Over the Cancerous Line

For 4 years, my step father had stage 4 prostate cancer that eventually engulfed his whole body. In 2016, he was given 6 months to live. He made it until October of 2020.

2020 saw so many hardships and tragedies, yet my step fathers passing was one filled with relief and a reflection on his full life. After suffering with the illness for so long, he went peacefully and surrounded by family. Now, 4 months on, my family have learnt how to heal through food and have a greater outlook on life.

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When I was younger, many older people told me that “until you’ve experienced Cancer even in the slightest, you’ll never understand how the end stages of death work.”

I was able to understand this through countless arguments, outbursts, forgetfulness and doubt. Not fully for myself, but through my mothers perspective.

When someone receives the diagnosis of cancer, it becomes the partner/spouses place to become carer no matter how small the job is. Because my stepfather was under the age of pension, however, my mother became his carer completely, receiving little to no full time help from the carer system one can claim free from the government here in Australia. Instead of easy-going help and assistance, the last year (almost all of 2020) was full of stress.

My stepfather was a generous, loving man yet the disease changed his personality and mindset almost completely.

Car brakes were forgotten about on numerous occasions, the gas stovetop wasn’t turned off for a whole day and if you tried to argue something that was in the wrong, it was as if you were lying. Cancer changed him, slowly but surely, and this is why death was greeted graciously.

Now 4 months on, we talk to his spirit with lightheartedness, and think of so many fond memories and family trips overseas.

This became a way of healing.

My family found that we really did not want to take care of ourselves the first 2 month or so after the funeral, it was just too much effort in a sombre environment.

It wasn’t until this January that my mum started going through paperwork and found a stack of Balinese vegetarian recipes that she and my stepfather received when they went on a wellness trip back in 2019. This became a game changer.

My mum was going to be on the strict juice and soup regime for 4 days so I decided to join her just by adding the soups and salads into my normal day to day foods.

Turns out this stuff is delicious!!

The drinks are packed full of nutrition but are similar to cafe quality fruit smoothies. And the salads are like nothing I’ve ever had before! Full of garlic, ginger and lemon, they’re brimming with flavour and texture.

These meals are so great that we’ve continued to follow the recipes almost 2 weeks on. And I can’t tell you how much energy I have. My skin is full of hydration, my dark acne spots have been fading quicker and I haven’t needed to take an afternoon nap in the whole time we’ve been on this new meal plan.

It’s honestly changed how I see food and how the body uses it for fuelling everyday activities so much that I hope to continue this for the whole year.

It’s so strange to look back on the crazy things that happened in 2020, especially when you lose a loved one when so many are departing this world from a new disease. But my life has changed from such adversities and has pushed for me and my family to take better care of ourselves and focus positive energies into our attitudes now more than ever.