went to see Frances Ha at the IFC Center and I loved it! I highly recommend seeing it and especially at that theatre if you are in NYC. It was funny because there’s this one character in the movie who looked extra familiar to me and I couldn’t figure out why. Later when I looked him up, I discovered I went to college with him! It’s the character Benji who is her roommate at one point in the movie. I didn’t really know him but he was in this sketch comedy group with my friend Tristan so I would always go see them perform. You should definitely go see the movie. It’s super charming and has a great Woody Allen vibe.

After the movie we ate at The Smile where I’ve been meaning to go since I’ve came home for treatment. The chef/owner is a friend from high school named Melia. I reconnected with her and her amazing husband Frankie over New Years in Colorado. My appetite has been hit or miss lately and I’ve been losing lots of weight but at The Smile yesterday I was ravenous. No one could believe how much I was eating. The food is very simple there but that’s kind of my style and it really hit the spot! I got the scrambled eggs with greens and sourdough and they were so tasty. I also got this unbelievably delicious house made ricotta with fresh figs. Holy Moly! Melia has an amazing new cookbook out that has been getting rave reviews. I bought a copy it but its out in LA. I’ll have to have it sent my way so I can cook from it. Which brings me to the last thing I wanted to write about. I was at a follow up with my doctor this afternoon (who is the most amazing doctor ever btw) and she was talking about how I should be eating more frequent smaller meals rather than fewer larger ones. She suggested I make a little project out of coming up with good, healthy snacks. I didn’t tell her that the name of my company/art is Snack Mountain. But I liked how she encouraged me to make a project out of it. I already love to make snacks and have been wanting to come up those kinds of recipes and post about it so maybe that will be another good way to use the blog right now. A mountain of snacks for me, Snack Mountain.

I love how I initially wrote about not being sure if I wanted  to write on the blog anymore and I just wrote the longest post ever. Well, my mom is going to make some fish for dinner and I think I’ll have a little Fire Island tunafish as an appetizer. Ciao!

So here I am! My hair came out great! My dear friend Anne from Twigs salon blew me out of the water. Both my parents love it and I can’t believe I’ve never done this before. Having short hair is so much fun! Here are some more shots!

Here are my braids I have now decided to donate to Pantene Beautiful Length Program.

Here’s my iPad with my brother and my new sister in law watching the haircut via Skype.

Here’s a gratuitous bathroom shot:

I ate real pasta for the first time in ages from my parents’ neighborhood spot called Felice.

My mom snagged this nice side shot of my hair during dinner.

Finally, I have to write how incredibly thankful to all the people in my life who have been so helpful to me including my parents who are unbelievable. Also, to Steve who was just at my house for several hours packing suitcases of stuff to bring with him when he comes on Wednesday! What would I do without him?!?!? And as I was getting off the Skype call with him a friend dropped of 4 different care packages from friends in the city. I am speechless. I am so grateful for all the amazing people in my life. I feel blessed.

Ok, off to watch Kristen Wiig from SNL last night. xoxo, L

Omg, my friends and newlyweds Carlton and Sarah sent me an outstanding care-package yesterday filled with more amazing socks, CRYSTALS (!!!), sage, a challenge to write poetry with a mini notebook and pencils/erasers.

Man, I really feel loved out there so thank you everyone. The big haircut is today but before then I wanted to share a pic of me my mom just took of me in one of my fave childhood t-shirts: “Bartman: Avenger of Evil.” “Watch it, Dude!”

My symptoms yesterday were a little rough and I think it was from the chemo but I’m not sure. As scheduled, I went to get hydrated at the hospital via a Saline IV which seemed to help and now I’m just trying to drink tons more water, juice, etc.  It also seemed like getting up and walking really helped me. My friend Zak stopped by and we took walking laps around the roof which was awesome!! Well, stay tuned for the hair!

So, this is for real. Yesterday was a much more intense treatment day and I think that I am entering a new phase of realizing the scope of the situation I am. While I think that focusing on being positive is essential and I will continue to do so, the weight of the situation at hand cannot be denied or avoided. Immediately after the 2nd treatment, I was rushed over to see the psychologist which was helpful but also made everything feel a bit more raw and heavy. I am also now facing a whole new set of side-effect challenges that I will have to adjust to.

To enjoy some good food and take it easy at home, we ordered from Dawat again and tried out a few new items including their salad with a great dressing and their Chana Masala.

And here’s a shot of my mom and I in these Snoopy lounge dresses we bought at Uniqlo a few weeks ago when I first arrived in New York.

I made myself acupuncture and massage appointments for next week. I am truly blown away by Sloan Kettering and how much it has to offer. I feel so lucky that everything is so conveniently located to my parents house too.

Lastly, I got some awesome care-packages in the mail yesterday. One from my friend Amanda with all this organizational binders, notebooks, folders for cancer documentation. The other was  goodies from my friend Abe including my beloved SQIRL nut butter and a home made ET necklace!!! Wowowoowowow!

