Milk Cow Blues

Yes, believe it or not, that is in fact a song title, and it's not as esoteric as you would think. It's been a while since I blogged, and I think the last update mentioned my issues with exhaustion, muscle and joint pain, and some other symptoms and issues. After some research, I decided to try eliminating dairy from my diet because I have tested positive for an allergy to the casein protein before (although previously it only seemed to bother my asthma if I had too much) and because I was exhibiting the other symptoms for the allergy, and guess what, the symptoms for lactose intolerance too. After a week, the exhaustion improved 95% and the muscle and joint pain went away, and digestive issues went away. Okay, I was glad that it appeared to be an easy fix, as I was tested for some really nasty other conditions, but I was still ticked off in a major way that this appeared to be the problem.

Me, being me, and really not wanting to totally eliminate dairy from my diet, decided to test it, and I accepted an ice cream sandwich that was being handed out at work as a treat for making it through busy season. I had an immediate reaction, which explained some of the mystery symptoms, and then a delayed reaction several hours later that wasn't pretty. So I've basically been forced to accept that dairy is the issue.

My friend Mary Kate pointed me to a couple of reference books, Dairy-Free Cookbook, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Dairy-Free Eating, and The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. Linda D., Gina H., Ashley G., and Mary Kate also weighed in on milk replacement recommendations. I've purchased a couple of things to try, but just about the time I purchased them, I got wacked with a killer head cold and I can't taste any thing anyway. So I'm going to wait until I'm clearer before the taste tests. I'll post results when I'm done. Another site Mary Kate suggested is godairyfree.org where I was able to purchase a list of dairy free replacement foods and regular dairy free processed foods.

I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but the thing that ticks me off the most about this is coffee. I cannot drink coffee without half and half. And it has to be real half and half, I can't even do the fat free fake crap. So I've been drinking diet pepsi at 8:00 am since I went off dairy, because I have to ingest caffeine somehow. I did buy soy creamer, but I don't have high hopes for my reaction to testing it out. Sigh...

Anyway, to catch up on the last couple of weeks, here's what we've been up to. Shawn and I went to the Seacoast Science Center in Rye. They have a really neat museum display area, and gorgeous open spaces. There appear to be a lot of bike trails too. I'd love to take the bikes here. But since we went before I got my energy all the way back, we just walked around a bit.

The following weekend, I had a Misplaced Modifiers meeting (our writing group). Unfortunately, our writing group has been spectacularly unmotivated in general. At least it wasn't just me. So we decided to use the group meeting to do short timed writing exercises based on some writing prompt exercises I had complied on index cards from several sources including What If, which is a book of writing exercises. It was really amazing how much you can generate and make up in 15 minutes. Mary S. has a new challenge for haikus and I can't wait to see the results.

Last Friday night I went dancing with some of my knitting friends for a girl's night out. Alison M., Lora K., Jackie W., and Mary Kate R, and I went to the Derryfield to dance. They had a
band and we danced, a lot. For hours. I could barely walk the next day. Seriously, that was the first strenuous exercise I'd had for several months while the exhaustion thing was going on, and the next day was not pretty. But it was really fun. In a junior high dance kind of way :)

We also managed finally to get our cable box switched out for the HD one for the TV we got for Christmas from Brian and Joanne (Shawn's parents). I will spare you the diatribe I subjected Comcast to over that lovely experience. Suffice it to say, they are a bunch of moronic cretins.

Shawn did manage to get Netflicks set up with the Wii so we can watch instant downloads on the TV so that is cool, since we cut the cable package back.

In fiber news, the group secret project is not much further than it was on Sunday. Okay, it's not any further than it was on Sunday. I just haven't wanted to knit with the cold. Hopefully I feel better this weekend, because I have to get my act in gear.

I think that's all the news that's fit to print. Stay tuned for late breaking news.