Spring

Lysol Wipes and Chicken Soup

Today I made chicken noddle soup/stew from scratch. It's one of my favorite foods, and now that I load it up with a lot more chicken than I used to, my husband likes it too.

Today, I made a mistake while cooking. Maybe it wasn't a mistake. I don't know. That's why I'm phobic.

While I was waiting for the chicken thighs to cook, I pre-cut most of the vegetables, and then decided to start cleaning up the kitchen until I was ready to cut up the herbs and the potato. Eventually I took out the garbage, and then wiped the can with a Lysol wipe--the ones that are ammonia-based--the ones that say "Hazard to Humans" on the bottle. I still have a roll, so I use them to wipe down doorknobs and garbage cans on occasion. So, after I completed this task, I wiped the doorknobs, and then washed my hands. In the past, I used to wear gloves when I used Lysol Wipes, since it said on the very bottle that they were a hazard to humans and that hands should be washed after handling them, but I'm trying to work on exposing myself to the things that I fear, so I thought I'd use them, and then wash my hands. I've done this successfully in the recent past. Today, however, after I did this, it was time to cut the herbs, and the potato, so I proceeded to do so. As I was cutting, I started to wonder if my hands were COMEPLETELY clean. What if I didn't do a good job washing all of the hazardous-to-humans Lysol off? What if I'm rubbing Lysol on my potato via my not-washed-well-enough hands? Alas I again decided to face my fear, and I continued on with the vegetables, and finished the soup. Then, I started to eat the soup because I was so hungry, but after a few spoons took the edge off, I was terrified to eat the rest of it. This path was familiar to me. Start eating, get afraid, stop eating, starve, get dizzy, try to sleep, become unsuccessful at sleeping because I am hungery. In order to stop the cycle, I have to force myself to eat, despite my fear. So, I ate almost the entire bowl of soup. And then I waited. When my husband came home I relayed the entire story to him, and he said that the soup was fine, and then he ate a bowl. So then I finished mine. I am now terrified. I have a headache. Is it from the stress, or the soup? How long do I have to wait until I know that we are safe?

Stomach Flu Outbreak

Recently, one of my students wrote me an e-mail to tell me that she had missed class due to the stomach flu. Early in the semester another student did the same thing. This made me uncomfortable. Two students with the stomach flu, and me in the same room with them for 45 minutes, three days a week. But, I got through those two incidents without contracting the virus, and had almost forgotten about it when today, another student of mine came up to me after class and told me that she had the stomach flu and did not even want to think about food. I was trying not to breathe in as she talked. I was very upset and tried to shoo her away as quickly as I could, agreeing to whatever she said. I was trying to scurry quickly away from her without being offensive. I was upset, but somehow I still had my composure. And that is something that I can be proud of. After my 2nd class of the day, a male student came up to me to tell me why he had missed class last week. Same thing. I was so upset by this point that I forgot all niceties and ordered him to step back away from me. And now I'm terrified. Does this constitute an outbreak? I mentioned this story to the administrative assistant in my division office, and she said that three of the teachers in our department had it last week. And then I moved into the panic mindset. I got out of there as soon as I could, and almost hit a pole while driving home. I was going to head straight to my kitchen cabinet which houses the sedatives, but then I decided to wait, and see if I could ride it out. I tried to eat soup broth and toast, things that are easy to eat when one is panicking about getting the stomach flu, and then calmed down a bit and did the dishes. A few hours later I was finally hungry and ate the stew I prepared yesterday. I'm drinking my chamomile tea and reasearching the internet for Stomach Flu 2009. I'm finding articles like this and this. I'm panicing again. I'm about to lie down in bed with a sedative and some Law and Order.

How Germans Eat

Recently, I had a very busy day and by four o'clock hadn't had any time to run out to the grocery store to get food to make dinner. Of course I had nothing in the house, and to complicate matters, my Baba called me and told me she made spaghetti for me. The reason why this complicated matters was that I'm still afraid to eat dinner at her house. She thaws meat on the counter top and uses the same cutting board for raw meat and raw veggies. She has always done this, and has never ever gotten sick. I have eaten her food all of my life (until I came down with this phobia) and I also have never ever gotten sick. So, I was faced with this serious dilemma--drive 10 minutes to my Baba's house and eat spaghetti that is already cooked and waiting for me, or figure out what to cook, go to the grocery store, buy the food, come home and cook it, then finally eat, 2 hours later. I decided that it would be good for my phobia if I used "exposure therapy" on myself and ate dinner at Baba's. First, I got the opinion of two different people regarding whether or not they thought it was safe to eat the spaghetti. Then, I headed over to Baba's.

The spaghetti tasted GREAT. Even so, I played with my food for a bit, and took tiny bites, so that if I were to get sick, I would get LESS sick than if I had eaten the entire dish. I also moved the food around on the plate so that it looked like I ate most of it. My Baba sat down across from me, and said, "You know Svitlana? Germans would never eat like that. This is what they do." And she took the fork out of my hand, scraped all the food on my plate into a big pile, and said, "You have to eat this."

The spaghetti sat in my stomach like a lump for the rest of the evening. Was it because it was greasy? Or, was it just my anxiety? This is why I prefer to eat bread, soups, and kashas.

Thanksgiving--One Year Anniversary

Thanksgiving was the one-year anniversary of my physical meltdown. Although I was able to actually eat at the Thanksgiving dinner table this year, I had chest pains for three days leading up to the meal, and a few difficult days after the meal where I panicked about what to eat. The IBS flared up for the three days AFTER Thanksgiving, and I had stomach cramps. I also had that severe weak feeling as if I hadn't eaten in 12 hours. I took the sedative twice during this past weekend, and it didn't cure the symptoms, but made me not care so much that I was suffering.

Yesterday, everything tasted bad, but I shoved it down anyway.

The Today Show Talks About Germs!

Every morning I put on The Today Show while I make breakfast and coffee. Although I'm usually annoyed with Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera (Katie Couric look-alike), I keep it on because they show the weather and I know if anything big has happend over night.

Yesterday, they had a special segment which "exposed" the fact that shopping carts are covered with bacteria and fecal matter. It's apparently part of a series they're doing on germs. Today, they talked about how vacuums have E. coli on their brissles and when a person vacuums, the bacteria are dragged around the room. If I wash my hands any more, the skin is going to fall off.


If you'd like to scare yourself, read all about the Today Show germ series here.

Autumn on a 69 degree day.