I'm aware of how hilarious the name of this entry sounds, and I know phobias by definition are irrational, but being scared of food takes the cake, doesn't it? (No pun intended, yuck.) Well, here's some context.
I hate hospital food. Well, so does everyone. But I hate it to the point that I refuse to eat it. During my first stay, which was five weeks, I could not go five weeks without eating, and I could not eat outside food during that time as I was severely neutropenic (moreso than I am now), so the only thing they could do was feed me by IV, which I GLADLY took over the hospital food. I had been eating it, or trying to, for a few days, but the pain I felt trying to eat the food with all the sores in my mouth from leukemia made it almost impossible, so I started getting a lot of mashed or pureed food instead. But once the nausea from the chemo kicked in, I had to stop. And then I guess in my mind, I couldn't separate the hospital food from the feeling sick from chemotherapy. So the more time that passed, the more I associated the food with being diagnosed with leukemia, since not only was that around the time I was eating the hospital food still, but the doctors came into my room and told me I had leukemia while I was eating.
So as you can see, to say I have a bad association with the hospital food is a bit of an understatement. Also, this was when my sense of smell was still ultra crazy super-scarily sensitive, so the smell of the food (which I could smell from down the hall) really REALLY got to me. It got so bad that I couldn't leave my room during breakfast, lunch, or dinner hours because I didn't want to be hit with the smells of patients' meals, nor did I want to accidentally see any of it. They comes delivered in these dark blue plastic containers that freak me out so badly when I see them I have to turn around and drag my IV away from them as fast as I can. If an unknowing orderly brings one to my room by mistake, I freak out. I know it's bad, but I can't help it. Just seeing those things makes me so sick. They upset me so much that I can't even feel embarrassed by little freak-outs. I just need those little blue containers of doom away from me, no matter what the cost. Just seeing them can sometimes cause me to break out into sweat and get queasy. It's ridiculous.
Today I was watching Family Guy--yes, a cartoon--and it was supposed to be Thanksgiving and so the characters were eating mashed potatoes. At one point they put a HUGE serving onto another character's plate and I started to feel a little queasy and had to look away. I felt a little off for the rest of the evening. Then at night, Mike (my husband) and I decided to watch Dexter. Guess what, a Thanksgiving episode! And that's all it took. All of the sudden, I couldn't get the most super vivid, vivid, VIVID thoughts of hospital food out of my head. Not just images--but the taste, the texture, the way it made me feel, so sick, so nausous, the pain in my mouth, the spooky "aura" of having just been diagnosed with cancer..and I just couldn't shake it. It was making me feel ill, but it wasn't physically making my stomach hurt either. I didn't feel like getting up and popping a gravol, but boy did I feel awful. And the sensation of food burning the ulcers in my mouth, the creepy aura of the hospital...I just couldn't shake it, and didn't know how to get rid of that feeling. It was just so vivid, so intense.
Finally, I ate a yummy corn muffin that Mike had made and covered with margarine and jam. It didn't feel like, taste like, or smell like mashed potatoes. It didn't burn my mouth. It was OK. It worked for awhile, at least.
Now I'm writing this and...I dunno. I feel OK. I can't avoid mashed potatos (and similar dishes) for the rest of my life. I'm gonna have to get used to them somehow. Exposure, I'm guessing. But omg, what a strange evening, and not in a good way.
Doesn't the body work in strange and absolutely seemingly-unproductive useless ways sometimes?!
Btw, I wrote all this under the influence of zopiclone, so I hope it makes sense. My apologies for any spelling/grammar/logic disasters here within. ;)
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