Thanksgiving

Today I tried to bake bacon in the oven, since I need to drastically increase my protien and I've always liked bacon. It burned, and we had to go out to breakfast instead.

By the time we got back, I prepared the marinated vegetables to bring to my Baba's for Thanksgiving Dinner. I knew I wouldn't eat the turkey, and I wanted to make sure I had something I could eat. Not only do I hate turkey, but I hate how it is defrosted by sitting on the back enclosed porch for two to three days first.

By the time we got there, it was 2:45 and I was feeling weak. I was afraid to eat everything. It was all already cold, and bacteria may have already started to grow.

So I ate a few tablespoon-fulls of corn, same with mashed potatoes, put a teaspoon of gravy over them, and then ate some lettuce leaves with a little italian dressing, until my uncle spotted a bug in the bowl. Then I had to stop eating the lettuce. I also ate a piece of bread, and some of my marinated veggetables.

When the pumpkin pie came out, I ate a piece of that, since it is like bread and vegetable. And then I also ate a small slice of the apple pie (bread and fruit). I felt ok, but then all of a sudden, I started feeling weak again, so we had to go home.

I'm trying now to eat the leftover chicken from yesterday with some leftover rice. It is hard. Nothing tastes good and I have no appetite, but I feel sick so I want to eat to feel better. It took me an hour, but I got through a small plate. Now, my husband has re-loaded it to be one of normal portion (taking into consideration what I have already eaten), and I am now working on it. My heart is racing.

Emoticons

Even though I've reintroduced chicken back into my diet, it has not gone so smoothly. I cook it, but I am afraid to eat it. So I have a trick I use--I only eat 1/2. That way, I can only get 1/2 as sick, should it turn out to be poison.

Lately I've been really weak. My husband insists it's because I don't eat enough. I think he's wrong. I've introduced chicken back into my diet for crying out loud. I eat oatmeal for breakfast. I think that I am anemic again, but I'm not sure.

So, I decided tonight to enter all of the foods I've eaten today into the Pyramid Tracker device on the Food Pyramid web site. I thought I would find out how much I'm lacking in protein or iron.

After painstakingly entering everything, including all of the quantities, updating my age and weight, I was shocked to learn that I do not consume enough food each day to meet my energy needs.

All of the emoticons were either neutral or frowning.

So, although I am not hungry, I am going back to the kitchen to stir-fry up the rest of the veggies and re-heat a little chicken and rice.

I'm eating now as a finish this entry. It sucks. I have not appetite, but I'm weak.

I've eaten all veggies, and most rice. I've eaten two pieces of chicken.

OK, so I left most of the chicken on my plate.

I'll try again tomorrow.

Me and Vegetarianism

This evening, I cut up raw chicken for the first time in over a year. Of course I'm afraid that my entire kitchen is now teaming with salmonella bacteria, but I am so sick of eating bread and plain baked chicken. I had to force myself to make a meal that had more taste, and that usually requires putting raw meat on a cutting board. To all the vegetarians and vegans--I applaud your bodies. I've tried vegetarianism for health and environmental reasons, and I've failed. The first time I became a vegetarian was after I took a "World Religions" class my sophmore year in high school, and read a book by an eastern philosopher which listed the environmental impact of meat consumption by humans. It also explained that humans were not meant to eat meat (I wasn't sure then and I'm not sure now if I agree with that). It stated that the body could get everything it needed from the other food categories. And, a particularly striking comment which still remains in the back of my mind--I'm not sure exactly what the quote is, but the jist was that we could feed the world several times over with the grain we use to feed the cows bred for consumtion. All of this was very impressive.

In high school, I fell off the wagon a few times, but ate more meatless meals than not. In college, I paid no attention to food at all, hardly ever went to the grocery store. I ate cereal for breakfast and lunch. For dinner, I ate boiled potatoes with oil, vinegar, and paprika (I'm not sure where I got that recipe, but it was delicious). I drank rediculous coffee with milk and sugar, and vodka-based cocktails. But I took a vitamin every day. My junior year, I started to have bouts of constipation, although I didn't know that's what it was called, nor did I know what was wrong with me, nor did I link it to my diet. I did go to the doctor, of course, and was told that "it happens some times". She never used the word "constipation". At that time, I hardly used the internet, and hadn't yet discovered the joys and terrors of web MD.

