Surviving Ikea, and To Antibiotic or Not?

I mentioned that I was writing my previous post from Ikea. Today, I'm prewriting this on the grass in a park opposite the Corvallis Library, where I'll go to get online: much more my kind of scene! I biked the ten miles or so to town from the farm to get some work done, and will go with Phil to do some more work on his timberland later today.

lunch in the park

I'm pleased to say that not only did I survive Ikea: I actually think that I can see how to enjoy going there (this was my third visit). On the other hand, I did make at least one stupid mistake under the fluster of the situation, as I sometimes tend to. For me, it's very seldom 'retail therapy:' 'retail trauma,' more like! (Exception: I usually love shopping for produce.) Why is Ikea so particularly challenging? I really admire their philosophy, reasonable pricing, emphasis on simple beauty and functionality. And in theory at least, I like that the store is laid out in a way that appeals to lateral thinking rather than linear, gridlocked mind.

blurry photo, captures it just right!

However, this is probably where the trouble starts for me. There are just too many levels of complexity hovering over every showroom juxtaposition: impositions of ideas about lifestyle, values, budget, priorities, with all kinds of implications of character too. I feel like I'm walking through the set of a very bizarre novel, and am constantly trying to supply the script and imagine the characters in person, which is most distracting when you're trying to buy a kitchen cabinet! Add to that the mazelike winding of the showrooms and the low ceilings ominously piped, and it's no wonder that I've inwardly panicked "get me out of here!" whenever I've been there.
This time, I went slow. I allowed my imagination to get to know the characters inhabiting the scenes from the showrooms a little better, and felt less like an intruder in their lives and thus more entitled to browse. I left with a few other useful items beside the kitchen cabinet, but dealing with the latter was what showed that I'd still gotten flustered enough to make a stupid mistake. It came in many pieces...

...and I'd been planning to ship it up to AK via the barge, which involves getting it to Fife, WA. I mailed the two heaviest pieces to Fife (just 70 miles away) parcel post, and Phil pointed out when I got home that it would have cost the same to mail them all the way home by that route!

To Antibiotic or Not?
Time is flying. It's been two weeks since I saw my Naturopath for a report on my yeastie-bugs retest: high time for a health update here. The good news: I'm no longer playing host to a candida convention. The not-so-good: I still have a residual bacterial infection in my gut and am still not growing my own good bacteria. I also have a slight overgrowth of another, non-candida yeast called Geotychum (apparently easy to get rid of). This being the situation, my ND wants me to take a week's course of tetracycline, an antibiotic, and then follow up with another month of ketoconazole, the antifungal, to get rid of the Geotychum and ensure that the antibiotic doesn't precipitate another yeast invasion. He said I didn't need to change my diet, and shouldn't start any of it until we get back from our trip. This gives me some time to ponder the plan.
I guess it makes sense: there are no good bacteria to wipe out and this antibiotic is effective against the bad bacteria, while the possible herbal approaches are far less so. The ketoconazole right after will mitigate any bad yeasty consequences. And thereafter, take loads of probiotics, and he recommends sauerkraut and miso in particular for recolonizing the good bacteria. I should also read up on inulin and the other starches that supposedly feed good bacteria: you can keep putting them in your gut, but in order to have them stay and reproduce, you need to feed them, right? On the other hand, I haven't taken antibiotics since I was a teenager and am loath to do so: they likely contributed to this mess in the first place. That said, there's a time and a place for everything, and perhaps using the drugs to create a 'clean slate' will enable me to move on and rebuild a good gut colony.
Some of it boils down to trusting my doctor too. I do, but I'm also experiencing some cognitive dissonance at the moment. The way I see it, ever since I started eating starch a few months ago, the more carbohydrate and the less of the other macronutrients I ate, the better I felt, the better my digestion was, I started being able to exercise again and even enjoying it, my anxiety is enormously reduced, my stamina is improved and generally I feel happier and healthier. I told my ND this and he said quite firmly that I should not reduce my fat intake; that I should aim for about equal quantities of each macronutrient. He suggested that I'm feeling so much better because my guts are in so much better shape than they were. I'm aware, as I think he is, of my tendency toward extremism. Perhaps it would be just like me to swing from carbophobia back to being essentially a fruitarian. But the timeline is so clear to me (I was still chelating when my guts started to be noticeably easier after a few weeks of starch, way before the yeast and bacteria cleanse).
I should wrap this up! Do you love Ikea? Do you build stories about the lives depicted there? What do you think about antibiotics?