Getting Ready to Launch

The Northern Alaskan Inuit have a tradition colloquially called "blanket toss." A taut blanket of hides is stretched on a frame, which people support on all sides to send one 'dancer' high into the air. Over the past two weeks since I had that blood drawn, I first felt like my doctors and therapist pulled the rug out from under me. Then I realized I was a blanket-dancer with supporters and framework on one side of the blanket only, the other side drooping groundward. My drs and therapist were trying to pick up the blanket. The other side kept dropping: this place didn't take insurance, that place was all full up, the other place couldn't deal with my food allergies. I didn't want to go anyway, so I was laying on my rug, with the end of it picked up by my care providers, spilling. 


Over the past two days, the blanket has become all taut and supported, and the whole team is ready to toss me into the air.  A treatment center in Arizona with a very good reputation was willing to work with me. I had a good feeling from the extensive phone assessment. After evaluating my assessment, they called me back and encouraged me to come in as soon as possible, and they've been in regular contact with me since, giving further such encouragement. Apparently if inpatient treatment was the director's recommendation, they treat it as urgent, and they're sufficiently accustomed to dealing with people with this condition to know we're likely to drag our feet!


So, Alaska Airlines will launch me to Phoenix, AZ, next Tuesday night!


The original point of the blanket toss was scouting--the person flung high in the air was thus able to see much further than from the ground. Looking ahead has never been my strong suit, so perhaps I'm being tossed in the air by all these supporters to enable me to learn to make decisions moment to moment, day to day, that do not jeopardize my life and health.


I'm scared.


They've already told me they'll put me on stronger meds. I won't have access to friends and family, nor to my blog or email initially. I won't have access to all my superfoods and herbs, or my beloved rebounder and Vitamix. I should focus on enjoying all those to the full for the next three days as well as scrambling to wrap up all my work projects and notify project managers that I'll be slowed down for a while.


My Naturopath gave me a wonderful metaphor for handling all these inconveniences. He said to think of the forest and the trees. Yes, he might not think the meds they'll put me on are optimal for me. Yes, I might have to eat some food that he nor I consider good for me. Those are the trees. The forest is that he believes I need to go there to stay alive. So we'll cope with those details, which are, of course, temporary, when I get back.

So, just as the trees leaf and bud here, I'm heading south! I can't even begin to count what I'll be missing--the Writers' Conference here in town, which I look forward to all year. Visits from dear friends of ours. Gardening. My beloved writing groups and the wonderful people in them. 


Meanwhile, Arizona is much more the climate my body was made for...but I'm so used to wearing multiple layers all over my body, and I don't have any clothes for warm weather (not that any of my clothes fit anyway)! 


I will miss this blog and everyone with whom I connect through it. I'll try to post once more before I leave. I will update whenever I have the chance. If I have time, I'll even schedule a couple posts (like that protein powder comparison I keep promising!) to go up while I'm gone. But please, keep in touch with me! I will be slow to respond, but I will respond. I will also be able to do snail mail.
Much love.

Well, This is Embarrassing...How did we get here? (Fifty First Weeks)

Fifty First Weeks: this week my "fresh start" will be a move toward more transparency. Since I seem to be crashing and burning for all to see, I might as well own it and quit soft-pedaling, in hopes that my sharing from within the situation might be of help to others. This is uncharted ground, so I'm learning every step. Perhaps I'll still manage to pull a phoenix out of the ashes.

Blossoming currants. The birds always get any fruit.

I'm as thirsty as ashes

I hadn't thought anything of it until a conversation on Friday brought home to me how narrow my food choices have become in contrast (see below), but I'm drinking enough to float the Ark!

I waken parched.
First thing every morning, I drink a pint of warm lemon water with some powdered supplements in it (MSM, lysine, magnesium). Then, after working out, I make Phil's coffee, and I make myself a quart of one kind of herbal tea and a two-quart thermos of another kind. The quart jar gets topped up several times over the course of the morning. I've probably drunk a gallon by lunchtime, and continue through into the evening. I seldom have to wake up to pee at night.

Now, it's true that this has all been my pattern for many months, but I think the quart jar gets topped up more often these days, more extra tea gets brewed in the afternoons, more stevia sodas get drunk... Whenever I hike, I have problems with thirst. Never hunger.

Kudos to me, though: for the past eight days, none of this liquid has been caffeinated and I haven't taken any caffeine pills either! Small victories!

