ANOTHER LYME PATIENT ON THE MEND and MORE TREATMENT OPTIONS

For this post I'd like to share a recent email exchange. Mimi asked for a Lyme doctor referral years ago. I was delighted to get an message from her a few weeks ago, and to read she's now doing very well. She's taken a different route with her treatment than mine, so I thought this would be a good way to share some of her tips--straight from her own keyboard!

Beautiful vegetables! For both me and Mimi, diet has been a big part of our treatment plan.

(Painting: 'Plate of Asparagus with Carnations and Grasshopper' by Giovanna Garzoni, 1600-1670)

Hi Noelle,

Remember me? I feel like I've been meaning to email you for years to thank you and I am dreadfully sorry that it has taken me so long. You helped me so immensely during what was the worst time in my life and I just wanted you to know that I did and still do appreciate your support during my Lyme treatment.

I hope you are doing well and healthy. 

Thank you,

Mimi

***

Hi Mimi! 

Thank you for the thank-you! Yes, I remember you! It sounds from your email like you're doing a lot better. Don't think I deserve too much credit, just referred you to the right people, but I'm sooo happy if it helped.

I am doing much better, too. 

Best,

Noelle

*****

Hi Noelle,

I'm definitely doing better than I was back then. I hope to never feel that terrible again, but I'm glad I went through it now.  I ended up stopping antibiotic treatment at 16 months because, I couldn't digest food or absorb nutrients and I couldn't function in my daily life. The GAPS diet gave me back my life and helped heal my gut significantly. Somatic Experiencing therapy has also greatly decreased the emotional load on my system and improved my resiliency. Years ago, Dr. Nesreen Medina recommended me to an SE therapist who was also on of their Lyme patients and I still see her today.

I have never really stopped treating, I just switched to natural treatments (acupuncture, herbs, plant stem cells, essential oils) and found that I respond better when I'm not at war with my microbes. I was able to get pregnant again and found that I am one of those lucky people whose immune system actually does better while pregnant so I felt better than I had in years. Too bad I can't stay pregnant.

; )

My daughter is 1 1/2 now and healthy as a horse and so far my 6 year old son doesn't show any symptoms either. 

I'm still symptomatic, but certainly functional. A few months ago I added Doterra essential oils into my protocol after watching a cool webinar where a woman healed herself from Lyme using only the antimicrobial oils. Cool stuff!  I'm also working on re-programming myself and telling my 70 trillion cells that we don't have Lyme anymore. So the journey continues, but in the end it is all positive improvements so I keep working on it.  

Thank you again and I wish you good health!!

Mimi

****

Hi Mimi:

This is all wonderful to read! I am wondering you would mind if I put your email on my blog? (It's a blog about recovering from Lyme.)  

Recently I've received requests from Lyme patients for information about my medical plan (i.e. what works) and I have resolved to get more positive and practical info up on my blog. I had been neglecting it because I was feeling better and not thinking about Lyme so much! 

I've ended up doing something similar to you (minus the pregnancy). I stopped antibiotics and switched to herbs and recently the anti-inflammatory diet. My quality of life is much better, I have less brain fog and more stamina on Samento/Banderol/Teasel. But I also think having done a few years of antibiotics helped. I don't think I'd be as strong as I am now if I had done the herbs alone. I'm curious about the GAPS diet and some of the other things you mentioned. I'll look them up! 

Best,

Noelle

*****

Hi Noelle:

Of course you can include anything you would like to.  I love spreading the word about treatment options. You can slice and dice whatever I wrote and in case you want to include some links....

Here is a link to the Woman's webinar who used the Doterra Oils and another link I found just browsing:

http://aishaharley.me/tag/doterra-lyme/

http://www.faithfulwellness.org/lyme/

Here is an overview on the Somatic Experiencing therapy which helped me miles beyond what standard talk therapy was able to achieve. It has shown me that many of my symptoms are actually psychologicial and I have had sessions where I walked in feeling like I needed to crawl back in bed and walked out feeling energized with my symptoms alleviated (nausea, headaches, brain fog, pain  http://www.traumahealing.com/somatic-experiencing/

The Gaps Diet (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) is all about healing and sealing the gut with bone broths and fermented foods and within 6 weeks on the Intro Diet, I gained a much-needed 6 pounds, could digest food again, tolerate dairy, absorb nutrients, my spring allergy headaches were almost nonexistent and I wasn't starving all the time anymore. Plus my anxiety was gone. I felt stronger and was able to get pregnant 3 months later.  Since then I have done the GAPS Intro diet 3 times and my body goes into serious healing mode each time. I usually experience extreme fatigue and some die off in the first week and I sleep my best while on the Intro diet.  It is an amazingly balancing diet. You will either gain or lose weight depending on what your body needs. I have proof of that because I gained when I was gaunt and then I did the Intro again after pregnancy and lost a few extra pounds I didn't need.  I have never been able to stick to the full GAPS diet for the recommended 2 years for someone like me, but I still get great benefits from the Intro and have incorporated parts of it in my ongoing diet. 

Links:

Author's site: http://www.gapsdiet.com/

http://primaldocs.com/opinion/lyme-disease/

http://www.lovingourguts.com/what-is-gaps-2/

Dr. Elizabeth Hesse Sheehan is my primary (currently on maternity leave) and although I have had infrequent visits, she is the one who recommended GAPS, Plant Stem Cells and Doterra Oils. http://www.experiencehealth.info/default.html

Cheers,

Mimi

Another painting by Giovanna Garzoni: Chinese Bowl with Figs, Cherries, and Bird

MYTHICAL FOODS DEPT/ NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION

After much rumination on how I can improve--gratitude? pulchritude? fortitude?--I've decided my New Year's resolution for 2014 is to eat a pickle and peanut butter sandwich.

2013 was a trying year, but it also brought with it many wonderful things:

A new friend in my neighbor Emily
Much time spent with old friends (thanks Gwynn and Ghida!)
A joyous return to Lindy Hop
A joyous return to Janelle Campoverde's dance class
The Ballard Goodwill
The ever-wonderful support and companionship of my mother
Stalwart Plumbing (If you found this page when you googled "Stalwart Plumbing," don't hesitate. Hire them.)
Figuring out how to bike my spastic dog, Cleo
The Kinsey Millhone murder mysteries of Sue Grafton

I've been going through Sue Grafton's books out of order, when the library audiobook copies are available. I started with D is for Deadbeat in February, and I was hooked. I'm listening to Q right now, and that will leave only on V and W for me to listen to.

These books revel in all kinds of food I could never eat--fresh baked bread, cinnamon rolls, weird Hungarian dishes, fast food hamburgers, cereal for dinner, and all order of junk food. And each book also feature's the detective heroine's favorite dish: peanut butter and pickle sandwiches.

So this is my resolution: try one. It might be difficult since I don't usually eat bread, but I'll figure it out.

POWERFUL, FLOWERFUL SALAD

A salad of parsley, carrots, bell peppers, pansies, and marigolds. (Vinaigrette is olive oil, red wine, salt, and pepper.)