By my senior year, I started to feel weak every once in a while, and would rush home to eat cereal. Then it started to happen every day. Right before I graduated, I went to the doctor and she weighed me. I was shocked to see that I was 107 lbs. I hadn't weighed that little since I was 13 years old. She commented on how white I was. But I'd always been very fair. During my childhood and adolescence my summers were happily spent inside a dance studio. The last time I had a tan I must have been 9. When I was in 7th grade, I read Dancing on My Grave by Gelsey Kirkland, and learned that Balanchine wanted his dancers to be very thin and very white, because this added to the illusion that they were other-worldly. I wasn't born blond and blue-eyed, like the all-American girl I thought I wanted to be as a child, but I was definitely white and thin. Now I had founded reason to wear it like a badge. So when the doctor told me how white I was, I answered, "Yes--my skin doesn't tan." And it is true--my body has lost the ability to tan. If I go out into the sun, as I learned in my mid-20s, I now simply burn.

The summer after graduation from college, my sudden feelings of weakness grew more frequent, and more intense. I was granted a fellowship to study writing at Bucknell University, and one day, I felt so weak, that I actually thought I was going to faint. One of the other writers said he knew a doctor, and asked me if I felt like I wanted to see one. Of course I said "yes." The next day I met him at his apartment and he drove me out into the country. I suddenly felt like a character in a Flannery O'Connor story--a girl who finds herself alone in the country, and to whom unspeakable things will happen, and of course, the situation is always one that never should have happened in the first place if one paid attention to common sense. The feeling of impending doom closes in. Why did I get into a car with a man I've only known for two weeks and not even ask him which direction or to which town we were going? Why hadn't I gone to my doctor sooner to ask why I was feeling weak? Why did this guy have a friend who is a surgeon, when all of the writers were supposed to be under 21 years old? Who has a practicing surgeon friend at 21 years old?

Eventually, we arrived at the surgeon's home. He opened the door and did not look like a surgeon at all. He had some kind of a running outfit on. I was very embarrased to be there. While he gathered his things from all parts of his kitchen, I told him about how I would suddenly feel very weak. He didn't even sit down with me to talk about my symptoms. He just said, "You're dehydrated. Drink Gatorade. It has electrolytes." I was so relieved. Later that night, when I had another incident, despite the gatorade, another writer came up to me and said, "You know what you have? Anemia! I'm anemic. Most people are. Take one of my iron pills." I don't like taking any medicine and protested but thanked her for her generocity. "Just take one. It's like a vitamin. It's like a sugar pill. You'll feel better. Trust me. It's nothing. I take them every day." I didn't wanted to take it. One is not supposed to take medicines that are not prescribed to oneself. "Just take it!" she yelled. And she left the little red pill on a napkin for me. Once she left, I threw it away.

When I came back to Chicago in August of that year, I went to the doctor, because by then I thought I had diabetes. She gave me a blood test and told me I was anemic. Then she prescribed the little red iron pills. I was in complete shock. The surgeon did not even suggest that I might have anemia.

I ended my vegetarianism.

The next time I became a vegetarian was after the food poisoning/flu/anxiety incident--the thing that has defined me for the past three years, and altered my life so drastically. At first, I became a canned souparian and a breadarain, since I knew that those things never upset my stomach. Eventually I also added rice, soy beans, and corn. I simultaneously developed stomach pains, and went to the doctor because I didn't know why my stomach felt like I had just completed 200 situps, and I was afraid of repeating that horrible night. She said I had "Acid Reflux" and she gave me Prevacid. I asked her if that was what had caused the terrible night and she said she didn't know what caused it. I had to see her monthly to report on my progress with Prevacid. By the third month, I told her that I didn't think it was helping me, and she noted that I weighed 108 lbs., so she said I was "anorexic" and sent me to a specialist.

Dr. Goldstein is a very good doctor. First, we met in his office, NOT in an exam room. We talked. He asked me what was going on in my life. I told him. Then we went to the exam room and he felt my stomach. Then he told me, "You don't have Acid Reflux. You have IBS." So I had been taking a pill for three months to treat a problem I didn't have. He said that IBS was common, and that it's worsened by stress. He said he would give me a pill for it if I ever got to a point where I needed it, but at this point, I did not need it. His tone was so caring, and at the same time, very authoritative. I didn't question him. I wasn't mad at him. I didn't fear him. I simply believed him. And further, he was so matter-of-fact that I didn't even worry too much about the fact that I was going to have to use the trial-and-error method to see which foods irritated me. I was calm because I wanted to be calm for him.

