T-Rexes Among Us

Here’s the thing: I am not only a creature of civilization, I’m an asthmatic person. I will only live so long as I have stockpiled the proper inhalers. I’m effectively a cyborg. You know how in Jurassic Park, they bred those dinosaurs with the lysine deficiencies, so if they ever got off the island, they’d die? That’s me. I’m the dinosaur that’s going to die in the New World.

- John Hodgman, via The Onion AV Club

Sunday before bed, I ate two Pillsbury cookies. I got violently ill and woke the next day feeling like someone had taken a cheese grater to my stomach.

On Monday, I had chicken enchiladas. The rest of the evening was spent rending my garments and shaking my fist at an unfair God.

If John Hodgman is a Lysine-deficient T-rex, I'd put myself somewhere around this guy:

(I found this picture at work. 

A coworker walked by, looked at it, and went, 

"Oh, when I was in the Peace Corps, I ate one of those.")  

Before anyone gets too bummed out, consider, if you will, his adorable scrappiness. He's also stylin' in Day-Glo green!

This little dude will be okay. Unless, of course, Jeff eats him.

Identifying with Your Captor: Stockholm Syndrome and You

Dudes, this week I have felt wretched. Which means that I've been at the mercy of some intense, pathological sugar cravings.

A craving will descend, and I will go glassy eyed. I'll be spotted by security cameras in the candy aisle at a CVS, then will wake up three hours later in South Jersey with my bra in my back pocket and a passport belonging to someone named Mychylle. And where did all this blood come from? Oh my god, there's so much blood.

Have you ever had Mike and Ikes? They're terrible!

Source: reason.com

Like poison frogs in the rainforest, these bright colors send the signal, "Eat me, and I will fuck your shit up." But, when sick, my stupid bird-brain wants nothing but Amazonian frogs. I ate an entire package of these things at work yesterday, pausing between bites to go, "Ugh, these are awful."

Come on, Bird Brain, you and "intestines" need to have a talk. Whose team are you on?

On the plus side, I've got a pretty good working knowledge of New Jersey Transit these days.

What Passes for Affection

I'm currently on Cimzia, a stinging bastard of a drug that gets injected to my arm via turkey baster-sized needle. I get one injection per arm every two weeks.

Source: pharmacytimes.com

Today, the nurse pinched the flesh on the back of my arm in preparation for shooting me up. "I like you," she said, and I smiled, assuming she meant my sparkling wit or magnetic personality. "You have a lot to grab onto here. A lot of our patients don't have enough to grab, but I'm getting a good pinch."

She pressed the plunger on the syringe, and there was a thoughtful pause. "Yes. Yes, I like you."

"Morbus Crohn"

If Crohn's comes up in a conversation to a friend, I always follow it with, "But don't wiki it, 'cause that shit is horrifying, even to me." True story--the Crohn's wiki entry will make you feel like a diseased, convulscing toad.

However, the wiki entry is SO MUCH BETTER in German. 

Turn that frown upside-down like only the Germans know how, y'all!

And stay tuned for my new band, "Differentialdiagnostik." (We're not very good.)

Wah-Wahh, goes the IBD trombone.

This week has really kicked my ass.

I think it started when I signed up for a study on IBD and Meditation. I was randomized into the "control" group, which meant that I sat in a room for 9 hours and listened to well-intentioned, but soul-stomping-boring lectures on different aspects of IBD. I was the youngest person there by at least 10 years.

It had a weird effect: rather than being simply boring, it was profoundly stressful. At one point, my doctor pulled me aside to champion some new, experimental drug she thought I should try, and I deflated.

For the last fifteen years, I've built a successful career as a human by compartmentalizing my illness. For years I didn't even mention Crohn's to my friends, ever. During the day I'm a regular 20-something; at night....I may or may not cancel our plans, but I'm still a regular 20-something. I'm just a delightfully flighty, not-at-all sick friend! No big, y'all!

Sitting in a room for 9 hours, hearing about different ways Conventional Medicine has failed to help me, left me feeling like I'd been kicked in the gut. (Pun...intended?)

Apriso, Mesalamine

(Look at how pretty this little buddy is! 

It does fuck-all, but it really brings out the color of your eyes 
and matches most handbags.)

I've crawled out of my K-hole enough to recognize it as a K-hole, not "omigodomigodIshouldjustmovebackhomenow,everythingisshitandalwayswillbe." 
I'll be back and at 'em, and hopefully will only fall to pieces on subways when I still have the capacity to find it funny.

Oh, and I always find it funny. 

Getting Good at Public Embarrassment

I've got this black-and-white striped tunic, which I love. As I pulled it out of my closet this morning, I thought, "Oh yeah. Last time I wore this, I had to wash it because I sobbed all over it on the subway home." I finished getting dressed and went to a doctor's appointment.

After the appointment, overwhelmed and oversaturated, I sobbed on the M train home. Again! It was eerily identical to the last time I cried all over this shirt: I'm wearing almost exactly the same outfit; I was waiting at exactly the same subway stop; I covered my stupid eyes with the same stupid sunglasses. (Don't worry, guys! The shirt is fine.)

There is a distinct Jekyll and Hyde element to this experience. As I type this, it is at least three hours later. I am on my friend's couch in his beautiful Greenpoint apartment. We're listening to Beck and my toes are cold, and I am housecat-content.

Three hours ago, I was snotting all over my pillowcase at home.

I don't know how to integrate the two extremes, my misery this morning vs. my okayness now. It feels like there is no solution to the frustration; only pleasant distraction. Perhaps I fear once I am alone again and everything is quiet, it will come back. Perhaps the fear isn't "fear" at all, but rather "certainty."

