Trouble

I have a serious sweet tooth, and it's hard for me to let go of sugar, I am trying. But October though.... all the candy's on sale, some of my favorites come out of hiding, sometimes it takes too much energy to deny myself completely. So for a few days I'm going on a candy binge, guilt free, much as I want, but once it's gone, I'm getting right back on the No-Sugar train. Some people do well on strict "None At All" restrictions, but it makes me panic. So I'm giving myself a little leeway, with an understanding that it's not a failure, it doesn't call for starting over (which slides easily into "Might as well put off starting over for a while and eat like I want.")

So. Much. Candy....

Macarons, however I can

Kitty-shaped macaron at Seattle Meowtropolitan

I love macarons. Of course by their very nature they're full of sugar. Even the comfort food cookbook we bought full of "Paleo Inspired" goodies has a normal, processed sugar recipe for macarons. Because as the author says "They're finicky and won't work without regular sugar. And I couldn't write a cookbook that didn't include them. Macarons are a part of me." Which made Greg quip "Then we're eating her every time we eat those cookies." We tried making them with Swerve, the sugar replacement blend, but it didn't work. At all.

So Greg tried making them according to the recipe, and they were delicious. Amazingly chewy and sweet. Because of the EPIC sugar content. Sigh. I can eat one or two before getting a migraine somedays, other days even half of one is enough to set them off.

Greg's vanilla macarons 

So in a compromise of sorts, I bought this little pill containers that look just like the real thing. They even have "feet", the ridges on the bottom of each half. I fill them all at once and keep them in my purse. Each one hold most of my daily pills. Leaving out three in the morning, and the super smelly valerian pills I take at night for sleep. (Omg, they are SO smelly. Like manure and dirt. The smell sticks to my hands, and oh god the burps. Poor Greg.) Anyway, this little guys are awesome.

"What's wrong?"

Depending on who I'm talking to, I either say the super generic "I have health issues." or the slightly more specific "I have Epstein Barr." I say slightly more specific because as of right now the CDC says "About 90% of adults have antibodies that show that they have a current or past EBV infection." So... a lot of people have EBV.  Thankfully the majority of them might never even knew they had it.  Some people, usually when they're in their teens or early twenties, get what we're used to hearing of as "Mono." or the "kissing disease".  They might be extremely tired for a while, but they usually completely recover after a few weeks, a month or two at most. But in some cases the body doesn't know how to deal with the infection, and you can end up fighting it for years, if not the rest of your life.

Officially my diagnoses states I have "Post Viral Syndrome." Also Anxiety, Migraines, and Depression. Because our bodies are complicated, and can have all sorts of things wrong with them at once. If I compare my body to a smart phone, what this means on a daily basis is that my "battery" is broken. The EBV effectively reduces my battery's capacity, because my system is constantly busy fighting the infection, and when I sleep my body doesn't recharge fully.  When I'm awake I have multiple "apps"running that drain my system. Depression and anxiety are like malware that I can't turn off. They sit in my system eating up my energy and distorting what I can see. Migraines are like system crashes, requiring me to power completely off before I can repair the damage.  I can ration my battery life, and find ways to recharge throughout the day, but eventually it comes down to math. (And I hate math.)

You might already be familiar with The Spoon Theory. It's Christine Miserandino's way of explaining living with severely limited energy. You only have so many "spoons" to get you through the day, and each task or obstacle uses up a spoon. In my mind, it's battery bars. I start each day with a variable amount of energy, represented by a bar.

 I can sometimes do things that bring back a bar or two (like naps, I love naps) 

but mostly the math is all about taking them away.

If I don't ration my energy well enough, I run the risk of running out of power before the end of the day.

"Running out of power" can mean having to cancel plans, leaving work early, or in extreme situations, losing consciousness. Obviously I do everything I can to make sure this doesn't happen. Fainting isn't as much fun as cheesy romance novels make it sound.

When I do my best, and I'm lucky, I can make it through a day without anyone even noticing I'm struggling.