It's been a long cold spring here in DC, which means the pansies are still in full strength. Yum!

You can eat many of things in your back yard that might not look like food! Here's a list of edible flowers, from an old cookbook, The New Basics by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins. (I still love this cookbook, partly for its beautiful illustrations. It was printed in 1989, by the authors of The Silver Palate. When I was a kid, this was the trendy cookbook my mom and all her friends were using!)

EDIBLE FLOWERS

Anise Hyssop
Arugula
Borage
Calendula (this stuff grows in Seattle practically like a weed!)
Chamomile
Chive (if your herbs grow flowers, you can eat them, too!)
Chrysanthemum
Daisies
Dandelion (bitter!)
Day lilies
Geranium
Hollyhocks
Honeysuckle
Lavender
Marigolds
Mustard flowers
Nasturtium (one of my favorites)
Pansies
Rose petals
Squash blossom
Violas and Violets

THINNING THE BLOOD

I've come to the realization I sleep better if I have had generous amounts of blueberries and acai powder late in the evening. For a while I was worrying that this was creating some sort of trouble with candida or fungus, especially as relates to my sinus infection. Why else would I have such strong cravings for 'sweet' foods? But it's not sugar or honey I crave. It's blueberries, blackberries, hibiscus, and black figs. I also feel wonderfully relaxed and sleepy after I eat them, and last night I felt a sudden clearing in my sinuses after I swallowed huge doses of acai.

 

This morning I've been thinking about thick blood. I've got all the signs that my blood has been thickening up, especially since I increased my Lyme-killing Teasel, and the last lab tests monitoring my Heparin dose showed it has become less effective over the years-- my body has built up some resistance.

 

Rather than increase my dose, which brings with it all kinds of worries and complications, today I've been wondering what else I can do to thin my blood. I just read an article on which foods can help. Yes, blueberries help. So do lots of the spices I crave. Suddenly it makes sense that I have on occasion swallowed seven teaspoons of cinnamon, compulsively, before turning in for the night. So many of the foods I cant get enough of turn out to help with blood flow. And there are others I can add in.

 

In my entirely non-medically trained ruminations, I just might be on an high enough dose of anti-Lyme meds right now. The question left is how I support all the other systems in my body--digestion, liver, bowel, blood, immune--to support those herbs and make them as effective as they can be.

 

Here is the article I was reading:

 

Foods That Thin the Blood Naturally

 

(Note that the author, Sandy Simmons, is writing from the opposite point of view: her blood tends to be too thin. Nonetheless, she seems to have done very good research on the foods and vitamins at play. The foods she wants to avoid are the ones I am going to eat more of, since I want my blood to be thinner, not thicker.)

 

THE QUESTIONS OF ANTI-YEAST, ANTI-LYME, AND PROBIOTICS

Some ten days ago I finished my 48 hours of anti-yeast diet. I did not, as far as I can tell, lose more weight, but fear of losing weight if I stayed on it kept me from continuing. The short period without fruit made it clear there is some link between even this low level of sugars going into my body and the constant congestion and feelings of infections I have have in my sinuses, especially the deep passages in my ears. (I am sorry I don't have the correct medical term for that!)

When I brought this up with Dr. Marty Ross in my appointment last week, he changed my Diflucan prescription to Ketoconazole, suspecting that the fungal infection (or should I call it imbalance?) in my body had developed some resistance to the Diflucan. I have also taken a little home-remedy initiative and started taking clove mixed with cayenne pepper in vegetable juice a few times a day.  Clove is supposed to kill microbes, especially fungi. It seems to be doing something to help with the infection. Each time I drink the concoction I feel the blood flow to my ear canals and sinuses, and a hot, tingling sensation, along with small, healing aches and the sensation of draining.

All this brings me back to the question of gut health, digestive bacteria, and other good bacteria that are symbiotic with our bodies.The yeast and the Lyme are tied in. The parasites I got and treated as I was I was coming down with Lyme and after I had full-blown Lyme might also be tied in. The uncounted array of antibiotics I've taken to treat Lyme, and also long before I had Lyme or parasites, might also be tied in.

Yes, these questions were always there, and it's been so long since I learned about probiotics and good gut bacteria that it's hard to recall my way of thinking before that point in time. Still, since my Lyme diagnosis I've mostly been thinking about overcoming Lyme unilaterally, that is by killing it. Since this TED talk I came across a few months ago, I've been thinking not only about getting the bad microbes out, but just as much about how to get good microbes into my body.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_eisen_meet_your_microbes.html

More on this subject in upcoming posts!

ANTI-YEAST DIET, ONCE AGAIN

As of yesterday at noon, I am back on the anti-yeast diet. When I did it in 2011, I lost ten pounds. Six months later I went on the Shoemaker protocol, and lost ten more pounds. Six months later I did another round of anti-yeast and lost five pounds.

At that point I wanted to hang a sign around my neck that read "I DON'T HAVE AN EATING DISORDER, I HAVE LYME DISEASE."

Recently, I have been noticing the connection between eating fruit and the congestion coming back into my sinuses. The anti-Lyme herb Teasel has been wonderful at getting at the nastiness I felt buried back in my ears and other corners of my head, but now that I'm on the full dose of Teasel, I am still struggling with that one last remnant of something that's leaving me congested. I suspected yeast, but really didn't want to stop eating fruit again. It's hard enough to maintain my weight as it is. A couple days ago I was eating a tangerine and immediately the infection in my sinuses flared.

(The painting to the right, btw, is by Lucas Cranach, c. 1530.)

So here I am back on anti-yeast. I will only do it for two or three days, because I have no extra five pounds to lose this time. I've been relying heavily on berries, apples, and grapefruit for carbohydrates (I can't eat gluten and on the Shoemaker protocol corn and potatoes have also become difficult to digest) and with the way I was craving fruit last night and even this morning when I woke up, I made the right decision.

"Dorothy Seton-- A Daughter of Eve" 1903 by James McNeill Whistler

EASY VEGETABLE RECIPES

My mother asked me to make the vegetarian dish this Christmas dinner. Although many people in my family are vegetarians, I am not. But my sister, who is a vegetarian, would be busy up to the last minute running her bookstore, and I love to cook. I also claim, without being vegetarian, to be the family's biggest vegetable eater. While my vegetarian brother, sister, sisters-in-law, neices, and nephew are downing the cheesy pasta and bread, I am serving myself second helpings of salad and cauliflour and thinking about the next way I'll cook the delicata squash.

This is partly due to my restricted diet that allows no gluten and no sugar. But that's not all. You can be gluten-free and emancipated from sugar and still avoid vegetables. Not me, no siree! No matter how much the Poet teases me about my mild obsession with vegetables, I am not deterred. Vegetables are among the best things in life.

When I read about the diet most recommended for Lyme disease and many other illnesses, generally called the anti-inflammatory diet (which means you eat far more vegetables and fruits than meat or grains) I realized I had by instinct eating in the way that made me feel best.

