One Step Forward, Two Steps Back. And A Piece of Fantastic News.

So here I am during my second week of this new diet when WHAM! I hit the wall yesterday.  Everything was going great - no stomach pains, no bloating, and my sleep had improved - and all of a sudden a hurdle is placed in my path.

I've grown quite tired of eating tuna fish so I thought I would give sardines a try since they are a diet-approved food.  Along with the sardines I had a bowl of carrot and butternut squash soup.  I know, it's a weird combination but I wanted to have something along with the soup.  I had dinner, all is good, and one hour later I am doubled over in pain.

Oh oh, The Pain is back.  And yes, it comes with capital letters.

The Pain starts right underneath my ribcage and sometimes it moves around but last night it stayed in one spot.  Imagine a 10" knife jabbed into your stomach and now it's being twisted around, back and forth, back and forth.  Got it?  Now, imagine another 10" knife being continuously stabbed right alongside the other one.  That's what The Pain is.  And with The Pain comes nausea and headaches from being stressed out over The Pain.  Sounds like fun, right?

After a pain-free week and a half, The Pain came back with a vengeance.  Even Ivan is scared of The Pain, it's that bad.  I have to admit that I did cry a bit.  Not from the pain but from the fact that I was doing so well and, as always, I feel that I'm fighting an uphill battle.  As soon as I make some progress, I go sliding back down.  And then I made myself stop thinking this way.  I started looking at things logically.  I introduced a new food into my diet and I got stomach pains from it.  Therefore, don't eat sardines!  As soon as I came to that stunning realization I sucked up the pain and did not allow myself to have a pity party.  I will always have setbacks but as long as I learn from them and continue to move forward I won't find myself in a downward spiral of shame and sadness that further perpuates the decline of my health.

So my question to those of you with Crohn's or Colitis, what are your food triggers?  Do you have any safe foods that you can always fall back on and won't cause you any discomfort?  Or are there foods that were safe and your body no longer tolerates them?  That is what happened to me and dairy.  We are no longer friends and I'm sad to say that my cheese consumption has pretty much dwindled to nothing.  And that is hard because I heart cheese.

And now on to something completely different and much happier!!

A dear friend of mine and fellow writer, Donna Volkenannt, has just won the Erma Bombeck Humor Writing Contest!!  She brought in a delightful story entitled, "Honey, Can I Borrow Your Garter Belt?" to our critique group and now it is a winner!  I couldn't be happier for Donna.  You can check out her blog here: http://www.donnasbookpub.blogspot.com/. 

And with that I wish you all a wonderful weekend filled with good reading and good health!