Breast Cancer and Vegan

So, I haven't been fully honest and since my kids don't know this blog exists yet...here goes.

I have an asymmetrical mass in my right breast.  I do not know if if is cancer yet.  I'm still holding out hope that it's benign, but sometimes waves of grief roll over me and I get really sad.  Sad for what might be and sad for what I might miss.  It will be the second time in three years that I've been seriously ill.  Is that all my kids are going to remember from their childhood?

Should I adopt a vegan diet?  I'm not sure.  I was actually vegan for 10 years from 25 to 35 years old. That was when I was single and lived alone.  I didn't have to make food for anyone else. I did not have kids to consider or a husband, or grandparents who might think I'm starving my kids.

Ok, it's actually an easy decision.  I know all the benefits of a vegan diet.  It's good for your heart, colon, great for fighting cancer.  It's also really good for the environment...not to mention the animals.

Tomorrow, whether I have cancer or not, I'm going to go back to being Vegan.  Tonight, I'm having potatoes au gratin and a salad...almost vegan!  My husband is not feeling well.  I've learned that is not the time to start a conversation that he might not be so willing to have!

When I was vegan before, these were my favorite vegan books (some are updated versions):
1.  Veganomicon
2.  Vegan 101
3.  Gaia's Kitchen

I'm very excited to try out the Vegan Casseroles cookbook.  I love baking casseroles, because I can prepare all the dishes while the kids are at school.

I'll let you know tomorrow what I eat and make for the kids.

First Things First....LOVE

First things First

LOVE

I have always told my kids and have always believed that love is the most important thing in the world.  It was one of the first words my children learned.

First Words:
Gavin - hot, because we were at my parents' house a lot and they had their gas fireplace on.  We needed to teach Gavin not to touch the fire place

Anna - cookie.  Well, like most kids, Anna likes cookies...still does!

Owen - car.  Unfortunately for my face, Owen love Matchbox cars...he really liked throwing them at my face!

Liam - Ma.  I'd like to think he was really saying Mom!

It's hard not to get caught up in money.  We need money for everything...even going to the beach, at least in New Jersey!  I'd love to have an updated kitchen, a bigger bathroom for the kids, and at least a month a year (a week at a time) where I do nothing but sit on a beach in 80F weather.  All of these things cost money...oh wait, the kids want to play tennis, soccer, baseball, dance, go to birthday parties and have their own birthday parties.  All of which cannot be done without money.

But when it comes down to it...why do I have my embroidery business...get up at 6am to work on my orders, because, because of love.  I love my kids (& my husband).  I want them to be happy.  Making them happy, makes me happy.  What would all this be, if it weren't for love?

We talk every night at dinner with our children.  We don't repeat the same stories every night, but we do often talk of love.  The love that brought Brian and I together.  The love we have and had for a family.  The love that will live on past our existence on earth.

There is a saying that there is no love like the love of a mother.  As a mother, I believe this to be true. However, admittedly and obviously, I have never been a father, so how am I to know how a father feels.  I do tell my kids that no one will ever love them the way I love them and I believe that everyone on this planet can say that, because we are all different.

Regardless of whether I love you more than your father, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, partner, and children, regardless of whether I am near or far or dust in the ocean, I love you, Brian, Gavin, Anna, Owen and Liam.  I hope that you always remember that I taught you how important love is and that you aren't scared of it and run from it.  Your hearts are pure...let the love flow freely to and from your heart.

Your loving mother,
Laura

I am Dying

There I said it!

No, I don't have a disease or something tragic going on...It's just that I am passed the birth and growth stages and am now in the decaying to death stage.  You might guess that I am "old" or maybe you think I'm "young."  Both are relative terms, so it depends on where you are in life...  I am 46 years old; probably passed my half-way point.

I don't think of myself as morbid or depressed.  I rather believe that I am logical yet also emotional.  My grandparents never made it to 50 years old.  Growing up, I had two very good friends' mothers and neighbors die at 42 years old (one of cancer and the other from a car accident).  Whose to say I'm better than my grandparents.  Fifty percent of who I am came from them.

However, as I had 5 Strands of Hope when I was pregnant with my triplets.  I have hope now, but I am going to prepare, just in case I don't live long enough to see my daughter get her period, first boyfriend, go to college, med school, get married and have her own kids....or other firsts for my boys.

I know my husband, mother and sister would think I'm crazy for doing this and maybe I am.  Though I've always like the saying, "Prepare for the Worst, Hope for the Best!"  This blog just might be something my daughter and I laugh about when she is older.  But for now, I'am going to prepare for the worst.

It's crazy to think that I haven't posted in 4 years...even crazier to think that I had the time to post when the triplets were 3 and Gavin was not yet 5.  Oh how I miss those days!

The internet is wonderful and scary...

Scary that I forgot that I set up this blog.... wonder whose has been to it.

Wonderful that I can go back four years and see what I was thinking about.

So it's now 2017...I'm not going to rehash the last four years.  It would be way too time consuming and funny...somehow we all arrived in 2017, alive and happy - for the most part.

The focus of my blog has changed...it's no longer about infertility, fertility, pregnancy and birth and all the crazy stuff surrounding that....but one of the musings of a dying woman....