Special foods when you are sick are a blessing and a curse. They make you feel wonderful but can wall you off from the rest of the world. It is difficult to go out because menus are perilous, portions for meat and french fries are gigantic while vegetables are "sides", and eating organic is astronomically expensive.

Staying home can be equally difficult if it requires cooking. But the recipes I made for this year's Christmas dinner are easy.

The first is socca, a very simple chick-pea cake. The recipe I found is so good it needs no amending, so here's the link:

http://www.theveganchickpea.com/2011/10/vegan-mofo-french-week-day-17-savory.html

In addition to this I made a dish of my own invention, which I call:

EXCELLENT EGGPLANT

2-3 many medium to large eggplants as you like, cut in half lengthwise
1-2 red or green bell peppers as you like, cut roughly into 6 to 8 pieces
2-3 medium onions with paper skins left on, quartered
3-4 cloves of garlic, roughly crushed under the heel of your hand
1/4 to 1/3 cup Pitted kalamata olives
1/2 cup parseley, in 1 inch dice, stems chopped to a quarter inch

The amounts of vegetables are not a cause for stress. If you like roasted bell peppers, put more in. Ditto for onions. It's your life!

Preheat oven to 375
Cut eggplant in half length-wise, salt for 30 minutes then rinse and pat dry
Meanwhile cut the other vegetables and parseley

Mix together:
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 cup olive oil
salt to taste and plenty of good quality black pepper
(The amount of oil and wine can be variable, so long as you have enough to generously coat your vegetables.)

In a large roasting pan, arrange eggplants and onions skins up, cut side down. Put the garlic garlic and parsely beneath the onions and eggplant so it doesn't dry out. Add the red peppers and olives in the gaps between the other vegetables and pour the oil and red wine mixture over everything, being sure to coat the onion and eggplant skins completely.

Cover pan with lid or aluminum foil.
After 40 minutes, start checking to see if it's done. When the eggplant is soft enough to almost fall apart when cut with a butter knife or side of a fork, it is done. The sliced sides of the vegetables should be nicely browned by then. Remove the papery skins from the onions and serve.

Variation:

Omit parseley
Omit olives
Substitute lemon juice for red wine
Substitute ground coriander for black pepper

This dish is scalable and can be made in large quantities as long as you have enough roasting pans to put two or more in the oven. It freezes well so you can make a big batch and freeze in small containers to have at a later date, any easy way to eat lots of delicious, healthy vegetables at home.

Enjoy!

painting at top of this blog by Sandra Galda

INJERA: THE EASY GLUTEN-FREE BREAD

The word on the street is that true injera is difficult to make. This is not true!

Really? you are saying as you scratch your head, injera is easy? I always thought you needed some serious cooking mojo to make that. I thought there was some secret to injera that no average muggle could master.

Not at all. Injera is not hard to make, it's a simple injera recipe that's been hard to find-- until now.

But wait, you are asking yourself, what is injera anyway?

Injera is the flat, spongy, circular bread traditional to Ethiopia. It is somewhere between a crepe and a pancake, it stores well in the refridgerator and can be easily reheated before a meal. It's a sourdough bread, which is part of what makes it so tasty.

Injera is made from teff, a gluten-free grain that is highly nutritious. (More on teff here.) If you go to an Ethiopian restaurant, they will serve you injera, but chances are good it won't be gluten free. In the U.S. at least, most of the injera has wheat flour mixed into the batter. (Sometimes it is made entirely from wheat.) You can make your own pure teff injera quite painlessly at home, however.

But why, you ask, would a person want to do that?

If you are on a gluten-free diet, like me and like so many others with Lyme disease or other causes of gluten sensitivity, then a simple, delicious bread recipe might well be welcome. If you are health conscious and obsessive about reading food labels, like me, you know that most gluten-free breads on the market are full of junk, and no more nutrious than your average white bread. Teff on the other hand is packed with protiens and minerals, and has a nutty, whole grain flavor that brown rice or chickpea flours can't hold a candle to. It has the robustness of a good whole wheat or rye, something I've missed sorely since I gave up gluten. Teff's taste is smoother and subtler than those to grains, however. Teff makes me want to jump for joy!

So how do you make injera?

Funny you should ask....


EASY INJERA RECIPE

STEP ONE: SOURDOUGH BATTER (Make two days ahead)


In a large mixing bowl, combine:

1 cup of filtered water
1 cup of teff flour

Wash your hands and use them to mix the flour and water together, smoothing out all the lumps.
Cover the bowl with a clean cloth, set on your kitchen counter and leave for approximately twenty-four hours.

While the earth makes a full rotation on its axis, your batter will show signs of fermentation. It will bubble, it will puff up, it will have a pleasant, sour, grassy smell. Some water may well separate to the top by the end of the twenty-four hours, and have a bluish-brownish tint to it from the teff. This is fine.

At the end of first day, stir batter back together (you will see bubbles) and add:

1 cup of filtered water
1 cup of teff flour

Again, mix batter together with clean hands until lumps are gone, cover with clean cloth, let sit at room temperature for approximately twenty-four hours.

If you want to enhance the sourdough flavor from the start, or if you want to make more flour for a bigger first batch of injera, repeat this step as many times as you like. You can add as little as 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup teff flour per day, but remember the two basic principles: 1-1 ratio of flour to water; feed batter every twenty-four hours while it is at room temperature. Ifyou are impatient to have injera sooner, you can cook your injera after two days, using step 2 first (see below).

You are now on the path to having a good sourghdough batter. This is a living thing that you will keep alive by saving approx. one cup of the batter each time you cook and storing it the in refridgerator for next time.


STEP TWO: CHEATING A BIT

While I was figuring out how to make injera, I found many recipes on the internet that added quick-rising flour immediately before cooking, meaning adding wheat flour with a bit of baking powder and salt mixed in. Since we are making pure teff flour, this step will be a little different for us. Here we go:

Save at least one cup of sourdough batter in a jar. Put in fridge and mark the date on the lid.

Measure the rest of your batter. Per one cup of batter, add:

1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt (optional-- salt can also be sprinkled on bread at table to each person's taste)
stir briskly with large spoon or with hand held blender


STEP THREE: COOKING THE INJERA

Use a skillet or cast iron pan such as you would use to cook pancakes (or crepes if you have such skills) and a large lid that fits tightly on the pan. (I have found it's easiest to use a glass lid that is small enough to sit on the bottom of my largest cast iron skillet, so the seal is complete.)

Oil pan lightly with high-heat oil such as grapeseed or organic canola (non-organic canola is GMO, folks!). Put burner on medium heat. Test pan by flicking one or two drops of water. If the water sizzles and evaporates, pan is hot enough.( If oil starts to smoke, turn down heat.)

With a ladle or large spoon, pour batter onto skillet, starting in center and making a circular, outwards motion.

Stand patiently over your pancake and watch while bubbles form and the edges start to brown, about thirty seconds.

Cover with lid, set timer for seventy to ninety seconds. Do some dishes or straighten up kitchen until timer goes off. Once timer rings, remove lid, use spatula to take cooked bread from skillet and put on a plate to cool.

Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, until you have used all your batter.

Note: there is some finesse involved in cooking you injera, so the cooking time is approximate. My cast iron skillet tends to get hotter as I cook, especially once I've used the lid to cook the first pancake, so after that I turn the burner down to 3 on my crappy electric stove.

Bigger Note: this is homemade, whole grain injera. It's just not going to look like the injera at a restaurant. That's Barbie injera. This Naomi injera. The bread I cook isn't going to win any beauty contests. It's not perfectly circular and it's not giangantic. At first I aimed for making larger and larger bread, but then I realized I didn't have a container big enough for easy storage, it's harder to get off the pan, and the burner under my skillet wasn't big enough to cook it evenly. So now I just make injera about the size of the burner under my skillet, or about the size of dessert plates.

One cup of injera batter will make about five dessert-plate sized injeras.

Injera is delicious hot off the griddle, or you can cool it, layer it between waxed paper, and store in fridge in ziplock bag or large tupperware.

Refridgerated injera will keep up to nine days or so. I think it taste best hot, so I pop it back into the toaster for a bit and sprinkle with salt before eating.


STEP FOUR: REPEAT

Store the cup of batter you saved in the fridge. As I mentioned, there are living, healthy bacteria in this batter (just like yogurt) and you will need to feed them to keep the sourdough going. Every week or so, take the batter from fridge (it will have separated a bit, don't worry), transfer to mixing bowl, stir it up and add flour and water as in step one. You can cook more injera the next day, or you can return the batter to the fridge for the next week. I have gone as long as nine days between feedings and all was fine.


STEP FIVE: CUT OUT STEP TWO

Over time, your sourdough starter batter will be strong enough that you no longer need baking powder to help you form the bubbles when you cook your flatbread. You may notice the fermentation is going faster, the smell is stronger, or you might just feel ready to cook it without the baking powder. After you've fed your batter and reserved  your cup for future batter, you can stir up the remainder with a ladle and start cooking your injera directly, without baking soda. (If it's not spongy enough, no harm done, just add baking powder and try again some other time.)

This is what 100% teff injera looks like. Mine, as I said, is considerably smaller. (Photo borrowed from National Geographic.)

IN THE GROOVE: CHASING THE HERX DAY 13

It's day 13 of trying to herx as much as possible. It's day 5 on Banderol, meaning I am doing the Banderol + Samento combination, and the Clarithromycin + Diflucan combination. I woke up today feeling very Lyme funky. It was nausea that woke me up, actually. Fatigue built up throughout the morning as I was writing. After a couple hours of slowing-to-a-crawl work, I called it quits and went into detox mode.

And this is what I mean by detox:

Water enema
Coffee enema
Vitamin C
Liver detox drink (Charcoal, Cholestyramine, Bentonite Clay, fiber, veggie juice, cayenne pepper)
Plenty of Magnesium, Quercetin, electrolyes, and 90 % dark chocolate (all this after lunch and long after the Cholestyramine drink)

Lunch was a giant plate of collard greens, raw beets, a little goat cheese. Dessert meant devouring half a lemon, including the rind. My diet isn't always this extreme, but on detox days I go with what I'm craving and it's usually maniacally healthy.

I rested for an hour after lunch, and that meant primarily icing my ear and back of head so the swelling in my lymph nodes will go down (I dozed off for a few minutes in the midde), went swimming at 4:15. It was like swimming with cement arms for the first twenty minutes, so I told myself not to worry about going fast (Ha! As if I could have!). By the second half, it was easy to pick up the pace.

After dinner I felt so normal I didn't even think about how I was feeling.

I've had this ongoing project of making injera-- Ethopian flatbread-- from scratch, including the sourdough starter, with 100% teff, which is the traditional Ethiopian flour. This is not an easy thing to do. Almost all injera Ethopian restaurants is made with refined wheat flour and therefore inedible for me.

I'd already botched the injera twice with dubious recipes I found online. This was my lucky third recipe, lucky third time. I'd started the whole process, with the sourdough fermentation and all, last Wednesday. Tonight was the night to cook it, so after dinner I set to work. I was so preoccupied with whether the sourdough part had worked and if I had thinned the batter enough and how long to cook the bread before putting the lid over the frying pan that and how long to keep the lid on the frying pan that I forgot entirely to think about whether I was herxing.

Just in case you've never felt the fatigue of Lyme disease, it's impossible not to think about the fatigue of Lyme disease unless you aren't actually feeling the fatigue. Trust me. I've got years of experience in this department.

I was so caught up in the beautiful fact that I was actually, successfully making injera, that it took me a full 45 minutes to notice I'd also pulled out of the herx. Completely. So completely that after letting the bread cool, layering it in aluminum foil and storing it in a tupperware in the fridge, I'm now spending twenty minutes writing this post instead of crawling to bed.

So take that, Lyme disease!

Now it truly is time for bed. In half an hour I'll have swallowed my next round of Lyme meds and be lying down to sleep. By morning I'll be back in the Kung Fu fight. I'm almost looking forward to it.

SPROUT CRAZED

My co-op stopped selling sprouts, so I learned to make them myself. How happy this makes me!!! (A much better health-nut kitchen project than home brewed kombucha, at least for those of us with yeast/fungal issues.)

There's an infinity of stuff on the internet about how to sprout, so I won't add to it. I'll just say that when I eat sprouted lentils, I immediately feel energized. They're packed with enzymes, vitamins and proteins, and they taste delicious.

My favorite so far: sprouted buckwheat, toasted to a nice golden brown and mixed into yogurt. Yum!!

THE ANTI-YEAST DIET DAY 60

Back in early January I started the anti-yeast diet for what I thought would be two weeks. I'm still on it two months later and intend to stay on it for as long as I can.

It is the best diet I've done in my life. As soon as I started, I was sleeping nine and ten hour per day, which, given my chronic battles with insomnia, felt like manna from heaven. But the best part was what it did for my concentration.

Brain fog was one of those things I didn't know I had until it was gone. I never had the outsized brain fog I've read about-- forgetting words, losing my way when driving, etc. But I did have times when I just couldn't concentrate very well. Even though most of my physical energy had returned to me, it was hard to keep working (writing) throughout the day because my thoughts would get slow and mushy at times.

That is gone on the anti-yeast diet. And so, despite a few difficult days in the middle (more on that in the next post) I'm sticking with it.

1:41 A.M.

The Poet and I went out for dinner to the Japanese place that serves brown rice. Both of us had cooked salmon with brown rice, although I could only eat about 1/4 of the rice because they had put soy sauce on parts of it. I was still hungry when we got home, and had little snacks all night-- fried tofu with miso, popcorn cooked in ghee, avocado, a piece of cheese. I finally stopped feeling hungry, was exhausted and fell asleep by 10pm.

12:45 and I was awake again, hungry.

