wherein the anti-inflammatory diet bites me back

On September 27th, I woke up with stomach cramps.  They weren't strong enough to prevent me from biking to work and I expected that they would wear off by mid-morning as they and nausea typically do.  On this occasion, however, the opposite occurred and the cramps not only got stronger but began cycling through the wave, with which all Crohns are familiar.

For those unfamiliar, the wave is a cycle of pain in which the sensation begins modestly and proceeds to grow like a swell before hitting a peak around which it dawdles for a time and then swells back down.  Each cycle can last anywhere from 1-10 min depending on how violent is your episode.

The day before, I was very proud to have gone my first complete day without eating any "illegal" foods on my self-imposed anti-inflammatory diet.  Like a veteran, I weened myself away from refined sugars and carbs very slowly:

Breakfast:  banana and blueberry smoothie (with coconut oil) 

Lunch: leftover steamed veggies and roasted fennel

Supper: coconut flour biscuit with lox and raisin cashew carrot salad (with lemon juice)

Apart from the food -- none of which was new to my system nor should have done any harm -- the day was not without a very significant amount of stress, which no doubt contributed to the episode the following day.

Since I had a masters and undergraduate student arriving on the 27th to be under my supervision, and the 4th day of 12 straight days of behavior to conquer, there was to be no standing down.  By 10am, however, the waves had picked up their ardor and I found myself clutching my stomach while giving a microscope tutorial and a brief anatomy lesson.

At 1130am it was time to traipse from the medical to the main campus (~10 min walk) to do behavior.  By this time, the waves were such that when I walked I could feel every reverberation from the placement of my feet -- a shock spiraled up my spine each time my heel hit, the ball of my foot, my big toe, the rest of my toes, and as weight shifted back to the ball of my foot, to the side, and as my heel lifted and weight transfered to my ball and toes again.  It took me almost 20 min to make that trip, slowing down in attempt to increased the fluidity of my steps in vain effort to avoid the reverberations.

Just 2 hrs, I told myself, and H.K. will pick me up and bring me home to drug myself into oblivion and hopefully avoid a visit to the ER.  To briefly elaborate, the wave is almost never a sign of a rupture or abscess.  Four times in my Crohn history a day like this has been as debilitating: the first, when I was maybe 14 and no visit to the ER was made, and I was fine; the second, third and fourth when I was in my early 20s and made visits to the ER during which I was given morphine and a CT scan after which time I was sent home with a bottle of percocet and told that nothing was wrong.  The all-too-familiar gab of a physician who doesn't give a shit.  As a scientist, I can tell you via very basic logic, that if the body allows nociception to deliver enough consistent pain to knock a person off their feet, there is something wrong.  There just is.

I have no idea how I survived those 2 hrs of behavior.  Honestly.  I'm fairly certain that I took the opportunity to black the fuck out during my 20 min break.  As to my subjects?  I have tremendous and impressive control over the projection of my chakras.  If they knew anything was amiss, I would be flabbergasted.

In any case, I did not go to the useless and unhelpful ER.  I did, however, take 20 mg oxycodone over the course of the evening, and a hit from my vaporizer each time I awoke in pain throughout the wee hours (1, 3, 4 and 5am).  Yes, my friends, it was in fact that bad.  On this day, I was only able to stomach a few spoonfuls of broth and 2 saltines, and that only to give the oxy something to mingle with.

On Sept 28th, I did not move from my bed until 11am, at which time I needed to return to the lab to do more behavior.  This was a most assured FML event.  H.K. was wonderful enough to put off his own work for a few hours to stuff a Boost down my throat, drive me to my destination and run an errand for me while I did my thang.

Upon returning home, I again relieved the still miserable but notably less excruciating pain with more drugs and slept until the evening.  Not a BM to be found through this whole saga, mind you, nor was this gas related.  So the remaining culprits are stress and food intolerance.

Today, the 29th, I am sore, weak, bloated and nauseous, but the wave is gone.  I performed my behavioral tests today in significantly less agony.  And I am slowly adding back solid -- although not remotely anti-inflammatory -- foods back into my system.  Saltines?  Noodle soup?  Jello?  This is a documented instance in which anti-inflammatory food brought me to my knees and carbs and sugar revived me.

hi's and lo's

What is provoking this sudden flurry of posts??

