Petri Dishes 7 by Artologica on Etsy
Yesterday I arrived at my naturopath’s office at 11am. After a short wait she ushered me in and we went over the food diary she had asked me to keep for a week.
Guys, let me tell you, keeping this thing was TOUGH. Not from the effort it takes to locate a pen and record your every bite after each meal, but from resisting the temptation to simply fabricate the entire thing.
I so wanted to be right, I wanted to have a “good” food diary, it was torture to not simply write down what I think she wanted to see: Why YES I did eat a breakfast of an egg white omelet and then have some almonds as a mid afternoon snack and then have a lunch of lean protein and vegetables! WINNING!”
BUT I didn’t. I was honest to a fault. Even writing down each of the 6 twizzlers I lazily ingested while lounging in Adam’s hotel room post-game one evening.
Despite all of this, I passed with flying colours. Well pretty much. She said my diet looks good, I’m eating the right foods in the right proportions, but that I could stand to eat more of everything.
I agree, in fact it’s one of the things I said in our initial visit, that if there was a problem with my diet it would probably be less about what I WAS eating and more about what I wasn’t.
After talking about my food intake, the moment I was waiting for arrived.
She cloaked me in a blanket and a heating pad, inserted the IV and brought me blackberry ginseng tea – it was like being at a spa! This was a far cry from the ER y’all, where I once spent an hour listening to (and smelling) an old woman having impacted feces removed two beds over.
But sitting here a day later I feel….nothing. I don’t know what I expected, maybe that halfway through the treatment I would leap up and exclaim “HALLELUJAH! I’M CURED!” but I don’t feel any differently. In fact about halfway through the IV I began to feel sleepy, really sleepy.
And once it was done, I left her office and went home and immediately collapsed on the bed and fell asleep. I woke up 45 minutes later drooling, with a crashing headache and the proud owner of unimaginable quantities of snot.
Adam called to see how the IV went and within seconds I heard the same sickness in his voice; the sore throat, the rivers of mucus, the musty, fusty, stuffy head.
I work at a wonderful job with benefits and sick days and caring coworkers, so I took the day off. Adam is self-employed, and therefore unable to do the same. To combat the gross unfairness of this situation, I decided that I would be the proverbial good wife and pamper him, lovingly nurse him back to good health.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. What’s that saying about good intentions?!
I picked him up from work and said we needed to make a quick stop at the grocery store so I could pick up a few items (for all of the pampering you see). I wanted him to stay in the car but he is incredibly disobedient so he came in anyway, saying that he wanted to get a few things too.
I should have known.
This is what I bought to restore health to two sick people:
- Organic Vitamin C Booster Juice
- Organic, low-sodium chicken noodle soup made from free-range chickens (for him) and
- Organic No-Chicken Noodle Soup (for me)
- Epsom Salts
- Organic frozen fruit for smoothies tomorrow morning
This is what Adam bought, for what I can only assume was the exquisite pleasure of seeing my head explode:
- A jumbo pack of popsicles
- Potstickers
- Processed cheese
- Swiss cheese crackers
- Nachos
Picture two disgusting, snot infested people having a fight in the cracker aisle. One hasn’t brushed her hair since she woke up from her nap, and is sneakily wearing her pyjama top under her coat. The other looks homeless with manky hair and a disheveled beard, stubbornly clutching a jumbo pack of popsicles.
We angrily sniped at each other, this fight instigated by a comment from yours truly where I had the audacity to suggest that perhaps refined sugar and processed foodstuffs weren’t what a healing body needed.
WHAT ARE YOU MADELEINE, A NURITIONIST?!
Adam then replied that what HE didn’t need was another mother and then one of us may have a made an offensive hand gesture and the other may have hissed that they weren’t afraid to make a scene if this is how it was going to be and then one of us may have screeched in exasperation while simultaneously trying to swat the popsicles out of the others hand:
“ADAM! JUST LET ME NOURISH YOU!!”
This is my life.
We managed to get out of the grocery store without punching each other in the throat, (but probably only because we were both too tired to lift our arms that high) and went home where I drank my juice and ate my delicious no-chicken noodle soup and bit my tongue as Adam ate ALL of the popsicles he bought and then chased them down with a grilled cheese and a dozen or so deep-fried potstickers.
And then I gave up – guys, it’s just too hard to fight when you’re worn out from all the nose-blowing and coughing, not to mention the complaining.
I conceded defeat, we made a truce and crawled into a nest of duvets and kleenex, sniffed and hacked our way through three movies.
This morning finds me pretty much unchanged.
I’m a disgusting mucus-filled mouth breather.
My neti pot has never seen this much use.
My head has never felt so huge.
Internets, I’ve got a man cold.
No Comments