Now the thing about this diet is that it does make me very hungry, and I have lost some weight on it, which was definitely not my goal. I'm eating as many high-fat foods as I can manage so I can keep my weight up. (The Poet is skipping most of the high-fat stuff and losing weight, but that is what he wants).

But what is real hunger and what is the hunger of the yeast? Because I've realized in the past month that these are two different things.

And then there is the third kind of hunger, which is when I need one of my supplements, or I've forgotten to take a round of pills, I can sometimes feel hungry too, even if I've had enough to eat. It sounds crazy, but this is how my body tries to remind me to take those pills I forgot. (Doesn't always work-- sometimes I just end up eating more and not realizing I should be taking pills.)

So I reviewed if I'd taken all my pills: yes. I then tried taking some Vitamin C, and then my charcoal, although it was early in the night for that. Lay back down again, still hungry, not falling asleep.

The Poet, fast asleep, made this panicky noise he makes sometimes when he's sleeping-- a sort of half-cry of fear, half-wimper. I always assume he's reliving something terrible from his childhood at those moments, and I try to get my arms around him as fast as I can. So I jumped from my bed and into his, put my arms around him, he clung to me, snuggled around me, turned over and went back to sleep. Or maybe he never woke up. So I kept holding him, and thought, OK, I'll lie here and fall asleep. Nothing helps me sleep better than lying next to him (assuming he's not kicking me, which he does half the time, which is why I sleep in a different bed).

Fifteen minutes later and the Poet is snoring, and I am still HUNGRY!

So I decide it is real hunger and get up. The clock says 1:41. How can this be? I moved around very little today, due to exhastion I attributed to yeast die-off. I ate a big bowl of popcorn, some avocado slices and cheese right before I went to bed. It makes no sense to eat in the middle of the night like this, but if I don't sleep, tomorrow will be ruined for working as well.

So here I am. I've eaten yogurt, quinoa, carrots (yes, carrots) and cashew butter. Still feel a little hungry, but I think I will be able to sleep. Tomorrow I will give in and cut open the kabocha and steam it up. I can have it Saturday for breakfast. Four days of extreme diet is enough.

ANTI-YEAST DIET DAY 27: PARING IT DOWN

Over the past two days, I realized that my anti-yeast diet has been flawed.

That is not to say the diet wasn't working. It was working. I was getting benefits from it. But was I implementing the diet the maximum extent possible? I was not.

The culprits were kabocha squash, sweet potatoes and lemon juice. I thought these things were ok because my naturopath Nesreen told me I could eat no fruit, but any vegetable was fine, and I could have lemon.

I understood this to mean lemon juice was good, anti-yeast-wise. I was having a lot of lemon juice, filling an eight ounce glass with half lemon juice, half water, and drinking that twice a day. I would drink it at the end of lunch and dinner, when despite all that I'd eaten I still felt hungry. I thought the lemon juice must have been doing something kill off the yeast.

But what Nesreen really meant was I could get away with a little lemon here and there, in salad dressing, etc. Downing four ounces of lemon juice at one sitting was, I've now concluded, actually feeding the yeast.

Since Tuesday night, I've cut out lemon and also sweet potatoes and squash. I went to bed hungry, despite having eaten a good dinner plus popcorn after, which usually fills me up. I woke at 4 a.m. starving, ate yogurt with brown rice and beans and went back to sleep still feeling starving.

All yesterday morning I was so hungry I could barely concentrate on my work. I had snacks and then lunch, and when I was still hungry after that, I decided it must be the yeast screaming out for lemon juice, a carrot, anything the least bit sweet.

I was way too tense to sleep, started crying while I listened to a BBC report of the events in Egypt, and decided I should go for a walk. It was a sunny day, and path along our corner of Lake Union, underneath the soaring Aurora Bridge, was as gorgeous as ever. As I walked, I told my body to calm down, I took long slow breaths whenever I remembered, and I thought about my feet, which always, for some strange reason, eases tension. By the time I got home I wasn't feeling hungry anymore. I took my Vitamin C and slept for an hour, woke up feeling like I'd crossed a bridge into the land of calmness.

By the evening, I had the tell-tale die-off headache. I'd starved out a stubborn hoard of yeast.

No more lemon for me. I will see if I can make it a few more days without squash or sweet potatoes either. I know these things are low on the glycemic index, so I was telling myself they were ok. But I looked on line yesterday for more information on this diet. As usual, the internet is full of conflicting opions, but one website definitely said no sweet potatoes, no carrots, no corn.

Does this sound easy? It does not. Do I really, really want to eat some squash? Yes, I do.

I'm telling myself I can do anything for a few days, anything if it helps me get over Lyme.

THE ANTI-YEAST DIET DAY 25

The two week mark came and went, and I am still on this diet. I have quite a few motives for staying on, one of which is to support the The Poet, who is on a diet that excludes everything mine does and quite a bit more. On the days when I wanted to quit, the thought of bringing and apple into the apartment made me feel so guilty I couldn't do it.

But an even bigger motive are the results. I am still sleeping nine or ten hours a day, still have better concentration, and at about the two week mark I noticed my lymph felt better.

Poor lymph drainage has plagued me since I've been on the antibiotics for Lyme, and I often felt as if it were getting worse than ever. If I hadn't exercised enough, and in the right way, to drain my lymph, I couldn't sleep, and even then eight horizontal hours were difficult. I took to sleeping a chair for part of the night, or I would wake up with my head and armpits so congested (yes, my armpits can get congested) that I couldn't get back to sleep if I didn't get up and flap my arms around like a chicken.

The Poet once woke up in the middle of the night and saw me doing this and said "Heaven save me!" But I digress....

Funny how there are some things you don't miss when they're gone, don't even notice that they're gone when they're gone. My lymph problems were one of them. It took me more than a few days to realize I didn't need to do my arm weights for twenty minutes in the afternoon in order to sleep at night, that I was waking up in the early hours, taking my pills and going right back to sleep without even thinking about my lymph.

I still feel my sinuses draining from time to time, but not constantly and at an alarming rate the way it was three weeks ago. I'd alway attributed this to the pressure on my lymph system from the Lyme die-off, but now it's clear the yeast was a big part of it. I thought I had no yeast problems. I did.

I had a few days that were rough, right around the two-week mark-- headaches, difficulty sleeping, and I was tired and cranky after I exercised. I went to Nesreen and she put me on a B-12 supplement (Perque B-12) and that did the trick. I'm sleeping again, I'm running for miles and feeling good afterwards. I'm happy again.

So for now, I'm staying on this crazy diet. I've even gotten used to it. Sure, I'd like an apple, but I'm no longer pining away for one, or thinking endlessly about blueberries and mangoes. Yogurt and purple cabbage and sweet potatoes are interesting enough. It helps that Nesreen gave me permission to have dark chocolate again-- not the one I used to eat, but the 91% cacao bar made by Theo (the chocolate factory in my neighborhood!). It tastes sweet, and about one square centimeter every other day is all I can handle. That's how food virtuous I've become.

