Diagnosed with IBS in 2001, I had really no way to deal with it other than 1 book I purchased then which I have no idea what the name of it is or where I have it now. My triggers as I found were small at first. I just had to avoid black pepper, and spicy foods. Fast forward a few years and the change in my routine and diet (unbenownst to me) started to trigger more problems and symptoms. However, I just kept going telling myself that IBS was NOT going to prevent me from living.
And so I pressed on, trying to figure out what I could eat and experimenting a little here and there. My love for cooking began to really take a hold of me and then I saw the movie Julie and Julia, which cemented my desire for more. Of course, with IBS, cooking school was out of the question since you have to taste everything you are making, so I decided on pastry school. I enrolled in 2010 at the Institute of Culinary Education thanks to my dad (miss you papa) and had a few months of absolute bliss. Getting up early with excitement in my heart and eagerly awaiting stepping out of the elevator to the pastry floor to treat my nose to the sweet smells of cakes, cookies, and other divine pastries being baked.
I gleefully made genoise cake, cannoli’s, souffles’, checkerboard cookies, breads, puff pastry…..oh man, the list goes on!!!!! I would look at my mini case by the door every morning before leaving and say out loud “I’m gonna be a CHEF!!!!” I did have fun, ate a LOT and I graduated proudly later that year! I was ready to take on the world!
I interned and was then hired as a pastry cook at a restaurant called Dovetail in Manhattan with chef Vera Tong initially and then Check Michael Shelkowitz after Vera left. Two extremely talented chefs. It wasn’t easy, it was a physically demanding job, and I was only 118 pounds which was fine at 5’2 but I also had back and neck subluxation pain and issues so what I needed was strength and muscle which I lacked. Still, this all didn’t stop me. I would go in early to start baking and prepping for the brunch crowd at 730am and was on cloud nine.
Then came the injury. I was standing all the time and not really exercising or stretching, so my quads were super tight. Then I decided to yoga and got deep into pigeon pose and tore the ligaments in my quad. I was sidelined for a few weeks, going to physical therapy to heal and fortunately, I healed faster than I thought.
I was thrilled when I went back to the restaurant until I started to notice that the little muscle my arms had were gone. Everything was a harder to do. The 25 pounds of flour were rough to lift, and I saw stars after having to haul a 50-pound bag of corn flour down the stairs. During the brunch rush, plating which has to be fast took me longer since I could no longer lift those plates 4 or 5 at a time. I wasn’t upset or sad at all however, I was in heaven! There were days where I had to sit on a park bench after my shift just to rest my bones before even walking to the train to go home but not once did I think of quitting.
I eventually was let go due to cutbacks which bummed me out but turned out to be a good thing as my body couldn’t keep going. I could barely move my wrists or arms at this point without intense pain and I would have worked myself till my body broke down since I loved my job soo much.
So only a few months after I started and my journey was cut short. In my mind, I always thought I’d go back, but 24 years after leaving the restaurant, I have accepted that I will never go back.
Sad, yes, but I started that website Irritable Life, nine years later in 2015, in hopes I’d go back eventually, or in hopes that I could start sharing my recipes with the world and maybe start a cooking show in the process. On YouTube at least. But as time went on, my full-time job was more demanding and stressful. While I had some amazing coworkers, the environment as a whole was taxing on my mental health, which led to more triggers, more symptoms, and a growing list of foods I could not eat.
I became voracious for information on how to deal with my IBS and was determined to keep cooking, creating and posting, but I was fearful that my passion would end soon. As the weeks and months went by, depression set in and dug its claws in me for quite some time. I was taking more sick days and spending more time on the porcelain throne. After seeing doctor after doctor, I was diagnosed with stress induced gastritis in 2019 which was not easy to manage and as I was unable to handle the stress from work and had not learned to ignore or deal with those that contributed to that stress.
Come 2020 and Covid hit. More stress, more work, and less time outdoors. Add to this my papa’s advancing Alzheimer’s and I was going to the restroom 6 to 8 times a day over the next few years. When papa died in July of 2022, I had to down 3 doses of Pepto as indicated every 1/2 hour so I’d be able to go to his funeral and wake since my bowels were in volcano mode.
Later that year I went in for another colonoscopy which revealed I had esophagitis.
Fast forward to present day and I’m still nowhere close to healing stomach lining or esophagus even though I have tried Omeprazole with nasty side effects and Pantoprazole.
So? What do I do? Well, I continue to live. Papa was a fighter right till the end and I have to be as well. Has it been an easy road? NO WAY. But as I will go into in later posts, I did not do this alone.
This brings to the present day and the point of this post. My new journey to heal, get stronger, and maybe inspire others is exciting to me. So is the desire to write, to create, and share as well as teaching down the road.
I have hopped on the train of inspiration and intend to stay on this ride and hope you all stay with me on this journey of bringing back recipes and tips from my irritable life past site, to new recipes, inspiring quotes, videos and honest blogs.
Mind Body Synergylia 