Snacking

I love to snack. Sure a great meal is a wonderful and joyous thing to savor, but a snack can be a moment of self indulgent ecstasy. Well, if I had anything good to snack on anything besides a cracker. Snacking with IC is much harder than snacking before IC. Before IC, I would snack on all manner of things sweet and salty. I could eat chocolate, which opened up my world to such delights as the chocolate covered pretzel. When I wanted to be healthier I could eat mango with dried salsa or a small salad with chipotle dressing. A snack was any food that didn't involve actually cooking beyond toasting a tortilla with butter on the stove.
These days I find snacking with IC to be a serious challenge. I have recently started to put on a little weight, not much but enough so that a few dresses and jeans don't fit any longer. So I want to snack healthier. My snacks have been cookies, graham crackers, ice cream, and toast or tortilla. None of these are very healthy. So starting today I am changing things around. My new snacks are going to be, apples, bananas, almonds, cheese, celery, and graham crackers. Hopefully the apples won't aggravate my IC.  Wish me luck people and if you know of any good IC friendly snacks please post them here.

The Only Flaw My Body Has Is A Defective Bladder

At thirty-five it has become far too easy for me to criticize the curve of my stomach, which is nowhere near flat, the fine lines under my eyes, which weren't there five years ago, or the slope of my breasts, still firm and perky, thank you. However, the more I think about these flaws the more I realize they are imagined. More importantly,  I have come to realize its not me who imagines them but society which pushes this idea of eternal youth and thinness as an ideal. As though voluptuous age is to be feared and avoided at all costs. 

A few weeks ago I went to see "Mirror Mirror," which was an enjoyable film. The villain of the film, the evil stepmother, is a woman who wants to keep her youth and beauty at all costs. To this end, she exploits the resources of the entire town, abuses her underlings, and tries to kill her stepdaughter. I found her oddly sympathetic. Isn't she trying to do what society tells all women to do everyday? Stay thin, stay young, and above all stay attractive to men. The villain of "Mirror Mirror" is a woman trying to do exactly what our modern society wants women to do; and for that she is vilified. 


Now, let us look at our heroine. She's young, she's beautiful, she's physically fit and reasonably clever. And she is rewarded with the love of not just one man, but eight men. It shouldn't be overlooked that Snow White has the love of not just one prince, who falls for her almost on sight because she is that beautiful, but also seven dwarves who each give her the devotion of a lover because she cooked them a decent meal. See, I told you she was reasonably clever. 


What message is this sending? 

It's quite simple, it is the same message society sends to women in every magazine, film, commercial ad, and television show. A woman's worth is measured by her attractiveness to men, and men value youth, beauty, and enough brains to cook a decent pot roast. Where does this leave women who are aging?  Which is all of us. Well it gives us two choices: we can either try to hold on to our youth at all costs and risk becoming ‘vain’ and ‘self-obsessed’ like the 'evil'  stepmother of the fairy tale. Or we can try to grow older gracefully. 

Growing old gracefully is a far bigger challenge than one would think. It means that one must come to terms with the body and how it ages. Wrinkles are going to happen, sagging is going to happen. Yes one should stay out of the sun and go to the gym, but age is a great equalizer. Live long enough and it will get you. In my attempt to accept that I am never going to be twenty-five again (the year my brain attacked me with a stroke, by the way). I have decided to see my own body with the eyes of a lover rather than the eyes of a stranger. I will care for my body the way a lover would. I will coo over the curve of my hips,  purr over the roundness of my belly, and linger the over slope of my breasts, because doing so is a way to show myself love. I will maintain that the only flaw my body really has is a defective bladder. The rest of me is quite beautiful. 

A brief update

So the worst of the break up is over. Tomorrow is Valentines day. Ugh! Its not the lack of man that makes me sad, its the lack of chocolate. I miss chocolate. Real dark chocolate. Haven't had a decent piece in ages. IC, making everything more difficult since 2010. Even an a Hallmark Holiday like Valentines is worse with IC. Which leads me to the real purpose of todays update.

How do I date with IC?

I am thinking of slowly making my way back out there. This time I am going to take things slowly. Very slowly. Like glacier slow. Why? Easy, there is just to much at stake for me. I want to be able to give my heart completely to someone and receive their heart in return. In this most recent break up I foolishly gave up my own heart before I realized I was dating someone who was too afraid to give their own heart to my keeping.
So as I consider dating, I have to think about how do I address the entire IC, medical diet, "no I really can't eat Japanese food without winding up in my doctors office tomorrow"  issue. This is almost as tricky as how to tell a guy I am kinky. Oh readers, I am kinky and perhaps I will discuss that in another post one day. For now, I struggle with the simple issues of how do I date without turning a potential guy off because I am A: Always going to the restroom B: Unable to eat at most restaurants C: subject to random flare ups of a painful disease and finally D: I make use of my states compassionate care laws to medicate with the dried flowers of a plant with known hallucinogenic (and pain relieving) properties.

And I can't eat chocolate.

I don't have answer yet to these questions. Really I am just brain storming here. Getting my worries out before they consume me or more realistically my bladder.

Your truly,
The Goose Girl

breaking up

So I was in love..well I am in love. Sadly, my heart has been broken. My love doesn't love me as much as I love him and he has ended our relationship. I miss him terribly. I cry all the time and I can barely get out of bed. As I am unemployed the most I have to do in any day is look for work on-line. So I can in my depression sit here and cry. But this is a blog about IC and not about my love life. Here is what I have learned having IC and going through a break up.
1. I miss chocolate. I don't want to eat anything because I am so damn sad, but I would eat chocolate if I could. So I am faced with the choice, do I give in and eat chocolate and suffer an IC flare up. I am pretty sure a flare up would only make me feel worse.
2. Not eating anything (or barely eating anything) for three days, has some positive effects on my body. One, my bladder doesn't hurt. Probably because aside from water and peppermint tea, it hasn't had to process very much. I've lost about 5 lbs in two days. So my skinny jeans fit.
3. Sadly hardly eating has also resulted in a near chronic headache. I am so weak right now that I can barely focus. So if by this point you are asking why I haven't eaten..simple answer. Food makes me want to vomit. Also I am crying so much that I can barely breathe most of the time, so eating just seems pointless.
4. I haven't had a cigarette since Sunday. If I can keep this up for two more days than I am sure I can officially have quit smoking. Odd to decide to quit in the middle of one of the worst heart breaks of my life, but I haven't craved a cigarette since Sunday.
5. Of course I live in a state with medical cannabis, which is great otherwise I probably wouldn't be able to eat at all and I definitely wouldn't have slept at all. Also the more medicine I take the less I smoke cigarettes, I don't know why this is but it helps me.
6. Dating someone who can't eat dairy when I can't eat anything (in other words, I follow the IC diet and damn that thing is boring) is probably not the best thing in a relationship. We cooked a lot at his place and I made him dairy free shakes along side my vanilla ice cream shakes. But I think it was stressful on the relationship.

Going through a break up is really hard even at the best of times. However, to be 34 nearly 35 years old, separated (and awaiting legal divorce), living with one's mother, and have IC..well not to sound too full of self pity. But its awful. I loved that man so much and I still love him, hopefully tomorrow I will love him a little bit less.