I planned on doing weekly updates after my first chemo treatment with IV Cytoxan but, I was feeling so good I forgot.  Yes, I’m doing fine, have had no complaints, and even better, no nausea.  The only complaint I can muster is one having to do with my heart.

As noted in my original post, my heart fought hard against the medication as the drug  was going into my body and it has been fighting hard against it ever since.  It hasn’t been anything to write home about and it certainly hasn’t concerned me enough to want to run, not walk, to the nearest emergency room.

Since the treatment, I have been experiencing irregular heart beats.  To be honest, I’ve had them all of my life so I really don’t worry much about them but as I move closer to my next treatment date, I’m wondering if I will be able to undergo the next treatment if this persists.

Other than the aforementioned heart palpitations, which are troubling, yes, I’ve had no other complaints.  The oncologist told me I would notice problems in the second week because my blood levels may change — swinging to low red cells or high white cells — but again, I’ve noticed nothing that would give rise for significant concern.

Last week I did have a problem and it was very rough on me.  I am contributing this bit of strangeness to my eating a whole, huge, ginormous bunch of grapes.  Since I am a renal patient, I have to be careful with grapes and raisins.  Last week I forgot about this and instead of eating a few grapes — under my renal diet I should eat one cup of grapes per day — I ate an entire bunch because they were so good and sweet.  The next day I had a bit-o-pain in my kidneys which developed into great pains, a gnashing of teeth, a tearing of clothes and many tears.  Yes, the pain was that great.  Unfortunately, I am also a true Taurus and as such decided, wrongly I might add, to take nothing for my troubles which in turn caused even more pain.

Of course the grapes did their mighty work and of course, I had to do what the grapes commanded I do which also caused me great pain every time I pushed — I will not labor the point beyond that.  Unfortunately, pushing caused the pain to radiate from my kidneys to every part of my body and beyond, into the universe, and of course my blood pressure soared to new levels as a result.

The bull finally backed down from her stubbornness and quickly seized upon a bottle of Vicodin, swallowed it before water could offer assistance, and the bull took herself to bed.  Oh yes, she also took a super-sized blood pressure pill.  By the time the bull awakened later that evening the pain was long gone and the oversized bull had been reduced to something on the order of an English Bulldog.  Bow wow and Thank God!

Another problem  — which has nothing to do with the IV Cytoxan — concerns my eyes.  When my prednisone was upped from 10mg to 20mg I noticed a need for specs again.  Searching the house for those things was most enjoyable.  Anyway, having found them I am now wearing them more than I’d like.  It’s a horrible thing when the world becomes a fuzzy place and putting on glasses makes you gasp with joy.

My next chemo treatment comes up in a week or so and I will not say I can’t wait.  What I will say is I like that I am not swallowing Cytoxan daily which did cause me some nausea.  Too, and I don’t know why this is, my body appears to be functioning normally, something I haven’t felt in a very long time.  I feel almost euphoric about how well I feel.  I do know enough now to not let this go to my head.  I know there may be some days in my future when I will not feel so good but, until then I am thankful for my good days, the lost weight, and no water retention.  Ankles are better than cankles any day.

Now, about those cravings.  I am learning to listen to my body.  I won’t necessarily say I’m very good about this but I try.  In the past few months my cravings have been peanut butter (heart healthy monounsaturated fats and oleic acid), and then there was this craving I had for a big fat grass-fed cow steak (CoQ10 which is found in red meat).  More recently — like two weeks ago — I started craving boiled eggs (choline reduces inflammation and eggs are good for the eyes) and last Thursday I started craving — gasp — a beer.

The beer craving got me, I will admit.  I haven’t had a beer in about five or six years.  I collect beers from around the world and store them in my fridge but I don’t drink them.  When I did drink beer I only drank Corona or Coronita because these did not cause me the gut problems I typically had with other beers.  I don’t know if Corona or Coronita beers are gluten-free.

Being stubborn, I chose to ignore this craving until Saturday when the craving turned into a raging monster and I could actually taste the beer.  Needing help, I called a friend who is also a caterer to ask her about the health benefits of beer.  She was no help and all she could offer me was “girl, you probably need a drink after all you’ve been through.”  Not the answer I was looking for.

I did not Google — that would be a verb — the health benefits of beer because I felt it a stupid question but I did go into my fridge, pulled out a very old bottle of Corona, squeezed a little lime into the bottle and sat down and drank it.  It was delicious in spite of the bottle sitting in my fridge for about four years.  I thought it would taste like vinegar but it was actually quite good.  I later took a nap and slept like a baby.  Good deal.

