Day 7
Hooray! We’ve made it through the first week.
Miraculously enough, the energy is back now, and we no longer feel as if we have the flu. It’s still difficult to keep our minds off food—are those airplanes I’m hearing or your belly growling?—and I’m still dreaming pizza in full sensory mode, but it’s a lot easier when you don’t feel like you’re dying.
No headaches, no stomach aches, no major weakness now. But weight loss is definitely starting to happen. Of course, you will never, ever hear me complain about that.
We managed—I don’t know how—to get the garbage out yesterday and to get our work completed. Okay, it might not have been my very best work, but it got done. Kudos to me. It was really tough keeping the faith, though, knowing that food would make it all go away, but we didn’t crack, and we lived.
We are invincible!
Only five weeks to go. From here on, with the exception of any major occurrences that might be worth recording, I’ll just hit the milestones. One day seems so much like another at the moment. Of course, there’s no guarantee that it will stay that way—how well we know!—but we sure wouldn’t complain if it did.
Day Five
The hunger is not so bad today. The digestive system is beginning to shut itself down. And, wonder of wonders, I’m starting to like the juice. Whoa!
It’s actually entertaining to see what’s coming out of the kitchen these days. You never know what color it’s going to be, for starters—some of them are gorgeous deep greens or oranges—or if it’s going to taste like camel dung, which I guess makes it more adventure than entertainment. My fave is the coleslaw juice, but we often have the V-8 variety, as well as some more obscure combos that I don’t question, or examine, too closely.
To tell you the truth, for all the bellyaching I’ve been doing about being hungry (bad pun intended), it’s not really been so horrid. It’s actually not anywhere near as intense as I thought it would be. I’ve done week-long water fasts before, and I can tell you, they are a bitch. The juice fast is downright friendly in comparison.
So I’m feeling pretty good now. I have energy, the brain doesn’t seem so cloudy, the back pain has gone, and my spirits are at an all time high. I’m not ready for a marathon, mind, and the nose is still running, but all in all, I feel fine.
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From How and When to be Your Own Doctor:
The healing crisis can seem a big surprise to a faster who has been progressing wonderfully. Suddenly, usually after a few days of noticeably increased well-being, they suddenly experience a set of severe symptoms and feel just awful. This is not a setback, not something to be upset or disappointed about, but a healing crisis, actually a positive sign
Healing crises always occur after a period of marked improvement. As the vital force builds up during the healing process, the body decides it now has obtained enough energy to throw off some accumulated toxins, and forcefully pushes them out through a typical and usually previously used route of secondary elimination, such as the nose, lungs, stomach, intestines, skin, or perhaps produces a flu-like experience with fever chills, sweat, aches and pains, etc. Though unpleasant, this experience is to be encouraged
Unpleasant? They do have an amazing talent for understatement.
You will feel like death.
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Day Six
We’ve been hit by a bus.
Last night was a rough one. Neither of us got much sleep, and we were both plagued by intense stomach pains. This morning dawned in a haze of nausea and a lack of energy that could only mean imminent death. The marine layer that had covered the brain a few days ago has today rolled in as a thick, pea soup fog. Rather appropriate considering where we live, but not conducive to work.
William has a fever, and there’s something trapped in our skulls that’s trying to pound its way out. I’ve long ago forgotten what it’s like to have the flu—I haven’t had it in a decade—but it’s coming back to me now in all its god-awful splendor.
Blackouts overtake us as we get out of bed, and we’re stuck between worlds for a few moments, hoping nature’s going to wait for our vision to clear. Later, we stumble to the kitchen and collapse in the chairs, fatigued by the trip. Who’s going to light the fire, fill the kettle and make the juice?
To make a bad situation worse, today is garbage day. This means hauling our green bags down the hill from hell. This means hauling our dying bodies back up the hill—no mean feat on a good day. Our hill is the perfect workout for Olympic athletes. It is, for those who are just tuning in, 1000 feet of vertical torture—a challenge even for the well-fed.
How could yesterday be so wonderful and today be so bloody awful?