August Update – Returning to uni and more nutrition research

Return to Wales

As the title infers, I shall be returning to university next month for what will hopefully be my final year in radiography. Until this month it’s been far to the back of my mind. However, every night this month I have been having nightmares involving returning to university, so subconsciously I must be quite worried about it. Although, it makes a nice break from nightmares about the tumour growing again.

Because I’m going into another new university year group (for the fourth time in my life) and everybody I know from Cardiff has now moved on elsewhere, I only know a few people in the city now. So I decided to return to university halls to make things simple with going back instead of finding a room etc. However, I will not be in Cardiff for the first 6 weeks of university because the third years are returning straight into clinical placement. I don’t know where I will be yet. Unfortunately it feels like I have forgotten everything I should know, and trying to relearn it all is proving harder than it was the first time. I also have my dissertation to do which is difficult because it requires a hospital to allow me access to their patient records and do an audit, in which I had a hard time trying to accomplish last year.

Although it’s going to be a big step going back to the real world again after having a year out for treatment and recovery I am looking forward to it really even if my dreams state otherwise and my self-confidence is a lot lower than it once was. It also means I will be a lot closer to my girlfriend and other friends in wales. And it’s a shorter distance to London for my scans.

Oddly enough the day I return to Wales will be exactly 1 year since the day I was diagnosed.

More Diet Research

Upon reading a book about nutrition I came across some readings concerned with methionine that reminded me about the research another brain tumour blogger passed on to me about glutamine. I went back over the research and found loads of information about methionine in both the book and the research studies. The slowing down cancer diets and slowing down aging in general diets have all the same things in common, obviously because they are trying to accomplish the same thing but over different time spans. So reading a book by a scientist who focuses on extending the lives of monkeys by 50% using dietary protocols often have applicable principles to anti-tumour diets.

anyway, methionine is an amino acid involved in protein synthesis and as such is essential to survival, but having less of it seems to slow down protein synthesis and extend lifespans in both animals and probably brain tumour patients (according to the limited research in the area I’ve read).

As with all amino acids it’s found in very high amounts in animal proteins such as meat, eggs and milk. So veganism is a prerequisite to a low-methionine diet. But there are certain very high sources of methionine in the plant kingdom too. Certain nuts and seeds are extremely high in it. Although that is relative to other amino acids, their total protein is still low, so methionine is still low in comparison to meat. On the upside certain plant sources are high in protein but low in methionine such as lentils and certain beans. Having a low methionine diet will obviously mean low protein synthesis all over the body, not just the tumour. So getting stronger in the gym will be a fairly futile endeavour. Although I will continue doing it for the insulin sensitivity reasons. As we are on the topic of diet, it’s been almost 7 months since surgery now and because of the restricted diet I am on, I have now lost 4 stone since the day I weighed myself when I first got home from surgery so things are going in the right direction. I’ve lost all of the steroid weight now for sure and have moved into the weight I gained in the year leading up to diagnosis.

To finish, nothing much is happening for me this month, other than preparing for university.  I’m going to wales in a couple of weeks for a friend’s wedding which I am looking forward too because I haven’t seen them since the week I was diagnosed which shall be good! Anyway, hope you’re all well.