And, I dunno. I guess as far as distractions go, this is as pleasant as it gets.

Fare Thee Well, McNuggets. We Hardly Knew Thee.

About a year ago, I was seeing an acupuncturist. He kept giving me vague dietary advice, then got frustrated when I utterly and completely failed to follow it.

"You have to eat anyway!" I remember him sighing. "Why not make better choices?"

I wiped the buttercream off my face and gaped at him. Where do you even start?

What "making better choices" actually means is "change everything you know." It means "don't drink with your friends," "get to bed by 10 so you can wake up to cook before work," "politely decline pizza when you're out at 2am (oops to that 10pm bedtime.)" It also means "make food an issue."

Anyone with a specialized diet knows this: you can't hide food. It's very public and very intimate all at once, and it becomes a topic of conversation whether or not you want it to.

• If you say you're a Vegan, people nod indulgently but think, "No, I don't want to give $10 to Greenpeace." 

• If you're gluten-free, people wonder what you have and silently hope they don't get it. 

• If you decline enough drinks, your date might ask you if you're a recovering alcoholic. (No, I'm not, but I wasn't going to make out with you anyway, no matter how drunk you got me. Michael.) 

So what do you do when you don't want food to be an issue? When you just want to hang with the normalos? When you want to buy a bunch of Sour Patch Kids and shove them at your face with wild-eyed abandon?

Elimination Diet

Okay, so in my first post, when I said "It's all healthy choices from here on out!" I meant... tomorrow. Ish. You can pry my food addictions from my cold, dead hands.


Since about July, I've been trying (-failing-trying-failing) to do an Elimination Diet. The gist of it is, you don't eat anything delicious allergenic for awhile to give your body time to heal. Then you add things back in, little by little, to test your reactions. How logical! How scientific!

The diet, as proposed by my ND, was: No eggs, dairy, beef, soy, gluten, sugar, caffeine, nightshades, peanuts, shellfish, earth, fire, wind, water, heart.

Go, Planet!

...I'm sorry. I got distracted.

It only makes sense that food will have an affect on my body, and this seems like the clearest way to tell. So why is it so hellish?

Besides the soul-crushingly obvious, there is an extra residue of "awful." If you google "Elimination diet," you will find a variety of conflicting information. 

"Eat yogurt!!"

"Don't eat yogurt, you slovenly bitch!"

"All of the yogurt is tainted with Scientology!"

...Etc.

The flood of food neurosis, plus my own pre-existing neurosis, makes me want to give up and dive into a pile of pudding. (Mmm, tapioca.)

So far, two weeks is the longest I have gone on this diet. When I stick to it, I feel great; when I fall, I fall hard. I keep beating my head over it, but I have yet to really pull it off.

At any rate, I'm starting this up again tomorrow. Ish. Updates forthcoming!

More information on Elimination Diets:

• Generic Overview via Web MD
• This one is the closest to what I'm on, and this blog has recipes, which is great. Ignore the glassy-eyed hippie vibe and you'll do fine. Whole Life Nutrition
• As mentioned above, Google it at your own risk. It will make you crazy.

Integrative Nutrition

My body is like the girl who was a raging bitch to me in high school, but now, through a Rom-Com conceit, she and I are forced to spend time together to learn to see eye-to-eye. And, just like in a Rom-Com, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Here are some things we know about each other.

I love sugar. Sugar is an affront to her very fiber.


Caffeine is one of my favorite things, ever. She acts like she and caffeine are cool, but after about an hour, she turns really moody and mean and I have to apologize for her later.

Sometimes I just want a goddamn enchilada. Sometimes she just wants to make me regret ever being born.

See? We're not working out.

This is part of what makes this whole "listen to your body" thing so hard: even when I'm treating her well, my body is still mercurial, power-trippy, and sulky.

At some point, we're going to have to drop the decades-long feud and learn to get along.

And maybe, just maybe, with a little warmth and understanding, we can even form a happy family. Like this little moppet:

Oh no. Isn't she in jail again?

Ugh, I give up.

Pissed Off and Eating Kale

I'm Caitlin. I'm 25, I'm an Aquarius, and iced lattes are my drug of choice. No more iced lattes for me, though. It's all "healthy choices" from here on out, and I am profoundly bummed.

This sums up my thoughts on oatmeal.

I have had Crohn's disease for fifteen years. I've had two surgeries, been on liquid diets, been on steroids off and on for years, and have been on (and am currently on) all manner of toxic, injectable drugs.

The latter are most troubling to me. Thanks to these little buddies, I'm going to get cancer of the everything and it will be rad. Is it better to burn out or fade away?? Looks like I'm gonna burn out! Rock and roll, muthafuckas.

Conventional Medicine and I have really not been getting along lately.

A few months ago I sat down Conventional Medicine and told it that, even though I love it, I'm not in love with it. Conventional Medicine begged, pleaded, cried, then accused me of cheating on it with kale. And, well, valid point, kale and I did have a few one-night stands, but they never lasted. It's still no excuse for calling me "a conniving, two-timing hobag," or for throwing that toaster at my head.

Conventional Medicine gets mean when it drinks.

Anyway, I'm dusting myself off and trying to envision a drug-free life. (Oh, I'm also listening to "Since U Been Gone" on repeat. Do you hear me, Conventional Meds??) This blog is a chronicle of my wild stabs at "self-healing," kicking, screaming, and glowering at my plate of vegetables. Join me, won't you?

Love,
Caitlin