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I don’t miss it one bit, and that surprises me

A few months ago, in the height of my stomach woes, I reduced my caffeine intake from six to eight cups of tea a day down to one or two. The weird thing is that I knew it would kill me to give up caffeine. It’s not just that I expected to have sleepiness issues, either. I just really enjoy a cup of tea.

But I’ve found that I really don’t miss the extra caffeine at all. And on some days, I forget to make my first cup of tea until the afternoon. Other days I find myself thinking about making a second cup and never getting around to it.

I actually feel freed by the lack of caffeine. Who knew?

Yay for America! Yay for drug companies!

I just love finding out that my insurance company has a limit on how many refills it will cover.

As many of you know, I went through a whole lot of stomach pain for a long time. I went to doctors and specialists who did nothing for me other than empty my wallet. But I finally found a doctor who could help, and my stomach is feeling better than it has in a long time.

But my “good” insurance won’t cover any more refills.

Thank goodness for drug companies and profits. Thank goodness for the private sector and people making money off of our health and wellness. Thank goodness some shareholder will get higher dividends because their company cares so much about its customers. Thank goodness they know more about healthcare than my doctor.

But I love caffeine!

A few weeks ago, at the height of my recent tummy woes, I decided I needed to drastically reduce my caffeine intake. I’d been drinking probably eight cups of hot tea per day (black or green). I needed to know if the caffeine was causing my problems, definitely, but I also needed to make sure I wasn’t going to have caffeine withdrawal issues at the same time as stomach issues (because my stomach was hurting too much at times to drink tea).

Now I find myself down to one cup of tea a day - the lowest amount of caffeine per day that I’ve consumed since I was in middle school. And the weird thing is that although I love hot tea, I’m not really missing it.

But maybe I shouldn’t say that right at the beginning of tax season.

I miss dessert

I am an ice cream and chocolate syrup addict. Since childhood, I’ve eaten the cheap Kroger brand of ice cream, doused thoroughly in chocolate syrup. My mother said she always bought the generic stuff because what was the point in buying nice ice cream if you can’t taste it for the chocolate syrup?

Anyway, about a month ago I realized that my @$*& stomach always feels worse all day the day after I have ice cream. Desperate to feel better - I’ve felt extraordinarily bad of late - I tossed out the ice cream.

I’ve felt somewhat better; I haven’t had days of feeling bad all day.

But I miss my ice cream.

Gotta sit back and relax

I keep finding myself leaning forward towards the computer, over my work, or staring out the window. And my stomach tells me I need to work on my posture. Maybe I need one of these?