Tutti Frutti

I found a journal entry that I wrote in August 2007.

I was in hospital having a stem cell transplant and I was off all food and drink.I started to crave fruit juices and favoursome drinks. Some of the ad's on TV used to really set my cravings off. I could have drunk whatever I wanted but it woul only have stayed down for seconds.

I used to take sips, taste the drink and then spit it out into a basin which I kept with me all the time. I was like an addict craving new and better tastes every day.

I had 7-up
Lilt
Lucozade
Coke
Fanta
Club Orange
Ginger ale
Appeltizer
Soda Water

I would last a day of two mouthwashing each of these for the taste and then I would feel sick at the thought of them. Then my Mum started to make dilutable cocktails for me with two types of dilutable drinks - she would mix them and put them in the freezer for me so as they would be nice and cold for me when they arrived to the room. I was confined to the ward as I was being nursed in isolation - my immune system was at ground zero. It was July and the room was really hot. I was not allowed to open th window or the door. The taste of a cold, icy drink was just heaven, even if I did have to spit it back out straight away.

Then a lot of the soft drinks started to sting the inside of my mouth so I took to drinking club source which had a high water content and which I was able to tolerate. \At one stage I put a call out by text to people to see if they could source me some bottles of Club Source - it was hilarious really and so many of my family and friends looked for it and i had three loads delivered to the hospital for me. It was wonderful. On one of the bottles I noticed a competition to invent a new flavour of club source. Even though I was really really ill, I decided that I would invent one or two and get them posted off.

These are the new flavours that I came up with:

Gushing Grapefruit
Grapefruit, Blood Oranges and Mango

Passion Crush
Passion fruit, peaches and pinepple

Pearfection
Pears, Apples and a touch of lime

Looking back at how sick I was, I can't believe that I was doing this sort of thing. I suppose I had a lot of time on my hands. I sent these ideas off to the people at CLUB but I didn't hear anything back nor did I ever see any of these flavours on the shop shelves.

I wrote these flavours down in a little notebook that I wrote in the whole time I was in hospital. I was looking through it today to find the flavours I created and I found the following random lines which I wrote about fruit:

Great gushing grapefruits, all tangy and tart
Oh how I'd like one as a morning start

Passion fruit and pomegranates
blueberres to make you anything but blue

Outrageous oranges all squirty and sweet
Magnificent mango

Glorious grapefruits all tangy and sharp
succulent strawberries, a rich ripe red

I think you could say I was slightly obsessed! I even used to dream about fruit.

My obsession with fuits and juices continued the entire time I was in the hospital and for many weeks afterwards. I think the body craves what it needs and sometimes what it can't have.

Thnkfully I can have whatever fruits and drinks I like now. But each morning when I pouring myself a glass of juice or biting into an apple, I am very grateful to be able to tolerate them.

B

xx