He's Ba-ack! Imagine red lasers shooting from his eyes or his spinnerets (butt)
Hello Fellow Travelers!
Anybody who has read this blog knows (all too well) that for some unknown reason I developed an insatiable appetite for melted sugar, toffee and caramels. I've never understood it, my doctors have never explained it - prior to neurosurgery I avoided desserts entirely. As a child I always preferred salty snacks - for the last five years I've followed the philosophy of The Cookie Monster (The CM): "C is for Cookie". I dreamed molasses and vanilla beans, my father sent me cases of ginger snaps, bags of toffee. My best girlfriend had French macaron delivered from Beverly Hills. My sister-in-law made a Kahlua bundt cake that haunted my thoughts! I lived vicariously through dessert TV Shows. I DVRd "Cupcake Wars", "The Great British Baking Show" (The British really know their cookies!) and "Cake Wars". I discovered the "wars" were baking competitions, not, as I had hoped bakers lobbing pastry at each other or throwing croquem bouches and chocolate sauce around.
After 40 years of perfect dental reports, I needed fillings. Blood tests showed I was pre-diabetic. My PS immediately forbade any sugar. And, sugar is in almost everything. Your body converts fruit and grains into sugars. So lowering my blood sugar is as difficult as it is necessary. A stupid hamburger bun is full of sugar! I keep asking "Dr. Stranglove" (my PS)"what can I eat?" Protein. Eggs. (Yuck) Meat (I don't eat anything with a face).
I'm not a meat person, but I'm supposed to strictly regulate my carb intake and try to eat protein. I drink water, lots of water, a lake of water, good old, plain, unflavored, no fizz, no ice, tap refreshment.
I longed for anything involving gingerbread - a gingerbread "Tiny" House, a gingerbread shingle from aforementioned "Tiny" House! A "Tiny" door, a ginger 2'x4', a ginger anything! I pined for brown sugar. I begged my mom for sugar free cookies. I looked up gourmet toffee online just to see images. I was never satisfied, I was always hungry and cranky - I felt really deprived. Feeling bad for my plight (or just wanting me to shut the heck up!) an oncologist friend prescribed a chemical that had helped a nurse curb her cravings and he found a pharmacist who would custom make the capsules (Naltrexone) because it had to be hand made to order. I was grateful that the problem was solved. One less log on the "Bonfire O' Stress". Or so I thought!
Sometime on day #3 of taking the new pills the constant pang of hunger, the all-consuming preoccupation with brown sugary confections stopped. It's as though a switch was flipped. I continued to take the Naltrexone and it worked - all the deprivation and ceaseless hunger ceased. Or did they? While I thought I was taking my daily dose of "Sugar-Be-Gone", Dr. Lecter (My PS) secretly replaced my prescription with capsules from a health food store. Dr. Bombay (The PS again) ("Emergency! Emergency! Come right away!") was skeptical about the effects of Naltrexone and was proving a point testing the "placebo effect";by giving me Chinese sawdust (or something) in capsules
What Dean Wormer (AKA, my spouse) proved ("I had you on double secret probation!") I already knew - like every other substance, material good, or liquid on the planet, I am strong enough to eliminate anything that's in my way. Hunger doesn't matter. Pain just means something needs fixing. Dr. Feelgood(my beloved) can feed me any story, any pill he likes - we both have the same objective: health. So we're both right! Dr. Strangelove (my reason for breathing) went to great lengths to prove the strength of the "placebo effect". Whatever. No medication? I am strong? Big deal. I already knew that! So score for one for me! I never feel deprived anymore and I still don't need any medication. Winner, winner! Vegetarian/Protein Dinner!
Now I can focus on what's important like where to get a really big shoe...
Placebo effects are real and potent, that's why "Double Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Double Dummy" clinical trials with a placebo substituting for one of the two pills being given together are so valued by the FDA and clinical critics. On the other hand, maybe the 3 days of actually taking Naltrexone set the tone for where you were aiming, non-craving? [That has a ring, no?]
ReplyDelete