But mostly around here, we're not thinking too much about our tandem diets. We've been watching and reading and talking non-stop about what's going on in Egypt. The Poet is Egyptian, and he has been bursting with wonder, pride, excitement, impatience and joy this past week. Leave, Mubarak, leave!

AND NOW FOR A TREAT WE'LL HAVE, UM, NOTHING, also known as THE ANTI-YEAST DIET

Today is day eight of the anti-candida diet that my naturopath Nesreen put me on. Yeast, or candida, is a fungus present in everyone's digestive system that thrives on simple sugars. So for this diet you can't eat refined flour, sugar, juice, maple syrup, or even fruit. And also no kombucha tea, no soy sauce, and no unfiltered vinegar.

According to my doctor, Dr. Martin Ross, Lyme Disease and yeast reinforce each other, and being on the antibiotics harms good intestinal bacteria, giving the yeast room to multiply. That's why before Dr. Ross started me on antibiotics, he put me on an anti-yeast medication. Now I've always assumed that I'm good in the yeast department because for years, even years before my Lyme diagnosis, I ate no sugar and no white flour, and I had no yeast symptoms.

But I've always had a few sweet things, as long as I saw the nutritional value: ginger bread sweetened with molasses and honey, pomegranate juice for the antioxidants, and recently, as I've been to busy writing to bake, and the Flying Apron gluten-free, vegan, organic sustainable bakery opened a few blocks from my house, I've been relying on their muffins (sweetened with maple syrup) to get me through most days. Actually, the amount of maple syrup (for the trace minerals) and frozen berries (for the antioxidants) and dark chocolate (for the antioxidants) I consumed each day was creeping up and up.

But that was OK, because I love vegetables above all else, and compared to everyone else I know, who eat cookies and ice cream and drink vodka, I am a food saint. Virtue is practically my middle name.

Or so I thought until Nesreen brought me down to earth a week ago Friday: No fruit or sweeteners for one to two weeks.

It just so happened The Poet had started a similar diet, for different reasons, a week earlier. So I went home and told him we'd do the diet together.

"That's great, sweetie, it's a really good diet," he said. "Let's do it together until the end of the month." Without thinking, I agreed.

After one week, I now know I was never, ever, a food saint before this. This no fruit thing is the toughest diet I've ever done. Before now I've stopped eating the aforementioned sugar and white flour, and wheat, and even for long stretches soy, or dairy, or chicken or eggs. None of it was hard. This is.

Without anything sweet at all, without even vinegar or soy sauce to flavor your food, time moves differently. It slows down, it feels undifferentiated. Weirdly, the savory foods I've always loved-- kale sauted with garlic, goat cheese, buckwheat noodles flavored with sesame oil and sea salt-- just aren't that exciting without the contrasting splashes of sweet throughout the day.

On the other hand, I slept really really well this week. Nine or ten hours every day. And my energy was even and steady, my concentration clear throughout the day, and yes, when I went dancing, I was spontaneous and graceful. I truly had one the of best nights for dancing I've had in a very, very long time.

So Nesreen said try one or two weeks, and The Poet said let's do it for three. As of today, I've decided to go for two weeks.

New Year's Resolution Remix

If you read my last post, you know my resolution for the new year was to make my own kombucha, as soon as I returned to Seattle. I came back Thursday, feeling pretty horrific from a herx as I tried increasing my Amoxicillin from ten capsules a day to eleven (making me one capsule shy of the full dose).

This Friday morning, before my appointment with my naturopath Nesreen, and before I'd had a chance to do anything about the Kombucha Project, I opened the refridgerator for breakfast. I pulled out the yogurt and scooped some into a bowl. Then I pulled out the bottle of maple syrup I usually put on my yogurt. I was already hungry, but when I saw the maple syrup, my stomach lurched with hunger. I was a strange feeling-- as if something inside me saw the maple syrup and was yelling "gimme gimme gimme!" I poured the maple syrup on my yogurt, the way I always do, and ate it.

Meanwhile, The Poet had come back to Seattle a week earlier, seen his own doctor and started a strict detox diet. No gluten, no fruit, no tomatoes, no nuts besides almonds and pumpkin seeds, no vinegar, no dairy, no... well, it's basically chicken, fish, turkey, vegetables and quinoa.... I said I would do it with him, but I wasn't really considering cutting out fruit, yogurt or maple syrup. I figured I'm virtuous enough since I never eat wheat or any refined sugar.

So I was explaining all this when I saw Nesreen later that day, even the part about the small monster inside me wanting the maple syrup. And guess what she said? I should do the diet with The Poet. Not just a symbolic giving up tomatoes and salad dressing.

"No fruit, for real?" I asked.

"No fruit, no sweeteners, no vinegar," Nesreen said. "You have yeast and you need to get rid of it. This diet will do it."

"No maple syrup?"

"Absolutely no maple syrup. For at least one week, two if you can do it."

"No grapefruit?"

"Grapefruit is a fruit! No grapefruit."

"Dark chocolate?"

"Nope."

"What about kombucha?" I asked.

Nesreens eyes widened. "No no no no! No kombucha!"

She explained that while kombucha is a probiotic, it usually contains yeast, due to the fermentation. That sediment at the bottom? Yeast.

So my resolution went out the window, only to be replaced by a harder resolution: the anti-candida diet.

While making kombucha at home sounds like fun, even hip, even glamorous (my twenty-three-year-old Manhattanite cousin was all over the kombucha idea), eating no fruit or maple syrup or vinegar is just boringly difficult. Now I really understood how disciplined The Poet was being with his diet for the past week.

Interestingly, all I could think about for the rest of Friday afternoon was how tragic it was that I couldn't eat any blueberries or frozen mangoes. Now on day three, I'm starting to get used to the all-veggie thing, but after every meal I find myself thinking "and now I'll have a piece of fruit." Or I start to make a grocery list, and the first thing that pops into my head is orange juice. And so on.

To compensate, I've been fantasizing how the anti-yeast diet will in just two weeks leave me focused when I write, speedy when I run, graceful and spontaneous on the dance floor, free of that clogged-lymph feeling and of the tight muscles and lingering tendonitis in my left calf.

And if it doesn't happen, I've promised myself a certain cardigan sweater I've been longing for, if I can make it through the whole two weeks. But then again, at the end of two weeks that first taste of dark chocolate will be its own reward.

TASTE BUDS

Carolyn Humpreys once sold me a fermented soy liquid that she considered an elixir. She had just received a shipment of this brownish grayish drink and told me I should try it for whatever problem I had at the moment. “It’s so nutritious. It stimulates your body to take care of whatever’s wrong,” she said.

My attitude towards supplements is mixed. On the one hand, the right supplement can work wonders for all sorts of problems, from headaches to insomnia to bad breath. On the other hand, once you’re up to twenty different supplements a day, the cost adds up as does the hassle of remembering to take them all at the right time. So when the prospect of taking a new supplement arises, I think twice.

In this instance, Carolyn’s enthusiasm for the soy elixir was so great that she won me over.

“The people I’ve put on it are doing really well. You might even be able to drop some of your other supplements just from being on this.”

