Thursday, May 14, 2009

Today is my mom's birthday. For those that read me regularly, she passed away from liposarcoma. I wrote about her in this post, In Honor of Moms. She died November 21, 2006, 6 days after my 49th birthday and right before Thanksgiving. At the time, the cancer had spread to her lungs & was depleting her of oxygen. She was a super intelligent lady & her mind and thought process were really slowing down .... dieing.  Even with that, she had the caregiver helping us make me a cake. She also wrote out a card to me to this day makes me cry. She had beautiful handwriting & thoughts and the struggle for her to put down thoughts in that card was heart wrenching to me.  It was not the same writing I once knew & the words did not quite make sense but I knew what she meant. I think it was on the 20th when she fell into a coma and I was with her as she took her last breath. We were all thankful, myself, my sisters and brother, that she was able to die at home. My sister, Bethe, was even able to get her to the beach she loved before she got too sick.

So, why am I writing this beyond telling you that it was my mom's bday today & to please read In Honor of Moms to learn more about Sarcoma. I am writing to discuss all the things that come our way that cause emotional eating. We have day to day stress, boss stress, family stress, job stress, traffic stress and the list goes on!!! Then we have these really BIG things that cause emotional eating like days such as this when the loss of lost loved ones hit home more than normal. I have too many right now so I need to face the emotions & get thru them!

I have posted a lot on emotional eating. Here is one that references a couple others: Help Fighting the Weight Loss Battle.

I also want to mention a really good article I read on Diet Tired the other day. If you subscribe, you can get some of the tools discussed in the post. Here is a bit of his post, 6 Steps To Conquering Emotional Eating:

For some people overeating has little effect on their emotional wellbeing. For others, a single bout of overeating congers up feelings of a lifetime of failure, frustration and hopelessness. If you struggle with emotional or binge eating the goal is therefore not to ever overeat again, but to see overeating as just that. A single event, a single mistake and the negative feelings that accompany your binge will pass. In other words, the goal is not to eliminate emotional eating but to:

• reduce the frequency of emotional eating
• reduce the severity of each binge

“I had a binge, but it wasn’t that bad!”, an excited Kate said to me. The notion that she didn’t have to be perfect when it comes to eating freed her from the emotional grip of overeating. “I haven’t had a binge in nearly 2 weeks!”, said Jacqueline as she reflected on her progress.

He writes how you can successfully manage emotional and binge eating. The guide in the picture at the top is from his site which is printable by subscription along with some other great stuff like printable diet tracking sheets & subscriber tools. You may not agree with everything he says but it helps to get you thinking about how to manage your emotional eating.

Now, back to me & my mom's birthday & how I will handle it. I will think about the good times with both my parents, now deceased. I will think about how I need to be good to myself & let the feelings be present & real as many of you have posted about in your blogs. I don't anticipate any emotional eating going on but just in case, I have my healthy homemade oatmeal raisin cookies here! Here is another recipe for you too: Fruit & Oatmeal Cookie

Please be good to yourself & if you "fall off the wagon for a meal or a day, just get back on. It is not the end of the world!!!

I do want to bring your attention again to the 2009 Team Sarcoma Initiative (a.k.a., the International Sarcoma Awareness Week, July 18-26th). The goal this year is to have over 10,000 involved worldwide helping raise awareness of sarcoma and funds for sarcoma research. See the In Honor Of Moms post to read more & get links to more information.

Also, please read this from Bruce Shriver who runs the Sarcoma Initiative. His daughter died from a sarcoma cancer.

The mark up of the ALERT Bill has just been confirmed to take place on Wednesday, May 20 at 2:30. This isn't good for the rare and ultra rare cancer community. As a result, it's critically important to contact all Members of the HELP Committee and urge them not to support the Bill without representing rare and ultra rare cancer patients. Additionally, it might be best to work the Republicans hard to fight this Bill since they apparently have a litany of issues with its contents. By blocking the Bill next week, it buys time to make the Bill stronger since Caya Lewis departs for HHS on Friday, May 22. The Senate goes into recess on Monday, May 25.

Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee
Democrats by Rank:

Edward Kennedy (MA) 202-224-4543
Christopher Dodd (CT) 202-224-2823
Tom Harkin (IA) 202-224-3254
Barbara Mikulski (MD) 202-224-4654
Jeff Bingaman (NM) 202-224-5521
Patty Murray (WA) 202-224-2661
Jack Reed (RI) 202-224-4642
Bernard Sanders (I) (VT) 202-224-5141
Sherrod Brown (OH) 202-224-2315
Robert P. Casey, Jr. (PA) 202-224-6324
Kay Hagan (NC) 202-224-6342
Jeff Merkley (OR) 202-224-3753

Republicans by Rank:

Michael B. Enzi (WY) 202-224-3424
Judd Gregg (NH) 202-224-3324
Lamar Alexander (TN) 202-224-4944
Richard Burr (NC) 202-224-3154
Johnny Isakson (GA) 202-224-3643
John McCain (AZ) 202-224-2235
Orrin G. Hatch (UT) 202-224-5251
Lisa Murkowski (AK) 202-224-6665
Tom Coburn (OK) 202-224-5754
Pat Roberts (KS) 202-224-4774

Senator Kennedy
202-224-0767

Senator Hutchison
202-224-5922

U.S. Capitol Switchboard
202-224-3121

Thanks to all of you for listening!!!!