Two positives to offset two negatives

Today I splurged on two things. First, I bought a bouquet of flowers at the supermarket. This is something I very rarely do -- maybe two or three times a year -- even though I love flowers, love having fresh flowers to look at in my home. But I don't call myself a Starving Librarian for nothing: a bouquet of flowers really does fit into the luxury category for me. But there was a large bouquet of roses, all different colors, all looking healthy -- in other words, like they'd last more than a couple of days, which is sometimes a problem with roses -- and they were only $12.99, which really is unusually low, especially for roses. Who knows, maybe it's like meat that has been reduced because the sell-by date is tomorrow...maybe they won't last more than a couple of days... but it all added up to a sale. I brought them home, snipped off the ends, plunged them into a vase half-full of cool water that had been saturated with plant food, and now there they are on my little improvised coffee table (a tray atop a bamboo foot-stool), giving me pleasure every time I look at them. I noticed when I was lying on the couch watching the news that I could even smell them!

My other splurge purchase was a not-quite-one-pint ("14 fluid ounces") of Haagen Dazs pineapple-coconut ice cream. This is an unbelievably delicious concoction I stumbled upon recently when I was wanting something besides my usual Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia/Karamel Sutra/Vanilla Caramel Fudge choices. I couldn't believe how good it was, when I took the first bite. I could easily have appeared in one of those commercials in which some skeptical person's face lights up and s/he goes all dreamy-eyed, while visions of waterfalls/butterflies/rainbows fill the screen, as the result of said skeptical person having taken a bite of something or other. Yes, it is somewhat like a frozen pina colada only -- based on my memory of my last pina colada -- better.

So there you go, Melody doing not just something nice for herself today, like "they" (i.e., commercials, self-help books, friends) are always telling us to do, but two somethings nice.

Which may have been my attempt at recompense for two mini-disasters of the recent past. I spent more than I ever have in my life on a pair of shoes -- $147 -- so that I would have some attractive shoes that would pass muster at my goddaughter's graduation from law school, which I attended at the end of May and may get around to writing about one of these days, as well as shoes that I could do some walking in, as I was going to be in Washington D.C. for this graduation, and naturally wanted to get in a little sightseeing as well. So I spent a lot of time deciding on these shoes, a lot of money (for a S.L.) purchasing them...walked and walked and walked in them, in D.C., winding up all but crippled as the result, and just yesterday learned from the foot doctor that they are probably the primary culprit behind by my developing tarsal tunnel syndrome, the ankle-equivalent of carpal tunnel syndrome. He told me I shouldn't wear these shoes anymore...which I can, of course, no longer return. To just, in effect, throw $147 out the window is very hard on the mental health, not to mention the pocketbook, of a S.L.

But the final blow was realizing that I will probably also not be able to wear another brand new pair of shoes, the moccasins I ordered online, had to send back once because I needed a larger size, finally received, and loved (moccasins are what I've worn around the house for many years, because my feet hate shoes; my old pair had finally given up the ghost)...only to realize over the course of a couple of weeks, that they make my ankle hurt whenever I wear them. Turns out the top edge hits in exactly the wrong place. That's another $52 (including the cost of returning the pair that were too small) out the window, or down the drain, or wherever wasted money goes.

My goodness, no wonder I needed the instant gratification of some beautiful flowers, and some of the world's most delicious ice cream.

Where's the payoff?

I am feeling very discouraged because, after three full weeks of avoiding all those simple carbohydrates that promptly turn into sugar in the body -- which gives the ol' blood sugar level an energizing push, which is then followed by a debilitating slump -- I am still dragging around like somebody recovering from a three-day drunk. I can tell that my body is healthier -- I feel lighter, less bloated, don't pepper the landscape with huge, indelicate farts -- but I still have very little energy.

Not only did I give up sugar, I gave up caffeine. It was my understanding that caffeine can make you feel hungry, which I thought might be contributing to the fact that I seemed to be eating all the time. However, I am still hungry, and must eat, every 2 1/2-3 hours, caffeine or no. And while I have successfully kept my beloved Diet Dr. Pepper out of my diet, in the last week I have let coffee slip back in, because otherwise I simply would not have been able to do anything. This has been at work, where I am constantly (and I do mean constantly -- there seems to be a rule at my library that there can never be a calm, business-as-usual day) problem-solving, which means I have to be mentally acute and physically vigorous. A few sips of coffee helps me to be that. But what this says to me is that my just eating healthily is not going to take care of my energy problem.

Perhaps it's hormonal. A year and a half ago, when I was fighting with my physician's assistant about going off estrogen -- which I'd been taking for 20 years, to his horror -- I told him one of the reasons I wanted to continue taking it was that, for a couple of months, a few years before, I had gone off it, and not only did I immediately start having the dreaded Hot Flashes (and what's with hot flashes anyway? Where did Nature come up with that stupid idea?), but my body just seemed not to function as well, and I felt very tired. He insisted that "we," meaning I, should give it another try, and if after a few months I was still suffering symptoms we'd revisit the question of estrogen replace-ment. He suggested two natural solutions for the hot flashes (although really it was one of the female real physicians at the clinic who recommended them) -- fish oil capsules and Vitamin B6 -- and those have, for the most part, taken care of that problem. But I ain't got no energy!!! I think it's time for another visit to the physician's assistant.

