Blissperience: They Took My Food Away

THEY TOOK MY FOOD AWAY

AND OTHER TRAGEDIES THAT INVOLVE NO COFFEE

There are a million ways to tell this story, and a million places to start. I have opted out of starting at the beginning and going forward, as well as starting at the end and going in reverse.

I am starting at…. THEY TOOK MY FOOD AWAY and COFFEE…. THEY TOOK COFFEE AWAY!!!

I got a form sheet of generic food no-nos from the specialist which started with caffeine and alcohol. I’m not much of a drinker anymore and I am not much of a recreational drug user. It takes a lot to get me to take a tylenol. My biggest vice is a serious coffee addiction.

SERIOUS coffee addiction.

I was already close to tears as I confronted the rest of the list, which included but not limited to, tomatoes, onions and garlic. So being Italian was now also out of the question. My comforting mother reminded me that I am half Irish and boiled cabbage wasn’t on the list and I could just resolve to live Irish. Some surprises on the list included apples, oranges (all citrus fruit actually) and nuts….

NO NUTS!!!

How a girl can get by in life without nuts in her mouth is beyond me.

Also on the list; no spice, no fat, NO FLAVA!!!

ALL GONE!!!

This was the solution after two and a half months of trying to find the cause of my lower abdominal pain. After a battery of tests, which included but not limited to, scopes and hoses both down the throat and up the hoop (yes at the same time, if you must know about my oscopy porn moment), it was determined by medical professionals that it was necessary to take every ounce of pleasure out of eating as possible to make the pain go away.

Okay, fair enough.

The pain was unbearable and I really wasn’t eating much or often anyway. I hurt. I felt sick and tired and dizzy all the time and my lower left abdomen always felt like I was in the middle of a monstral menstral and on the verge of delivering a 75lb baby stuck in the cervix constantly kicking me in the left ovary. However, even though the netheryayah was my chief complaint, a very thorough ultrasound including the internal exam with a wand up the baby-maker (no holes barred in the discovery process) came back showing nothing unfortunate developing. So, all things considered, telling me I had to live on less than exciting food choices was not as bad as what they could have told me. I would count my blessings. I would give it my best.

I gave it my best.

I tried to make meals with foods not on the list of evil tasty things. I still hurt. A lot.

Finding the will and the energy to eat or drink anything was a chore. What I decided to do was start a food journal. Create a comprehensive list of foods eaten alone and document the result. I would eat a few slices of cucumber and wait for two hours and see what happened. I still had the constant ache in my lower left side, but I didn’t have that sharp dagger from front straight to my back radiating up my side and down my thigh. So cucumber stayed. Until it didn’t, because after being on the safe list, it changed it’s mind. Tuna also made the safe list, for a little while. It too, had a change of heart. Eventually, I was having only a bite of this occasionally and a sip of that occasionally and I was burnt out.

This is where the story gets exciting. If I kept going forward. I have decided that this is the strategic moment to have a flashback.

In 2012, I had what is medically known as an ablation. In straight talk, they burned the lining of my uterus to stop the production of blood lining. I had a run of chronic fibroids and vascular masses making life miserable and in 2003 I switched from procreating to recreating full time when I had my tubes tied, so, I didn’t really need a period anymore anyway.

The benefits of not waiting until mental pause to never need a tampon again are endless and it’s okay to be jealous.

This is important to note as we flash forward back to 2016. My pain began in January 2016. Small cyst-like business on the outside of the netheryayah almost where the kitty kisses thigh, topical cream prescribed, not anything to worry about as per doctor.

January, various methods of personal specimens acquired and tested. Negative. Gyno exam and cervical biopsy. Negative. February, two rounds of ultrasounds. Negative. March, gastroscopy and colonoscopy. Official diagnosis; mild gastroenteritis and irritable bowel syndrome. Both stomach and colon biopsies negative.

So, we all agree this is a food problem. RIGHT???

April 3, 2016 I wake up at roughly 1:30 AM in pain like the 75 pounder put on 25 more pounds and was using both feet hard on the left ovary. The pain shot all the way up my left side and down my thigh to the knee. I got up to take 1200mg of Ibuprofen and went back to bed. Trying to make myself fall asleep through the pain and I felt a weird sort of pop and I was suddenly soaked.

I was thinking to myself “Now you’ve done it, you took too many pills and you’ve wet the bed”.

When I got to the bathroom to clean up, I realized I was covered in blood. At this point the flashback to 2012 should make more sense. I haven’t had a period in 4 years. Why the hell am I bleeding and where the hell am I bleeding from???? I am trying to think of something witty to say about that, but I got nuthin. I took exactly 3 minutes and 45 seconds to have an emotional meltdown, after which I got my act together, called for help and got my kids picked up and scored a ride to the hospital.

This is where it gets funny again. Whew.

Looking like I just survived the final fifteen of a horror flick was not how I envisioned meeting my future ex-husband, but there I was with Dr. HAWTNESS, covered in blood, stubble on my legs and the ever attractive finger-in-the-socket hairdo all the rage in cartoon melodrama and I somehow manage to convince myself that saying “sorry I am such a mess, I wasn’t expecting to be here tonight” would convince him that I am normally extremely adorable and he should invite me to dinner.

Okay, so dinner didn’t happen. However, intimate contact did reveal that hidden somewhere in a phantom zone mystical region between the colon and the uterus, well beyond the reach of sonograms and oscopies, deep beneath the little blippy bump dismissed by other physicians, was a big old abscess that ruptured.

As with everything in life it’s not what’s on the surface, but what’s inside that counts. Moreover, finding the man willing to dig deep enough to find it isn’t easy and truly a blessing.

With any good story both a moral and a happy ending are traditional.

You’ve had the moral.

The happy ending, well, the pain is gone. I feel fantastic. I didn’t get the Doctor (yet), but I got the coffee back, and that’s pretty romantic.