Chasing Wellness

Two words:  Coffee enemas. Let me explain. I was late. I walked into a room full of people leaning forward, listening intently to a speaker. I took a seat. The speaker was an attractive older woman and she was talking about coffee enemas. I looked up, trying to confirm what I heard was what I heard (did she say coffee enemas?). Many in the audience were nodding in agreement. So it's a thing, I thought to myself. She did say coffee enemas, and people do it.  

The presentation was part of an integrated health cancer conference in San Diego, where all kinds of roads to wellness were being highlighted. The weekend long event offered a mountain of information about alternative health treatments, and some incredible stories of beating cancer without filling Big Pharma coffers (mainly, no chemo or radiation).  

But entering the Expo Hall of vendors hawking gadgets and gizmos with miraculous cancer curing promises made me wonder which vendors were selling Snake Oil and which ones were the real deal. Seriously, that tube necklace (photo above) is going to kill my cancer? Yet there are amazing stories of recovery from debilitating and deadly illnesses involving all sorts of odd equipment and curious treatment combinations, so I browsed and considered the products and devices, however wacky, with an open mind.

While sitting inside a portable sauna that claims to boost metabolism, remove toxins, and reverse the aging process,

I was trying to take it seriously but Lucy and Ethel popped into my mind... 

... the "I Love Lucy" episode where Lucy sits in a sweat box for an entire afternoon, determined to lose weight so she can be in Desi's nightclub dance act that night. When I got out of the sauna after four minutes or so, I didn't lose any weight or feel like doing the Rumba, but I can report that it was steamy.  

Anything having to do with medical marijuana was a big draw. From powders to oils, participants, including myself, were interested to hear about the latest studies. 

Constance Finley presented about her CBD oil, which she calls "Constance Pure Botanical Extracts." It began as an effort to heal herself from an autoimmune disease when conventional medicine almost killed her. She says her cannabis extracts have had astounding results saving lives and are currently involved in several studies. "Pure" is the keyword for her oils. Her extracts are not processed from byproduct often found in non-medical cannabis products, and she doesn't use butane or other illegal processes in the oil extractions. She only supplies her product to patients, and says her product can also help ill dogs. More information about Constance Pure Botanical Extracts can be found at www.cbdfarm.org.

Total Thermal Imaging was another popular vendor. Radiation free full body thermography claims to be a cutting edge technology for early disease detection, including periodontal infections often missed by x-rays. 

According to their literature, the FDA approved thermography back in 1982 as an effective adjunct to breast cancer screening. I'll put that on the list of things my conventional doctor never mentioned or recommended. More info at www.totalthermalimaging.com.

I tried the Porter Vision Mind Fit headset that is supposed to reduce stress by using light and sound therapy. 

The rep explained the device delivers gentle pulses of light through special glasses and the lights synchronize with tones known as binaural beats to produce deep relaxation. Unfortunately, all I could hear was the sound of the people and vendors having a grand time in the Expo Hall. My husband, on the other hand, put a headset on and practically fell asleep. 

It never occurred to me that you can have your own personal Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber.

As for why, the therapy is said to enhance the body's natural healing process by inhalation of 100% oxygen where atmospheric pressure is increased and controlled. Sweet, but does my insurance cover it? 

Most memorable quote from the conference was from Elaine Gibson, of "Renewed Living":  

“Your bowel movements are your report card.” 

Which brings me back to coffee enemas. Some people swear by them! I'm going to be on the sidelines with this one, at least for now. I like coffee first thing in the morning, but not from the back end.

For why and how about coffee enemas, go to http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-7065/10-reasons-why-you-should-try-a-coffee-enema.html.

Getting Wiggy

This morning my B started complaining about losing his hair - which he isn't, or anyway it's not obvious like my sad, balding head - and I told him, hey, you can borrow one of my wigs.

The thing about going bald is, it’s kind of shocking no matter how prepared you are for the shedding. I scare myself these days when I catch an unintentional glimpse of my balding head. 

