I haven’t eaten in eight days and I feel on top of the world. Right now I am standing in the shower, letting the watercourse down my body. It is close to scalding but I need the heat. I am cold to my bones. It is mid-summer but when I get out I will rub myself down and pull on leggings, a thermal vest, and a sweater. Low body temperature is a side-effect of my current health regime. I am on a medically monitored water fast.
Water fasting is a pretty simple concept, really. Nothing but water passes your mouth for a period. Nothing. You can do it for 12 hours or 30 days. Illusionist David Blaine survived on only water in a glass box for 44 days in 2003. Surely I can do 10 days at a clinic in Mossel Bay?
As I get out of the shower I hop on the scale. I’ve lost 7kg since I started, my mouth tastes like a skunk may have died in it and my sweat stings like acid coming out of my body. I am sure I smell skunk-bad all over. This morning what looked like a cluster of luminous green pods of algae exited my bottom. I’m having serious second thoughts. But I am eight days in, with two days left, I paid a small fortune to be here and I’m determined to finish what I started.
I didn’t sign up for a 10-day water fast to lose weight. I signed up because I had cancer. The insidious thing about cancer is that living with it is for the long haul. Cancer is the Sword of Damocles that hangs over my head all the time. Is that a cold sore or is it the cancer coming back? Is that an aching bone or is it the cancer coming back? Is that a bruise or could it be the cancer has spread? You can drive yourself mad. I drive myself mad.
This story is from the January 2020 edition of Fairlady.
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This story is from the January 2020 edition of Fairlady.
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