Fresh Harvest

The sun is shining bright. I hope the monsoon rains which typhoon Maria would be bringing are not strong to cause flooded streets and houses. Sometimes monsoon rains take as long as more than a week, a little inconvenient when you want to go out and it’s raining outside.

I checked the garden for a while making sure that the the plants in the planter’s box not reached by the previous rain yesterday are not too dry.  I also checked our jackfruits which are still fruiting and our two kalamansi trees.  What do you know. I just harvested about a kilo of fresh kalamansi. Perfect for  marinating meat, dips and making kalamansi juice. I am trying to limit my sugar intake though so it would be just a bit of  sugar.  I am planning to buy honey when I go back to the supermarket.

Fresh kalamansi

For the past two days, I avoided eating rice. Carbohydrates eventually turn into sugar and sugar feeds cancer cells. Trying to do it right slowly until my body adjusts to no rice at all. My daughter Nissa is on a Keto diet. She’s been on it for the past two years.  I asked my internist about it and he said I should not eat fats  since I am on maintenance with high blood pressure. I  don’t like fats specially from pork  and chicken.   When I buy chicken, I remove the skin or have chicken breasts deboned by the vendor.  Josef suggested that I cook my meals in our steamer to avoid those unnecessary oils and fats that I don’t need.

Over the weekend, Josef and I bought some wonton wrappers and cooked  Pinsec frito. Pinsec is a type of dumplings wherein wonton wrappers are filled with ground meat, carrots, sesame oil, salt, ground black pepper, green onion, crab meat (optional), and egg  or seafood filling and then deep-fried until golden and crisp. It’s best eaten when it’s hot and it’s best with sweet and sour sauce as dips.

Pinsec Frito

As we grow older, it’s not just the body aches and muscular pains that we experience. I still feel my immunity is low. After all these years, maybe it is still the effect of chemo drugs. I am grateful though that despite all these  setbacks, I feel okay and I thank God for that.

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One Day At A Time

Woke up early to the sound of heavy rains pouring down the roof. I thought super typhoon Maria  is  already here. Good thing it was just one of those thunderstorms. How early it is though.  Couldn’t sleep last night, I was awake by 1 am, read for a while until 3 am then tried to catch more sleep  finally waking up at 5 am. Caught the early morning mass at 6 am.

What’s on your mind Arlene? Same question I always see on my wall when I open Facebook.

Blogging took a back seat for a while. I went back to my doctor for the urine culture results and my CEA marker testing. Maybe that was why for the previous weeks, I still had UTI because the antibiotics I was given before was resistant. The only option was to change to antibiotics that is sensitive to my ailment. Come to think of it, all of them were injectable.  My doctor requested for a shot right there and then. I was worried cause I didn’t bring enough cash to pay for the medicine except my health card.  I am glad that it was also covered. I had a skin test on both arms. One of the things I am so fearful about is when the nurse do the skin testing which is so painful. They have to wait at least thirty minutes to see if I  was allergic to the drug or not.  Those few seconds  of intense pain when finally, the nurse injected it on my right buttock….wow! Imagine, ten grams of it. I have to go back on Tuesday (banning the bad weather) for another urinalysis and follow-up check-up.

I just closed my eyes in prayer when I saw the result of my CEA. The normal range is 0 to 5 while I got 9.22. My doctor said it is nothing to worry about.  Higher or elevated CEA result is not just because of recurring colon cancer but through other things like my infection.  I’ve been in remission for nine years now and I hope it is finally gone.

Our friendly neighbor gave me a bag of fresh guyabano leaves to use as tea infusion. It needs to be air-dried though to keep it long.  It is soursop to you dear readers. It has so many healthy benefits including its ability to protect you from cancer cells.  I bought a locally prepared guyabano tea too and a box of malunggay   (moringa) tea.

Health is wealth, we always say. That is so true because when you are not healthy, you are poorer than the ordinary man on the street.

 

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