Who is that odd, alien, bird-like creature staring back at me?! The time has come to wear a wig.

Maybe I'll take a lesson from Andy Warhol. No one wore wigs better than him. Sure there have been others since him, but he was the first to boldly go where no one else dared: Obvious Fake Wigdom.  

What began as an effort to hide his early male pattern baldness became his trademark persona. Warhol just wasn't Warhol without his iconic wigs.The more fake they looked, the better. So if he had to re-adjust his wig in public, no biggie. We were all in on it. There was absolutely no pretension that his hairpieces were real. 

I could go the Andy Warhol route...

... but I'm not looking for a trademark look. Mostly, I just want to blend in and not scare myself or others. But I do like the idea of not worrying about a natural look. Maybe I should skip the ordinary and adopt Japanese Harajuki style...

... except I’m not 15 years old. 

I've never been a blonde. Maybe now's my opportunity to find out if blondes really do have more fun. 

So I gave it a test. I wore a blonde wig to a basketball game. Truth be told, I had fun, but did I have more fun?

I know I shouldn't be stressing about wigs. I need to concentrate on what's important (is the chemo working?).  Just get a wig already and be done with it! 

As it turned out, while I was procrastinating and putting off The Wig Situation, my dad called out of the blue. He offered to take me wig shopping, which we did, and it was probably one of the weirdest and more memorable things we ever did together.

So I got a wig. I got two. 

I was joking when I offered my B one of my wigs, but he let me put one on him and he looked, well, for a few minutes my B was my very own brunette Warhol.

Bruce Lee & Other Fighters

My hair is falling out, my left collarbone area is sore from surgery to insert a “medi-port,” and I have months of treatment ahead with a hazy prognosis.

Yet, I feel lucky. 

This path I'm on is well worn from others who have gone down this road. Others who have braved, and are braving, far, far worse.

Like Sam. He’s battling the deadliest skin cancer.  He has had eleven surgeries in the past three years. Half his nose is gone. His right arm has been sliced and carved to a pulp. His right ear had to be cut off. There’s a chunk gone from the top of his scalp.  But he says for all the hell and the dark places he’s been, and all the awful comments and stares he gets when he ventures outside, cancer has made him a better person, a more compassionate person.

This is serious shit, nothing to joke about. But I wish I had a good joke for Sam, something hilarious that will cut the palpable heartache in the room with uncontrollable laughter. Something so funny it will pierce through his horrifying ordeal and make everything okay, if only for a few minutes. Something so magical he will never have dark days again.

 

But I have nothing for Sam. I don’t have a joke, and I can’t stop thinking about what he just said about the cruelty he faces every time he walks outside his front door. Really, people?!  I wish there was a way I could give those people a piece of my mind. I want to block their path, unleash a fury and get all italicized UPPER CASE bold face on them.

I calm my inner Bruce Lee, and return my attention to the others in the support group.  Roger says he’s been battling his cancer for years. He’s been in remission six times. Six times. Sarah’s cancer is not responding to any of the treatments. She’s running out of options, but her smile lights up the room and she praises her oncologist. Brenda’s almost done with treatment and may soon return to her life as a dancer, but is worried sick the cancer will return and her decision not to have the final chemo treatment will come back to haunt her.

Nothing and no one is perfect in this group. Whereas before, in our pre-cancer lives, we could glide along on a cloud of perceived perfection and illusion of immortality, today our lives, our choices, our diseases, our strengths and weaknesses are all on display, some more visible than others.

Like Sam.

He tells us about his next proposed surgery. The panel of doctors he met with say they need to take off half his face, the left side, and it will have to remain an open wound.  It will be the most disfiguring surgery yet. Sam takes off his black panama hat and looks at the group of us. He says he cancelled the surgery at the last moment. The spiritual price tag was simply too much.  

Chemo on the Rocks

I’m new to this cancer thing, but there’s one thing I noticed right off the bat. Cancer is a real buzz kill.

