April 27

 Another day, another experiment.

So, yesterday, I didn't do a liquid diet after all. I ended up getting a chinese the day before, and ofc, because its a lot, I end up with plenty of leftovers.

I ate it in the evening, felt fine. Rice, varying meats, varying vegetables, noodles, and even a bit of chilli. No problem.

Wait. I can have this during the day, different time, test eating the same thing at a different time rather than do the liquid thing.

So I did that.

And.

No effect. No ill. So. It's not the timing. It's not meds.

Of course, we kinda have to be careful here because single tests don't mean squat. But. Eh. We're moving fast, and if necessary we can revist things to test it.

Also hilariously, does this mean I need to eat chinese for the rest of my life not to trigger feeling ill. Ho ho ho. But there's a good question. What does a chinese diet lack that a western diet does not ? Which magical thing(s) are in one and not the other ? Gluten ?

So. More than a 24 hour period with no ill feeling. Cool. Random luck of course but yeah.

On the other hand.

An old old symptom has suddenly come back. All over aches. Severe aches and pains when sleeping in any position for more than an hour. And just general aches during the day.

I haven't had that for quite some time, it had thankfully up and disappeared. This was the symptom where at one point I was struggling to step down from a single step without pain. Well. Seems to be back. Not yet apocalyptic, but uh huh, I had to toss and turn in my sleep last night because of the pain.

Hmmm. Maybe. Maybe. This is a hydration thing. Maybe. He said doubtfully. I am not sure.

So, what's the experimental plan for today ? I think I will try the liquid thing today. Soup. And more soup. No bread. My expectation of this is that it will be fine and I wont feel ill. We shall see.

Moving on.

Went for a walk with Sam yesterday. An hours jaunt around about the UEA. Ish. He always sets a fairly aggressive pace - aggressive enough that inevitably my asthma starts to complain. Hey. HEYYY. FINE. HAVE SOME LUNG JUNK.

Athena was on pretty good form, but, uncharacteristically her listening ears were off. The hazards of being somewhere pretty new. Dog brain. Only really capable of holding one thing in there at a time. And if its full of new place new smell, good luck inserting something mundane in there like, STOP. Still, she was fine. She rather foolishly jumped into an unknown river. Right up to her neck in pretty thick mud. She was ok. But I did kinda have to rescue her the first time. Undaunted she did it again 30 seconds later.

Eh. I have to rescue her on and off from water. Even down at the meadow and the river sometimes she jumps in, cant get out. Old lady has trouble with the steep banks now. She doesn't panic. She knows I am there and will haul her out. Smart. But not wise. In her younger days none of this was a problem. Bounce in. Athletically bounce out. Now. Not so much.

Walk was good. We talk about life shit. I listen to Sam a lot. He gets to talk about stuff I don't think he gets to explore too much with anyone else. Anxiety. Closure. Meaning of life stuff. I get the impression it's very cathartic for him. And me. I get to blurt some of my own stuff, and just enjoy the company of one of my loved people.

The last week of my month off begins to close. Only a few days left. Not the end of the world, my work schedule will be light. Still. I think my assessment of needing something like 6 months off at least is not wrong. A month off is not enough. I am not even close to finding where I am and getting back to a baseline. Eh well. Future plans are still very much fluid. It still remains an unknown whether I do eventually just entirely quit what I am doing at some point and move on. But. Feels less likely at the moment as the work thing has balanced out a bit. But we shall see.