This weekend, I made special cookies and cream ice cream for my sweetheart. His favorite flavor. His favorite treat, aside from good chocolate cake. I used milk kefir and coconut sugar. It also has real heavy cream, and good vanilla extract and real Oreos. But, no, it doesn't taste like regular ice cream. It is tangy, which is unexpected. I can easily get past the unexpected and move on to enjoying it, even though it is different and not sweet, like it's expected to be. Sweetie could not. He thanked me for making it and said he was sorry but, he just didn't like it at all and that there was now more for me. My feelings weren't hurt. I am not emotionally invested in my food, I just wanted him to have some of the super nutritious kefir, that's all.
Then it led to a discussion about the fact that I have changed my diet so drastically so many times in order to follow hope that one of the changes would ease the pain. I explained to him that I can get used to and tolerate food that is unusual tasting if I think there's a chance that it will help symptoms. You would not believe what I am willing to do to ease symptoms. He has not ever had to do that. He has never faced food and said, ok, what can I change so that this stops or starts me feeling a certain way. He isn't plagued with anything wrong inside him. Thank Our Lord.
I finally understood why he doesn't understand what this is like for me. I finally get why friends and family can never wrap their heads around it either. It is not only the addition of symptoms in my life that make me different, it is the fact that I have lost something they have not lost. My health.
He has not been a person who has lost something who is desperately trying to get it back. Here is the analogy I can think of. I don't know what it would be like to be bald. Unwillingly bald. I have no idea what lengths I'd go to in trying to regrow my hair. I don't know what it's like to be truly homeless. What might I resort to? Or really, truly hungry. Would I steal? Would I maybe even hurt somebody else if it meant filling my belly? Or just some bites of food? Would I? I don't know. I can't know. I have never faced it. Would I fight to save an unborn baby in me instead of saving myself? I have no idea. I cannot say unless I'm in the situation. I could guess, but that would just be a guess. I can't really know what that's like. Just like most everyone I know has never faced life in pain. They see what I do to try to live within my limits, but witnessing is not the same as knowing. I have eaten and drank some stuff I can hardly believe, just to try to live without this, or to make it less.
So, it really shouldn't surprise me that he doesn't want to eat stuff which he just learns to tolerate. But, I will gladly continue to do so. Most days, I think if you ask me, I do have some hope that my situation could get better. Unfortunately, I also think it could get worse. But, I try to hang my hat on the better hook and there is more ice cream for me. So I will continue to spend a large chunk of my daily allotment of energy preparing food which isn't that hard to prepare, if you had predictable strength and stamina. For me, it is hard. For me, it is a sacrifice. It means choosing to make special food or cleaning my bathroom. I am limited. So very limited. Everyone wants a clean bathroom, don't they?
Have happy days!
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