Day 17 - Oh my god - I'm FINE!

It's Day 17 and as you may know if you've been reading that we've modified a bit and I'm in the re-introduction stage. So I'm still feeling a bit deprived. I re-introduced brown rice on Monday, having 3 servings that day and WOW! What a difference a grain makes! It's what my body needed and I'm feeling the way I did in week one - deprived but not all-out bat shit crazy. So that's a plus for EVERYONE involved. (Ask my friend Nina - she saw it first hand, but she was antagonizing me!)
I admit that I almost took a nose dive off the diet - adding brown rice was nearly a slippery slope into, "Fuck this shit - I'm eating and drinking whatever the hell I want!"But I thought of Erin, who's doing 100 days of NO SUGAR! and Nina who's on a 30-day cleanse. So it's like I have my own little informal support group that I'm making myself accountable to. Plus, I'm super competitive and if they can do it, then surely I can too!
So everything is ok here. But I have to clear somethings up for some people.
Apparently, Lefty's co-workers keep asking him in concerned voices if I'm ok. People seem to think I'm very sick. So to clarify:

1. Oh my God - I'm FINE!! Mostly. Kind of. Relatively. Sure, I have 2 bulging discs in my back and 14 years of chronic back pain, but I'm upright, walking around so I'm mostly JUST FINE. I don't need a brace or surgery or a cane. Of course, I'd rather be GREAT! riding my bike, training for a couple centuries this summer but I can't ride my bike for another couple of weeks. And that makes me SO. PROFOUNDLY SAD. So I'm sad. But I'm FINE! I'll be riding again in June.

2. I'm only doing this diet because I have digestive issues. And when people say, "digestive issues" they typically mean they don't poop very often or very well. So I'm trying to find out if it's food that's causing this. I've had some epic poops on this diet, I can't say I'm "regular." At my yearly physical yesterday, my primary care doctor - another AWESOME woman named Sarah Rice (who's glad I'm also seeing Dr. Pujari) said she thinks my belly bloats and I don't poop due to my colon with lots of twists and turns (I've heard this called TORTUOUS colon*!), so things just move really slow.

*Aside - I found out about my tortuous colon 5 years ago when I had a colonoscopy. The doctor told me, "You have the colon of a 65-year-old." HE SAID THAT. And when I gasped in disbelief, he said, "Well, you're no spring chicken." I was 41!!! He said my colon was flabby and lacked tone. I asked if there were colon exercises I could do to tone it back up and he said, "no. But a high fiber diet would help." And he note he sent my doctor gave the diagnosis of, "Aging colon syndrome." My doctor laughed and said she'd never seen that before in her life. I think she even rolled her eyes.
Recently, Dr. Pujari told me that there ARE things I can add to my diet - like chia seed - that will give my colon tone. So there, Dr. No-bedside-manner!

But all that being said, I'm not in pain. I don't have to give myself enemas. And my belly always goes back in once I poop, so all-in-all I'm just FINE.

3. The epilepsy is FINE. I don't pass out. I don't twitch. I'm able to drive. And I don't have to take those horrible anti-epileptic drugs. I live a completely normal life - better than most people with epilepsy. Better than a lot of people without epilepsy! The only thing I cannot ever do is scuba dive - and no loss there because the thought of being weighted down in the ocean with just a tank of air on your back being stalked by clown fish and great white sharks terrifies me. So, whew.
Only other thing I never do is swim alone or take a bath when I'm the only one in the house. But other than that, it barely affects my life. So it's FINE.

4. I don't have depression.

5. My arthritic knee is FINE. I'm old. I was a runner for 30 years. THIRTY YEARS OF RUNING! Of course I have arthritis. And it's not even in my entire knee. I'm old. It's normal. I can ride my bike for hundreds of miles. So really, it's FINE.

6. My incurable shitty ankle. It's shitty. And incurable. (see above: runner for 30 years. People: don't run. I know I know. I loved it too! And I miss it a LOT. But it's SO BAD for your joints!).
To understand more about my ankle, watch this brilliant explanation by Louis C.K.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey4WSb-BVDQ&noredirect=1

7. I have seasonal allergies. SO WHAT?

8. I'm neurotic. Yeah, so? You are too. And that's FINE. If your'e not neurotic, that's it's own special kind of neurotic. In fact, I think it's worse.

In sum, I'm not sick. I'm not diseased. I'm not on the verge of anything except a really good poop this morning.

I'm FINE.

Mostly.