But the further I got from that appointment, the further I got away from the prospect of eating foods that may irritate me. So, instead of slowing introducing foods back into my diet, I stayed on my breadarian souparian ricearian and beanarian diet. It became hard to eat outside my home. I always brought my own chamomile tea with me wherever I went, including restaurants. I was really getting sick of Cambell's Chicken Rice Soup.

Sometimes, necessity forced me to eat outside the home, and I distrused all food except bread and soup. Then, I started to distrust the Campbell's soup because I overheard someone talking about canned goods and how they can contain bacteria (I had never thought about it before...). I then realized that part of the food I ate the day of the horrible incident was from a can. I no longer could eat my canned soup, the only food that had some nutritional value and was still in my "diet."

My phobia about food became more intense, and I once again became a vegetarian. The entire category of "meat" was too risky. I started to eat salads, but then there was an E.coli outbreak on bagged spinach which could not be killed with water, and I no longer ate any raw veggetables. I started to feel weak and dizzy again.

I eventually sought professional help. I realized how many things I had stopped doing and eating because of my intense fear of illness. So this is why cutting chicken today was a very special event.

At first, my task was to bake chicken, since I hardely would have to touch it at all, and the oven heat could kill anything. But tonight, I've graduated.

Sonata Pathetique

Last Saturday, I went to see the dance company "Momenta" perform. They did a work by Doris Humphrey called "Sonata Pathetique". This piece was first staged by Momenta in 1989, when I was a member, and I remembered the piece as soon as I heard the first few bars of music. It is such a arresting piece of music and the dance is as captivating. In 1989 when I first saw it performed I did not appreciate it as I do now because I did not give my attention to anything that was not danced on pointe. Momenta is performing it again this coming weekend, and I am almost considering seeing it a second time.

The music from this piece has consumed me. I have been "huming" it since Saturday evening. On Sunday morning at breakfast, I discussed the dance with my husband because it was still consuming so much of my conscious thought.

On Monday morning, I decided to drive my husband to work since he was running late. I turned on the radio, turned it to a classical station, and something was playing that I instantly responded to. It was in minor key, and I like almost all music in minor key, and suddenly I realized it was Sonata Pathetique. I turned it up and "let it consume me", to quote my husband (he said this yesterday when he was driving through the forest and listening to classical music).

This evening, I taught a class, and learned that one of my students is taking private piano lessons. As soon as I found out she was a pianist, I mentioned Sonata Pathetique and how I came to know it and she told me that she had played the piece in concert. I wanted to get her a piano and make her play it for me.

So that is why I went to Borders this evening and bought the CD and played it in my car on the way home, twice, and am listening to it right now as I write this.

Insects and Their Diseases

I just read about insect bites on Web MD. It was a mistake. It lists all of the different types of diseases that one can get if bitten by an insect.

I'm too scared to click on the hyperlink for West Nile Virus--I may have all of the symptoms and then I would completely freak out. Is it better not to know?

Commercial Medicine

Last Monday I went for a bike ride through the forest preserve on the beautiful North Branch Trail. Even though I went during the middle of the day, when the mosquitoes are supposedly NOT out, I got a few mosquitoe bites. I actually wasn't worrying about them too much, even though I recently heard a terrible radio ad where a husband tells the story about how his wife was bitten by a mosquitoe, and then she jokingly says to him that she hopes she doesn't get West Nile Virus, and then she does get West Nile Virus and ends up in the hospital for 8 months half of which she spent unconscious. But then last night I found a bite on my leg that is surrounded by a 3-inch red welt! It doesn't itch very often, but I almost fainted when I saw it. I may call the doctor later today.

Are the Makeup Brushes Really Disinfected?

Today I stopped at Macy's to get a few things, including some new makeup at the cosmetics counter. Even as the woman was applying the lipstick I was wondering how sanitary this entire procedure actually is. Sure, they spray the brush with something right in front of you, and yes they spray the tube of lipstick too, but does that really work? What is in the spray? Is it water? Is it alcohol? Will I accidently ingest the alcohol that is left on the brush that is being swept over my lips? Now, I've accidently read Web MD news headlines this evening and there was a piece on two new strains of the Norovirus. Can the flu spread through makeup brushes? I googled this last phrase but did not find a conclusive answer.

