As some of you know, I spent 4 weeks last year driving to Atlanta and back to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. What I didn’t mention at the time was that my sister was (dun-dun-duuun) PREGNANT! And now, months later, I have a brand new freshly-minted niece. YAYYYYYY!!
I just returned from my second solo road trip south to see my family and meet my now 2-month-old niece. Apart from weeping when I had to leave, it was absolutely wonderful. I had a lovely drive down and back, and spent nearly 2 weeks with my family in Hotlanta. The only downside? The episode of Meniere’s I had once I got home. The day after I got back (Friday) I awoke to find my ear completely whacked out. Raging tinnitus, pressure, deafness, the whole God-awful shebang. I spent the day trying to distract myself as much as possible, while wondering whether it would get worse. The next day (Saturday) I awoke to find my ear wide open again (HALLELUJAH!) but I could barely walk. It was the worst episode of vertigo I’ve had in years. I sat stick-still for hours, unable to move my head. I kept my eyes closed much of the time, unable to watch the endlessly rotating world around me. By the late afternoon, I was starting to feel better, and by bedtime I felt like myself again. The next day? TOTALLY FREAKING FINE. And THAT my friends is Meniere’s disease. No rhyme, no reason, no reasoning with your body. Ooooh how it sucks. But luckily for me it worked out the way it did, because that 3rd morning when I awoke fine (Sunday) I was scheduled to run a 4+ mile obstacle race with a team of my skating sisters. I was so incredibly grateful to be feeling normal again and to prove to myself that this disease will not define me, that I not only ran that race, I didn’t tell a soul I’d been sick the 2 previous days, and I came in 16th out of 133 women. OH YES I DID.
So, basically the past month has been a crazy whirlwind of driving, visiting, hellos, goodbyes, eating well, eating poorly, feeling free, feeling cursed, loving life, hating life, and then loving it all over again. Meniere’s Disease blows. It really, really, really does. But I am more than Meniere’s. The episode happened at home. I’m not sure what I would have done if I’d been on the road alone. But it didn’t happen that way. I had the means to make this trip (the money from my next book), the time to take it, and the ability to enjoy it absolutely while I was gone. I was sick when I got home – and YES it was bad. But I was fine when I needed to be. And that’s enough for me.
While I was away, I spent 4 days editing the manuscript for my next cookbook. The great news is that I am DONE! The book is in its final stages and should be out in early October. The one thing I had not anticipated?? When I received the edited version from the publisher I discovered that all references to sodium have been completely removed from the text.
Although all of the recipes I created for the new cookbook are strictly salt-free and were written to also be low-sodium, the MIND Diet does not have any sort of accompanying sodium restriction, so all references to “Low Sodium” and “Salt Free” products and the like have been eliminated by the editors. The nutritional information in the new cookbook will be calculated using traditional “regular” versions of products – NOT low-sodium or salt-free products. So the nutrition facts will be completely useless for anyone (including myself) on a low-sodium diet. The recipes themselves are still easily adaptable, none include salt and all can be made using salt-free or low-sodium products wherever applicable, but the nutrition facts in the new cookbook will not reflect this.
I will be sharing some of my favorite new recipes soon and will of course provide complete nutritional info for the low sodium versions. Hopefully that will help offset the lack of applicable data in the book. As always, thanks so much for your support and understanding. Best wishes, Christy
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