Nourishing body and soul of cancer patients

Toronto Star. October 12, 2002
By Michele Landsberg

IT'S NOT the oxygen tube in her nose, the neck brace for a cracked vertebra or the bandana that wraps her newly bald head that has Andra Vaivars-Szwarc on the verge of tears. No, despite the fact that this 37-year-old mother of two boys (ages 7 and 5) is fighting metastatic breast cancer and has graciously consented to be interviewed as she lies on a hospital bed in her living room, it is the kindness of friends, family and neighbours that finally dissolves her resolute calm.

Kate Sigurdsen and I are stiffening our faces and opening our eyes extra-wide, forcing back our own tears, as Andra's composure wavers. "Friends and family have offered cooking rotations, and child care ...," she says in a wobbly voice. "I'm overwhelmed. Just overwhelmed."

Kate and I remember this. We've both come through breast cancer. Each of us knows how quiet acts of friendship can melt your rigid terror and release a spring of emotion. I still feel gratitude to strangers who whispered a word of encouragement as they passed me on the street - "I had it 10 years ago and I'm fine!" - that would buoy me through a whole day.

I'm tagging along with Kate, a young mother herself and a sunny presence, on a Thursday morning. It's delivery day for the Good Food at Home box, a green tub of delicious fresh fruits, nuts and vegetables - mostly organic - designed for women in active treatment for breast cancer.

The boxes come from FoodShare, one of Toronto's most loved and innovative non-profits, which reaches 15,000 people a year with its wholesome food programs. Kate is the co-ordinator and the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation is an important funder of this pilot project. Although the grocery list changes weekly, and the wholesale cost of the produce is around $25 per box, the women in the program pay only $5 per delivery.

"So many women are stressed and exhausted by surgery, chemo or radiation, but are still cooking for their families and trying to eat healthily," Kate explained.

The idea came to her as she recovered from her own treatment. At first, she experimented with delivering cooked vegetarian meals, but the project's clients are so multicultural and diverse in their tastes that it finally seemed simpler to provide the uncooked food, with perhaps an added beet salad or a jar of vegetable soup.

Kate pulls the contents out of the box - glowing like treasure - to show me: sweet potatoes, red potatoes, tomatoes, a bag of almonds, celery sticks in a baggie, plump green peppers, new apples, cantaloupe, oranges, pears, broccoli florets, plums.

They look mouth-watering, and they're all cancer-fighters.

"It's so generous, a treat," Andra said. "My kids just loved the pea shoots. We've always eaten wholesomely and I've been a vegetarian for 14 years, and this box is a help. We don't want to lapse into eating junk food."

For Charity, a 32-year-old Nigerian woman living alone in a sparkling clean but empty apartment in the west end, the food box is a big budget aid as well as a warm hand of friendship in a strange city.

Far from family (she fled Nigeria three years ago as a refugee from violence), she was stunned to learn she had breast cancer and needed a mastectomy. Now she's recovering from serious radiation burns, struggling with acute loneliness and uncertainty about the future.

Like Andrea, Charity learned about the Good Food at Home box from a flyer at Wellspring, the cancer patients' support centre at Sunnybrook.

"The box - it's like heaven!" Charity exclaimed, her face lighting up. "Back home, all the food was 100 per cent good, from the earth. But here, I didn't pay attention till I got sick. The food in the box is so fresh, all clean and prepared. I loved the couscous last week ... And it helps me so much with my finances."

Kate encourages Charity to think about eventually joining the cooking classes at FoodShare. They're a convivial workshop kind of gathering specially designed for women who have completed their treatment. "It will be like a dinner club of friends," Kate explained.

Like all of FoodShare's earthy and innovative programs, this one is rapidly flowering into an amazing resource: Kate is now planning group screenings of useful films, and thinking of tucking newsletters and recipes into each box.

There are just 20 spots left (some reserved for low-income people) in the Good Food at Home program, which lasts for six months. If you're interested, call Kate at 416-363-6441, ext. 30, or e-mail her at kate@foodshare.net. Be well.

Michele Landsberg's column appears Saturday in the Life section and Sunday in the A section. E-mail: mlandsb@thestar.ca