All in Food
I know I have not written in a few months, three to be exact. I still have a few stories to tell from my road trip; about my time visiting a Native reservation in Gallup, NM or my almost mental breakdown in a bizarre Christmas themed hotel in Flagstaff, AZ. But upon my arrival in Los Angeles, I hit a writers block facilitated by both having too much fun in a new city and anxiety caused by joblessness (still having fun in a new city, still anxious about employment).
I sat in traffic in Houston, Texas around 5:30PM. The city towering business offices and huge strip malls on either side. I sliced an avocado with my pocket knife and dumped the green inside into my lidded oversized plastic rice container. I drove through Houston spooning rice and avocado into my mouth with abandon. I had intended to wait until I got into Austin, to eat something local, but with the traffic and my huge meal bag in the passenger seat, I decided to eat “dinner” in traffic, plastic jug between my knees.
The last time I was in New Orleans I did not go to bed before 5am. I was there for an art exhibition by Dashboard, a curatorial organization I work with in Atlanta. We stayed 6 of us (sometimes as many as 10) in a beautiful AirBnB in the Bywater, equipped with a pagoda and a wooden hot tub with no temperature control. We never quite figured out how to safely sit in it, the temperature shifting between freezing and boiling human soup pot. My best friends and I laughing uncontrollably piled on top of each other on the couch. We chased chickens down the street as someone opened the chicken coop, moments before we left for the airport. To say it was fun would be an understatement. It was wild.
Tomorrow morning I leave Atlanta and head to New Orleans on my first across country stop. It is bitter sweet leaving. I find myself oscillating between manic excitement and blind terror. Watching my friends and family well up with tears has been harder to take than I anticipated. It feels so wonderful to be loved and so heartbreaking to see the ones I love sad to see me go.
I started The LEAP therapy detox to manage my Crohn's disease and get off of medication. See this post for details. It was pretty intimidating to distill my entire food world down to a few single ingredients for at least a month, and even longer as a lifestyle change.
Under the supervision of my nutritionist I started the LEAP protocol diet therapy following the results of my MRT (mediator release test). This test determines what food chemicals (both natural and non) your body is sensitive too and cause inflammation. The test and 3 follow up sessions cost $600 out of pocket. No insurance company, that I know of, covers any part of it. This may seem like a lot, but given the fact that I was spending somewhere between $120-$200 a month on my Remicade alone (the bills came constantly and always for different amounts) this seemed like a worthwhile investment. After receiving my payment in full, the nutritionist mailed me an Oxford Biomedical MRT test kit, which I brought to a lab test facility. I went to a ANY LAB TEST NOW facility in a small shopping center in Marietta. The nurse at the testing center sat at the front desk singing along to Ariana Grande on the radio. She coughed and smiled as if she hadn’t been merrily caroling to herself moments before I walked in.
