I've looked at life from both sides now

The past days and even weeks have been strange in more ways than one. Rest assured they have been filled with quietude and felicity, almost as if life itself decides to give me the breather I so needed. The constant worry about Ranjan's health seems to have taken a break off its own volition. Odd but true, I have not thought about Mr Hodgkin's at all and certainly not about the possibility of him coming back into our lives. Life has resumed a new normal where the only things that are different to them before Hodgkin days is the food on the table and the juices and brews that have become second nature. One does not even think of them as cancer preventive or curative. Actually we both gulp the brews with alacrity.

We do quibble about the weekly peg of Scottish water and the Cuban cigar but I give in most of the times. It almost seems as if we have unwittingly and surreptitiously accepted to live life to its fullest and leave the rest to the man upstairs. I must confess that there are times when I silently question the decision but I keep mum as I watch Ranjan happy and healthy.

Serendipity has always been my friend and once again it was spot on as three bits of news came my way last week. One was a video clip sent by a dear relative. Dr Peter Glidden states with confidence that chemotherapy is a waste of money and does not work in 97% of the cases. The video is worth a watch. He has written a book entitled The MD Emperor has no clothes which I am trying to get a copy off. Serendipity often works at several levels. A dear friend wrote to me about a book entitled the China Story which I have just ordered. It’s the largest comprehensive study of human nutrition ever conducted. It was launched via a partnership between Cornell University, Oxford University, and the Chinese Academy of Preventative Medicine. The groundbreaking results from the study (and other influential nutrition research) recommend the best diet for long-term health. Eat plants for health is the book's mantra. It states that  It’s not just cancer and heart disease that respond to a whole foods, plant-based diet. It may also help protect you from diabetes, obesity, autoimmune diseases, bone, kidney, eye, and brain diseases. Need I say more. Vegan is my mantra now and for dinner today I have made a super salad of quinoa, beans, chia seeds, hemp seeds, peppers and olive oil laced with apple cider vinegar.

Part III is the serendipity saga is yet another book my daughter told me about Forks over Knives that advocates a low-fat whole-food, plant-based diet as a means of combating a number of diseases. Eat your way to health. They even have a cook book that I am dying to get my hands on.

All these serendipitious occurrences have been the sign I was waiting for. We have done what was needed so that there would be no regrets as was the case with mama when she refused all treatment for her cancer. But now we want to live free and happy and with no elephant in the room or damocles sword on one's head. We will become vegan -we almost are- and live each day to its fullest.

I am reminded of Joni Mitchell's song Both sides now:

I've looked at life from both sides now

From up and down and still somehow

It's life's illusions I recall

I really don't know life at all

It is time we began discovering life the right way.