Day Two: only Tuesday

How can it be only Tuesday?

I started the challenge diet easily enough.  I shrugged into my pain coat like a familiar old pack, ready to carry it for four days.  I spent yesterday mostly at home, nursing a scratched cornea I managed to pick up on Sunday afternoon.  And I woke up this morning and it was only the beginning of Day Two.  It feels like it's been weeks.

The pain coat is heavy, lying across my shoulders like a canvas duster or a full backpacking rig.  It weighs me down, takes the bounce out of my step, makes standing and walking more tiring.  Going through the day with it is an exercise in endurance, like hiking a 15-mile trail.  I expected that.  I've lived with it for four decades.  Likewise, I expected the pain in my feet to get worse, as ammonia collects there and inflames the joints.

What I had forgotten were the other effects.  It's harder to regulate my body temperature; my shower this morning started pleasantly warm, and ended uncomfortably hot.  I had six to eight night sweats last night, waking me up.  I can feel a hot flush after every meal.

I inadvertently stayed up after 1am last night -- the first thing I noticed when I ditched protein was that I got sleepy around 10:30 at night, where I used to be a serious night owl.  Then I slept until after 11 this morning.  I'd forgotten how much of my life I was sleeping away before this.  I did get up rested, but only after ten hours in bed.

All of my joints below the waist feel like they're held together with chewing gum and baling twine.  I have to be careful walking, since it seems like they could slip out of alignment with the slightest provocation.  Past history says that's not far off.

I'd forgotten what the cravings were like.  My body needs something I'm not getting, and only protein sates it even briefly, particularly chicken.  But the food sits heavily, and I'm still hungry, even as the pain kills my appetite.  I know now what's happening: I need arginine to prop up my urea cycle, but the protein that supplies it simultaneously overloads the very system it's supposed to fix.  I'm left restless and uncomfortable.

I figured I could do this week practically standing on my head, but time seems to have slowed to a crawl.  I'll make it, I always do.  But I can't believe it's still only Tuesday.