Sunday evening I decided to do the same.  This time I pulled an even older bottle of Corona — one that had been sitting in a cupboard for about five or six years — placed it in my fridge and later that evening I drank it.  Again, that night, I slept through the night and awoke Monday morning feeling like — well, as the old folks used to say — new money.  In fact, I got a lot done on Monday and that’s when I noticed something else.  Those heart palpitations I spoke of earlier, they are gone.

I was used to having them every day since the IV Cytoxan and honestly, I wondered if they continued would I be able to go through the next treatment?  I did not want to find myself sitting in the chair and having a heart attack or worse, cardiac arrest — when the heart stops beating.

Considering my cravings of late have been for heart healthy foods, I broke down and decided to Google “health benefits of beer” and lo and behold, what a treasure trove of information I found and yes, beer is heart healthy and here’s why.

• In November of 1999, The New England Journal of Medicine stated that light to moderate beer drinkers would decrease their chances of suffering a stroke by 20%. They also stated that those who drink one beer a day compared to those who drink one beer a week experience no difference in reducing stroke risks.
• The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas (May 1999) reported that consuming moderate amounts of beer would lower one’s chances of coronary heart disease by 30-40%, compared to those who don’t drink at all. (Beer contains a similar amount of ‘polyphenols’ — antioxidants — as red wine and 4-5 times as many polyphenols as white wine).
• Alcohol has also been attributed to increasing the amount of good cholesterol (HDL) in the bloodstream, as well as helping to decrease blood clots.
• Beer contains vitamin B6, which prevents the build-up of the amino acid homocysteine, that has been linked to heart disease. Those of us who have high levels of homocysteine are usually more prone to an early onset of heart and vascular disease.
• A new study performed at the TNO Nutrition and Food Research Institute in Utrecht indicates that those who drink beer had no increase in their homocysteine level, but those who drank wine or liquor had an increase of up to 10%.
• Beer provides a 30% increase in vitamin B6 into the blood plasma — something that neither wine nor any other liquor can do.
• Beer is fat-free and cholesterol free?
• Beer can help you sleep better — duly noted
• Beer, either dark or light, protects bone mineral density
• Beer as cancer prevention — A compound found only in hops, which are used to make beer, have been discovered to prevent cancer. Of course we all know that hops are an ingredient in beer and therefore Xanthohumol has high hopes of making beer a new anti cancer drug. Xanthohumol flavinoids have been tested and its use is hoped to be a preventative treatment against prostate and colon cancer and even may be a form of hormone therapy for women.
• A Finnish-U.S. study of beer-drinking, middle-aged men was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 1999. The report stated that an increase in beer consumption may reduce the risk of developing kidney stones. Results showed that there was a 40 percent lower risk of kidney stones in beer drinkers, but the researchers were stumped as to whether the results were due to water, alcohol or hops.
• Beer and blood pressure — In the Nurses Health study, over 70,000 women ages 25 to 42 were examined for the association between alcohol consumption and the risk of hypertension. The study found that those who drank moderate amounts of beer (one beer) had less hypertension than nurses who drank either wine or spirits.

Beer is good for you if consumed in moderation and moderation is key.  For women, beer consumption should be no more than one beer per day and two beers per day for men — not an entire six-pack guys which could lead to heart arrhythmias.   The downside of too much beer — or any alcohol for that matter — is ill health.

What I found interesting was beer appears to be better than red wine and I had always heard red wine ruled in this area.  According to one paper on the wine versus beer entitled “Nutritional and health benefits of beer” is the following plus a warning:

From a nutritional standpoint, beer contains more protein and B vitamins than wine. The antioxidant content of beer is equivalent to that of wine, but the specific antioxidants are different because the barley and hops used in the production of beer contain flavonoids different from those in the grapes used in the production of wine.  The benefits of moderate alcohol consumption have not been generally endorsed by physicians for fear that heavy consumers may consider any message as a permissive license to drink in excess. Discussions with patients regarding alcohol consumption should be made in the context of a general medical examination. There is no evidence to support endorsement of one type of alcoholic beverage over another. The physician should define moderate drinking (1 drink per day for women and 2 drinks per day for men) for the patient and should review consumption patterns associated with high risk.

For those of us who are kidney or renal patients looking to drink a little beer, again, moderation is key.  Moderate alcohol drinking may be okay for people with chronic kidney disease who are not on dialysis. However, it is best to first check with your doctor or renal dietitian to find out if alcohol is safe for you. If you are able to drink alcohol safely, your health care team will advise you on the types and amounts that are right for you.

As for me, I will enjoy my little Coronitas (the little 7 Oz bottles) from time to time.  I will not say I have plans on drinking one every day, perhaps more like two or three per week.  If this is what stopped the hard beat, flub, flub, I’ll take it.  If it will help my heart, I’ll take it.  If it continues to taste good cold with a squeeze of lime, I’ll take it.  I will not, however, turn my nose up to it again.

Then again, maybe my friend was right, I did need a drink.