Bracing for impact

Two things

Thing One: A veganesque diet. Oh. Yay. F*ck me and all that.

As most of you know I get a lot of migraines. Bad migraines. They started quite suddenly a little over two years ago when I would get them occasionally and end up in the hospital getting shots of narcotics and anti-nausea medication. They have since progressed in both quantity and severity, to the point where I now get them almost weekly. I've been to a neurologist and we've run through the gamut of medications and still continue on that treadmill.

I've had a few people recommend alternative treatments to me that have worked well for them and honestly, at this point, I'm willing to try anything. Badger says that deep tissue massage worked for him. A work colleague says her son's headaches which, like mine, did not respond to traditional medications, completely went away when he saw a chiropractor/nutritionist who put him on a whole foods diet. I was intrigued. I made an appointment.

As fate would have it, my appointment was on a Wednesday, my marriage having come to an abrupt end in the wee hours of the morning the night before. I arrived in her office dumbstruck, red-eyed, somewhat disheveled. She asked me a series of questions. I answered them robotically. I couldn't help it, tears ran down my face. She handed me a tissue, but otherwise ignored my distress. She explained the diet to me. It was basically all organic vegan for the first 3 weeks, a cleanse. No breads, no meats, no eggs, no milk, no processed foods, no sugar, no artificial sweeteners, no sodas... I interrupted her: I won't give up coffee, I said. Okay, she shrugged. She seemed to accept this. Said she couldn't give it up either. She opened up a booklet and told me I would have 2-3 protein shakes a day and take certain supplements.

Supplements? Of course. She was selling supplements. All organic and whole foods except for the protein powders and supplements she was selling which had sat on a shelf somewhere for six months. Right-ee-o.

But I bought them. Because there was something oddly comforting about being told exactly what I could and could not consume when everything else in my life was imploding. A to-do list. A how-to manual for one aspect of my life. I wanted this.

I've been doing the diet now for two weeks. I've lost five pounds. It's tolerable, but I really, really want a bowl of cereal. I had one bad headache the second day of the diet but none since. The protein shakes taste like crap. I'm wondering if I should have started with the deep tissue massage.

Thing Two: I'm in pain.

For the first week or so I was in a pretty bad place and then I started to feel better. I wrote a few posts, got back on Facebook, made some snarky jokes with my friends, felt some lightness and laughter and then BAM, I was slammed to the floor again. What happened? No idea. I'm just along for the ride.

Quite suddenly I am angry. I walk around surly and defensive. I want to bark at cashiers that are too slow or drivers that are too aggressive or anyone that's too anything and I'm constantly biting my tongue. I'm sure this is because I am frightened—the foundation on which I've stood has disintegrated, a new one not yet materialized.

I feel as if I'm in a car crash, like I've driven off the side of the road and I'm rolling down an incline, being tossed about the cab and waiting for final impact. There's that excruciating slowing down of time where you can taste the past and your powerlessness all at once. The future contracted; present moment interminable.

Right now it feels like everything is slipping away from my fingertips and I'm scared. I'm scared that on my own I won't be able to provide a comfortable home for myself and my children so that when I face an unexpectedly large tax bill, despite the fact that I support the theory of taxes in general, I feel like telling the IRS mangez-moi.

And when Badger tells me fine, if you don't want to pay your taxes go join the Tea Party, I tell him mangez-moi.

Surly, humorless, bracing for impact.