Back on the anti-inflam diet today.  Feeling good.  Even rejected the primal urge to partake in free baked goods and coffee at a seminar.

[leftover] coconut flour biscuits courtesy of Comfy Tummy, cashew raisin carrot salad.  Dried ginger and cherries for dessert.

Eaten away by the hour, however, upon discovering this morning that I had made a mistake several months ago now that has been causing the problems in an experiment a colleague and I have been working on [on and off].  With each hour, it becomes more difficult to tolerate the mistake.  Minimally my fault as I was a complete noob thrown into a DIY cloning situation with almost no direction other than an end goal.  But months wasted nonetheless, and my own integrity disintegrating in the eyes of my colleague.

Funsies.  Evening deprecation.  Romanticizing about what a good night's sleep once felt like.  Feeling thrice my age.  Losing patience with my GI (elaboration to follow).

fasting on yom kippur

Today is Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for the Jewish people.  Every year on this day of atonement, I find myself mostly atoning for not fasting.

I'm not a religious person, so why the quandary?  Tradition.  And unity.

As I have alluded to in many a post, I am a history fanatic.  It's a nigh unhealthy obsession.  And with my particular strain of historical fanaticism comes a deep and bulging appreciation for, and need to be a part of, the strings that hold  a people and their origin together.

So I try.  Sort of.  I learn the stories, I dissect their legitimacy and find ways to base them in a reality ruled by physics.  I recognize and have great respect for the meaning of the holidays.  But I don't fast.

Our ancestors sacrificed and suffered to make the world a better place for us, and I am doing my part to make the world a better place for my potential progeny.  That, to me, is as equal a representation as any of my atonement.

Lastly, and probably most relevant, I get really messed up when I don't eat.  It necessitates being bedridden for the day (due to drugs and fatigue, etc.), which I cannot at present accommodate.  So, this Jewess will atone for her sins (one of which, involving primer design, was just discovered this morning -- how delightful) by fixing the problems she has caused, and by eating enough to support the calories necessary to do so.

Happy Yom Kippur!  Tzom Kal!  and, g'mar hatimah tovah!

health food addiction

Healthy food is like a drug.

When I get on a diet kick, and realize that I have actually made time to plan, shop for and prepare healthy meals, I like to stay on that kick.  Because when a day comes to interrupt my high where I cannot plan, shop for or prepare a creative, healthy and -- let's face it -- fun meal, I crash.

At the end of a long and taxing day -- never mind how productive or fulfilling -- I feel even more awful eating things because they are easily accessible (read: carbs) than I did before my diet kick.

 Curried tofu (bad) with celery,peas, avocado and tomatoes.

 Whole roasted cauliflower with thyme, basil olive oil sauce.

 Avocado alfredo with zucchini noodles and roasted fennel.

Almond butter cookies (no flour, good sugars, minimal egg).

Cooking healthy foods is vastly similar to reading a brilliant and dense book: it can be intimidating and take a good while to capture your enthusiasm, but once you get going you cannot stop reading for your life.  Two months ago, I finally got back the "time" and enthusiasm to work on this anti-inflammatory diet that I've been tip-toeing around for ages.  I have loved it.  I have loved the innovation and simplicity of most of the recipes I've discovered.  I have loved experimenting to make strictly SCD or Paleo recipes edible for myself (read: no dairy, no red meat, no peanuts, must have sushi).  And I have loved feeling good about what I'm putting in my body (irrespective of whether I have an attack afterward, which occasionally is the case -- consequences of transitioning away from that to which one's gut flora is accustomed).

But sometimes I can't make it happen.  Sometimes it is the middle of the week, and I have worked a 12 hr day and came home to a full sink (read: entire kitchen countertop) of dirty dishes, an empty fridge and a pile of clothes to alter/hem... and I just have no interest in making it to the grocery store.  And H.K. and I get takeout.

Takeout is inevitably carb loaded (pho), or sugar loaded (dressings/ candied nuts), and ordering food without dairy/red meat or carbs makes the meal completely not worth it.  It does not help that I forgot to make breakfast this morning and ate a free bagel at work today... and that that is all I ate until I got home and inhaled some leftover roasted fennel from last night.

So tonight, I'm crashing, exhausted, and craving healthy food.  Put it in my veins.

