Sina McCarthy

Sina McCarthy was born and raised in New York City. Sina was always in the kitchens most of her life, whether it was at home, hotel, restaurants or summer camps. Sina spent most of her summers away from the city with her mother who is now a retired Chef. The earliest summer memory that Sina has was from when she was 3 and stayed in a hotel for the whole summer where her mother prepared meals for the guests and Sina’s aunt was hired to watch her. Sina spent three summers in beautiful camps in Vermont and six summers in Connecticut. During the rest of the school year, her mother worked in Manhattan. Sina grew eating meat, dairy, fried food and sweet pastry. She also ate a lot of vegetables.

When Sina turned 18, she experienced an ordeal pain in her abdominal area which prompted her to visit the emergency room. The doctor said it was a stomach bug and handed her a prescription pad. When she told him that she didn’t think it was a stomach bug, he became furious and stormed out of the room. One week later, she went back to a different emergency room and was hospitalized for one week. She had series of test but they couldn’t find the core of the pain. Her primary doctor recorded on her chart that it was from her head. She was sent home with the painkillers and was out of school for one month during her senior year in high school.

The next five years through out colleges, Sina was living and depending on the painkillers (unlimited refills); more visits to different ERs; changed doctors; misdiagnosed; and bedridden frequently to the point that Sina did not want to go on living. The last trip to the ER, the doctor declared that it was a bladder infection. She insisted that it was not a bladder infection and requested for more tests. The doctor agreed to schedule an ultrasound the next day (her first ultrasound). Sina was finally diagnosed with the total of 7 cysts on the ovaries. She was admitted to a hospital in the following week and had her cysts surgically removed. The size of the cysts on the right ovary was 7cm (a large orange), 2 cysts on her left ovary were also removed and the cysts were benign. The doctor confirmed that the cysts were very old and Sina had it for a long time. She had her first major surgery at age of 24 and it was not her last. Based on her experiences, Sina realized that the doctors do make mistakes and she decided to take control of her health. Throughout the years, Sina developed few more cysts in different areas and had them removed. She learned to get in touch with her organs by listening to it. She eventually became expert on certain foods that wreaked havoc in her body, i.e., foods that cause headaches, indigestions, allergies, fatigues and even depression.

After doing several years of researches and experiments, raw food diet made much more sense than any other diets. After going on raw food diet she noticed that her health improved. She was able to breath through the nose with ease. Her IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) resolved naturally, her mind became much more clear, her moods improved and she got rid of her negative thoughts. Her severe PMS went away. Her 4X-a-week-headaches -which-gradually-became-migraines also went away. Consequently, she felt harmony every day and even her polyp in the cervix and the cyst in her thyroid disappeared naturally. She changed her diet from eating meats, dairy and fried foods to vegetarian; from vegetarian to raw food; from raw food back to cooked food; cooked food to vegan/raw. She also realized that everybody is different and there is no one diet that fits all.

Her diet does not include dairy, meats, man-made sugar goodies, flour-based gluten and gluten-free items, fried food and beans. Her daily raw food intake is about 70%. She drinks large amount of fresh fruits smoothie at around 10 to 11 AM every single day and her dinner varies from sauteed vegetables (using vegetable broth instead of oil), raw vegetables in rice paper, homemade vegetable soup, lightly boiled vegetables with small amount of rice, and vegetable sushi rolls. Although she is not perfect but she will always continue to try to her best. Sometime breads are hard to stay away from. She learned that the less you eat, the longer you will live. Plagued with severe fatigue most of her life, she has noticed that the less she eats the more energy she has for herself.

(Part 1 of 3 Series: EcoDeaf Bios of Sina McCarthy and Judi Fruge, and a story about their establishment of Deaf Natural Living Newsletter)