January 11th marked the day Holly and I chose to start a 21 day fast called the “Daniel Diet“. It consists of only vegetables, fruits, nuts, and water. It is a ‘vegan’ diet, in other words, which is based on the story of Daniel in the Bible and meant to affect the body, soul, and spirit.
For Holly to take on fasting is pretty remarkable since she comes from foodie background. Fasting and Fooding are like total opposite frames of mind. But she has taken the lead and shown strong resolve to stick to the plan even when pizza and soda are paraded in front of her face (like at Check-e-Cheese’s yesterday). It was Chucky versus Daniel – and Daniel won! Holly even paid for everyone’s meal, yet stuck to her strict vegan diet. I was impressed! The chaos alone of that place was enough to send me running to a comforting warmth of a slice of Pepperoni.
Not long ago, the topic of fasting came up amongst a cull of foodies and the reaction was as if we’d served up a plate of BBQ roaches. “Fasting? Ew, gross!” they hissed while deflected the facts away with a scrumptious meat platter. “Why would someone want to do that?! That doesn’t sound healthy!”
Of course, our munching companions were just a little overfed on the outside while nothing but skin and bones in their soul. They need only feed their starving intellect by consulting The Google, a nearby bookstore, or even a Bible to find a vast buffet of information on fasting. It is a practice that has been around for thousands of years and the benefits are well-documented and even touted by many modern physicians. I recommended these couple of snack-sized websites on the topic of Fasting:
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January 11th: Blast from the Fast!
The main reason I’m telling you about our adventures with the Daniel Fast is what happened on the very first day. I am still trying to make sense of all this stuff that happened on Wednesday, but I can tell you it was a day full of suprises! We must have upset the apple cart in the spiritual realm because several things – good and bad – were unleashed within 24 hours.
First, Holly attempted to pay a $50 parking fine, but discovered it was not listed in the parking-fines database. It seems to have disappeared! Awesome! Then before the morning was over she was informed an extra $1000 bonus would be added to her next paycheck. More awesome!
Big blessings for her.
As for me, well,…
Around 2:00 pm I began working on a Vegan Chili and some gluten free Smoothies. By 4:00 pm I was beginning to have trouble breathing and breaking out in a rash. By 6:00 pm I was having an asthma attack. I took my usual meds for asthma and finally just went to bed about 9:00 pm. hoping I’d be fine by morning.
Nope, no sleep tonight. At 1:00 am I’m awakened by a stabbing pain in my left side. It doesn’t subside and is slowly getting worse over the next hour.
I recognize this pain as a kidney stone which happened to me in 1995. Almost the same scenario too – middle of the night, stabbing pain, try to find relief, give up and go to the hospital. People say that trying to pass a kidney stone is as close as pain gets to birthing a baby. I haven’t birthed a baby, but I can certainly testify it is hurts in waves and feels like an alien inside of you is trying to stab its way out. But having been through this before, I didn’t freak out and chose not to wake up Holly. Instead I drove myself to the hospital because I knew they would just knock me out with some drugs. No need for both of us to have a miserable night. She would meet me at about 8:00 in the morning.
Sure enough, they Cat-scanned me and determined it was a kidney stone. The nurse and doctor (both females) were super nice and professional. They injected me with something wonderful and I was in a place of bliss for a few hours. Everything happened just like I anticipated, including no pain when I awoke.
But bliss was quickly replaced with dozens of blemishes all over my body. By 9:00 am I broke out in hives from head to toe. It was terrible! I’ve never experienced anything like this before! And so would go the next 3 days as I wrestled with some kind of Anaphylactic Shock. Almost no sleep for a total of 64 hours (that alone almost made me insane) and endless itching, repeated asthma attacks, and constant nausea. This type of thing usually occurs after an insect sting, or after injection of a specific drug such as penicillin, or occasionally after eating a particular food. As one description online says:
“During an anaphylactic reaction, the body releases massive amounts of histamine and other powerful chemicals in response to the presence of the allergen. The blood vessels widen, causing a sudden, severe decrease in blood pressure. Other symptoms can include hives (itchy, raised, red patches on the skin); swelling of the lips, tongue, and throat; abdominal pain; diarrhea; and difficulty breathing due to bronchospasm (narrowing of the airways in the lungs).”
Yup, that’s pretty much what happened. No, that is not my arm in the picture, but that is precisely how my arm looked (and pretty much everywhere else). Even my lips were swollen. I chose to stay indoors that day because I looked like a red-spotted mutant creature with big red lips. Didn’t want to scare anybody.
So that’s was my experience with the Daniel Diet – a Kidney Stone and massive allergic reaction all in one day! Not fun.
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Sunday the symptoms finally start to fade. Monday morning I’m back to normal.
HUGE thanks to Raul and Arturo for visiting and bringing some chicken soup over. Also thanks for taking care of Ivy Friday night! I think she really enjoyed going to the Washateria!
Also, thanks Holly for the full coverage insurance that will pay almost all of this doctor bill! What a relief that is!
I still don’t know what caused the reaction. Was it the Chili? The Smoothie? Or was it the pain-killers the doctors injected into my system. This is yet to be determined. Or maybe I’m just allergic to vegans.
Anyway, that was my experience with the Daniel Diet. I didn’t survive. Well, I mean I didn’t continue doing the diet. Sunday I indulged in some of that pizza at ChuckECheese. Holly is sticking to the diet, and I will probably get back on board this weekend. But first, a trip to the allergist is in order.
It is weird that all happened on the same day we started the Fast.
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