Life Lesson Learned

Life Lesson for the day: Too much of anything, no matter how good it might be for you, is too much.

Day before yesterday I was fixing oatmeal for breakfast. As usual, I added a bit of milled flax seed. I didn't realize it immediately, but I had measured the water incorrectly and used too much. When I took the bowl out of the microwave it was more like soup than oatmeal.

Huh, thought I, running my spoon through the thin gruel, that doesn’t look very appetizing. I know! I’ll add more flax.

I’ve done it before, added a little more when the resulting oatmeal is thinner than it's supposed to be.

Something went wrong though. My hand slipped or something and I dumped a LOT of flax into the bowl.

Huh, thought I, staring at the pile of ground seeds while I debated what to do, oh well. It’ll be fine.

I mixed it in and happily ate it noting that it really didn't taste any different than usual.

 

Not! It took a while but it was not fine. It was anything but fine.

The day went by as usual. Nothing out of the ordinary until late in the afternoon when I started feeling a bit bloated. By the time I got home, the bloating sensation was worse and I felt as if it was three days after a fight that I had lost. Still, it kept getting worse. When I went to bed, I couldn’t get comfortable so I didn’t sleep well.

When I got up yesterday morning, I hurt. It wasn’t too bad. Still bloated and even though it was more than uncomfortable, it was less than painful so I got ready and went to work.

After all, thought I, I’m going to be miserable whether I stay home or go to work, so I might as well go to work.

By ten o’clock I was in severe (what I consider severe, anyway) pain. I couldn’t sit up straight. I had to lean to my right – a lot, sitting almost diagonally on my chair with my left leg extended for all it was worth to relieve the pressure in my left side. Moving was really bad whether I was sitting, standing or trying to walk. It felt like I had a spike driven into my side, halfway between my ribs and my pelvis. At last I decided that since I was doing more sitting around contemplating how awful I felt than doing any of the work that I had, I would do better to go home and lie down.

After notifying my boss and the Director of HR that I was leaving, I started getting things ready. When I turned to reach for my bag on the floor behind me, I cried out in pain. The sharp shooting pain of that spike being driven deeper took me by surprise. I started to cry from it. That cry told me I was in a very bad way indeed because I never cry out in pain. Ever.

Except during childbirth when the Pitocin kicked in and I went from 0 to 60 in the space of thirty minutes. My only child, an eight pound, nine ounce, twenty-one inch daughter was born three hours after the first Pitocin induced contraction at 9:35 pm. She was delivered at 12:34 am. Two hours, fifty-nine minutes start to finish, back labor and all. Yeah, I cried out for that one.

When I had steroids injected into the bottom of my feet because of plantar faciitis, spreading all of the bones, tendons, ligaments and stretching the skin like a balloon I bit my lips, clenched everything I could clench, but I did not cry out in pain. Even though the doctor said it was okay if I did because everyone else did. I didn’t though. I held it together as a matter of pride.

So that’s what told me This Was Bad.

I drove home, sitting diagonally in the driver’s seat all the way. Managed not to drive off the road or hit the guy in front of me when I had what felt like a five minute cramping session, even though I started to cry again.

At home I got upstairs and attempted to get into bed. Just doing that was amazingly painful – more crying out because of shooting cramps from the change of position.

Once lying down I could lie on my back or on my left side, not my right unless I really enjoy pain.

All of that was because of a little too much flax seed in a bowl of oatmeal.

This morning things are a lot better. I’m still sore. Standing up is a trial but not as much as it was yesterday. The bloating sensation is gone. I’ll go to work and try to put in a couple of extra hours so I can make up for some of the lost time from yesterday.

The take away from this is: too much of anything, even if it’s supposed to be good for you can be really, really awful. Don’t do it.

Will this put me off flax? No. But I won’t make the mistake again. If I ever do the adding too much, I’ll pitch it and start over. It’s not worth it.