Peanuts are Purveyors of Pain

I’ve been awake for nearly an hour, after almost ten and a half hours of fitful and uncomfortable sleep.

We got home just after six-thirty last night, after spending all day at the Showcase of the Arts at the Ponce de Leon Center.  While there, I read my two selected poems to a small audience with no fanfare.  We listened to music, watched players act scenes from plays and musicals, viewed the work of accomplished local photographers, watched woodworking and painting demos, visited with representatives of a number of clubs, and generally had a good time.  Then we went to dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant in the Village, El Jimador.

It wasn’t the food at El Jimador that triggered the flare-up of my Crohn’s, it was the fact that I’d munched on too many peanuts the night before.  I love peanuts; too many, though, and I regret my lack of self-discipline.  I know I’ve had too many when, about twenty-four hours later, I pay the price in pain.

Last night, I did just that.  shortly after we got home, the pain started reminding me, aggressively, of my transgressions.  The only response: go to bed and hope for a minor flare.  Between six-thirty and ten-thirty, I slept off and on, but sharp waves of pain swept over me with some regularity to jolt me out of my slumber.  When my wife came in around ten-thirty, I was awake and in pain.  She reached out to touch my back and discovered I was awash in sweat, as well.  The drenched t-shirt came off; it was better to let the air cool me down.

I looked at the clock each time I awoke during the night: midnight; one-thirty; two-ten; three; four-eleven; and finally five-twelve.  I got up then.  The pain has been dull and distant since then, suggesting the worst of the episode is over.

Whenever this happens, I curse myself and peanut growers for allowing it to happen.  Both of us have control over the situation, yet we allow our greed…for that’s what it is…to overcome our good sense.  I suppose it’s harder to justify asking peanut farmers to turn to another crop than me to limit my intake of peanuts.  But you gotta blame somebody, don’t you?  And I’d rather not lay the blame where it belongs.

About John Swinburn

"Love not what you are but what you may become."― Miguel de Cervantes
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