It happened…I guess I knew it would.
I woke up at 2:50a feeling terribly. After some unpleasant time in the bathroom, I was able to head back to bed for a bit. Then, I woke again at 3:45a and had to go back to the bathroom.  It felt like food poisoning, where there’s a demon in your belly and you know it needs to come out but can’t figure out if it’s going up or down…or both.  What a horrible way to spend a Saturday night.

Friday night while eating a bowl of strawberries and pineapple, I got a sudden soreness in the back of my mouth.  Fearing I was having an allergic reaction (even though I’ve eaten both foods many times before), I was quick to put down the fork and grab some Benadryl.  The possibility of an allergic reaction that close to my throat was very frightening.  But the Benedryl didn’t make anything better and the sore, red spots were still there when I woke up on Saturday and again on Sunday.  After the rough night Saturday, the soreness in my mouth were enough to make me go to the doctor. I always google my symptoms to try to self-diagnose and the only pictures that looked like what I had in my mouth were shown as mouth cancer.  So off to urgent care I ran!  My over-reacting, hypochondriac thinking was wrong (as it usually is); the doctor’s diagnosis: canker sores.  I’ve never had one in my life and the doc said they don’t necessarily know why they occur.  Canker sores, according to him, aren’t serious but can be annoying and painful…indeed they are!  A couple treatment prescriptions later and I was on my way home.

The rest of my Sunday (my last day of Spring Break, mind you) was not spent as I had originally anticipated.  The whole reason I started this eating program was to get healthy again, to reboot my body in a way.  But here I was feeling awful.  The nausea was so intense throughout the day on Sunday and I barely ate a thing.  I made a little bit of chicken-carrot-kale soup in the morning but it hurt to eat.  At lunch, I had a small portion of the previous night’s dinner and dinner…I wanted nothing.  I cooked up another batch of the Sausage & Potato soup around dinnertime, as I had planned to use that for breakfasts this week.  The smell of the meat and then the coconut milk was rough on my senses.  That soup is delicious but I felt so uncomfortable during the whole cooking process due to the nausea.  I didn’t know if the nausea (and the digestive issues during the previous night) were due to the diet or that I was returning to work the next day.  So many times on Sunday, I was ready to throw in the towel on this eating plan.  Usually when I’m not feeling well, tea and toast are my go-to’s…tea alone wasn’t working for me. I wanted Saltines and ginger ale.  It was almost easier to eat nothing than W30 foods.  Dinner ended up being just a small cup of organic, unsweetened apple sauce.

Monday (Day 10) saw me back at school.  My stomach was a little uneasy in the morning, as it has been so often lately.  I took two Imodium tablets and hit the road.  When I got to school, I took my anti-nausea pill, hoping I was covering myself at both ends so that I would make it through the day.  The canker sore is still there on the right, making talking and eating a challenge.  I didn’t want anything for breakfast even though I was hungry.  I ate a banana, since I had to put something in my stomach to take the anxiety medication, and made myself a cup of green mint tea.  A colleague noted a change in my appearance: she said I wasn’t looking well.  So my appearance was matching how I was feeling; I guess that’s something…

I’ve been reading a lot of comments from people who didn’t complete the Whole 30 and how they felt better going off the program.  It was interesting to read those after reading so many positive ones about the plan.  So far for Day 10, I’ve stuck it out.  I got through a school day eating these foods. I know I need to eat more, that I really did not have enough food today.  Out of fear of food not sitting well along with the pain of eating due to the mouth sore, my goal was simply get through today whatever it took.  I did…now I need to figure out how to eat healthily so that I’m not feeling so hungry and lethargic while being confident that my digestive system will respond in kind.  April 30 seems so far away…