Who Are These People?

Howdy there!

My name is Terradon and I live at the base of a volcano in Portland, Oregon… (yes the quirky town Portlandia is based upon).  And no, it isn’t MUCH of an exaggeration.    About 15 years ago,  diagnosed with a severe autoimmune disease called Ulcerative Colitis I had to have surgery to have my digestive system removed and rebuilt.

That was horrific.  Let me just say that nothing prepares you for how much your body can hurt, how fragile your body is and what you do and don’t have control over.

Somewhere along the way, it dawned on me that I was trying to make my body sort of “toe the line” about how I thought it should be… that I could choose what it would like, dislike, put up with and care about.  I didn’t want to be limited by anything:  medication, food or lifestyle.  I was furiously resistant anytime it came up.

My sweet friend Orion Foxwood said that our brains will lie to us, but our bodies do not.  When the ramifications of how far my illness had gone and my anger at my body for not agreeing with my brain actually sank in, I found myself at a loss.  I was at a place where my face was covered in rosacea, all my muscles hurt, I weighed almost 240 lbs from being on high doses of prednisone and immunomodulators for so long, and I had no colon.

I really wondered how I would ever get out of autoimmune hell.  The road looked grey, painful and bleak.

On my way down to a work trip in the bay area, I hooked up with a friend of mine Sylvia Brallier who had far worse issues than me and she told me about a diet philosophy that had gotten her out of her wheelchair and she looked fabulous… I was pumped about the idea. I wanted fabulous too!!

Until I heard the details…

My heart just dropped because the foods were all varieties that were my version of hell. 

But can I be honest?

The hell that I just came out of was far worse than this, and the idea that somehow the suffering might end made me willing to try.  I was a desperate woman Your Honor!

So I started in on this “crazy, ninja eating plan” that Sylvia told me about.  As I am a research fiend, I started looking at the actual study data around it alongside learning some mad new eating and cooking skills. Learning to cook differently was actually great fun!

And you know what?  It worked.  

Now, I have fallen in love with my food.  My body feels alive and giggly. My skin is healthy, my energy is way up (I had to start walking!) and my creativity has found its voice.  In addition, and much to my surprise, my change in diet has sparked new kinds of creativity and play in my life.  For example, now I enjoy playing Turkish bendir and Saz, and I am part of a musical ensemble called Devran that loves to jam on Anatolian and Turkish folk and classical music.  I am walking almost 5 miles daily.  I live on a third of an acre garden that is both flowers and vegetables, fruits, and lots of beautiful dahlias.

This blog is a journey, a triumph, a mission of compassion, and a gesture of solidarity to myself and others who maybe wanna get out of hell too.  We all have our own unique circumstances and how far our bodies have gone into disease or illness.  I truly believe that our bodies are never too far gone to try to heal.  We have to show our bodies that we are its advocate, and when that happens, we place ourselves on the same team.  What I have also learned is that we can’t say that we will only try if we can have our full body back.  This is still our brains lying to us and how I got this far into this mess to begin with.  I will never get my colon back, I will never be as robust as I was before I was ill.  But the level of suffering that I have now is so far removed from where I was 15 years ago, that it is worth every moment of change.

I am welcoming more.

My sincere hope in our blogging is that our words and rampant no rules exploration will be an encouragement to you too.

Much love,

Terradon

About Marianne

Guest Contributor and Trivia Queen

It is 7:41 on Sunday evening as I write my first hello.

Hello! I’m Marianne, Terradon’s younger sister, and I have been lurking in the shadows of this blog for a few weeks, and we have agreed that I should introduce myself.

My involvement with this blog is quite recent, but my sister says that I inspired her to take to the kitchen and learn to cook for herself. (You’re Welcome!) I have been editing some of the content and offering up opinions on the flavors and presentation of the food.

My involvement with food and health is very different from my sisters. I am not vegan and have not chosen her diet, though I have considered it. My dramatic nutritional changes and education were the result of diabetes in myself and my husband, and learning to cook tasty and healthy foods that we would want to eat without going into the neurotic I can’t eat that that inevitably seems to lead to unhealthy binge eating. The big one was learning to cook vegetables. I mean, vegetables that anyone would choose to eat.

As a guest, I will be visiting to share recipes I have developed to feed her (just wait until you try my Roasted Corn Chowder!) and the little things I did to make it shareable with vegans, meat-eaters, people with various allergies, spice lovers and spice haters. Also, since I love trivia, I will share some of the little things I learn.

I learned most of what I know about cooking by observing trained professionals in a home kitchen, experimentation, watching Alton Brown on his fantastic show Good Eats, and by exposure to some excellent cookbooks at the right time and place.

I think that will do for an introduction. I am sure you can tell I am a food geek with a love of trivia. I will do my best to cite any sources I use (I am, after all, not an expert and the shoulders I am standing on deserve recognition!), and I am looking forward to seeing how this blog and I interact going forward.

Marianne

Terradon and Marianne at the Duke Ellington concert we recently performed in together.