Today

I've just spent a week down.  In my cycles, I wake up one day, throw up until I pass out, am barely able to move for the next couple of days, and sleep.  This goes on for about 3 or 4 days.  Sometimes on the 5th day of mostly sleep, I wake up and feel brand new.  This time I've had a hard time pulling myself out of it.  A week in, and I'm sitting on my floor wishing I had more ramen.  I haven't been using my juicer and I'm pretty sure I've lost my magic bullet blade.  I've been cooking things down to where they are soft, but I can only take so much of that texture.  I want crunchy, salty, greasy, awesomely fatty foods!  I live in what now appears to be the arctic and I'm unconsciously trying to fatten up (not that I need it).  According to Weather.com it is now 11 degrees, but due to extreme wind chill it feels like -12 degrees Fahrenheit.  Fun fact - when I get cold my stomach starts cramping.  Guess what really doesn't help my cycles of angry tumminess?  Hahaha, funny.  The place I've lived my entire life is killing me.  I'm even allergic to all of the indigenous plants.  I want to go south, but not too far.  I need a place that stays about 65 degrees all year round, isn't too populated but has good schools with special programs for my mildly autistic son, and has either mountains or a beach.  I would like to stay in America, but I'm not opposed to going elsewhere.  For right now though, here we are.  I will say for the moment I am loving the extra root veggies and meats in season right now, I am currently boiling down a turkey carcass to make some stock.  Turkey and dumplings is awesome for us, as long as you watch the fat.  Turkey noodle soup, turkey and rice, casseroles, good stuff.  Holiday parties can be killer though.  I went to my niece's birthday party with pizza and ice cream cake (my very favoritest in the wide world) and I totally made a pig of myself.  I'm not paying for it as much as I had feared, thank gawd.  It just feels like a continuation of the last week.  I've noticed with this disease that it is impossible to tell if you have the flu, a cold or a bad gastro day.  So much of the time, at least for me, the symptoms are so much of the same. 

On to a better tomorrow!

Back

I'm back from hiatus.  Sometimes doing this blog is really hard for me.  It makes me focus on my disease, and sometimes I just want to pretend it isn't there.  Or that I'm on a fad diet and I can quit whenever I want to.  This time of year can be especially painful, not just because of the food.  Oh ridiculously delicious holiday food, my tummy hates you but I love you.  The cold is another problem.  I'm not sure if this is true for everyone, but the extreme cold makes my stomach cramp.  I look like nanuk of the north when I go outside, but it doesn't always help.  Granted I live in a very cold climate and need to move, but that isn't in the cards right now.  Ahhhh, well.  As it is I've been faced with the Gastro monster this week.  I haven't had a flare up (as far as I can tell) but I've got a cold, which is so much worse than it was before I got sick.  Some days I really don't know where to turn with some of this, and it can be hard to handle.  Not just the way it affects me, but it affects my family too.  This just seems like I'm pushing a boulder uphill but the hill goes forever.  But here I am, trudging along.  Sorry I'm such a negative nancy this week, just so beat down sometimes.