Sounds like the title of a paper, doesn’t it? I want to share a blog post that includes a magazine article written by a history professor who has helped me in the past and continues to be an inspiration. The article is a PDF link within his post: What If Churchill Hadn’t Tamed His “Black Dog”? Please read it.

Who knew antixoidants and/or Omega-3s could be bad for you? Well, they are for me. I found this out last February when I started taking flaxseed oil capsules to keep my eyes from drying out so much (the optometrist suggested it). These contain 700 mg. of Omega-3 and I found out the hard way that this is not good for me.

So I tried Omega-3 fish oil capsules. Same result. 684 mg. Duh. I should’ve looked at the label. So now I have huge dark brown bottles of both sitting on the kitchen counter because they won’t fit in the medicine cabinet and because I’m too lazy to throw them out, flush them down the toilet, whatever.

Oh, what was the result? Severe, I mean SEVERE stomach pain, nausea, and vomiting. And why not throw in diarrhea, too? When I looked up flaxseed oil on WebMD, this was the description for an overdose, except of course I can’t find that description now. But when I called my doctor’s office to describe my symptoms and told the nurse what I’d been taking, she was not at all surprised and simply said, “Uh huh.”

Obviously, I stopped taking the capsules. Then Brian found these antioxidant/Omega-3 granola bars at Trader Joe’s. These couldn’t possibly hurt, we figured. Each bar had under 150 mg. of Omega-3. I ate one bar two days in a row and the same thing happened. And this time, because it had “antioxidant” in the description, I’ve been paranoid about eating anything containing those, particularly blueberries, but with the exception of dark chocolate and foods that I have no idea even contain antioxidants.

Since then, I’ve had the occasional fried, battered cod and I’ve been fine. And I don’t even like fish, but I know it’s good for you even if it is deep fried. But this past Sunday, we took my mom out for fondue on Mother’s Day. Shortly after we got home, I was so sick, I couldn’t keep anything down until like, yesterday, the day before. OMG. I was utterly miserable and had the same symptoms in addition to a sore, achy neck and shoulder on my left side, and a sinus headache just mild enough to be annoying because it wouldn’t go away.

I’m totally convinced that it was from the chocolate fondue — dark chocolate fondue. And I read on Wikipedia that the purer the amount of cocoa, the more antioxidants it contains. Well, this wasn’t just some chain fondue place, so I imagine they use the purest ingredients. Never mind that the one other time I ate there nothing like this happened, but that was long before all this other stuff took place.

There’s a cookie sheet full of chocolate chip cookies on top of the stove that I hadn’t touched all week. OK, I had one earlier and now I’m seriously afraid I’m going to pay for it. These aren’t your ordinary chocolate chip cookies — they contain slabs of dark chocolate.

Oh, and the whole reason I started taking the Omega-3 in the first place was so my eyes wouldn’t be so dry, which is a result of all the meds that I’m on!

I didn’t realize that I hadn’t blogged about how this happened, but I did write an FB note about it and tagged hockey friends so they’d get a notification that I wrote it. So here’s the story, based on that note:

So I finally went skating last Tuesday (March something-or-other) for the first time in a couple years! They say it’s like riding a bike, right? Sure, if you’re used to riding a fancy-Lance Armstrong-racing-type bike and then hit some rough trails on a mountain bike! I completely forgot that regular skate blades are curved and the boot is taller, so I didn’t tighten the top part as well as I should have, nor take into account the blade differences between hockey skates and goalie skates.

Once I was laced up, I hit the ice! And immediately fell on my ass, twice in a row. The second time, my ankle twisted and the outside bony part landed on the ice, HARD; out of habit, I tried doing a half butterfly as I fell, so the inside of my left knee is nicely bruised. Good thing there was only me, my goalie friend Kathy, and some older dude there to witness this! Gotta love noon skate.

Of course my ankle bothered me but I ignored it, probably due to my stubbornness and determination to skate for the half hour remaining. I mean, I was there already, right?

At the time, the injury didn’t seem too bad, but the doctor said not to do anything like WALK, drive, let alone skate. Which is annoying on all counts, especially because I can’t wait to be back out there!

I have. Not with a gun, but with a very long needle. A needle longer than the amount of cortisone the doc shot into two — yes, TWO — different areas around the outer bone of my right ankle. I’d been dreading it all week, and yeah, it hurt. I just pretended I was DeNiro in Ronin. I won’t describe the scene, so I don’t ruin the movie for anyone who hasn’t already seen it. Brian was my Jean Reno, although he just sat in a corner reading a magazine instead of standing nearby!

Turns out, I’ve had more painful medical procedures, but when the medication took effect, it hurt way more than the shots themselves. The doc warned me that the next day would be even worse, that it’ll feel worse before it gets better.

And I have another week now, of doing nothing, like walking in the park (in the beautiful weather), yoga, working out, SKATING, nothing. So I’ve consoled myself with apricot circles from Selmarie and red velvet cupcakes (there’s an image on the site!) from Sweet Honeybee Bakery. Yeah, that’s a big help, right?

Oh, yeah. And if it doesn’t feel completely better by next week, it’ll be physical therapy for me. Fun. As long as I can still get pedis, I guess I’d be OK with it.