____

UPDATE:  I grazed through a fish wrap with grilled veggies and dates from our go-to "South African"restaurant.  Not as bad as could have been.

carrots

After 13 years of not being able to eat raw carrots without inflaming my lips and throat to the point of speaking like a dying frog for six hours,  I can eat raw carrots again.  Not without a hummus or tea chaperone, mind you, but made no less random or extraordinary by that.

It is very important to note here that before Crohn's, carrots were my most favorite food.  Cheese weighing in at a close second.

This.  Is.  Baller.

Crohn's v. Grad School Free Lunch

I don't know what all these penniless graduate students are complaining about.  Between the seminar snacks, defense sandwiches, Neurobeer meals and lab-mate bakers I hardly need to grocery shop anymore.  And that's in spite of only being able to eat half of the free food thrust upon the academic community that is my department.  Toss in a few holiday luncheons and it's enough to induce a constitutive state of Food Coma.

When I leave my house in the morning, I bring an apple, a bottle of water and a few tea packets.  Rarely are leftovers necessary to get through the day, for, invariably, lunch will provide itself.  There are instances, however, wherein I resist temptation to partake, knowing that I have a long 6+ hours of afternoon lab work ahead and will need to be able to stand upright.  Our department holiday luncheon this week was a tantalizing array of six different kinds of lasagna -- all with cheese.  Fail.  One poor tenured faculty member and myself were left sipping our [albeit, heavenly] lemony spiced apple cider alone while others bombarded the buffet line.

It's a slippery slope.  My inherent frugality and neurotic inclination to not let free things go to waste versus the Crohn's baby.  But even if I must decline lasagna and chocolate butter cookies, I am never starving.  And what's more, they have started to serve lactose-free hot chocolate at mini-seminars.  Soon there will be rice milk for my coffee... soon.

Crohn's versus Grad School: Episode I

A fascinating new trend is emerging in my diet.  To bestow some background, the morning hour at which I eat breakfast is determined by when my nausea wears off... typically 2-3 hours after I wake up*.  As a research assistant, I got to work at 7am, pecked at a breakfast item between 8-10am and was totally stable until a 1-2pm lunch.

As a grad student, I wake up at 6am, "study" etc. until class at 9am, and still not being settled enough to eat, just forgo the breakfast entirely (gasp!).  What happens next is cruel punishment.  My stomach thundering in acidy mobilization by noon, I sit down to consume (very slowly) a sandwich.

Halfway through -- BAM! -- nausea is back, bitch.  "How dare you starve me and then gluttonously bloat me with half a sandwich?!", blathers the Crohn's baby.  And with my tail between my legs I slough off to make a cup of tea.

Clearly, the solution is to bring a granola bar to class so that the Crohn's baby doesn't start the afternoon hating before the morning hating has even subsided.  And sugar being my least favorite thing in the morning (this is an artifact of colonoscopy prep), I have to find a granola bar that isn't composed of nuts and seeds but is also not drenched in sugar.  Where does one find such an elusive creation?

*Although the nausea is also bested by coffee, the Crohn's baby does not accept coffee without ample absorptive carbo load, and also if I'm handling animals or microscopic pieces of fragile tissue there is just no inviting the Caffeine Shakes.

Crohn's Wins and Technician Survival

In the absurdity that has been my final month in my current lab, I have neglected several announcements.  But this afternoon, I finished collecting data for and writing the first draft of my last Home Lab manuscript, and now I have a few moments to breathe.

1.  My first CCFA Take Steps for Crohn's and Colitis walk was, for me, a big success.  We raised some big monies with the generous contributions of many friends and family, including some fellow Crohn bloggers!

2.  Operation Raga Detox has gone swimmingly, and I managed within 2 weeks to bury the Throughput deluge in its own audacity (too visual?).  This, my friends, means that I will be trying to work things out with Remicade for a while longer before throwing in the towel, ripping the shirt, or what have you.  I'm pretty much on the BRAT diet for now, and between that and neglecting all coffee and alcohol (I dare you to try this in PDX where happy hour is like breathing) things are churning at a tolerable pace in there.

3.  Also, until today I hadn't been on Facebook or read anything from my extensive blogroll in 2 weeks.  While that was its own version of nice, I'm ready for a break from the 10-12 hour days (weekends included) and the monotonous and yet never-dulling misery that has been waking up and going to work lately to bust my ass and attempt to ignore my chastising and mocking coworkers (again, thank goodness for my summer student slash REAL replacement).