What a roller coaster experience of everything I never wanted to deal with, clubs I never wanted to join and drugs I never wanted to take. (They could at least be fun drugs, but no.)

If you've never spent time in an infusion room, you’re lucky.  It’s not a bad place, really. It’s comfortable and clean with friendly staff at your beck and call, and you’re welcome to take a nap, which many do.  It’s practically a VIP lounge except for the fact that chemo cocktails are on the menu, and not martinis. “I’ll have the Taxol, please, with a dash of Carboplatin.”

Like I said, buzz kill.   

I’ve only had two chemo sessions, so I’m still chipper with a head of hair. I hear it’s the third session that can rake your scalp bald, but it’s different for everyone, and depends on your chemo drugs.

Where I go, I like the chairs that face towards the floor-to-ceiling windows. There’s a lovely view, especially hypnotic when the wind is blowing through the branches of an old eucalyptus tree, rustling the leaves, Mother Nature elegantly showing off her Zen moves.

Spending time in the infusion room, you notice another thing about cancer. It’s an equal opportunity disease. It doesn't discriminate. 

The chairs are filled with men and women, rich and poor, gangster to socialite, all with their own stories and their own unique cancers.

A lady walks in. She quickly takes a seat and settles in. For a second it feels like I'm in a scene from “Cheers.” Everyone knows her name. Turns out, she’s been coming to this place for a long time. She tells me she’s in her second year battling pancreatic cancer. She’s smiling like it’s no big deal.

Soon, she’s napping peacefully as the chemo drips into her veins. 

Putting on a Happy Face

Two weeks ago. Blissfully ignorant of the cancer growing inside me.

“If you have to get a freakin’ fanny pack, do it!” demands Phylis, my oldest friend, on the other end of the phone. “You need to have your cell phone with you at all times.”  We laughed.  

My call with Phylis is a see-saw of laughter and tears. I know she’s right. This is serious. I need to be responsible. Take calls. Do research. Be On The Ball. My old life, my curiously controlled yet immature, semi workaholic, pedal faster, disheveled life, is over.

Today I take a breath and absorb the news I received this morning. Sitting at the news desk with scanners going crazy and sifting through emails and trying to figure out story assignments for the day, I got a call from my doctor. The biopsies tested positive. Although more tests still need to be done for an accurate diagnosis, I’m told it’s advanced and aggressive breast cancer. All the cancer stories I've assigned to reporters over the years now come full circle back to me. This cancer story will be mine. 

It’s hard to accept because, well, I don’t get sick. I’ve never even been in a hospital. I never had a broken bone, for chrissake.  Besides I feel fine. More or less. There is that creak in my neck, those nodules in my neck, and the lump in my breast that led to the mammogram to the ultra sound to the biopsies. And the slightly manifested short breath thing that caught my attention a couple of times recently that I wasn't sure was real or imagined. Probably just anxiety, right? I decided to go with anxiety and continued binge watching Sherlock.

Now I’m binging on cancer research, calls to insurance companies, and lab tests. One thing about cancer, it’s a reality check you can’t ignore. Like being pregnant or having a toothache, it must be addressed.  It will not go away on its own no matter how much broccoli I eat or green tea I drink.

Tears stream when I tell my husband, my family and friends. Their concern, support, and words of encouragement are so deeply felt it makes my tears flow more.  I am not going to be a cry baby, I tell myself. I will stand tall and tackle this like a soldier. I will put on a happy face, laugh at the cancer monster, and send it straight to hell.

I go outside. What a breathtaking day in the desert. A swirl of pink in the clouds. I think of the dark cloud I'm about to walk into, the one I'm already in, the one so many have bravely walked through before me, and no matter how hard my storm will hit or how long it will last, I promise myself, my husband and family, I'll march through and carry on.

The mountains have a sprinkling of snow on them and the air is crisp. It's really an excellent, gorgeous day. Cancer cannot take that away from me. Not today. 

