Indescribable

Yesterday and today have been simply unbelievable...I'm almost at a loss of words to describe how I've been feeling. It's as if I'm walking on air, living "in the zone." I've never felt better in my life.

I don't mean to brag, but to illustrate the intensity of this experience, the following is a partial list of things I have accomplished in the past 48 hours:

• I opened a Roth IRA.
• I started and more or less finished preparing my 2009 taxes.
• I played a 401-point game of Scrabble.
• I asked for and received a 35% raise from my longest-standing translation client.
• I took an amazing shower.
• I took a 30-minute walk all around the hospital, including going up and down many stairs (first time in 3 weeks.)
• I have eaten and kept down six full SCD-compliant meals.
• I made significant improvements to the design of my translation website and added a blog to it.
• I have maintained inbox zero for my personal and business email accounts.
• I completed the first assignment for my newly online class this semester.
• I fearlessly presented the Bahá'í Faith to several inquiring minds.
• I helped my mom edit an article written about her for a work newsletter.

On top of all of this, I have felt no physical discomfort at all, nothing seems to bother me in the least, I am socially fearless, and I have unusually amazingly accurate and quick typing and information retrieval skills.

All I can say is wow. Just wow.

The Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD)

Based on my research and conversations with doctors, conventional medicine tends to downplay the role of diet in gastrointestinal disorders such as ulcerative colitis. It is thought to play little or no part in causing or treating symptoms, and advice is limited to avoiding irritating, high-fiber, or spicy foods during a flare-up. When things are going OK, I've been told, you can "eat whatever you want," since diet is not the root of the problem.

This makes very little sense to me, especially considering the following quote from the Bahá'í Writings:

When highly-skilled physicians shall fully examine this matter, thoroughly and perseveringly, it will be clearly seen that the incursion of disease is due to a disturbance in the relative amounts of the body's component substances, and that treatment consisteth in adjusting these relative amounts, and that this can be apprehended and made possible by means of foods. 

Selections from the Writings of `Abdul-Bahá, no. 134

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I've discovered that there is indeed a diet designed especially for people who suffer from diseases like Crohn's, ulcerative colitis, celiac disease, and irritable bowel syndrome. And there are many, many examples of people for whom it has been incredibly successful.

The diet is called the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, and is laid out in the book Breaking the Vicious Cycle: Intestinal Health Through Diet by Elaine Gottschall. There is also an official website that contains much of the information found in the book: breakingtheviciouscycle.info.

In a nutshell, the diet limits carbohydrate intake to simple sugars, which are able to be easily absorbed by the body, unlike complex sugars and starches which are incompletely digested and provide sustenance for undesirable intestinal flora.

The diet eliminates all grains, starches, added sugars (except for honey), processed foods, most dairy (except for homemade yogurt, natural cheeses, and dry-curd cottage cheese), chickpeas, soy, potatoes, and yuca, among other things.

Now that forbidden list contains many things I'm fond of (particularly pasta, rice, tofu, falafel, hummus, pita, etc.) But the good news is that almost everything else is allowed, including my all-time favorite avocado, as well as lentils and tea. Furthermore, there are abundant recipes to make alternative, SCD-compliant versions of many dishes that look absolutely delicious. For a sampling, check this site: scdrecipe.com.

I've already started to follow the SCD to the extent possible in the hospital, and I look forward to getting into the full swing of it once I'm discharged. I see the following advantages in it:

• I will be forced to do most of my own cooking. It has always been a goal of mine to cook more (something I enjoy doing) and this will help me do that. The fact that I work from home makes it rather convenient as well.
• Eating out less and using all-natural ingredients will be much healthier overall for my body.
• New dietary parameters will allow me to develop my culinary creativity.
• Etc, etc.

I'm rather excited about this opportunity, and hopeful that it will help me get my colitis under control, as it has for so many others.

Lemon baked tilapia

Today is a big day.

I have decided to break with my ten-and-a-half-year-long tradition of strict vegetarianism and order fish for lunch!

I'm doing it partly because it seems like as good a time as any (I've often felt that it was inertia keeping me vegetarian rather than hard-core adherence to ethical principle, although I have continued to see some value in vegetarianism.) Another reason is that the new diet I plan to start when I'm back home (post forthcoming) would be quite difficult to keep up with no sources of animal protein. Also, I've lost approximately 20 pounds since getting sick (!), so hopefully this will help me get back to a normal weight. Furthermore, fish and fish oil in particular are supposed to be very good for treating inflammation of the digestive tract, which is the principle cause of symptoms in ulcerative colitis. Lastly, I'm really curious how it will taste after all these years!

Update: Well, that was pretty delicious, I must say. I look forward to trying the non-hospital version!

Life-changing

I mentioned in my first post this morning that the experience of being in the hospital for the first time has had a profound impact on my life. Here are a few examples of how:

• I have begun to appreciate that my social support network of family, friends, and professional contacts is absolutely outstanding. So many people have visited, called, and sent gifts, emails, and well wishes, all of which have been wonderfully uplifting.
• I have learned that good health—something I have enjoyed for the vast majority of my life—is not something to be taken for granted. I look forward to making conscientious changes in my lifestyle (diet, exercise, sleep, etc.) to maintain optimal health into the future despite any challenges.
• I feel like I finally understand a bit better what it means to let go and let God. This whole thing was very out-of-the-blue and unexpected, and yet I have somehow amazingly been able to keep a positive mindset throughout, not resisting or feeling angry.
• The quality of my human interactions has been phenomenal lately. I've felt genuine human connection more often and intensely in the days since I've been hospitalized. The other night, for example, my family visited and we had what I can only describe as the best quality family time I can remember. We brainstormed together, formulated questions, helped my sister with her homework, consulted even, in an atmosphere of mutual respect and love. It's not like these things are completely out of the norm, but the experience was really quite remarkable and had a great impact on me.

That's all for now. Up next: dietary adventures!

Also: Happy Ayyám-i-Há!

A New Beginning

It seems like the time is ripe to begin blogging again. Perhaps it is because I'm in the hospital and have an abundance of time to think and write, combined with the fact that it seems I suddenly have a lot to write about.

The current year has been rather eventful thus far, bringing very unexpected changes to my life, especially in the area of health. Seemingly out of nowhere, I developed gastrointestinal symptoms in January and in February I was diagnosed with an inflammatory bowel disease called ulcerative colitis, which ended up putting me in the hospital for 16 days and counting. It has been an entirely new experience for me, certainly with its inconveniences and unpleasantries, but overall I think it has profoundly changed my perspective on life in a positive way. (I may develop this theme in a separate post in the near future.)

In resurrecting this blog once again, I hope to do all or some of the following:

• Keep family and friends informed about my condition and my life in general
• Provide information and support for others who suffer from ulcerative colitis and related ailments
• Keep track of the majority of what I cook and eat (I plan to start a strict diet in the near future—also a topic for a future post.)
• Share recipes and photographs

As in the past, no guarantees that this will be a sustained, ongoing effort, but I hope to keep it up for a while at least!