Heidi Grothus

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. July 3 will  begin our journey through a bilateral mastectomy and all it entails.  We are fortunate to have a diagnosis at such an early stage.  There will not be a need for chemotherapy,  and most likely will not be a need for radiation, fingers crossed. Heidi is understandably anxious.  She also has a large amount of denial thinking she'll be back to normal in a week.  We are completely humbled by others who have traveled this path with a much later diagnosis.  We can't begin to fathom how difficult that was. We are also humbled to have so many friends who want to help.  We both  enjoy helping others, feeling  we are blessed to be a blessing.  And when Heidi was sick 2 years ago we learned how great it was to be on the receiving end of those blessings.  Caring Bridge seems like a great way to organize things and keep friends updated. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. (No need to donate to Caring Bridge - we already took care of that.)


There have been questions about Heidi's diet.  Everything healed from the illness 2 years ago except for the stomach muscles, so she has what is called gastroparesis.  Food goes into the stomach just fine and gets digested, but doesn't exit the stomach without the help of a clinical trial drug she is very fortunate to have. This means her diet is restricted - no meat, grain, dairy, fruit or vegetables (there are a few vegetables that are okay, noted below). What?! Then what does she eat?  She eats fish, tofu, eggs, avocado, cooked carrots, cooked beets, cooked mushrooms, olives, pureed cooked tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, broth, nutella, and almond butter.    Any cooking method is okay, even frying.  Oils are okay and even a little butter is okay.  Spices are okay.  And sugar and honey are okay.   Yum!:)  On the other hand, Mike loves any kind of food:)