Designers on the Art of Fashion

Fashion Week El Paseo brings together an eclectic mix of designers showcasing creative work, some of it taking your breathe away the same way a Picasso or Caravaggio can stop you in your tracks. When designs are that ravishing, it's hard to imagine wearing them! At one of the popular events during Fashion Week, a trunk show with Project Runway designers, I caught up with the designers to get their thoughts on the art of fashion and inspiration.  

Designer Irina Shabayeva

Irina Shabayeva: "I started as an artist. I went to school to be a painter and then I slowly fell into the fashion design department because I loved clothing and that's what I do. I love artful fashion and putting craftsmanship into it. I love couture because people put hours and hours into every stitch and detail. It's like a painting. Making a dress is like creating a painting, creating a story, and every dress is its own little world, its own little fantasy. That's exactly what I do. It's a lot of work and a lot of hours, but I think it makes it worthwhile and I think people really appreciate it."

"I love texture and I also love organic materials. The feather thing just kind of happened. I started playing around with them and putting them on fabric and seeing how they worked and how the light worked with the feathers. I found it amazing what you could create with the feathers, and the colors. It's bringing something new to the evening wear world, keeping with the elegant and classic but making it modern and today and giving it that little bit of sass and sexiness.

Irina Shabayeva's butterfly dress

Detail of Shabayeva's butterfly dress

The butterfly dress is a print I designed and it's one of our most successful prints. We have these butterfly wings appliqued on to the print with feathers. It's basically like a butterfly in flight. It flutters!"

Viktor Luna: "Art is very important in a designer's work because we all feel something, so when you look at my clothing, it's art, you're feeling something. 

Designer Viktor Luna

I incorporate a lot of elements in my new collection, which I call "Artisanal" because it's all hand done. I've done prints where I create my own canvas and my own images.

For my red dress, I painted the red onto the white fabric. It's hand done so they're all different. Just like any original painting, they're all different. I think fashion or clothing should be a work of art. When you wear it, it needs to have that special piece or touch, so I do something that's hand done or hand painted. Then I embellish it with rope or something - like the red dress - to create that hand made quality."

Yellow plastic details on the shoulders of
Luna's blue dress

"The blue dress fabric is from a photograph from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's called the peacock chair. It's an actual chair. I printed it into the fabric and made it more abstract versus making it very obvious that it's a chair."

"I don't necessarily call myself a fashion designer because a fashion designer is someone who thinks forward and creates trends. I'm a designer. I design. I think a fashion designer is someone who is a trend setter, like Karl Lagerfeld. Putting the yellow plastic pieces on the blue dress shoulders is kind of like my trend setting - putting plastic in the design - creating something new and fresh that nobody has seen. It's one of those things to intrigue people and captivate people  - like a work of art."

Helen Castillo:  "For me, creating is something you can't turn off and when you know, you know. That's what being an artist is. Fashion is an art."

Designer Helen Castillo

"You're taking your vision and creating something, making something with your hands. I have a small studio apartment, my kitchen is my work room. I've got my industrial machines and my work forms and that's my family. It's instinctive to work non stop. I have to keep myself surrounded by my girls, my mannequins. There's always fabric everywhere and I'm non-stop."

Michael Costello - "I grew up with fashion and drawing on the walls and my mom and dad never got mad at me for doing that. They would cut the wall and frame it!"

Designer Michael Costello

"So it was really cool. My whole family has been very supportive of my passion for fashion. You have to be passionate about what you do."

Michael Costello's red orange cocktail dress

"If you wake up in the morning and you don't want to go to work then you're obviously doing the wrong thing. There's not one day that I wake up and don't say 'I can't wait to get to the studio.' It's every single day for me. No matter what happens that day. Even if it's a customer and the dress doesn't fit and she's bitchy, I still love that too. This is the profession I've always wanted to do."