Cans Bursting From Botulism

I bought these anxiety CDs so that Lucinda Bassett could convince me to eat the food I prepare in my own kitchen. But they haven't helped with that. They have made me realize, however, that I have generalized anxiety about a lot of things, so I suppose that is useful.

Today I read a story about cans bursting from botulism from the Associated Press.

Salami

For dinner tonight, I wanted to make anxiety-free lentil soup (it does not contain meat, dairy, or anything raw which means that it is a perfect dish), but I had to stay at work late. So I decided to stop by the store on my way home instead and get lunch meat and cheese for a sandwich. This way, I would have something for lunch tomorrow as well. The last time I purchased lunch meat, I got it from the Deli counter, (less chemical preservatives). However, when the person put the meat on the scale, I saw that the ham was not completely on the plastic sheet and was touching the scale directly. This was very disturbing, because I do not know how often the scale is cleaned, and I now had to worry about any other meats that touched the scale, not just my own ham. So if someone purchased some bad turkey and hour ago, my ham could become contaminated. I decided to purchase pre-packaged Genoa salami. Earlier today, I had a conversation with a friend at work who told me that this is the type of lunch meat she buys. She says that it lasts an entire week. I do not eat any deli poultry, such as turkey or ham, as that is more likely than a salted or smoked meat to make me sick. My friend is a very talented cook. She actually cooks 3 full meals a day, from scratch, even though she has a part-time job, and is a PhD student. She also is very health-conscious, not in the way that someone who wants to loose weight is "health-conscious", but in that she believes whole foods are better, chemical preservatives are not good for the system, etc. I always trust what she tells me about food. (Even though she told me that the salami will last for 5 days, I will only eat it for 3, just to be SAFE). So after I got home, I opened the package, and pulled out two pieces of salami. They were really oily. More oily than I ever remember salami being. First, I called my Baba, and casually told her that my salami was very oily to see if she said something to me like, "Oh, really? That usually means it's bad and I wouldn't eat it." However, her response to my comment was, "You should eat some soup, too." This was interesting, as my friend from work and I were just talking yesterday about how good it is for the digestive system to eat soup with lunch and dinner. So then I called my husband who was still at work, and he said that I should eat the salami. So, I ate 1/2 of my sandwich, and then took the salami off and ate the second 1/2.

Medical Eye Machine

Although I had only been here for 11 days, I had occasion to seek the services of Mercy Hospital's Eye Physicians and Surgeons on Friday, May 25th. This is the same hospital I mentioned in my earlier post. I mentioned that its proximity to my apartment was a major plus to this apartment.

On Thursday night, after washing my face, I noticed suddenly that my right eye looked very red. The left eye was fine. After 15 minutes, it still had not gone away. After another 15 minutes it still had not gone away. Because it didn't hurt, I decided to go to bed, and then check on it in the morning. If it were still red in the morning, then I would go to an optometrist's office just to make sure that it wasn't anything very serious. In the middle of the night, I woke up, most likely from being uncomfortably hot in the apartment. My stomach didn't great either. I went to the bathroom, and then started to notice that I felt like there was something in my eye--sort of like a contact that has a piece of dirt on it or is not sitting right on the lens. Because I was so tired, I was unable to panic, and wanted to fall asleep so that I would not start worrying about my stomach, so I went back to bed and luckily fell asleep almost immediately.

The next morning, I got up to check my eye, and it was still red, but less so, but the feeling of dirt or dust in the eye was getting worse, to the point where it was becoming something I could not stop thinking about. I thought I might have some sort of eye infection, so I decided to go to an optomitrist's office. I considered the fact that an optometrist may be able to diagnose and eye infection better than most people, but would not be able to write me a perscription for an antibiotic. I then considered going to student health, but knew that they would not have the proper equiptment to check for an abrasion, so at around 9:00 AM, I finally decided that I must see an opthamologist.

A quick search on yellowpages.com did not reveal any in the city, which were within 3 miles, and I was started to get more and more uncomfortable. I finally decided to call the hospital to see if they had an eye clinic.

I went to the web page for Mercy Hospital, which listed a link to Mercy On Call--a phone service staffed by nurses to help you figure out which kind of doctor you need to see, and give general advice. It even had an e-mail address which one could use! I called and was greeted on the other end by a real live nurse. This experience alone was very reassuring. She suggested I see an opthamologist, and then offered to connect me to the Eye Physicians and Surgeons office, and even told me that she would see if they would squeeze me in that day. She quickly patched the call through and they were able to see me within 45 minutes.

