Food and Measuring Moments

So this has been my worst Interstitial Cystitis flare since I started actively managing it, and as a result, my diet is ridiculous.

I went mostly vegan almost a year ago, which cut out 99% of dairy, eggs and seafood from my diet. It's been going great and I haven't looked back, but now I'm faced with some severe dietary restrictions to heal my urinary tract and eating has become complicated in a whole new way.

The IC diet actually encourages dairy, which is annoying, but eliminates all acidic foods (tomatoes, citrus, pineapple, vinegar), most spices (cinnamon, paprika, cumin), soy (tofu, soy sauce, almost all the veggie burger type products), onions, pickles, chilis, and basically 80% of the ingredients I use in every dish I make.

So, I've been eating a lot of potatoes, brown rice, beans, and veggies, and thankfully avocados are still safe. Eating so blandly has made it difficult to get adequate calories some days, so I've started eating selective junk foods (kettle chips, nutter butters, mmmm) and I've started cooking with oil again, occasionally.

Another blessing has been daiya cheddar. It's fake cheese that isn't made from soy and it's seriously saved my taste buds on days when I could not cook and had to whip up a plain potato burrito, or something similarly sad. It tastes like a cross between cheddar, american cheese, and nacho cheese, the last two of which are totally nostalgic flavors for me, so I feel like I'm getting that childhood treat when in actuality I just feel too crappy to make myself anything better. We take what pleasure we can get. It's also particularly tasty over a baked potato and a load of steamed broccoli, which is what I had for lunch today.

The pain is slowly decreasing, but I keep accidentally eating foods that are tainted with irritants and now I suspect that my multi-vitamin is triggering pain, which is ironic because I'm only taking it because I'm having trouble nourishing myself on the IC diet.

Hahahahasob.

My head's been temperamental lately, too; the weather, the IC, my restricted diet, the abdominal assault my period waged on my body last week, who even knows the triggers at this point, I'm just trying to keep my sanity.

When I feel like this, just raw from the surviving, every bit of tenderness that's sent my way feels transcendent, small kindnesses are miracles, and beauty is almost painful to behold. I woke early one morning to a fogged-in forest and despite my aching eyes, throbbing back (WHY? IDK), loneliness and hopelessness, the branches of the towering redwoods faded into the fog in such a way that I thought I might die from the magic of it.

Blessed are the poor and sick, for we know the true measure of a moment.