I Can Drink Tap Water!!

This announcement probably doesn't amaze or thrill you much on first hearing it. It's kind of like saying. "I can walk across the room!" Or, "I can read a magazine!"

Well, the ability to drink tap water was one of the things that this tongue issue had robbed me of for months. I had been informed all along by my medical support team that certain fruit juices -- especially citrus juices -- would cause tongue and/or throat pain for a while, and that I should stay away from them, but they didn't mention anything about plain old water. And when I told them about the problem, they just shrugged their collective shoulders. No answers or suggestions.

But just a few drops of water would cause a level-six-out-of-ten shot of pain that focused on a single spot on the left edge of my tongue. So for months, I have been cleansing my mouth of mucus with a weak solution of salt and baking soda, which solved the problem completely. And if I poured a bit of that solution into a glass of fruit juice or Gatorade, I could drink that with absolutely no difficulty. Except it tasted yucky.

But a couple of days ago, in a moment of forgetfulness (I have a lot of them lately...), I tossed back a small glass of water without any pain at all. And when I realized what I'd just done, I stood staring at the empty glass in amazement.

There are a number of consequences to this recovery. Most importantly, that I can hydrate myself anytime I want without uncoiling and uncorking my PEG tube, tracking down a syringe, etc. Just drink the water! And the taste of that water is now both subtle and complex and wonderful in ways I never would have guessed possible. Just. Plain. Water.

And looking back at the first paragraph of this posting, I can see that -- YES! -- walking across the room would be cause for celebration for many people. And being able to read a magazine likewise. And I'll let you make up your own scenarios for why this would be true.

So it's another important step back towards normalcy. And another reason to be deeply astonished grateful for the healing capabililties of the human body.

The gifts of my disease have sometimes been hard to discern, but this one -- a new appreciation of something as simple as drinking tap water -- was as clear and easy to understand as a fancy wrapped box on Christmas morning.