Well, getting the big haircut tomorrow! Stay tuned!

Wahoo! Today I got my first dose of chemotherapy. Naturally, I was kinda scared about what it would be like but it was actually really easy. I had a terrible night sleep the night before due to pain so I was pretty exhausted going in. But the treatment was pretty painless and I caught up on some sleep because they gave me some Benadryl in the IV as a routine precaution against allergies to the medicine. I also met with my doctor again who confirmed the diagnosis. She explained that getting cerivcal cancer that grows at this rate is very rare. I even had a normal pap smear in October which the doctor said can happen but is also rare. She also said that there is a third kind of drug that I can seek out from a doctor at Columbia if the two kinds she will be using don’t work which is very comforting news. Anyhoo, I feel so incredibly lucky to be in such good hands at Sloan Kettering and am confident that I am going to be OK! Hallelujah!

Now, for some less heavy stuff, my friends in LA are so amazing. Check out this card they made for me. I heard that there is a care package on the way (with SQIRL nut butter!!!) but this card is pretty unbelievable in the meantime. Check out the inside:

And the back is amazing too!!

I have still been craving pizza so my mom and I went to a local Italian spot to grab a pie!

Here we are enjoying it! My mom is so cute!!!

You can see how tired I am but this girl has got to eat some pizza!!

Despite how crazy and physically painful this all is right now, I am overwhelmed by how lucky I am. I am so grateful for the family and friends I have in my life and that I am getting the best health care possible. Tomorrow I am going back for a different chemo drug and hopefully it will be pretty straightforward too. The one tomorrow is the one that could make me nauseous so fingers crossed that the anti-nausea drugs work. I guess that’s also why I wanted to eat pizza now, pre-potential loss of appetite. Well, untill next time, enjoy yourself out there!

So I was maybe gonna wait until next week to do this but I’ve been telling lots of people today so why not share it with the world wide internet? Here goes. I have been diagnosed with cervical cancer that has spread to other areas in my body but mostly in my pelvis. If you are a reader of this blog you may remember me mentioning being in pain over the past few months. The whole story is very long and I’m not going to share all the details right now now. But tracking down the root of my symptoms/illness has been like a wild goose chase and while the New York Jew in me often feared that I had cancer, it was incredibly shocking and terrifying that it actually turned out to be true. To be honest, I feel lucky to have found out as quickly as I did considering how many doctors and even the emergency room at UCLA dismissed my complaints and just told me I had a ruptured cyst. I continued to look for a better doctor and 3 weeks ago found one at Cedars Sinai through my amazing therapist who I feel so indebted to now. I have been on the fence about sharing all of this on the blog but I believe that it will help me to stay positive, record the experience and hopefully help others who are going through a similar experience. I am going to be treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York because it’s down the street from where I grew up so I am living at home while my amazing parents take care of me. I am so grateful for the amazing positive friends that I have in my life who are empowering me with the strength to get through all of this. About a month before I got sick, I started dating a new amazing guy named Steve who has been a huge source of comfort, support and positivity. It’s funny how the best thing and the worst thing can happen to you at the same time. I guess that’s just how life is sometimes. He encouraged me to start a list of all the things I am going to do when I get better so maybe I will start sharing some of those plans with you as well. Another inspirational moment in all of this was when I was getting the initial MRI on April 18th that revealed the masses in my pelvis. At the time, I didn’t really think I had cancer but was a little worried/freaked out because the doctor said my condition wasn’t fitting into any common diagnosis. As I was laying in the MRI machine, the thought popped into my head “When this is all over, you will be a healer.” I’ve continued to think about what this will mean for me and I plan to explore this idea over my treatment period. One thing I am thinking is that I want to take this online nutrition program at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I found out about it through one my best friends Rachel. About 4.5 years ago she was diagnosed with Leukemia. The day after she told me, after I recovered from the shock, I was convinced that she was going to be OK and I told her so. At the time of her treatment, I was at grad school at Yale at the time so couldn’t be around her as much as I wanted to but I always wore this heart necklace to send her love. She always said she could feel my presence/energy even if I was not around her physically. And she just celebrated her 4 year bone marrow transplant! Holla!

So now it’s time for me to wear the necklace for myself and to accept the love and positivity from my friends and family. I start chemotherapy tomorrow afternoon. I’m a bit scared but honestly, I’m so ready to just get started with treatment and kick this cancer in the butt! I am so excited to get healthy and not be in pain anymore! Even though I know the side effects of chemo are going to be intense, I know I can handle it. Early next week, I am going to cut my hair Anne Hathaway style and buy some wigs. I’ll share some pics with you then! As for the silly picture of me above. That’s what my hair looked like when I woke up this morning so I thought it would be a funny juxtaposition for all the hairstyles I’ll be rocking in the near future.

Love to the world,
Lauren