I bought two bottles and put them in the refrigerator when I got home. When I opened one, I found the taste was a mix between old gym socks and cat piss.

Over the next week I tried to remember to take the soy stuff at the right time—or at any time. But since it was out of sight in the refrigerator, and since it tasted so disgusting, it was easy to forget. In the end I decided to accept reality: I wasn’t going to drink this stuff.

Carolyn was completely understanding at my next appointment, and took back the unopened bottle for a refund, but what to do with the opened bottle? I knew she couldn’t give me money for it, but I suggested she might have another patient who would want it—the stuff was expensive and I didn’t want it to go to waste.

“I’m not allowed to do it for health reasons,” she said. “What about the Poet?” The Poet [my boyfriend] was also Carolyn’s patient and just so happened to be out in the waiting room.

“But he doesn’t have Lyme. It can help him with ________?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” Carolyn said. “It helps with all sorts of problems.”

I was still skeptical. “I don’t know, given the way it tastes it’s going to be hard to get him to take it.”

“You never know. Some people love the taste.”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“No, if your body needs it, your brain can sometimes help you out. I have people who swear this tastes like chocolate. All kinds of people tell me supplements taste like chocolate.”

Feeling a bit like I was in a Life cereal ad, I followed Carolyn out to the waiting room and offered the soy beverage to the Poet.

“You might really like the way it tastes,” I said helpfully. He looked interested. We poured out a tablespoon and he put it to his lips. He swallowed.

“Well?” I said, eager to see if Carolyn’s theory was true, if this was a real elixir that would solve all the Poet’s problems, make his brain turbo charged and his body full of energy, sleeping soundly at night and waking each day full of happiness, and if that were the case, would his taste buds tell him the drink was like chocolate and cry out for more?

“Well?” I asked again.

“That’s disgusting,” The Poet said.

Carolyn nevertheless told him what a panacea it was, and since the price was right (free) he was enthusiastic about it. He even, if I recall correctly, gave me some money for it. We took it home again and he finished the bottle, and perhaps, among the other supplements he was taking, it contributed to the gain in health he had while he was going to Carolyn. Who knows.

Last night I remembered Carolyn and this incident. Around 10:30, I mixed up a drink of filtered water, powdered algae (cracked-cell-wall chlorella to be specific), a few drops of silica with sunflower oil, and a few drops of electrolytes. I drank it, as I do every night at bedtime.

Throughout my life I’ve had many memorable drinks: a Newcastle Brown Ale after a long rugby game, dark hot chocolate for breakfast at a hotel in Paris, the grapefruit soda sold at street stands in Buenos Aires, and in Mexico I liked to sweeten my café con leche with the full-flavored black sugar I found at the market. But last night as I drank the mix of algae and silica, I thought, that tastes really good.

And then I realized that I had just thought that— about algae. It didn’t taste like chocolate, but it was good. I actually enjoyed it. Carolyn’s theory must be true after all.

ON PLAQUENIL

When I started this blog I resolved not to write when I was down. There are plenty enough cries of anguish on the internet when it comes to chronic illness, and I’m not sure it does anybody any good, particularly not the readers.

Suffice it to say, things have been a little crazy around here for the past few weeks, and not in a good way. Since I've added Plaquenil to my mix of anti-Lyme drugs, I have despaired. Not because I am feeling worse physically-- not at all. This drug messes with my brain, and I find myself swinging wildly between the bleakest thoughts and a buoyant sense of progress toward a bright future, and back again to feeling my life is nothing but useless suffering.

I am figuring out how best to ride this out. In the past I have relied on patience and attitude to deal with fatigue, insomnia, and any number of physical sufferings. The problem with Plaquenil is it takes away my good attitude and my patience. So far, all the usual naturopathic and homeopathic tricks have made little headway. I took Plaquenil before, about a year and a half ago, and Carolyn Humphreys did something magical to calm down my system. I have not been able to replicate it at home.

I’m starting to think the way through the next little bit is beyond the bounds of things I’ve considered before. I have a few ideas I’d like to try and if any of them work I will blast it loud and clear.

Meanwhile, despite not having had nearly enough sleep, I have a strong desire to make some gingerbread, so I’m off.


*******

MARVELOUS MELLIFLUOUS MOLASSES GINGER BREAD (not for the faint of heart)

1.5 cups flour (I use brown rice or millet flour plus a teaspoon Xanthan gum, but your favorite whole grain flour will do)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon (or more!) ground cardamon

1/4 teaspoon ground clove

1 stick butter (coconut oil can be substituted)

1 large egg

3/4 cup molasses and honey mixed

2-3 Tablespoons fresh ginger, minced or shredded

Bake in a buttered bread pan at 370 for 25 to 35 minutes

Let cool before turning out of pan onto a cooling rack

Today I added 1 teaspoon ground coriander and used mostly molasses so the bread came out very dark and spicy, just the way I like it. If you want a sweeter, milder bread, cut down on the ginger and molasses and increase the honey.

LEFTOVERS

1 lb green beans
2 pieces canadian bacon or thick cut ham
1 wedge crumbly, easily meltable cheese, such as blue cheese
1 cup walnut halves
cooking oil (olive)


Trim the green beans and steam them for 3-4 minutes only-- just until crunchy and still bright green. Take off the burner and set aside.

Toast the walnuts and set aside.

Cut the ham into thin strips and brown on both sides in a skillet with a small amount of cooking oil. Remove ham from skillet and drain on paper bag. Keep the skillet warm.

Put the green beans to the skillet and saute for just a few minutes until they are warm. Break the cheese into small pieces and add to beans. Keep stirring until it is at the point of melting.

Place the ham strips on serving plate, layer the green beans and cheese on top, and cover with toasted walnuts and fresh ground black pepper. Serves 4.


This is what I did with the green beans left over from Thanksgiving. What a treat!
(I modified this recipe from The Silver Palate Basics Cookbook.)

FIGHTING

Those who weep lose more energy than they lose during any other act.

--Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient




This morning, for the second day in a row, I woke up exhausted. I took my heparin and went right back to sleep, then woke up again to the Poet climbing into my bed and wrapping his big body around me. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to keep sleeping, but I needed the physical contact more than I even needed sleep, so I didn’t move, even though I wasn’t quite comfortable. We sleep next to each other, but in different beds, since he kicks and I often wake up several times per night with insomnia. So time lying in bed together is precious.

We had been fighting the night before, and this was his way of comforting me.

We fight about lots of things, last night the subject was real estate. I want to buy something and move, and he wants to stay in our rental apartment until the cows call it a day, or, as I have pointed out, until our landlady decides to sell the property and rents are sky high.

“Maybe I am sticking my head in the sand,” he admitted, “but I don’t want to move, I would feel trapped if I went into that much debt right now.”

That’s OK, I know he has good reasons to feel that way. I can make a down payment with the money from selling my house in Mexico, if he will move with me and pay an equivalent of rent then I can make the mortgage payments.