4.  In news that I still can't seem to grasp, my boss wants to continue paying for my health insurance until the student coverage kicks in, instead of having me dry up my funds paying for COBRA continuation and then being without coverage for the month following, which was my ingenious plan.  This is why I break my butt for Home Lab.  My boss/mentor/surrogate uncle/guru/guide gives me fancy tea and healthcare.  The conversation went something like this.

Boss Man: So, when you talk to Payroll today, see what it would take to allow me to pay for your continued health coverage until your student plan kicks in.

Raga:  Haha... no.

Boss Man: Why not?

Raga: Well... because you're not firing me, and you're already paying for my Big Conference expenses even though I wont be here.

Boss Man: Oh nonsense.  You're going to be working on the manuscript revision and poster after you're gone anyway.  Think of it as salary.

Raga:  I don't think I can do that, even if Payroll will let you.

Boss Man:  Look, I wouldn't offer if I didn't have the money.  And frankly, I wouldn't have the money without the work you've done this year alone.  What you've helped to develop in your tenure here will carry several future grants.  Covering your health benefits for two months is but a small token of appreciation.

 Raga: *sob*... Alright, I will try to think of it that way.

Why am I leaving this lab again?

Oh yeah...

stress management fail, Buffy and RagaDetox

A lot has gone down in the past 8 days.  Serious things like H.K. and Optimus Prius getting t-boned by a girl on her cell phone (H.K. is unharmed, O.P... not so much), bringing my young brother and his musician's gear home from college for the summer, sewage leaking underneath our kitchen which requires that H.K. and I live on the streets for several days this week, and family BBQ.  In addition, my boss has been away at a meeting and I have been left with Incompetence, Arrogance, a wonderful summer student, and the installation of and training on two new apparatus in the lab.

Smaller things that have gone down include an eye doc demanding that I expand the repertoire of my reading glasses to include computer-staring and T.V.-watching because my eyes have been blood red for a month now.  Never fear -- we ruled out iritis/uveitis, who were suspected based on prevalence in immunodeficient and Crohn's types.  Also on the list of less significant gripes is that while all of this was going on around me, I was also working on a manuscript, collecting data and taking care of my boss' mice, and cleaning up after Incompetence who continues to thoroughly live up to her name.

Needless to say, I died of tired on Sunday and have not yet recovered.  I need several days of incubating in my robe and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathons... through closed burning eyeballs.

Either from the pain in my gut or eyes, or from the agonizing ordeal that is going to work every day lately, I have not been managing my stress smartly (enter the 5 cups of coffee and ~2 bottles of wine I consumed last week).  I have decided, therefore, to eliminate coffee and alcohol from my diet this week.  To some people, detox means flushing one's body with 8 cups a day of sunflower and stinging nettle teas and eating nothing but flax seed and green vegetables; RagaDetox just means no coffee or alcohol.

None of this sounds very remission-y.  But.  My boss is back in town, and things are beginning to look up... sort of.

of Crohn's and food cravings

When I was small -- and even during gymnastics when I had to carbo-load and be careful about protein and sugar balance -- I never had issues with food cravings.  That was an adult-onset thing.  Alternatively, it could have been a Prednisone-induced phenomenon.  Although it's well known that part of Prednisone Mania can include enhanced sweet tooth and weird food cravings during regimen, there seems to be no accessible record of either long term effects of these sort.  Then again, I haven't looked very scrupulously...

That I [and my medical journal of poo's and drugs] can recall, I started to have food cravings beginning after my first encounter with Prednisone when I was 16 (notice that I categorize 16 as "adult-onset").  Since then, I've only ever not had some degree of craving when I was nauseous.  Usually this is just a sweet tooth, but in my later years it has become refined to sushi, curries and Teriyaki chicken burgers*.  I have also expatiated on my inability to ignore food after a run to the grocery store, when the fridge and cupboards are replenished with veritable goodness.

In the past month, however, my cravings have subsided -- even in the [natural or coffee-induced] absence of nausea!  This is very uncharacteristic and, so far as I can surmise, unprovoked.  Am I just getting old?  Am I evolving from a stress-eater to a stress-starver?

*as an aside, why doesn't Google know how to spell Teriyaki?

Food of the Day: seaweed

It may or may not be apparent to most of my readers that it has been quite some time since I've blogged on a Food of the Day.  The reason is that, well, there are only so many foods a Crohn can eat [read: admit to eating].  Since I'm diving most enthusiastically into this fiber fest, it is time to give some hard-won and well deserved attention to seaweed.

