Thanksgiving

This is another post from the PSC Partners Seeking a Cure discussion board. The "friend" in this post is Rayne, of course!

I got an email today from a good friend who has inflammitory Crohn's. We have a lot in common besides our health issues so friendship was natural. Her email was just to say hi and that her husband forgot to get potatoes. My response is as follows:

No! Not the potatoes! Us sick people need bland starches, darnit! lolI made asian food and nibbled on a little of "real" thanksgiving stuff. I did eat pie. Last year I was too sick to eat much and there was no pumpkin pie left by the time I felt a bit better. I threw a pity fit about how it was already bad enough that I had missed out on Thanksgiving stuff and felt too miserable to socialize much and now my last shred of tradition had been ripped out from under me. This year I made sure to at least eat a piece, even if my stomach wasn't thrilled about it.

My friend responded saying she spent days taking Phernergan beforehand and had done alright in the eating department. However, she admitted to me, she was secretly not a Thanksgiving fan because of the emphasis on eating, which is always a struggle for her (and us PSCers). My second reply is as follows:

I'm with you on the "secretly hating Thanksgiving" part. Back before I was veggie I used to spit out my turkey into a napkin when my parents weren't looking. I was used to lunch meat (which I don't think really counts as "meat") but the real thing wasn't something I found very appetizing. My mom is the same way. This year I was able to eat okay, but I ended up getting weepy anyway because I was so drugged that I couldn't be "present" and have a good time. Right now I'm really going downhill and, after a week of being a normal 22-year-old and not going to the ER, it seems so cruel to be thrown back into this sick life. Especially around holidays where you have some sort of Hallmark expectation of yourself.

I thought that probably a lot of you were having some thoughts along the same lines. Maybe holidays can be hard for you because of your illness. If you need to rant about it, rant about it. If you have some tips, please share. Maybe by getting together and realizing that we all struggle on somewhat of the same level with some of the same things around the holidays will help us all feel less alone.