Post #81: The cookie conundrum

But also Crohn's, Cramps, and Constipation!

 

Yeah, no more enforced blogging! I have to say, that really sucked the fun right out of writing a Crohn's blog, ha.
 
Before I forget, it was great to see too IBD related articles on one of my favorite websites: read them here and here.
 
I'm watching Sandra Lee's Taverns, Lounges, and Clubs (TLC-get it?! get it??), otherwise known as the Sandra Lee alcohol appreciation hour. This chick loves her booze. You have to appreciate someone who managed to make drinking her JOB.
 
Back in AAC land, the tapering off steroids continues, as does the increase in symptoms. Shocking, I know, but I keep putting all of my hope in being able to maintain steroid-free remission without having to take new and scarier drugs. It's like watching the same movie over and over again and hoping for a different ending. Complicating the issue is the fact that I continue to eat as though I'm on a full dose of steroids. Smart! As I approach my one year diagnosis anniversary (for my one year anniversary, I'll be registered with Charmin-just kidding, I still HATE THOSE ADS), you'd think that some of the lessons learned in the preceding months would stick: fatigue is unpredictable. Decrease in steroids=increase in colon explosions. DAIRY IS NOT YOUR FRIEND.
 
I guess I'm a bad Crohn's student, because I keep having to take, and fail, these tests again and again. The desire for normalcy, represented nowhere more powerfully than on the plate, is constantly testing my resolve. For every time I avoid plunging my face into red velvet cake (yesterday afternoon) I go out and think that suddenly I can magically eat lettuce (yesterday night). I forget about all of the cramps and bloating (this morning) and really want a cookie (right now). It's a continual cycle of frustration and remorse.
 
Welcome to the cookie conundrum: the reason that eating is so fraught with fear and suspicion. If I do eat the cookie now, I will probably be sick tomorrow morning, thus interfering with Yoga, which is my favorite fitness center class of them all. If I'm extra sick in the morning, and still do yoga, I will have even less energy tomorrow afternoon, which means a longer nap and a disrupted sleep schedule. Riddle me this: how can you possibly plan two moves ahead when your colon could decide at any moment to throw a wrench in your plans? You can't.

You can't control variables like fatigue, and even if you only eat "safe" foods you still might end up feeling sick. One of the many annoying truths about Crohn's: a cookie is never just a cookie-but sometimes it is. I can plan five steps out to accommodate eating one of my favorite "normal" foods when I'm out with friends, and still wind up spending my morning in the bathroom. Conversely, I can think, screw it, eat two cupcakes, and lift weights with the ladies at 9am. You never know.
 
Basically, even if you make (smarter) choices that lesson the likelihood of symptoms, there is no fail safe diet, or ritual, or exercise or pill, that will prevent them all together (or at least, any that I have found). I'm still trying to wrap my head around that reality. I'm used to having a more logical relationship with food: eat well, feel well. Eat fried chicken, feel like crap. Eat chocolate, may as well have taken a laxative. A year into this Crohn's business and it's still hard to accept that these rules don't necessarily apply anymore. Sure, the fried chicken thing is still true, but a cookie didn't use to have the power to make/break my daily plans.

Maybe that should be a motto contender for this year:

It all starts with one cookie.
 
or:
 
C is for cookies, BUT COOKIES AREN'T FOR ME.
 
or:
 
JUST EAT THE DAMN COOKIE-you'll probably have diarrhea anyway.

or:

Take a bite of that cookie-do you feel lucky? WELL DO YOU?

 
I'll have to tinker with those.