I can't eat that...but I know all about it

Over with friends on Friday, I was asked "Do you eat quinoa?"--they'd fixed it with me in mind. I thought for a moment and responded honestly, "I do eat quinoa in theory, but I only eat it at your house (or anyone else who made it with me in mind)." "It is plant in nature," said my friend--i.e. a good candidate for Ela-food, and mentioned he'd been eating more of it lately to soothe some stomach issues. Off I went, enumerating the nutritional virtues of quinoa, why it's so good for you--for him...I caught myself spouting nutritional information about different foods a couple times that evening.

Perhaps because my friend was so sweet about it, I was forcibly struck by the truth of the fact that theoretically I can eat quinoa, that I know it has nutritional benefits, but I won't eat more than a tablespoon of it at a friend's house, and will usually avoid even that. Yes, this is partly because I don't know what else got put in there, and partly because I don't like to eat heavy in the evenings, but it's mostly, as I admitted in the conversation, "too calorie dense." Same story for beans, sweet potatoes, other starches. I won't eat nuts except a little coconut or seeds except chia/hemp/flax and I can't remember when I last ate flax or hemp other than in protein powder. With the possible exception of sweet potatoes and chia/hemp/flax/coconut, these are all things I definitely feel better off without. But who am I going to be able to convince of that, when I can't eat gluten/dairy/soy/animal product to begin with?

A few months back, I was eating quinoa for breakfast--this is an old blog pic!

OK, it was less than a quarter cup of quinoa buried in turmeric-water and fruit, and OK, if I had even a teaspoon too much of that breakfast, I would spend the whole morning trying to keep it down, even after I nixed the banana, which was making me sick. So, true, I wouldn't dream of going back to quinoa for breakfast. I'm so happy not to be spending my mornings nauseous, as I did when this was breakfast, when chia pudding was breakfast (even made with one tablespoon of chia seeds), when carrot slaw with my favorite protein powder (which unfortunately makes me sick in more than minuscule quantities) was breakfast, when...you get the picture.

Nowadays, this is a more typical breakfast.

It's a few wild blackcurrants with spirulina and a whole teaspoon of molasses, with some stevia, and some psyllium to thicken the whole thing up. Maybe some fruit or dried fruit on the side. I'm using my nutritional knowledge, see, and trying to make sure I get some iron in. I don't want another iron shot after the one ten days ago--my butt hurt for almost a week! Spirulina and molasses are both great iron sources, and dark berries probably have some too. I'm pounding the nettle tea and eating nettles--sometimes the breakfast pictured above has had nettles in place of the currants.

I say this is great, I adore not being nauseous all morning. But realistically, if I go to any treatment center, they're not going to let me have that kind of breakfast! They're going to want me to have something more like the first breakfast, at least. Makes me nauseous just to contemplate. How will I manage with crappy institutional food and none of my normal superfoods--spirulina and chlorella--and supplements that keep me functioning so well?

It's a brutal paradox--I know so much about the nutritional properties of so many foods, but apparently am unable to feed myself sufficient quantities to stay out of trouble. Obviously, it's a matter of degree. Ordinarily, I do great on way less than anyone else around me. But maybe way, way, way less is too much "less"! Since the idea of going away to a treatment center is both so horrifying to me and apparently almost impossibly complicated to arrange, it troubles me that I'm apparently unable to work back up even to avoid the horror. I couldn't even explain why I can't. Hoping to find a way out. Hoping something will give before I have to deal with it that way.

Phil and I sat down this morning and brainstormed a little about how I ended up in this situation. Not surprisingly, the overwork of the past several months was a major culprit, but of course there are others. A long manic episode, the left-field caffeine addiction, some self esteem issues maybe...My mum immediately asked whether it had anything to do with the trip to Israel last November. One of my old great aunts, who hadn't seen me since I was 70 or 80lbs, greeted me delightedly with "You're fat!" Naturally, I was extremely upset... But I don't think that's the 'cause' of this situation, although I can't deny that it's crossed my mind, in Hebrew, to tell my great aunt I'm not fat anymore.

Let me know if this is too much information and you want me to return to my usual, more guarded sharing. I'll listen to any feedback I receive.
Thank you to everyone for all your friendship. My deepest thanks to those who are giving Phil support. This situation is hard on him: he's so used to being so good at helping people, and he feels helpless and frustrated.