Seaweed, to me, has always seemed a benign and healthy food for two reasons: 1) it is an algae, and algae is generally purported to have excellent mineral benefits, and 2) because seaweed makes Sushi more chopstick-friendly -- nigiri is very complicated because it is a 2-3 bite endeavor, and sashimi is too expensive to eat as often as I eat sushi.

I was, therefore, thrilled to learn that types of seaweed have direct benefits in both in vitro and in vivo models of IBD.  Fucoidan (brown seaweed extract), specifically the Cladosiphon okamuranus Tokida kind (collegially, Mozuka), has been shown to protect against the development of intestinal tumors in rats (Yamamoto and Maruyama 1985).  Even more exciting was that Mozuka inhibited interleukin-6 (IL-6) activity and down-regulated  NF-κB in a model of colitis (Matsumoto et al 2004).  IL-6 and NF-κB are two of the primary triggers of intestinal inflammation.


Yet another study suggests that Mozuka inhibits the adhesion of Helicobacter pylori to an in vitro human gastric cell line (Shibata et al 1999).  Reports on the effects of Mozuka against H. pylori are, in fact, numerous: Shibata et al 2003, 2000; Nagaoka et al 2000).

Mozuka (from http://www.e-expo.net/materials/016131/0004/index.html)

But as you might imagine, Mozuka, being brown seaweed, is not sushi seaweed Nori.

                                

Nori (stolen from http://gluttonforlife.com/2010/11/09/the-nori-story/ -- read her awesome post!)

Nori saeaweed is rich in minerals such as calcium, zinc and iron (Shaw and Liu 2000) which are typically lacking in Crohns or persons with any digestive dysfunction.  Shaw and Liu also suggest that Nori helps the intestine to absorb minerals from other sources such as the Crohn-coveted magnesium.  It is also an excellent source of soluble fiber.

There are many other benefits of various seaweeds, but as you can see, this post is already quite orange.  I will continue to ingest my moderate portions of sushi, roasted nori and Wakame (in soups = nom!) without fear.

fiber and loose ends

This post being about fiber, I thought it fitting to tie up -- or at lease re-lace -- a few loose ends (tehe...).

The ants have been Terminixed into oblivion (or scared away for the moment).  The rotting flesh has relented just enough to inspire the hope that it will one day be gone (I now have a sexy little bald spot -- fortunately hidden -- which I dare to dream will be refilled in the happy future).  And finally, my zest for experimental cooking has been reborn and outrageously fiber-themed.

In truth -- there was a day where I ate an egg, a kale and apple salad (uncooked... wtf?) and grilled asparagus.  It's like wishing for death by intestinal rupture.  But I've been on a good streek...

 That's not my beer.

The fear that I might have to resign from Remicade in the near future sparked a desire to reintroduce as much fiber into my diet as possible while I still can, and perhaps get to a point where I can rely on it for maintenance.  I have long been jealous of the folks who are able to maintain a level of comfort through the Simple Carbohydrate Diet, which I have never been able to do without catapulting into a flare or exciting a collective of food allergies.

Since the insane kale asparagus day, I have backed off somewhat, eating raw veggies only occasionally and always buffered by starch of some sort (yeah, the gluten-free thing didn't last too long either thanks to dear and shamefully neglected GERD), or Tofu.  Grilled julienned zucchini and seaweed is my new favorite lunch kit -- small, fast prep and consumption, filling enough.  The Lab forces me to eat healthier lunches anyway because I have this compulsion about not eating finger food between bench runs, and sometimes have to neglect my meal midway through to make time-sensitive sample transfers or solution adjustments.

Unfortunately, fiber -- particularly insoluble fiber, which is the star of this new dietary whim -- also leads to very unpleasant bus rides to and from work.  The kind of bus rides that I have mentioned before (so many times, in fact, that it should really be its own tag term).  The kind of bus rides that elevate anxiety and provoke daydreams of flowing off of public transit in a deluge of... well, let's keep this PG-rated, shall we?  Fiber alters [read: lengthens] my schedule in order to accommodate new time slots between meals in which it is safe to travel.  The starch buffer helps to a degree.

Yes, that is an ice Lego minifig in my BenchFly mug of diet soda (allow a woman some indulgences...).

