Chapter 17 - Finally, A Full Square Meal

Food has always been an important talking point in our family.  We each believe ourselves to be amazing cooks and connoiseurs of good cooking. So when I stopped enjoying food after the Stroke it upset everyone. Not just because I was getting weaker by the day but also because I could no longer savour the delicious flavours being put before me. My children tried and tried to tempt me with creative recipes and my favourite dishes but to no avail. I would take one whiff and push the plate away, as gently as possible!

When I discovered that I could just about tolerate Soya milk , it was boon as it felt as though I had been given a lifeline.  Then a few days ago my dear neighbour, Alice pulled out of her secret stash, a jar of her delicious home made tomato chutney.  Imagine my surprise when I could eat it in a slice of wholemeal bread and go for more! That was a happy day! 

Then just yesterday, exhausted after a day of mini-shopping trips and errands, my daughter decided to make us her thai curry with rice.   We gathered up some choice ingredients, baby sweet corn, mange-tout, lemon grass, button mushrooms broccoli, tofu and coconut milk.  My heart began to sink at the thought of pushing away another plate of lovingly prepared food and seeing that look of disappointment on her face.  To my amazement, I could not only eat it, I even went back for seconds and am having some this morning, for breakfast! I am sorry but the photo just does not do it justice.

To top it all dessert was a slice of my husband's delicious, home-grown apricot, beautiful and aromatic and tasting just as an apricot should.

There were many explanations offered to me about this love-hate relationship with food.  Could it have been a side-effect of the medicines, had I just gotten out of the habit of eating, had my enhance senses of smell and taste made me averse to the strong scents of various foods.  It was a very strange and confusing relationship I had developed with food.  I seemed to tolerate some of the most pungent flavours-  such a ripe banana with chaat masala and lemon  - eaten one night in desperation as my stomach growled in emptiness.

My son offered the theory that depression can sometimes change attitudes to food and I paused for a moment to think about whether I had, in fact, succumbed to this malady but then remembered that I have actually given myself no time and space in the day to become depressed.  I have my music, my friends, my writing, my family and lots more besides - there is no room for this unwanted demon in my life.

So my friends, I am looking forward to enjoying cooking, eating and laughing at mealtimes again. Let us hope I can keep down the weight I have already lost over the past few weeks!

I don't know if this insight is of any help to my readers but I truly hope that that it gives hope! My body feels as though it is awakening from a forced slumber -a kind of physical depression where it seemed to have given up the will to live. 

As a I said before, the mind can only take you so far, it is important for your body, as the vehicle, to be in good running order and tanked up with fuel!