Same cancer, new year
Recent portrait of a girl and her sweet potatoes, 2025
Nothing like steamed veggies, turkey bacon, avocado, and sweet potatoes to make me a happy camper. A typical scene.
January was quite a month! Lots of changes afoot, especially living in Los Angeles. Nothing like some more unprecedented times to ring in a new year! I’ve been so grateful for all of my various wellness practices — read: nervous system support — like yoga and gentle movement, meditation, and somatic experiencing to help bolster a sense a stability through it all.
As the saying goes, “When it rains it pours,” and despite not nearly enough rains for how much fire had in LA, my life was pouring — two weeks into the fires, I had my scheduled tumor check. This includes bloodwork to test my tumor markers and TSH (thyroid hormone levels) and have a quick ultrasound at my doctor’s office to get the approximate size of things checked. I went early Sunday morning over MLK weekend to get my bloodwork drawn, which I highly recommend as far as not-waiting-in-line goes. It was me and about 12 people easily 30 years my senior.
The test results are usually released to me by my doctor once both levels are in. Because I already know I have active cancer, they aren’t concerned about releasing the results ahead of time, which is excellent news for me, because I don’t have to wait in anticipation for an extra three days. I try to get my labwork done at least 2-3 business days ahead to avoid getting to my appointment and not having it ready to review, so there’s always a few days between RESULTS and THE APPOINTMENT.
The short of it is this, from backwards to forwards: my ultrasound showed no growth and no shrinkage, just fully status quo. My tumor markers and TSH levels went up a bit — often due to a supplement interfering or more often, the fact that my weight has fluctuated after stair-stepping my way off of keto and then rolling into the holiday season where I’ve eaten more than my fair share of starches a la root vegetables. I’ll recheck my levels again in about a month. I’m supposed to up my levothyroxine dose a bit, and retest, but I’m not sure if I want to raise my dose, or wait a bit to see if my weight evens out.
It’s common for people coming off of keto to gain weight — switching from burning fat to burning glucose, also read: going from “your body thinks you’re starving and goes into survival mode” into eating a more regular amount of carbs (hey sweet potatoes!) it stores the extra glucose in fat in your body. Et voila! My old jeans fit the same as they used to after being rather big for a while. The reason I think my weight might change again is because I’ve been wearing a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) to track my blood sugar levels.
When I was eating keto, my blood sugar levels were admirably low and steady, it’s quite literally why people eat keto in the first place. Flattening your glucose spikes makes for overall better health on a cellular level. Now that I’ve added in some more starches, I have been playing around with what foods to eat when to help my glucose spikes be as small as possible. BUT for the last month or so, I’ve given up all rigidity around eating and have gone hog-wild on old eating habits. Throw in some added stressors and weeeeee I am backsliding all the way to sometimes (frequently) eating (overeating) sweet potato chips and other crunchy things like carrots.
My intention for February is to bring some energy back to meal planning and experimenting with best practices for how my body responds to foods via glucose tracking. I am leaning hard into the wisdom of the self-proclaimed Glucose Goddess and I 20/10 recommend her book the Glucose Revolution to everyone I know. She’s almost annoyingly likable and the framework for stabilizing your blood glucose levels is helpfully simple. Kind of the opposite vibe of ketogenic, which is basically a food prison.
For the record, using food, fasting, and low carb food to achieve ketosis is an excellent way to help “starve cancer” — but the kicker is, it does so at the expense of a healthy gut microbiome, and for me, my gut health comes first above everything (otherwise I turn into a bloated, moody, brain-foggy mess). The most aggressive cancers like brain and pancreatic cancers respond really well to intense conditions like ketosis, so when you’re truly staring death in the face, leveraging ketosis can be such a satisfying way to feel a sense of control. But if you’re me and things are pretty stable, and your body hates being in ketosis, it’s worth playing around with some other options. It’s a privilege to have options!
So what’s on the horizon?
Check bloodwork again in March to see how my TSH and tumor markers are looking
Get enthusiastic about some food changes and keep getting feedback via my CGM
Continue my weekly acupuncture (my body LOVES acupuncture, it’s like magic) — if you’re near Santa Monica (and actually even if you’re not near SM), I 20/10 recommend Grace Suh
Continue, for now, myofascial release/PT on my neck. It’s been such an excellent help in loosening the muscles that got so tight after my two surgeries, and fully correcting for some referral pain in my shoulder (acupuncture cured the pain, PT has helped retrain my muscles now). I had also been under-using my back muscles and over-compensating my neck muscles in all areas of my life (including yoga!), so that’s been game-changing re-training my muscles to engage differently.
Continue my somatic experiencing and emotional release work. I worked with Rachel Hardy late last year and it has been truly game-changing for how my nervous system is feeling these days. I’m eager to see the long-term impact this work has on my inflammation levels and overall well-being.
My next ultrasound is slated for July, so we’ll do bloodwork/ultrasound then. It seems so far away right now, and what a privilege that is, too!
I’m finishing up the final assignments for the Metabolic Approach to Health (Cancer) Terrain Advocate Program and adding that to my arsenal of modalities for my Health Coaching business. 2025 is my year of visibility, so you might just see me in your favorite corner of the internet soon!
Here’s to healthy blood glucose levels, nourishing sleep, mental + emotional support, and the simple joys of life for us all! Until next time.