Is it worth it?  Are the long-term benefits of eating healthier foods during this pain-free window going to have efficacy?  I like to think of the inconvenience as analogous to a woman who wears anti-ergonomic heals despite the arch aches and blisters, and to hope that I wont later appear to myself as ridiculous as she does to me.

Spring

Spring has sprung.  It is still mostly gray, rainy and often sleety.  It is still invariably no more than 55 degrees at the warmest parts of the day.  But... the ants are out.  A sure sign of Spring.

I am grateful that our bug infestations in the PNW exclude scorpions, bed bugs and brown recluses.  However, I can't bring myself to be at peace with waking up on the couch to a horde of ants crawling up my afghan and in my hair.

Neither can I abide waking up in the morning and coming downstairs to a kitchen that seems to be alive with an entire anthill.  Not a crumb of food or dirty dish to be seen, mind you.  The entire counter space, stove top and empty sink were crawling.   (and it is of note that the fruitbowl on said counter space that held two ripe bananas was devoid of any Hymenoptera).

Thank goodness that Sunday is Adventure Day.  We wiped out the horde, hopped in the car and headed north.  Lego store, bit of hiking, and Phở.  Standard.  Phở is always good for H.K.'s sinuses and my nausea.  The exercise is not so much, although as I think I've mentioned, that will hardly stop me.  The nausea is settling into its Springtime routine; it swells after I've eaten [anything], when I have forgotten to eat [anything] for more than five hours, and is exacerbated when my sinuses flare.  Bring it on -- I'm armed with Phở, Netti Pot, five kinds of nasal spray and even more variations of antihistamine.

We arrived home to find that the counter tops had been resurfaced with a fledgling ant colony 1/3 the size of what we encountered this morning.

Remicade, and other stories

In a striking turn of events, I feel like a bag of bones today.  A very nauseous, very tired, ever so slightly irritable bag of bones.

My umpteenth Remicade infusion was Saturday, and I left the hospital feeling ill, which typically does not happen.  Full disclosure; I did enter the infusion clinic preemptively concerned about having developed Remicadibodies and having an allergic reaction.  This manifestation stemmed from my sort-of-recent hyper-allergenic condition (read: psoriasis, dermatitis, new mouse allergies, hives).  While there was no immediate reaction to be seen -- bummer -- I did not feel well for hours afterward.  In fact, I did not feel well for any part of Sunday either.  And, in case reiteration is necessary, I do not feel well today.

It is highly unlikely that this is more attributable to Remicade than to the gluttonous amounts of [cooked] leafy greens I've been eating of late.  I would even stretch to suggest it might be a result of the increased carb-heavy (read: salty, sugary, processed) foods whose ingestion I have defended on the basis of not being able to chew anything with much of a texture (potentially making the leafy greens an even more obvious culprit).  Thanks to Remicade, I'm not in very much pain, but those manifold side effects are aggregating.

And yet, this bag of bones was here at work promptly at 7am processing tissue samples and simultaneously probing nitrocellulose membranes.  This means I have what it takes to survive six years of this work load ten fold in graduate school, yes?..

of frump and holidays

What I love about starting a business is that it is organization intensive.  I don't get to coordinate the lobbying or event logistics or portfolio presentations since I stopped working with the CCN, so I thoroughly enjoy my obligatory role in helping H.K. in his new entrepreneurship.

Most peoples' living room floors are peppered with holiday gifts in various stages of wrapping.  Mine, for the last month, has been drowning in bags, and bags, and bags and bags of Legos.  Today, H.K. and I made a two-trip purchase of no less than 28 Sterilite drawer bins into which all the Legos in my living/dining room are currently being transferred.

For the occasion, your humble narrator appeared in public in unwashed 80's hair, tweed coat and scarf, and sweatpants which, being new and tightly cuffed, showed off the fashionable white Puma socks whose tops were exposed above my Dansko clogs.  Stylin'.

During our second trip, a gust of wind caught both our over-filled carts rounding a corner of the store and blew three of our drawer bins out of the carts, sending one flying into the street in front of a car who was, to our great fortune, actually going 5 mph around the corner and stopped before annihilating our merchandise.  I was then obligated to surrender my coat to weigh down the bins as we proceeded onward to the car.  Now decadent in a near-fluorescent orange T -- which matched my sweats but was quite Hobo-esque with my scarf and flying frazzled hair -- and coat-covered shopping cart, I booked it to the waiting vehicle.  Let it be known that H.K.'s sweatshirt-adorned cart looked less Hobo than mine, and he, being in jeans, suffered no humiliation.  Also let it be known that I am quite proud of my performance in 30 degree sunshine.

