Frosted Flakes For Breakfast, Or Lunch, As It Were

On November 29, 2012, just one week after I was diagnosed and given the terrible news that I had ALS, that my life would change in cruel and uncertain ways, that I would die without achieving my full life's potential, just a mere seven days after all of this crushing weight was added to me, I wrote what may have been my first blog post that found an upside to having ALS. On that day, I wrote that I was having Frosted Mini-Wheats for breakfast. After all, a healthy, weight loss diet made little sense with ALS.

Now, here I am, almost three years later, enjoying a bowl of Frosted Flakes for breakfast. The odd thing is that in between, I returned, almost naturally, to a healthy, light breakfast filled with protein and nutrition. My normal morning, or noon, feeding consists of a piece of cheese, a slice or two of Prosciutto ham, a boiled egg, and perhaps a Baby Bell Cheese bit as well. Of course I ruin all that healthy goodness by having one, and often two, cups of coffee to go along with it. Oh, and some water too.

Over the last week I have had this incredible craving for some sort of sweet breakfast cereal; not too sweet, like Cocoa Puffs or Lucky Charms, nor one of those pseudo-healthy nut and crunch cereals. And oddly enough, I didn't want my good, old standby, Frosted Mini-Wheats. I wanted something in the Goldilocks zone, not too sweet, not too plain. So Frosted Flakes it is.

You might wonder why breakfast cereal is such a big deal. Actually, it's not. The big deal is that I can have a craving for something like this, and happily give into it, still enjoying my ability to eat, to swallow, to taste, to savour. The end is nigh; a time is soon coming where eating will be too much of a challenge. That's why enjoying this moment is so important. I need to live while I am still alive.

That's the only way to defeat ALS. I learned that in an epiphany almost at the same moment as I was diagnosed. After that stunning news, merely a few days later I was finding ways to live my life fully, even if it was a something as mundane as breakfast cereal. I don't believe in a glorious afterlife; I believe in a glorious present life. I want to live. I want to live now. I want to eat foods that are bad for me, drink too much wine, watch TV all night, drive as far as the road goes. That's how you win against this disease.