Something is definitely wrong.
And I’m totally stunned by that fact. I think I was starting to feel so good, so healthy, that nothing could touch us- that our commitment to No Sugar was so profound that it would be the cure-all for all things. No more colds! No more hang nails! No more trouble finding a parking spot at the All-School Concert! Of course, this is silly, but the mind thinks silly things, makes deductions in the background when we aren’t looking that we realize later are deeply flawed, and, you know, dumb.
The problem is me: I’m sleeping all the time. I cannot get enough sleep. This isn’t your everyday, I’m-a-busy-tired-mom fatigue- which feels very normal to me- this is… strange. Like, I went to bed the other night at 9:30, slept until 6:30- a good nine hours- and then after the kids were off at school fell into a stupor for another two hours when my worried husband finally pried me off the couch with a crow-bar and made me eat something. I did not feel rested, or ready to get up. This morning after the kids got off to school I ate a piece of toast and then rendezvoused with the couch until nearly eleven AM. The morning gone, I woke up disoriented and kind of scared… what is happening to me?
My normal interest in our family meals, varying the kids lunches, making a good breakfast- all has gone out the window- I’m surviving at this point until the next time I can lie down and zonk out. Consequently, this week has been sketchy in the food department and I’m long overdue for visits to our supermarket, BJ’s Warehouse, stocking up on wholesale organic produce from our buying club, you name it. We’re out of everything: no fresh fruit in the house, no vegetables, no cream cheese, no milk, not even emergency Amy’s Bean Burritos in the freezer… my mental list of what we need is getting ever-longer and I haven’t even got the energy to get up off the couch and find a pencil.
Fortunately I don’t feel this way all the time- this is the third episode in the last perhaps two months. I hate it, but then after a few days it subsides and I figure it was a virus or something. But last week I decided the third time was the charm and I went to my general practitioner who ordered blood-work. According to him, by the way, five months of No Sugar shouldn’t show up in any significant way- except in our blood sugar count, which of course varies constantly.
So some of the suspects are: anemia, lyme disease, and thyroid disease. Fun stuff. And I know what you’re thinking, but no, definitely not pregnancy (phew!) since my dear “aunt” just visited last week…
Meanwhile, I’m trying very hard not to go back to sleep right now. It’s a very weird feeling to sleep and sleep and sleep and finally wake up ready to do… nothing. No energy, no strength, no va-va-voom. I’m getting a lot of reading done, since that’s one of the few things I have enough stamina for. I’m about to start “Suicide by Sugar” by Nancy Appleton, and I’m curious what she can tell me at this point that we have not already learned in our No Sugar journey thus far- so I’ll let you know how it goes.
Wish me luck. Better than that: wish me energy.
It’s New Year’s Day: the day I begin my self-imposed “Year of No Sugar.” I started it off auspiciously, of course, by having breakfast at Rathbun’s Maple Sugar House. Great idea, right? As if struck by a bolt of invisible lightning I stopped dead still, spoon poised mid-air with sudden realization before pausing, sighing, and dumping the sparkling white crystals into my coffee mug swirled with cream. Clearly, I’m still working out the details.
Eve O. Schaub 