We attended a dear friend's birthday last night, at which I indulged in fruit salad made with coconut milk, gluten-free tirimisu sans the marscapone icing, and chips.  And now, here I sit in my much-more-fashionable matching regal blue robe and slippers sipping Earl Grey and waiting for my fiber cookies to kick in.  For the last two nights I've been woken up (unsurprisingly) due to abdominal pain (shockingly).  Could it have been the latkes?  Could it have been the vinegar in the pumpkin chutney (a scrumptious gift from my wonderful coworker)?  Could it have been the halibut (gasp)?  Who knows.

Fortunately, Chanukah is not a bust.  On the third night we finally pulled our (read: my) act together to feast in the warmth of our new robes, lit candles and obsessively decorated home, while watching Beauty and the Beast on blu ray.  Fairly epic, but now H.K. is feeling the pressure to get me a giant library for my birthday.  To clarify, that is external pressure from yours truly, not internal pressure.

Chanukah sameach!

SfN 2010

As I sit recovering from a week of travel, rich food and constant bombardment with science and brilliant minds, I can't help but feel proud of my restraint.

I paced myself well, got a bit of sunshine, and suffered from not a single Crohn's attack.  There was a great deal of rich food at my fingertips.  Several days begged for lunches out in downtown San Diego, as >31,000 neuroscientists poured out of the convention center and into the streets to acquire sustenance for the afternoon's activities.  Our lab was also cocktailed, wined and dined by a very lovely medical liaison -- just a wonderful woman -- which called for rich Italian food. 

Fortunately for the intestines of yours truly, San Diego is brimming with fresh seafood.  I even ventured to eat three stunningly delicious prawns and had no backlash.  Nausea was minimal, throughput disconcertingly normal, and energy manageable.  I ate scallops with mushrooms, kale, pomegranate seeds and pumpkin puree (butterless).  I ate mahi tuna sliders with ginger (creamless, and oddly low in oil).  I ate mussel and clam capellini and, randomly, amaretto and cherry liquor coffee with biscotti.  I survived, I suspect, because rich meals were limited to one a day; other meals being oatmeal or Odwalla protein bars.

Unsurprisingly, I arrived home fatigued and drowning in adrenaline.  We flew in Thursday evening, and work the following day was driven by excitement and seemingly uninhibited by exhaustion.  Thank goodness for a weekend empty but for catching up on crap tv, football, laundry and blogging.  I am not -- I repeat not -- ready for the onslaught of Thanksgiving-Hanukah-Christmas-New Year-Interviews.  Chuck Norris, help me.

A beautiful and enriching trip.  Feel free to see my science blog for details.

the Fall and the full

 Halloween approaches, and so I begin my ritual of orange-food gorging, pie making and home-spookifying.  This year, I have inherited a few decorations from my mother; among them, a porcelain child in ghost costume holding a glowing Jack-o-lantern which so encompasses all of my warm childhood memories of this very important holiday.

In honor of this conferment, and of all the new drugs I am on, I have decided to throw a small Halloween party this year.  To hone (read: stumble embarrassingly through) my hostessing skills?  To give my apartment some personality and to fill it with warm and spooky company?  Because I am feeling well enough to truly enjoy the season?  Perhaps all of these are their own motivation.  However, it's mostly because I want to make edible eyeballs out of lychees and grapes and hide them in peoples' soup.

In the spirit of the winter season, the beautiful rain, and my venture back to a balanced state of mind, I have visited enough doctors and filled enough new prescriptions lately to account for well over half of my paycheck.  The elusive urinary tract syndrome, which has been addressed by GI, primary, OBGYN and urologist is being treated with yet another antibiotic which seems to be at least participating in warding off the next episode.  The outer ear infections are being treated with antibiotic as well, and the crusted plasma-oozing sore behind my right ear is being treated with a clever combination of cortisol and athlete's foot creams.  The dermatologist assigned to me The Next Big Thing in acne antibiotics and tried to convince me to try Accutane (yes, on Remicade.  yes, I rolled my eyes at him and explained what Accutane is, what Remicade is and what a liver is).  My nasal exoskeleton is on its third (or fourth?) week of the Allegra-Flonase-Sinus Irrigation trifecta and is being admirably defeated (read: the reasons I don't sleep at night are no longer because of my inability to breathe).  And lastly, I have been put on sleeping medication as a first serious approach to overcoming this ghastly depression which has been pwning me since July.  Promethazine finally procured although it took a month to convince my GI that the vomiting actually is impeding my ability to work (that's a lie, because work is going exceedingly well, but what's a girl to do?).  Now I just need to go to the dentist.  When I get my next paycheck.  And if I don't first spend that paycheck on Halloweeny Essentials.

