Day 75 | I Made Lunch!

Guess what I did today? I cooked my first meal in almost 5 years! I know cooking isn’t a big deal for most people but for me it was a major milestone!

For a long time, I couldn’t even stand up long enough to chop a vegetable let alone cook a meal. Even during the seasons when I was able to stand and walk on my own, I had to budget my energy very carefully to keep myself from crashing.

Sadly, activities like cooking just weren’t in the budget. It took all I had just to be able to brush my teeth, shower, make it to my doctors appointments and spend small amounts of time interacting with family.

Not to mention, even if I had had the energy to cook, my constant nausea would have prevented me. I hated food. Even eating food that had been prepared for me was huge struggle.

I did not enjoy eating and usually had to find something distracting to do on my phone while I ate. I often watched hairstyle tutorial videos to get my mind off of the taste and texture of the food. If being hungry didn’t give me such a massive headache, I probably would have preferred to fast a lot of the time.

With that nausea, there was no way I could have handled cold food or raw meat long enough to cook something. Just seeing it made me feel like vomiting.

I remember one time when I was home alone and needed to heat myself some food. Brett was at church and he had prepared a plate of food for me that I could just pop into the microwave. It seemed easy enough but when I went into the fridge to grab it I started gagging uncontrollably. I ended up having to wait until he got home and could heat it for me.

Lastly, when my Mast Cell Activation got really serious, I couldn’t even be in the room while Brett was cooking. I reacted so strongly to the stove and oven fumes. I would break out in hives and my throat would swell. I remember wondering if I would ever be able to cook again.

So, being able to cook today was a really, really HUGE milestone! I was quite nervous! It felt like an overwhelming task. I didn’t remember how to do anything and had to google how to boil potatoes. But hey! I did it! What’s more? I had zero nausea and I still had some energy left over to wash the dishes afterward. Wow!

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