Easter was difficult at the start, but the day got better as it went on. Tensions surfaced and were eventually resolved with M, my mother, and my sister, in that order. The food was plentiful and rich, the ingredients unknown. Soy, perhaps? I took the risk regardless.
And the chocolate… Six weeks without any chocolates, cakes, cookies, candy… without anything sweet at all. And suddenly, it is all there for me to have, as much as want. As is now my habit, I checked the labels: soy on every one of them. WHO CARES?!? It’s Easter! It’s chocolate! I dug in.
I am now in awful pain. Awful. It comes in waves and runs from my breast down my spine and, from there, it feels like it passes through every nerve in my body. It makes me squeeze my eyes tight and curl in a ball until it passes. If drug-free childbirth is a 10, and the pain I was in before was an 8, and cutting your toenails too far until they bleed is a 3, I would call this a 5. The baby is crying and I should go to her, but all I can do is try to control my breathing.
Never again. Never again. No matter what it is, no matter how tasty it looks… if it has that evil, evil word on the ingredient list, it does not pass my lips. I didn’t want to be one of those annoying people who are obsessed with what they eat, who read labels and say, “Oh no, I can’t eat that!” But I will be, because it’s been eight weeks and I’ve been in pain every single day, and I will not go on like this if there is anything I can do to stop it. I apologise to all of you, dear readers, for my continued fixation on the subject.
Unfortunately, in this protect-the-bottom-line-throw-any-old-cheap-edible-crap-into-food-as-filler world, label reading is becoming more necessary every day. 😦
I’ve been reading labels the whole of my visit to NC. I can’t believe the un-necessary ingrediants. My aunt told me that the reason why they put high frutoice corn syrup in everything is that it makes you crave more food. Thus the obesity and diabetic plague in America. (Pardon any spelling mistakes…at library…no spell check device…I’m a horrible speller and in a hurry.)
The other day I noticed on a packet of snacks a friend gave me, the allergy warning that said “may contain nuts, soy or dairy”. Perhaps as soy allergies/intolerances become more common it will be more commonly noted on packages!
I’m sorry the pain has come back, but I guess it’s a good way to test and ensure that your hypothesis is still correct
After reading this post I swear I will never take chocolate for granted ever again. How you manage from day to day, watching what you eat, watching what you can’t eat, is beyond me. I would of teared all my hair out by now in sheer frustration and the unfairness of it all.