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The sickness unto life.

I missed last Friday’s update because I was back home at a wedding, and I had neither time to write nor an internet connection. Being home was great. The wedding was spectacular–friends you’ve known since the first grade don’t often get married. (I’ll pause a moment to let you parse that one.) [Took me a second too. --Ed.]

Then, I missed this past Tuesday’s update because I was sicker than a dog. Streetwise tip: if you’re ever in Vancouver, Washington and decide to go to the Taipan over by the mall for some great Chinese food, just don’t order the Kung Pao chicken. Don’t get me wrong–the folks I went with are vegetarians, and this is their favorite restaurant. This is only for you meat eaters out there: steer clear of the Kung Pao. There’s nothing there for you but trouble.

So, I had a lot of time to think this week. Most of that time, I found it easier to doze off than to think, as I was laying down. Occasionally though, I managed the occasional, “Wow this sucks” (though it was never actually that poetic). Almost as occasionally, I found some time to observe what was going on with my body and think interesting and half-constructed thoughts about it, in between dozes.

Food poisoning is interesting because it strikes at such an important function–physiologically and psychologically important (have a heart attack and you won’t have much conscious-time to think about it). Food, I think, we can agree is somewhere right-of-center in the spectrum of human experience. We build our day around food, we build our social lives around food, we build our economies around food. In the Bible, when God wants to get our attention, he starts talking about food.

So suddenly, one day, you can’t eat. In fact, if you try to eat, your body will toss it right back at you, or, actually, at whomever is unlucky enough to be right in front of you. On Monday, I couldn’t even keep water or Sprite down. Tums were right out.

Did your Mom ever clean your room for you when you were little? It was usually one of those “that’s it, that’s the last straw!” moments, and suddenly your room was not your own, and if you tried to bring something in, she’d say, “Don’t bring that in here! I’m still cleaning this place out!” (I don’t think Mom ever did exactly that, but it’s a useful metaphor.) That’s what it’s like. You notice that the stuff coming out of you is getting cleaner, and though you’re still put out by the whole business, a small part of you is cheering your body on: “Yeah! Stick it to that stupid botulism! See if he ever tries that again!”

Then, of course, once the purging is through, you have to get reacquainted with your room, because now everything is in a different place, and you can’t find anything. (I know Mom did this, and yes, thanks Mom, I know you meant well.) I’d never had full-on food poisoning like this before, because I was expecting to feel maybe-a-little-queasy-but-still-okay the next day. I quickly learned to celebrate the small victories, like very early Tuesday morning, when I was able to drink a cup of water and some Sprite and keep it down.

Tuesday I had enough strength to call in sick to work, but that was about it. I made the occasional walk to the kitchen for more ice water and sprite. The rest of the day I spent in the aforementioned stupor. Listless is too weak a word–spiritless is close, but makes it sound like a mopey state, which it wasn’t. I didn’t have the energy or the inclination to mope. (I know–”Wow this sucks” sounds like moping, but believe me, it was in the abstract, philosophical sense.) It’s like an electron when it slips into a lower energy state, and it’s quite content to exist. Like meditation, except with more dozing. At the end of the day, I even managed to get down to the store and buy some no-chew foods–apple sauce and pudding and juice. My roommate and I celebrated when I ate a half-cup of apple sauce that evening. I was full, so I stopped.

Wednesday I had the energy to drag myself in to work, but I wished I hadn’t. I’m quite sure this was obvious to the others in the office, but nobody said much about my lack of enthusiasm after I explained what had happened. They probably just felt sorry for me. I sure did. By the time I got home (thanking God for my four-hour work day) I had enough energy left to change into some comfortable shorts, throw myself into bed, and lapse back into the previous day’s state.

At least partly, I’m going to blame Wednesday on the oatmeal I tried to eat for breakfast. I’d figured, with the apple sauce of the previous evening, oatmeal wasn’t too much of a step up. I should have guessed that the gluten would betray me. The rest of the day was back on the apple sauce-and-juice regimen, with pudding for dessert. Except dessert was a separate meal, because I was always full.

Thursday I felt pretty good–I had apple sauce for breakfast. I went to work in the morning and felt fine–I even braved five pretzels in four hours, with no trouble. I went home and, instead of going to bed, I sat at my desk most of the day and started getting caught up on everything else that had sat idle during my extended vacation. I drank lots of water and force-fed myself apple sauce and pudding on occasion. Never once did I feel the slightest bit of hunger. All I had eaten since Sunday evening was apple sauce, juice, pudding, Sprite and those five pretzels, and never in all that time had I felt hungry.

This was starting to creep me out, actually, because, as I said, food is so central to life. If you’re not eating, you’ll waste away to nothing, as they say, and I don’t have a whole lot to waste. I was concerned, and well, I just plain missed being hungry.

Now, I need to check the literature on this, but it seems like part of the purgation/recovery process is a sort of enforced fasting regimen. I’ve heard that on longer fasts, the digestion system shuts itself down (to save energy, I’d suppose), and it takes a few days of gentle handling to start up again. This makes a lot of sense, and feels like what my body was up to this week.

So, in its very clever and not-too-subtle manner, my body had tricked me into experiencing a long fast without a long fast. It was actually the day I realized this, Thursday, that I really started praying. (Now, I’m not sure what this says about my spiritual state, as it’s hard to pray when you can’t form complete thoughts.) Realizing that I might not be able to rely on myself and food to get me through the day, I appealed to a higher source. Ever wonder why the “daily bread” bit is in the Lord’s Prayer? I sometimes did. Now I understand better, because it’s suddenly much easier to rely on God for the whole of your sustenance when you can’t rely on bread.

He answered my prayer, of course, because today I left work hungry, and so for lunch I had a turkey sandwich with cheddar and lettuce and tomato at the dining hall, and I enjoyed it. For dinner I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and it was the best PB&J I’d had in a long time.

Better yet, I’ve had energy, boundless energy, and accomplished a whole raft of things in only one afternoon and evening. There is nothing like sickness to contrast the joys of health, and right now I’m just tickled about being alive.

So tickled, in fact, I had to write about it. So here I am and here we are, and thanks, dear Reader, for sticking around this long. See you Tuesday.

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