This body is currently full with drugs.  Damn antibiotics for working far better than any Astragalus, Ashwaganda or l-theanine supplements I've ever taken.  H.K. remains, of course, my most effective medication.

This weekend, we acquired several very large and very face-friendly pumpkins.  Hamicar and Toby remain faithful guardians of our domain, although only when the sun is out.  Next weekend, H.K. has nobly volunteered to help me experiment with the Halloween menu items so that I don't kill any of my guests.  Successful recipes will be posted.  Unsuccessful recipes will probably also be posted.

the besting of Hell Month

August was wretched.  Full of deadlines and uncertainties, and brimming with uncontrollable outcomes -- many of them broken or bad.  August was Hell Month.  And what's worse: Hell Month so viciously consuming the soul of your humble narrator, there was no relief to be had (not that there were not opportunities; there were plenty begging for attention, but despair would not yield).  Poor H.K. knowing not what to do with the sack of melancholic potato that had replaced his wife, did his very utmost to provide rejuvenating intervention.  How he survived, I will never know.  'Patient' doesn't begin to do him justice.

September.  We both held out for September.  That beautiful transitional month where all students withdrew to their various institutions of edification.  When all manuscripts would be submitted, new projects begun and peaceful nights at home would ensue.  September failed me, and with manuscript rejections compounding the anxiety over That Test and the extemporaneous decision to apply for a massively competitive grant, I wobbled, and then collapsed.

But as September closes, Hell Month Part II is daring to show only its last fading embers.  There are still projects, manuscripts, grant writing and applications, but these are what I live for.  Well, I mostly live for H.K., but secondarily I live for science.  With That Test out of the way, 99% of my burden is alleviated, and the rest is more than manageable.  In fact, there is even time for Experimental Cooking and playing outside.  And so it would seem that Hell Month has finally been bested.

 

 This is Toby.  Toby resides above the shrub adjacent to our front door, and has greeted us every morning and evening with his magnificently large web, which is consistently inhabited by some poor large insect about to be devoured by this disconcertingly large spider.

 This is Toby snacking on a giant grasshopper.

Currently, there is only the growing nausea and this four-month drawn out allergy disaster to hold me back -- and they are weak contenders if ever there were any.  Remicade has given my immune system a startle, and it did not remember how to handle allergens when they came about this season.  Since June, I have had a nasal exoskeleton and a nasal cavity effervescent with green mucous.  For two weeks, I even developed an aversion to mice (a career-ending obstacle if permanent; please appreciate the potential gravity).  The most recent diagnosis last week was "you clearly do not have an infection, so take everything together, and if it still doesn't work we'll give you an allergy shot!"  Brilliant.  To clarify, three weeks of Allegra, Sudafed, Flonase and sinus irrigation (otherwise known as drowning without involving the lungs) should do the trick.  In theory, I should be sleeping again, not nauseous and not having post-void residual problems like a man who just underwent prostate surgery.  We're a third of the way there, folks (because I am now sleeping from 11pm-5am!)! (!)

This evening: my attempt at Falafel Waffles.  Though a half-failure, my chickpea-lima-chive concoction was also half delicious.  It was very dry and crumbly, but would have been oh-so delicious with the appropriate sauce.  Inevitably, no matter how crucial to the recipe, I forget about the sauce.

 You can already tell how dry...

Falafel were meant to be deep-fried balls of internal soft moistness, and had I tossed them in a vat of boiling oil, they may have been just that.  Although I followed Lisa's recipe to the last detail (excepting the cilantro and parsley... and the sauce), I could not make them puff in the soft way that Black Bean Cakes or Polenta do.  I'll get you next time, Fawaffle... NEXT TIME!