Dear Dode

Dear Dode,

I often do think of you.  You are my ex husband’s mother, one of the most truly generous, profoundly happy, and most courageous people I’ve ever met.  I’ve been truly blessed to have you in my life and in the lives of my children as a role model and grandma.

Last year (I think it was last year, time has blended into oblivion over the past few years) my kids told me you were having trouble swallowing.  You had half of your neck removed when you were a young, poor, single mom with thyroid cancer.  In those days they removed your entire thyroid and half your neck, then bombarded you with radiation.  You just wanted to live long enough to see your kids graduate from high school.  In fact you’ve lived long enough to see many of your grandchildren graduate from high school.  True to form, you refused to have the tests for throat cancer done because you didn’t want to have to survive the treatments.  Once is enough.  So you’ve stopped eating solid food unless you can, started living on a liquid diet, and lost a lot of weight.

When my kids told me about you, we agreed that you had to have teraswhey.  I hear you like it, and even saw me last week on the Dairy Heiresses show that featured me among other women leaders in the dairy industry in Wisconsin.  I hear you have stopped losing weight and that the predictions of imminent serious problems have not materialized.  You have a boyfriend and still inspire everyone who meets you.

All the evidence says that it is your completely infectious positive attitude and joy in the face of all of life’s adversities that is keeping you with us.  I like to think that teraswhey is playing a small part as well.  All of that protein, in a highly bioavailable liquid form, is feeding your muscles and bones, so while you can’t always eat solid food, you are feeding your cells in a really positive way.  Cancer, aging, malnutrition, wasting have been associated with glutathione deficiencies that can be addressed by eating whey protein. Your body is busy converting cysteine to glutathione, and the glutathione is using a process known as conjugation to detoxify your body. Research has shown that the lactoferrin that is in whey can inhibit esophagus, lung, bladder, and tongue cancer in rats; it has not been tested in humans.

I’ve written this before in a letter to my Mom, but I’ll say it again to you. I wish there was a way for all of the women like you who face similar struggles in their later years to make teraswhey® part of their lives.  It says on my can that I created teraswhey® to cause extraordinary change.  That change happens one person, one shake at a time, and it starts with the people we love.

With love from your ex-daughter-in-law,

Tera