But no, he doesn’t want to move with me either. We are already living together in a rented apartment, but moving to somewhere I own is too frightening for him.

“If we fought there, and you decided you wanted to end things, then I would have to leave because you own the place, so I wouldn’t feel secure.”

I can understand. After three years together, we still have huge arguments about once a month. Neither one wants to fight, but things escalate. Without meaning to, I say things that set him off, and he starts shouting and cursing, and he says he wants to break up.

Or I get frustrated because he won’t listen to me, nothing I say gets through to him, and without meaning to I raise my voice, soon enough I sound hysterical.

Almost every time we argue, he tells me he wants to break up with me. Later he will say he never meant it, but at the time I believe him. We spend an hour or two thinking we have broken up, before he turns to me and tells me passionately that he doesn’t want to lose me, that he only threatened to break up because he is afraid I will break up with him first.

These fights leave me trembling and exhausted, my mind feeling as though an atomic bomb had just gone off and I am now sweeping up the debris.

In fact, one of these fights led me to think about buying real estate in the first place. I thought we were breaking up, and I decided that if I had to move again it made sense to buy something.

Meanwhile, the Poet and I patched things back together and he agreed I could go with him to his therapist so we could work on what makes the fights get so out of hand. His therapist is very good, and wise. He has given us several suggestions to keep our fights from escalating and to improve communications. Now it’s a matter of managing to think clearly in the heat of the moment and remember the constructive things to say and do instead of the destructive ones.

But the more I thought about real estate, the more I realized now is a good time for me to buy. So we have another thing to fight about now. Another chance to practice keeping an argument within comfort level.

I think last night we improved a little. He didn’t threaten to break up with me, and I tried to keep the discussion as positive as I could so the fighting wouldn’t escalate. When he said things that hurt my feelings, I said “you are hurting my feelings. I feel terrible now,” instead of lashing back at him. When we started to get worked up, I called for breaks and I went to the other room to calm down.

Finally, I said it had to stop. It was late and I hadn’t slept much the night before. He had said some things that made me feel terrible and I was exhausted. If I didn’t get to bed soon, I would be a wreck the next day.

Before we went to sleep I asked him to hold me. I climbed into his lap and he told me that he wanted us to stay living together. That made me feel better.

I was so exhausted I got into bed without taking my vitamin C and salt. I thought I would sleep without it. Big mistake. At 1:30 I was still awake. I got up and took my vitamin C with the small scoop of salt, and then went to sleep. At 2:15 I was awake again, and had to get up for more vitamin C. After that I slept.





When I can’t sleep I usually feel very down about things. After The Poet left work this morning I was shaky, feeling that I can’t go on, why was I trying to buy a house when I can’t even handle getting through the day? Talking to the mortgage broker and the real estate agent were going to be too much for me to handle.

I also despaired for the relationship. I know we are working on fighting, and I have faith that if we persevere we can change the destructive pattern we fall into. But when you have an infectious disease and you’ve lost half a night’s sleep due to fighting, it’s hard to keep up that faith-- even if this last argument went quite a bit better than previous arguments.

So why, you might be asking, do I stay?

I know the answer. He is kind and smart and funny, and I like spending time with him. He his always understanding about my illness, never impatient when I can’t do things, have to say no, have to stay home. I understand he has been through terrible things before he met me, and that makes it hard for him to trust me and open up to me. Despite that, he is going to therapy, he is admitting, when he sees it, how he contributes to our fighting. He is willing to work on things and to try to change.

And I know that I am contributing, too. I know that the Lyme disease makes my emotions raw, too close to the surface. When I am exhausted, I can’t let things roll off my back. When we fight at night, I know I won’t sleep, and I get afraid, so I keep pushing the argument, instead of putting it on hold and going to bed.

The Poet has told me flat out that he won’t give me a commitment. He doesn’t believe marriage lasts, and says that promises are just empty words. Fine, but that means both of us are living with the idea that the other could walk out at any minute.

So do we fight because we haven’t committed to each other and that leads to insecurity? Or is it that he can’t commit because we fight so much?

And here is where the Greek Chorus comes in, chanting out the conventional wisdom that when the guy won’t commit to you, it’s time to tell him gently but firmly that you need a commitment to be happy in the relationship, and if he still won’t commit, it’s time to leave.

Of course it’s not that simple. Not just because I love him and it would break my heart to end it over this issue, although those things are true.

If our roles were reversed, and he was the one wanting me to commit, I don’t think I could do it either. Not now, not with this arguing. But this is what I do want, what I am working towards. And I have told him that at some point I will ask it of him.

“Don’t come to me in a year,” he said, “and tell me that you wasted the best years of your life with me, and that it’s my fault, because I am telling you now that I don’t know if I can make a commitment, not to you or to anyone.”

“I won’t say it,” I told him, crying. “Because I know these are in fact the most difficult years, and even if it ends, I will thank you for helping me get better from this illness.”

God, I hope it doesn’t come to that.

In the meantime, I try all I can to make things work. I go with him to the therapist, I read John Gottman’s books, I try to say “that hurt my feelings,” instead of “stop insulting me you, you bastard.” I call for time out, and I make amends.

And I try to focus on what’s good, because there are many, many good things. Like laughing and wrestling, sharing food and reading side by side. Like The Poet climbing into my bed this morning and holding me, and him telling me, once I was awake, that he appreciated how I had brought only positive things to the discussion the night before.





COOKING


When I haven’t slept and the world seems like it might end, cooking is very comforting. It brings me a sense of productivity and purpose. It’s good to make something with your hands, and it’s good to have healthy food to eat at the end of it.

I took two naps after the Poet went to work, and after the second one I thought I could handle walking down to the grocery store. I needed garlic to make chimichurri.

Chimichurri is supposedly an Argentine sauce. I say ‘supposedly’ because I lived in Buenos Aires for a year and a half, and I never saw chimichuri when I was there. When I moved to Mexico, I encountered chimichurri. It’s the sauce Mexicans eat when they go to an Argentine restaurant, and it’s wonderful.

I learned this recipe in a superb cooking class I took from Jennifer Adler at PCC. Making this sauce is as close as I have ever gotten to alchemy. How a blender can turn these few simple ingredients into something so delicious amazes me.


CHIMICHURRI (thanks to Jennifer Adler)

4 cloves garlic
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons water
¾ teaspoon sea salt (or less if you don't like salt)
½ teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes
¾ teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
¼ cup olive oil
1 bunch fresh flat-leaf parsley, including stalks
1 bay leaf, broken in half


Peel the garlic, crush it with a garlic press and throw it in the blender, then add all the other ingredients except the parsley and blend. Wash the parsley and divide into four or five smaller bunches. Add to blender, including stems, one bunch at a time. (this makes the blending easier.)

Once everything is blended, transfer to a bowl, add the bay leaf and let it sit in the sauce to infuse its flavor. Remove the bay leaf before serving.

Chimichurri is great on beef, lamb, chicken, or anything you want. Parsley, garlic and olive oil are wonderful detoxifiers and all high on the list of alkalizing foods.