{ After being putridly ill for the last 2 days, I now feel squeaky clean! }
Usually my blog is all about the beauty of raw foods and the more pleasant side well-being. The recipes, the restaurants, the community, I like to keep all my content on the positive. Periodically though, I bring up the little buggar that is Crohn’s disease. It lives in side of me and I sometimes talk about having it. But I also don’t want to empower it too much by thinking IT has ME.
Funny thing is that this post may not even have much to do with Crohn’s. All I know is that around 5:00 am Monday morning, I sprung up in horrible abdominal pain. And shortly thereafter, I was sprinting for the toilet. Make that about four hours of relaying between bed and toilet every 20 or so minutes, while simultaneously gaining chills that turned into a fever running between 102 to 103. My back, especially my lower back, and on down throughout my legs and knee joints hurt so much I didn’t want to get up to go to the toilet. And once I got there it hurt so much I could hardly sit on it.
Now besides the obvious frustration of being sick, I was actually pretty pissed off. I have been 100% raw for two weeks straight and was feeling pretty damn good about it. I’ve felt great, my energy has been great…now this? What gives? Is it food poisoning? Is it a major Crohn’s flare? (When I was first diagnosed with Crohn’s in 2003, my symptoms were very similar which ultimately landed me in the ER.)
Reluctantly, I sipped on coconut water once I was able to keep the latch down. The more I drank, the more accepting my body became. But eating anything at any time Monday, day or night, was out of the question.
Finally into the early hours of Tuesday morning, I shook off my fever. But I had some other nice surprises: weird blister-like spots on the back of my throat, tiny red dots all over my face, and bright yellow diarrhea. I didn’t really want to have to go to the doctor, but I guess residual fear and paranoia of being repeatedly reminded about being afflicted with a degenerative condition brought me back once again…JUST to make sure.
Thankfully, all Doc thought I had was some sort of foodbourne virus that might stay around for a couple more days. This was a relief indeed! I have spent the better part of the last 5 months being poked and prodded and treated and being sick and exhausted. So much so that my poor little blog was neglected in the process.
By Tuesday night, I got a celery craving. I munched down several stalks, dipping them in Liquid Gold dressing. And my stomach happily accepted.
So now here’s the more pleasant conclusion of what may have been TMI (too much information) for some of you. As of this morning when I woke at 8:00 am, I felt an immediate shift. Yes, I feel better. But actually better than better. Better than I did before I got sick. I feel like someone pushed the flusher on me. The spots on my face and throat are going away. After I took a shower, I looked at myself in the mirror with wet slicked back hair and bare skin and thought I’d been to the spa, or did something special to myself. I’m actually kind of glowing! So I took a picture and posted it above to remind myself of what an inside-out, viral (or otherwise) purging renewal feels and looks like.
Plus I’m grateful. Whatever this thing was and for whatever reason it happened was GOOD. I went from what was feeling balanced and right (like eating ALL raw), to feeling confused, defeated, and frustrated, to now having a peeled-back sort of greater emergence of energy AND intensified, appreciative sense of why I eat the way I do.
It’s a small victory in my book, and a step further in progress!
<3, JMK
