Feast or Famine

Wanna place bets on how long it's going to take me to get it? The path of this illness is not linear. Why I should think I'd be back to normal after 3 months, when it takes many others 6 months, is beyond me. I mean, optimistic.

Last week I was feeling pretty good, in the scheme of things. This week, not so much. I find it hard to believe that my relatively debaucherous last weekend, involving 4, 1.5 oz martinis over 3 days and a pint of ice cream (ok, and some cookies) could be the reason why my throat ulcers have returned, my energy is low, my cough is worse and my breathing/throat puffiness not optimal.

Allow me to clarify: I went to bed before 11 pm every night. I was home before 9. I did not go to a club. I drank lots of water and, otherwise, ate virtuously. The above binge is entirely in line with PMS, the darkest days of the year, going out for dinner and feeling (celebratorily) like a normal person (sort of) who hadn't freakin' eaten yummy food or drunk any meaningful amount in way too fucking long.

And it's not like I had a sip and then I couldn't breathe. Or eating that cookie threw me over the edge. In fact, I didn't start feeling bad until after the "binge" (and I use that term loosely). Which is why technically, I suppose, the return of crappy-feeling could be unrelated to the episode. 

Yeah, I know, unlikely. If having a pint of ice cream could have killed me a month ago, what the fuck was I doing eating it in bulk on Saturday night? I can't explain it. I felt ok; I indulged.

So now, whether the binge was the cause of my "relapse" (and I use this term loosely too) - which is preferable, I suppose, to just feeling terrible after having felt, briefly, better - or whether it is entirely unimplicated, I feel like an idiot and I kind of hate myself. Too bad I have no masochistic tendencies or the pain I'm feeling this week could act as a welcome source of punishment.

I suppose, right now I should just pretend I'm a movie star serious actor training for the role of a person who gets stuck in a cave without anything but berries to subsist on for 2 months before another serious actor (and a bunch of less serious actors playing the roles of uniformed paramedics) finds her, languishing, but somehow with rosy skin and good hair. In this movie, berries can grow in a cave.

Here's how I think I've got to play this, for the next 2 months (though I am pained to type it out) - not unlike how I played it for the first 2 months (though then I was too sick to notice):

• No wine.

• No alcohol of any type till I can't take it anymore (or I attend some function with crazy family members), then a small amount of booze without sugar, i.e. a martini. But only one and only very occasionally.

• Only very small amounts of sugar, other than that which is to be found in frozen wild blueberries. And as infrequently as I can manage it. (Please note, I am absolutely addicted to sugar and this is 8000 times worse, from where I'm sitting, than not drinking wine, which is already pretty bad.)

• On the plus side, coffee's all good. (Note: I start to shake if I drink more than 2 coffees a day, so I can't really use this to make up for all the other stuff that's gone.)

• I should say no dairy and no flour-based foods but fuck it. I'm not overdosing on these, however one needs an english muffin with butter after all the joy has been lacerated from her diet. Of course, as necessary, I'll modify this. And I am aiming to be moderate. 

• Fear not. I can eat all of the vegetables I can stomach! And meat, as long as it's not fatty.  And eggs and rice with soy sauce and soy-flavoured rice crackers from Koreatown (the portable version of rice with soy sauce).

• Nuts and seeds are a wildcard. I've eaten them when my throat hasn't been constricted, which is to say, I haven't eaten them at all this week. But they are a healthy, sugar-free and fat-rich type of food, so I hope to be back on this bandwagon soon.

You know you're firmly from the first-world if this diet looks bereft to you.

If any of you has a story about recovering from illness wherein temporary food intolerances were developed (especially those causing or exacerbating throat-puffiness), I'd love to hear about it.

Or, simply feel free to berate me for my idiocy. I can take it.