A More Detailed About Me

I have been chronically ill since 2017 when I had to drop out of my PhD program at Iowa State University.

What are my Official Diagnoses

Here is a list of the things that I have officially been diagnosed with:

1. Type 2 Diabetes – Well controlled diabetes since getting diagnosed.
2. Gastroparesis – My stomach is occasionally paralyzed and takes a very long time to digest the food I eat).
3. Anhidrosis – I don’t sweat anymore. I used to sweat a lot (as in my blankets and sheets would feel like they had been outside during a thunderstorm), but now, I barely sweat at all. This leads to me overheating, which leads to a sensation I can only describe as the needle pit scene from Saw II, it feels like a thousand needles are being stabbed into my back and radiating to my neck, forehead, and shoulders.
4. Dysautonomia – A mess up in my autonomic nervous system, which controls the parts of your body you don’t personally do (e.g., heart rate, hormones secretion, sweating, etc.).
5. Hypogonadism – Low testosterone.
6. Pituitary Microadenoma – A 2 millimeter tumor near my pituitary gland, which secretes hormones like testosterone, cortisol, prolactin, and other hormones.
7. Heart Failure – The ejection fraction of my right ventricle was 49% in 2018. They tested it again in 2019 and, because I am on two drugs for my heart, it was normal.
8. Chronic Inflammation – High CRP and Sedimentation rate, they just don’t know right now from what. I am obese, which is usually only an increase of about 5-10, I am around 40-50 higher than what it is supposed to be.
9. Chronic high white blood cell count – Implies my immune system is fighting something off.
10. Inflamed Cornea – Possibly caused by dry eyes. They ruled out Sjogren’s Syndrome with a blood test and lip biopsy (lip biopsy’s are not pleasant, but it sounds like they are much more accurate in diagnosing or ruling out Sjogrens Syndrome.

Those are what is known, what is not known is a grand thing. The doctors don’t know what is causing all of these. I walk into a doctor’s office and I often confuse them. I went to an appointment where my file nearly crashed the computer because there are so many tests. I have been to 59 doctors and this is all I have.

Most Doctors are confused by my case. Most doctors are told when they go into medical school that they are usually going to find horses (common diseases and symptoms of diseases), so look for horses. However, I am a cuddly unicorn.

How that affects me while cooking

Have you ever had a flu that just knocked the crap out of you, such that you couldn’t get out of bed because everything in you just feels miserable? That is my body every single day. What the flu is doing to you is your immune system is creating a case of temporary inflammation to fight off the flu virus that keeps replicate itself. Think this scene from Game of Thrones:

The flu virus is the Night King raising the dead and being all cocky about replicating its army. That’s right, the flu is cocky. The immune system just keeps fighting the flu until it wins. Which usually takes a week or two. During that time, all energy is spent on creating an immune response to fight the flu, so you feel like crap for the entire time you are sick.

Now, what is happening in chronic inflammation is the same thing, the immune system is creating more white blood cells to attack something it views as problematic. But for me, it’s not over in a week, or two weeks, or a month, it’s not over now, almost 3 years after it started.

Now, imagine cooking while you are feeling this way. Imagine cooking with brain fog (or mental slowness) so bad that it is difficult, if not impossible, to understand what people are saying or what I am seeing. Think Charlie Brown’s teacher: you have no idea what the teacher is saying because yoru brain just isn’t, or can’t, process it.

So, I’ve have to develop strategies to help me cook. For the last two years, I haven’t been able to cook at all because the brain fog has been so bad that I couldn’t even develop strategies. But this past month, I have been able to do small dishes and develop strategies for being able to cook.

I’m going to talk a bit in later posts about my relationship to cooking and how I relate to it and why I love it. But I love cooking, I love eating the thing that I just created.

But, I have a bane, something that doesn’t literally, but proverbially kills me every time. It is the bane of my existence and something I hope to figure out: baking. Of the last 10 things I have baked, I have messed up all 10 of them. Whether it is using soft-tub margarine instead of sticks of butter, forgetting to use enough pam for brownies, or something else, I keep messing it up. I hope to figure out strategies for that.

But I can cook and develop dishes that are gluten free (because one of my family members has celiac disease), low in sugar, and have amazing flavor and textures.

I guess I am not technically a Chef

Now, I know that technically, I am not allowed to call myself a chef because I haven’t spent thousands of dollars going to culinary school. I also don’t run a restaurant. But I cook for my family and I develop and find recipes to expand on for my family. I take what ingredients we have in the house and cook. I sort of, at times, iron chef it. “I have these ingredients, let’s find a recipe that works for the family.”

So, I understand that I am not what the chef world calls a chef, but I am defining it for me. I design or find recipes that use the ingredients that I have in a unique or creative way. Fish balls, Schweaty (Sweet Potato Taco) Balls. I am defining myself as a chef. I don’t have the money or the energy to go to culinary school, so I am teaching myself. I respect all those who do consider themselves chefs and went to culinary school, their skills far outrank me, a lowly, humble peasant. In the end, I believe all of us, chefs and cooks, love food and the art and science of cooking.

What to Look Forward To (…Or Maybe Not)

I am guessing that sometimes (I’m not sure how often), I will be posting recipes that other chefs/cooks have created, making sure to credit them.

Sometimes, I will combine different parts of several recipes to create a new recipe.

And I’m going to give chronic illness cooking tips.

I am a 360 degree kind of person. I like to understand as best I can how things work. So, depending on my energy, I will put in some science of cooking parts that are down to earth to describe what is happening during the cooking. I love food and cooking documentaries like Cooked, Fat Salt Acid Heat, and Food, Inc., so let me know if you know of any others.