Temptation, get thee behind me

We've all heard of taking a mental health day. This week I'm taking a physical health week. As I mentioned in a recent Note (May 14, 2011), for some time now I have been badly abusing my body with various "poisons" -- heavy doses of sugar (which, as a hypoglycemic, I'm not supposed to eat at all), caffeine (I've been consuming more and more diet soda, and coffee, which I didn't drink at all for 63 years, finally entered my diet about a year ago, when I discovered it worked better than anything else at keeping me alert when I began to drag...but it disagrees with my insides), lots of carbs, lots of greasy fast food. I was eating poorly because I was tired of the effort involved in eating well, and I needed all the poisons to keep me going.

I decided it was time for a change when I realized I had just had half a cup of coffee, and a slew of cookies, and I still felt like putting my head down and going to sleep, still lacked the energy to do what I needed to do. So o.k., if the poisons weren't going to work, maybe it was time to eliminate them altogether, try to get back on the straight and narrow of good eating habits. But I knew that would require a chunk of time when I could put my head down and go to sleep, whenever I felt the pull of an unhealthy pick-me-up. In other words, a chunk of time when I didn't have to go to work.

So here I am, at day five of my Great Experiment -- which actually seems to be taking the form of the Great With-drawal. No sweets, no coffee or diet Dr. Pepper, no McDonald's burgers, no bagels with cream cheese, no corn chips, not even any proper bread, but rather, a gluten-free, wheat-free loaf made out of various forms of rice and tapioca...which actually isn't too bad, if you toast it. Haven't really missed the coffee, miss the Dr. Pepper a lot. Day before yesterday I felt lousy, yesterday I felt terrible, today is actually a little better, though I still have no energy. The hope is that ultimately this jetisoning of all those things that taste good but are bad for you, in one way or another, is going to help me feel noticeably better, so that I can work up some enthusiasm for life again.

It's also great, not having to go to work (although as a matter of fact I did go in this morning for my regular Children's Hour, which is the subject of my next missive). I am so ready to be retired.

And now for a little whining

O.K., things are serious here. First of all, I'm not eating properly. I'm so sick of eating, period, of having to eat every three hours, of having to endlessly think of things to eat -- of not being able to think of anything new that I want to go to the trouble of preparing, so endlessly eating the same hamburger-patty-rice-green-vegetable, or pork-chop-rice-green vegetable, or baked-fish-rice-green-vegetable, or soup-with-turkey-sandwich meal -- endlessly going to the grocery store, cooking, cleaning up. So I've all but stopped doing it. Pretty much living on McDonald's double quarter pounders with-cheese-but-without-onions these days, with the occasional sausage and pepperoni pizza thrown in. I do like hamburgers and pizza, but obviously these are not good as a steady diet. Expensive, for one thing, add to the growing weight problem for another (also not good for your health, but I'm less concerned with that). Also consuming large amounts of cookies, bagels, candy, corn chips, and coffee, to keep my energy level up. For someone with hypoglycemia (actually, for anybody), not good.

Then there's my wrist, which has been hurting for over four months, without getting any better. I was also having problems with pain in my neck/right shoulder/arm, but the chiropractor I've been seeing for about two months has helped considerably with those areas. However, her "adjustments" and "therapies" haven't touched the painful wrist, except, possibly, to make it worse. I am apparently suffering from a fairly severe case of carpal tunnel syn-drome. For someone who spends as much time as I do at a computer, both at work and at home, this is a real drag.

I finally called my doctor -- who isn't a doctor at all, but a physician's assistant, because the two previous doctors I had at the health center where I go left, to be replaced by... not another doctor...a physician's assistant. (I tried to get switched to one of the two doctors remaining at the center, but both had too many patients already. Definitely a doctor shortage in beautiful, rural Maine.) -- anyway, I finally called my "primary health care provider," and asked for a referral to a physical therapist, for the wrist. That was a couple of weeks ago. When I went in this past Monday to have some blood work done I learned that nothing at all had been done about my request, which really ticked me off. The referrals lady was properly embarrassed by this negligence on their part, and scam-pered to make the necessary calls, so now I do at least have an appointment for next week, though first I have to have a test to deter-mine if I really do have carpal tunnel syndrome (having all the usual symptoms doesn't seem to suffice).

Dealing with constant pain, as all of you out there who have had to do so know, completely colors your outlook. It's distracting, when you're trying to do the things you need/ want to do -- indeed, it can prevent you from doing those things -- and trying to ignore it and "get on with your life" is physically and psychically draining.

And I have virtually no energy, to a large extent, no doubt, because of my current terrible eating habits, and I'm finding it difficult to force myself to do all those mundane things we all have to do -- like get up in the morning, cook, wash dishes, wash clothes, do my checkbook, get my snow tires removed (no, still haven't done that)...and write postings for my blog. My heart just isn't in it. My heart doesn't seem to be "in" much of anything just now, so to spare my readers endless negativity, I think I may take a little break from blogging for a while. Until "things" look up some.