The opthamologist I saw was very calming. She started by taking a look at the eye with a medical eye machine, and said that she saw something long and stringy in my eye. I could not believe it when she told me, as I was unable to see it when I was checking my eye. Before I could object, she quickly put in numbing drops as she said, "I'm just going to put in some numbing drops" and then she took a long cotton swab and swabbed it out. Then, she showed it to me. She said she saw something else and so I had to go through it again. The second piece of debris was an eyelash.

WARNING: Next part is anatomically graphic.

She then took my top eyelid and flipped it inside out. I jumped back and it flipped back down. I was very upset. I asked her if she really needed to do that and she said yes, because she needed to see if there was anything else in the eye. So after I took a moment, and asked her how long it would take, she did it. I was weak in the knees. When she was done, she asked me if I wanted a glass of water. Of course I didn't. It was done. What would I need water for?

WARNING EXPIRES.

The, she took a look at the left eye, and said that an eyelash on the bottom had turned in. I saw her take a metal tweezer-like instrument which I thought she was going to use to move the eyelash back down, although I was wondering why she would use metal so close to my eye instead of, let's say, a cotton swab. Somehow, I did not question her, and suddenly I felt a sharp small pain. She had actually plucked that eyelash out!

Finally, she said I could leave, and that I did not have an abrasion or an infection. She gave me some drops to put in my right eye in case to ease irritation from the debris which was in there, and from her swabbing.

I was very proud of myself for the rest of that day.

Location Location Location

Despite the aging condition of this studio apartment, which I am slowly getting more and more used to, the location is superb. The used book store is a block away, there is a gas station on the corner, and I can actually see the hospital from my kitchen window. I sit on the side of the table which faces it.

Mercy

I am slowly getting used to this studio. Although I am still happy to leave it often, I think that it was meant for me to live here for these three weeks. I am one block away from the used book store, there is a gas station on the corner, and I can see the hospital from my kitchen window. I sit on the side of my kitchen table which faces it. It is aptly named, "Mercy".

Also, the kitchen which forces me to eat out has driven me to face my fear of restaurant-prepared foods.

Cooking in the Apartment

After going back and forth on whether or not to take the saucepan out of my suitcase to use for canned soup during the next 16 days that I have left here in this sublet, I've finally decided not to eat in the apartment. It is simply too stressful. Further, I won't attract mice.

The Apartment

Sleeping on this pull-out couch is like sleeping on pipes. I don't know how the woman who owns this apartment can do it. Maybe she's young and still carefree. Or maybe she's just drunk all the time and so she can't feel anything anyway. I'm going to go to the store tonight and buy one of those foam eggshell crate mattress pads, and then I can present it to her as a gift when she returns.

I'd like to mention the bathroom sink. It is the kind that has a hot water faucet on the left, and a cold water faucet on the right, so you either have to burn your hands or freeze them. In an effort to be optimistic, I will consider the use of this sinks as a mini Russian banya, and focus on the health and disinfection benefit.

The reason I am still here in this apartment is because it is extremely clean, despite the general state of deterioration. And it is meticulously organized. The woman subletting to me left a note telling me where her box of cleaning supplies is located, and added, "p.s. Green sponge for ammonia, blue for bleach..." Any woman who (a) has a box of cleaning supplies (b) expects me to want to use them during my three-week stay and (c) knows not to mix bleach with ammonia is someone I think I should become friends with. Most of my fears regarding general disinfection are allayed.

However, most of my fears are not all of my fears. Her note has calmed me enough to where I can stay in this apartment, but I am still uncomfortable here, simply because everything is decaying. The enamel on the sinks has in many places worn away. There are rust stains on the faucets. The tub is permanently gray (I tried Scrubbing Bubbles last night and it didn't do anything at all). I wonder if this class was designed as a lure to make me go through exposure therapy.

I still am amazed at how I lived under these conditions as an undergrad. At first I thought it might be because I was so excited to be living away from home, and all that first-time freedom emotion. But I am just as excited to be here this time, and maybe more, now that I've been out in the world, working in a cubicle farm, and dragging myself through the days. I am appreciating the fact that I have almost no time contraints here, and virtually no stress (minus the apartment-related anxieties). So now I think that it is just age. The young can endure anything, and also, they are less-experienced, and therefore more ignorant.