Sequinned waistline in Michael Costello gown design

Ari for Andy South:  "Art and fabrics, you know, it's about emotion. It's feeling that's physical, but also a textile that can move you emotionally is one that's a no brainer for an artist to pick up as our medium.
It's the feel, the lifestyle."

Designer Ari for Andy South

"I design for both the New York woman and the Hawaiian woman, both very different women, but it's about the vibe, the lifestyle that each woman carries respectively. What i get from Hawaii is a really relaxed feeling which I think is a really good place for any woman to be everyday - that relaxed state of mind.
That's where a lot of things - like soft fabrics - come into my line, the flow, the easy care, the comfort, the feel."

Uli Herzner:  "Inspiration for me comes from every day life. Sometimes the tiniest little thing can give me so much inspiration and so many ideas."

Designer Uli Herzner custom fits a customer

"If I see other collections, I get inspired by their ideas and it starts rolling for me. Sometimes I'll start with a certain dress in the morning and it becomes design diarrhea! Ideas just come out of me. Five hours later my whole house is full of fabrics, feathers, beads."

Mini skirt by Uli Herzner

"So it's like I started here and I go somewhere else. As kids we're always making stuff and building stuff and I think it's just in you. Designers have this thing where they can't stop creating things and I think we will never stop creating things. There's just a lot inside. If you don't have it, you cannot learn it. It's something in you."

Jewelry designed by Uli Herzner

Fashion Week El Paseo continues through Saturday. The full schedule is at FashionWeekElPaseo.com.

Designer contact information:
IrinaShabayeva.com
ViktorLuna.com
DesignerHelen.com
MichaelCostelloCouture.com
AndySouth.com
Uli Herzner's website is currently under construction. She can be found on facebook.

The #1 Thing You Must Have to Get on Project Runway

Fashion Week El Paseo in Palm Desert is well underway and one of the most highly anticipated evenings is the show featuring Project Runway designers. Palm Springs homeboy Michael Costello is always a favorite and joining him this year is Uli Herzner, Viktor Luna, Ari for Andy South, Irina Shabayeva and Helen Castillo.

(l to r) Ari for Andy South, Michael Costello, Helen Castillo

At a panel discussion earlier in the day of their runway show, the designers talked about their experiences on the show and how it's impacted their careers. They all agreed getting selected for Project Runway was a huge accomplishment in itself. What's the secret ingredient needed to outshine thousands of others in the audition process?

According to Executive Producer Rob Bagshaw, talent is key but talent alone will not get you on the show. Bagshaw says the most important ingredient is passion.

(l to r) Rob Bagshaw, Uli Herzner, Michael Costello

"They don't have to be the most talented, the most experienced or even the most confident, but they do have to know what they love, know their passion. They have to have some sort of technical proficiency, of course, to physically make it through the production, but being passionate, being focused on the type of designer they are, is very inspiring for us. That's the number one for us."

Bagshaw says the designers also need to be confident in their design aesthetic, because that's what translates on television. "We're looking for talent that can make it in our television world," he explains. "And personality, because it is a tv show, and there's the entertainment factor."

(l to r) Helen Castillo, Viktor Luna, Irina Shabayeva

Project Runway is not a fashion school, Bagshaw points out. It is a television show. But it's also sincere about helping designers break into the business, and Project Runway All Stars is about helping them build their brand.

"Once you're in the Project Runway family, you're always in the Project Runway family," he says. "As producers we are fiercely proud of the work they've done on the show, but really, what they've gone on to achieve in the industry afterwards."

Bagshaw also revealed there's another Project Runway spin-off in the works, which will be announced soon. Although he said he couldn't say what specifically, when I asked if it might be a Project Runway for kids, he smiled and said, "That's a very good idea."

(l to r) Susan Stein, Uli Herzner, Ari for Andy South 

The panel discussion was moderated by Susan Stein, fashion editor of Palm Springs Life Magazine and co-producer of Fashion Week El Paseo.