or (here's a family joke) being in love means never having to say you're sorry [I'm a little sick].
Tomorrow morning they will stick an I.V. in my arm, I will fall asleep, and they will send a camera down into my stomach to determine why the various pills we've been trying for the last year are not stopping my acid reflux, or GERD (herdy gerdy).*
My only fear: they still won't know what's going on.
This is why I was awake all Tuesday night. I left out the parts about vomit and my 1:00 a.m. trip to the grocery store for the hope of OTC acid relief. Yesterday I started a new diet of saltine crackers and water. Today I'm getting crazy with graham crackers and rice. No soy sauce. Maybe I bought some chocolate soy milk because I'm going C.R.A.Z.Y. from blandness and I should be off the dairy for the time being. I should also be off the chocolate but vanilla soy milk is still kind of bland. (And now that I'm thinking about it, if there were strawberry soy milk it would be rather puke-worthy.) The Surgical Solutions Nurse told me I have to fast from midnight on, I don't even get water. I thought, big deal, I'm not even sure my stomach likes water anymore.
I don't like when I can't solve things; can't find their cause and effect. Body, if I knew, if you'd just tell me, I'd change everything, you'd be the luckiest body and stomach in the world.
Just use your words, dangit.
They made me fill out this medical privacy form, listing people who I'd allow to call in to ask questions and check on things blah blah blah. I thought, there should be more lines so I could list more people (there were three lines). Case in point....Whatever, I just thought you should all know why I've been cancelling on you/not making any plans lately.
And you don't get to make any comments because if you baby me I'll punch you in the face. I'm letting my sister take care of me, it's a good thing to learn: to ask for help and let someone take care of you. But I am not in favor of your condolences. I should get a shirt: "No condolences." I mean, I like you, and I like that you care for me, but just have a real conversation. My acid boiled stomach is not the end of the world. At least, not until May 21st.
à bientôt. *That's it! From now on you can refer to my herdy gerdy.......
Well. It's been looking like spring here and I've relishing it while steeling myself against the eventuality that winter will jump back down our throats and the tops of our boots, soaking our socks. In the midst of all this melting I've been coooooking. You see, I've discovered the truth in the proverb "He who eats alone grows bigger outside and colder inside." Yup, what wisdom. Meaning, I corral people into joining me for meals. "Hey Alicia, come over and we'll do yoga....then we'll eat edamame while I bake banana bread and zappetizer." "Hey Grace, wanna eat 30 Rock while I eat dinner?" "Can I make you waffles?"
I love food. It's great. And food should be homemade with natural ingredients, this I firmly believe. But here's the reverse. Maybe you've heard, I have some type of acid problems with my stomach. I take a prescription pill every day (and occasionally a weird concoction of apple cider vinegar) and I'm only supposed to eat small amounts when I'm hungry. Lot's of yogurt and vegetables. Let me point out where I have a problem: when I'm hungry. I'd like to get something off my chest and if I'm lucky maybe someone can provide me with some of their own proverbs. Rewind ten years and you'd find a Marge struggling with –ahem, I can get this out– well, some eating disorder stuff. Did you know that completely confuses your understanding of when you're hungry/full? I still haven't quite relearned it all. I've struggled to come to a place where I'm mostly delighted by eating healthily and taking care of my body and suddenly in one year it's become terribly complicated and discouraging again. It's important for me that I don't backslide into a quagmire of crying over meal times. What to do? People delight me, take my mind off things, remind me of the many ways food is nourishing.... So can I make you waffles?
I've also received MY DIPLOMA!!!! Which means I'm going through accordian files stacking 90% of old tests in the recycle pile (so much weight from my shoulders!) and a few things in the "to scan" pile. And setting letters in another pile entirely. They keep their paper form until they relinquish their lines to decay. I can't shred Seven-page-letter-S with his Norwegian fisherman who remind him of me. And there's an old C moving into my letter box with his too-much-coffee-scrawl. I can't lose a single page of Jbottoms or Karonius or Dad or post-it notes on newspaper articles from my Mom. You know, I'm certain, my family could win awards for our multi-media, strange correspondence.
Email is lovely and speedy. But I wish email were more like a page of paper, ready to be manipulated by photocopies, the quirks of handwriting, and creases of an envelope. And I wish email showed up in the mail box outside my front door. That never loses its romance. Nor do waffles.
Some days the best part, besides the lovely people you know, is singing to Carole King. I really wished to spend the day at home (home home home in the little upper midwest village) putting on that life-changing King album then laying on the floor and listening.
Because at one point this not at home home home day I felt I had wasted yet another hour and I was hungry and had no prospects for getting any dinner for the next few hours so I stopped by GoodEarth and got my favorite Peanut Butter Pretzels.
I can't do this. There never was a dinner because my stomach embroiled with the pretzels. I need to relearn my stomach. I write this here, again only talking about myself and not saying anything that will better the world around me, because maybe this blog will serve as my conscience.
So I take this cup of tea and make a toast: Here's to you my estómago.
When it finally came to raining last night (as predicted by Bestie J. Bottoms), I didn't mind at all. Pas de tout. Parce que I had defied headache-worthlessness by calling on dear Karonius to massage/beat the tension out of my back. Then I drank water at the command of Karonius as we (M + K + A) all laughed over text prediction knowing not "doodle" but "fondle". (P.S. It also does not know "Bronco". I have now named my phone Pidgin.) Then came the rained on run. Cold, wet, relieving. Didn't mind the hole in the toe of my shoe letting in water. Didn't mind I couldn't really see where I was going in rain soaked glasses. Just ran. Outside and laughing friends heal everything.
Yes. Yesterday was a most blessing-filled day.
Have started incorporating more raw garlic, ginger tea, and more yogurt (is that possible?!) in hopes that my stomach will give up its weird acidic notions. Am concerned that I might have to give up onion. Some lovers just aren't good for you, I guess.
This morning as I dressed, I slipped my tape into the player and was blessed to hear the sweet twangling melodies of Michael Nesmith. At that moment I severely missed my old walkman. All I want to do is listen to Michael Nesmith and his first national band always. But I'm being a good budget child and restraining myself from laying out more mulah before the god iTunes.
