Foodsday Tuesday: Diets Are No Fun

I'm on a diet right now. It's not self-imposed. My doctor put me on it. It's not because I'm dangerously overweight. It's not because I have high blood pressure. I'm not pregnant, diabetic, gluten- or lactose-intolerant. I just have a cough.

Over the years, my voice has come and gone according to my stress level. Tech week for a show? High stress. No voice. Not exactly good when you're singing Weill or Sondheim. The raspy voice was often, but not always, accompanied by a violent cough. But if there was a cough, it would linger. On. And on. And on. People in my classes hated me. My upstairs neighbor was so concerned for me that she'd slip notes under my door to see if I needed soup when she went to the grocery store. The thing is, the coughing and the sore throat hurt, but I never really felt all that bad. I was confused.

On the first day of tech week for a musical I was in a year and a half ago, I woke up and began coughing. My throat had hurt the night before, but I'd chalked that up to having spent my evening in a bar full of smokers. Eight hours later, I couldn't stop coughing. I spat into my bathroom sink. Blood.

(More after the jump...)

As any fan of French opera (or movies inspired by it) knows, coughing up blood is a bad sign, a sign that the heroine is quickly progressing toward painful death. I walked into rehearsal that day, knowing that I probably didn't have tuberculosis, but pretty convinced that something was terribly wrong. I didn't cough up any more blood, but by the time I got home, my throat stung so much that I couldn't swallow.

The next morning, I called Student Health services. "I'd like to make an appointment..."

"How's next Tuesday?" It was Monday morning.

"I think that might be too late. I'm coughing up blood, you see..."

"You can come in and see if we have a cancellation."

"You don't think that coughing up blood is enough to get me an appointment?"

"You can come in next Tuesday."

So, I dragged my sorry ass to Student Health. The woman at the desk -- not the same woman I'd spoken to on the phone, apparently -- was not-so-nice when I walked in. "You don't have an appointment?"

"I was coughing up blood."

"Are you aware of our appointment system?"

"Yes, but I was coughing up blood."

"Have a seat. We'll see if someone can see you."

An hour later, a nurse told me I had a cold. I burst into tears. "This. Is. Not. A. Cold."

She didn't want to deal with me, so she called around to get me an appointment with an ENT. Ear-nose-throat doctor. Head-and-neck surgeon. Otorhinolaryngologist. The office at Presbyterian was able to get me in that afternoon. When I got there, a very nice nurse shotgunned two different nose sprays into each nostril with an instrument that looked like the paint gun they use in the Gallery to make those t-shirts. Or what they use at auto body shop to do detail work. "This is so she can scope you," the nurse told me.

"Do what?"

"Stick a camera down your nose and into your throat to see what's wrong."

Well.

When the doctor came in, she did exactly that. "It's acid reflux."

What? "But I don't feel like I have acid reflux."

"Trust me. Your esophagus is swimming in stomach acid." A sexier mental image there never was. I must have looked horrified. "Don't worry. It's pretty common. You just need to treat it and you'll be better in no time."

How long was no time? Two-to-six weeks. But I had a play! A play that opened in four days! "Get lots of rest," she advised me, "and follow these dietary guidelines. That'll help accelerate the process a little."

The cough has popped up periodically in the intervening eighteen months, always a little differently, but always for the same reason. Most recently, last week. When I was in a business meeting full of doctors and nurses. The president of my company came into my cube the next morning to ask me to please see my doctor. Which I did, on Friday.

The diagnosis? Same as it ever was. Same pill, same diet. And now here's the food part of this post. Or rather, the lack thereof. Because, on the list of foods I'm not allowed to eat:

Caffeine
Carbonated beverages that don't contain caffeine
Chocolate -- this one's easy, as I don't like the stuff
Spearmint and peppermint
Alcohol
Spicy food
Tomatoes
Citrus
Hard Candy
Gum
Cough drops (ironically)
Onions -- also easy due to a mild allergy
Cheese and other foods that are high in fat

This pretty much eliminates most of my regular food intake. I've been relegated to drinking milk, apple juice, or skim milk. I can't eat pizza (tomatoes and cheese) or ice cream (fatty), and I can't have my morning glass of OJ. Salad is fine so long as there's not much vinegar in the dressing and no tomatoes can be found. I can't drink when I'm out with friends. When I hit a midday slump, I have to come up with an alternative to caffeine. And Red Bull has citrus in it.

I'm not in a play right now, so I'm not following the diet to the letter like I did the last time. But I'm finding myself dreaming of cheeseburgers and milkshakes or ice cream sodas. I want everything fried. I'm craving foods I don't usually eat, just because they're forbidden. Next week, Foodsday Tuesday hopes to be back to you with all sorts of delicious edible goods. But for now, we're just going to go get another glass of water.

For more information on acid reflux and why it's no fun, try this article on MedicineNet.com.

Image via St. Aloisius Medical Center