When Sick Happens

When I was driving home on Wednesday, I noticed a pain in my throat. I attributed my discomfort to the fact that I had just spent an hour talking to a room full of first-year students about how they could make their writing succinct. Since I believe that the best teachers are also stand-up comics, I put on quite a show to make everyone feel "included" and "engaged."

On Thursday morning, I discovered that half the people I work with were out sick, all with the same symptoms I was experiencing (coughs that reeked of disease, sore throats, chills, aches, and general delirium).

Then I told my friend Heather, "I think I have bronchitis."

I repeated this statement to my doctor later that afternoon, who confirmed my self-diagnosis and a high fever.

Veganism and a regular practice of contemplative meditation have given me an intuitive understanding of my body; I often know what illnesses I have before they are diagnosed; I have learned to trust my instincts about my body over the findings of a trained medical professional. I have never been proven wrong.

But I always go to the doctor because "responsible" is the word that best describes me. Also, I can't prescribe drugs.

When sick happens, vegan diets seem more counter-cultural than ever, since we've nixed the standby of chicken soup.

Here's a peek at what I am eating.

• Organic Brown Rice Cakes
  
• Organic Non-Hydrogenated Peanut Butter, preferably sugar free, and any nut butter will do
  
• Miso Soup
• Ryvita Wheat Crackers
• Split Pea Soup made with peas, cauliflower, spinach, carrots, celery, onions, and garlic (the batch pre-dated The Plague)
• Clementines
• Bananas
• Unsweetened Applesauce with 1 teaspoon milled flaxseed and cinnamon
  
• Ginger Tea (made with 1 tablespoon peeled gingeroot, 1 teaspoon agave nectar and a few lemon slices per cup)
• Zand Echinacea Zinc herbalozenge, sweetened with brown rice syrup only
• Plenty of filtered water