Step Four: Game Time! (Part 2)

Weekend

Saturday was a bit of a bust. We left the apartment at 10 am to drop my mom off at Heathrow. While I was in the area, I figured I'd check out what Whole Foods looks like in the UK. I put an address in the GPS, got excited about the free parking, and off I went. There was a bit of traffic and I got there later than planned. By "there," I mean the GPS dropped me off and I had no idea where the store was. I drove around in circles for a bit and figured it must not exist. I put the next location in the GPS, and set off. There was significantly more traffic in this trip. This store had no parking attached to it (so it seemed) and I ended up at, according to my GPS, the closest parking garage, which was a 2.5 mile walk from the store. It was a nice day and the walk crossed over the Thames, and at that point I'd been driving for over two hours, not counting the one plus hour it took to get to Heathrow. So I walked. I got there and the store was pretty tiny. No more than an eighth the size of the smallest Whole Foods I've seen in the US. But no matter, they had the best organic produce selection of any store I'd been in so far. I got some produce and some other non-perishables, and ate a late lunch at their cafe: coconut milk yogurt with dehydrated apples and the most deliciously buttery smoked salmon (seriously, I forgot how good it was this side of the pond). 

I'm jealous of anyone who has regular access to this stuff!

They didn't seem to have a public bathroom, so I started the long trek back to the car. By the time I arrived back at the apartment, it was a little after 6 pm. So yes, Saturday was spent taking a seven hour excursion to Whole Foods. Needless to say, I took it easy the rest of the day.

After all the driving on Saturday, I decided not to go anywhere in the car on Sunday. I made a big breakfast (with some gluten-free [finally], organic pork sausages from Whole Foods, read a lot, watched a movie, took a nap (as in, I laid down for two hours and slept for about two minutes), succumbed to the internet and caught up on some of the blogs I follow, and blogged myself. Oh, and there was a decent dinner involved, but I'll talk about what I ate in a separate post.

Most importantly, though, I took two walks: a long one in the middle of the day and a short one at night, after dinner. The apartment is situated along a public path... walkway? I forget what they call it, but basically a trail. I ran into a few people, saw/heard a bunch of these guys, got intentionally lost, stung by lots of nettles (wearing shorts), and then for a few nerve-wracking minutes, got unintentionally lost. I managed to find my way back (somewhat accidentally) and then awkwardly hid from the owners in the bushes until they went back inside. It's not that I'm embarrassed to tell anyone why I'm here, and I'll happily tell most people. It's just that the owners are much older, have heavy accents, and are hard of hearing. I don't speak very loudly and I just don't feel like they're aware of the latest in microbiology. I also don't feel like trying to explain it to them. So they think I'm here on holiday and I'm running out of things to tell them that I did, so it seems easiest if I just avoid them as much as possible, so that when I do finally see them, I have a few things to tell them, since I only do one thing (outside the clinic), at most, a day. 

I'm embarrassed to admit that, although I knew Hertforshire was the birthplace of Beatrix Potter's stories, I did not know it is also the setting for Longbourn

This was around 9:20 pm!

Impromptu MovNat - I could use some practice

Day 4

Monday was pretty uneventful. So far it was my best day in terms of being able to retain the implant. I wandered around Hitchin some more and found a few new streets and local artist shops (my favorite) and did a few errands. I was unsuccessful in finding more animal fats to cook with. I tried to stop at a tapas place that had lots of gluten-free items marked on their menu, but I had a hard time telling if I was in the right place and the menu they handed me was different (and not even gluten-free friendly, let alone anything else), so I chickened out and just ordered a pot of lavender tea for two. It would've been good if I'd waited for it to steep enough and asked for honey. But I read and it was fine and welcome, even, since it was a little chilly. 

The rest of the day I spent in the apartment: reading, listening to podcasts, watching a movie, and made one of the most delicious meals I have ever made in my life (I need to remember to keep broth around for deglazing purposes). I took another brief walk after dinner. The late sunset is pretty convenient. 

I really don't feel any differences yet. I thought briefly that the treatments were causing me to have vivid dreams until I realized it was probably the magnesium/melatonin cream I've been using at night to help with jet lag, abundance of daylight, and pheasants making their bizarre noises beginning at 4 am (seriously, they sound like a shopping cart with a broken wheel). Even my GI symptoms have quieted down. Last week I noticed more gas and rumbling, but this week I feel pretty average. I've had to up my Oxyklenz back to around 5-6 pills a night, which was where I was pre-first lavage. My allergies were awful the first couple of mornings and now they're back to average, too. I don't think it's the implants so much as slowly recovering from missing a whole night of sleep. I have a couple of mild and small eczema/psoriasis patches on my body, which hasn't happened this time of year since my diet/lifestyle upheaval almost three years ago. I'm hoping it's not the peas or anything. Maybe it was the rice I had a few weeks back? 

Day 5

The Halfway Point

Fact of the day: the implant comes from a different donor each day in order to get as much good bacteria as possible. Today's was super bubbly. At least that's what it was like on the outside--it didn't feel that way on the inside. The only difference I felt is that it was easier than usual to retain for the first few hours, but then I had to lost it earlier than usual. Go figure. One of the nurses asked me if I felt different each day due to the different donors. I said I did not, which didn't make me feel good. But then I talked to Annie and she said most people don't feel any different while the treatment's occurring, but their changes start one or two months out. Let's hope that's the case. 

Because you need a market for this

Today was market day, finally. There were about three fresh produce stands. It's funny but only a few items are actually from the UK--there are lots of bananas, oranges, and pineapples for sale. I even found a guy with more of an African/Middle Eastern-themed booth with taro, yucca, etc. (all those starches I'm not familiar with yet). I bought some Japanese sweet potatoes from him. They were a bit squishy but I know they're starchier than the orange variety, which is all I've seen so far, so let's hope they're fresh enough. The rest of the booths were more stuff-oriented: cheap clothing, bags, old books and CDs and records, weird tchotchke things, ribbons and buttons, and more. There was even a booth that had crates that you would expect to have produce in them, but instead they had candy bars, cookies, and other processed foods. Weird. There was no meat guy, unfortunately, but there was one fish stand. He didn't have too much, but he had a bunch of smoked options, so I bought a portion of smoked haddock. 

... and this

After that, despite it being very cold and windy (and it even drizzled for a minute--the nerve!), I sat by the water (river? canal?) and read while I watched some very bold ducks and partridges bother people with food, and then saw the people feed them bits of their lunch and later families with their children even came with bags of old bread with the sole purpose of feeding the birds. The birds were even pecking at the kids' wellies, at which point their mothers would shoo the birds and whisk the kids away. 

Good thing I'm tall, too

I then sat in a little tea shop and had a pot of peppermint tea. This time I let it steep and ask for honey. There was absolutely nothing in their food menu that didn't involve gluten or stuffed potatoes, but the tea was nice and warm the honey crystallized. I didn't even mind the excessive floral decorations or the hordes of stuffed animals in the window. Very different from the tea place I went to yesterday, which was more for the twenty-something hipster crowd. 

Sitting by the water

Spoiled birds

I spent the rest of the afternoon watching movies under a blanket. It's a bit sunnier, but still pretty cold and windy. I didn't get much walking in today, but I feel tired enough that it shouldn't be a problem. I've made tentative plans for the rest of the week so hopefully I'll have interesting things to report about the area. It's just hard to make myself do them when I know I'm going to be worried about retaining the transplant.