Monday, June 25, 2007

Monday Mornings

I always start my week by going to the web site www.gratefulness.org to light a candle of hope for all people on a cancer journey, plus I light a candle of thankfulness for both cancer caregivers and cancer researchers. Unfortunately, I know so many people who are currently walking the cancer path that I finally realized I needed to make a list of their names to keep by my computer so I remember to send healing thoughts to them individually several times each week.

To all people with a cancer diagnosis, no matter what part of the path you are on, I send you all my best wishes for health, healing, and hope.
Diana

Welcome to Diana Dyer's new blog!

I suppose I should have started my blog with a welcome instead of starting by telling you why I was beginning this new venture. So, WELCOME! I hope you enjoy your visit and share a comment.
Diana

Thursday, June 21, 2007

National author and dietitian FINALLY goes local!


I have flipped the headline "local author/dietitian/whatever finally makes it to the big time", as after 10+ years of speaking throughout the country promoting the benefits of proactively including nutrition as an individualized component of true comprehensive cancer care, I have made the decision to begin an open-ended "sabbatical" from the non-stop pace I have led for the past decade. The decision was both difficult and easy. It is simply "time" to do so.

However, I am not going away, just taking a much-needed break from the extensive traveling, speaking, presentation preparation, updating my web site (www.CancerRD.com), marketing my books (A Dietitian's Cancer Story plus the Spanish edition Historia De Cáncer De Una Dietista), national professional commitments, professional mentoring, consulting on research projects, etc, etc.

Academic sabbaticals usually have a defined time period and a specific focus and professional activity. One of my brothers made the logical suggestion that I could now finally take the time to actually write a cookbook. Even though such an idea may seem like a perfect fit for my sabbatical, I actually need to take significant and a still undefined amount of time to do "nothing"; in this case, nothing means spending more time with my family and friends, strolling at the Farmers' Market and getting to know my local farmers, enjoying planting and weeding our gardens, helping my husband can the tomatoes from our 45 heritage tomato plants (I stand corrected - we have 62 plants!), finally get my heirloom dried bean seeds in the ground (eek - today is summer's solstice already - I still have time but I had better not dilly-dally too much longer!), start to really tackle organizing my family photos (I am now at least a decade behind on that venture!), finally being home to keep my bird feeders full, attending my local Audubon Society meetings, joining my local Slow Food Movement group, even cleaning my house and closets (yes, finally!), etc, etc. I can go on and on and on!

So why am I starting a blog? It has been 12+ years since my second breast cancer diagnosis (I was only 34 the first time, 45 the second time) when I made significant changes to my diet and lifestyle (details are in my book A Dietitian's Cancer Story and on my web site www.CancerRD.com). I have been very fortunate to not have had a local or metastatic recurrence to date. I know I will always keep reading current research studying nutrition and lifestyle changes for cancer survivors. A blog will allow me to share the research studies and results plus my thoughts in a more timely and informal manner than my previous Email newsletters (which are all archived on www.CancerRD.com) and Q&A's on my web site. In addition, the blog allows me an opportunity to talk about other interests and activities of mine both as they develop and as I have the time and inclination.

I'm certainly not making any promises about the frequency of my posts, and while I will enjoy reading and thinking about all comments, I will not be responding to questions or individual inquiries (which would defeat my current goal of doing "nothing"). My blog will continue to develop in spurts, and I don't ever envision getting "fancy". Indeed, it just might be very small. Time will tell. Thus I am going to close this initial posting with one of my favorite quotations so that I can go enjoy this lovely summer evening. :-)

"No one could make a greater mistake than he who
did nothing because he could do only a little."
• Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797)

I hope you enjoy reading my little blog as much as I will enjoy writing it.
Diana Dyer, MS, RD