Basic, Simple and Healthy . . . Mike McCready from Pearl Jam

So when I came up with the idea for this blog, one of the people who I wanted to get in contact with is Mike McCready, the lead guitarist for Pearl Jam.  I've always like Pearl Jam, I guess it's ingrained guys who grew up in the 90's.
In 1993 I would have been in grade 7 or 8, and one day I found a grey unmarked cassette tape.  It was mix tape that someone had made, and dropped in the school, and being curious I kept it and played it when I got home. From what I recall there were only two songs that stood out*, Cannonball by the Breeders and Daughter by Pearl Jam. I'm not sure if it's the song itself or because that song was my first taste, but to this day it is my favourite song by Pearl Jam.

Now beyond being in Pearl Jam, there is a specific reason that I wanted to hear from Mike, and that is because he has Crohn's Disease, the meaner brother of Ulcerative Colitis. The main difference between the two is UC is specifically contained in the colon, whereas Crohn's can attack anywhere in the digestive tract.

Mike has been using a couple of methods to control Crohn's, through medication and by following the Specific Carb Diet. Unfortunately SCD didn't really do much for me, but there are lots of people that has helped, (there is a chance that I didn't give it long enough).  The diet is very strict in terms of what you can eat, take a look at the legal/illegal list.

So I sent an e-mail to his management company and ask them to pass it on, which they did and the next day I had a response.

Mike wrote:
"Jason,  First of all have you tried Humira? It might be something to look into before surgery. I am obviously not a doctor, but there are many options out there. I would suggest something that will make you feel good about your body. Maybe fish with rice and a vegetable? Take care, Mike

Yes it's short, but I've noticed a trend when I've asked people for suggestions. They seem to fall into three groups**.
The first recommends that generally have the term "the hottest you can find" attached to the description.  The idea behind that has been to make my colon "pay" for the last couple of years.
The second very often recommends something extravagant.  either it's decadent, complicated or very unhealthy.
The third group seems to recommend  something that is healthy in some way, either physically nourishing or nourishing to the soul.

The majority of people I've talked to with Crohn's give suggestions that fall into the third category.  I'm not sure if it's because of the strained relationship that Crohn's patients have with food, but it seems very likely.  Most of those suggestions involve some sort of food that they themselves can't eat.  Having a salad comes up a lot.  Salads as healthy as they may seem are big no no for a lot of people with IBD.  There will be another post in the near future where I share those suggestions.

Now Humira,  the medication Mike is on, was something that I was looking into, but like Remicade it is an expensive medication.  To get on Remicade I had to apply for Gov't assistance to help pay for it.  Unfortunately in Ontario, the provincial gov't thinks that surgery is a far better option than Humira, as such they will not help pay for Humira for people with Ulcerative Colitis, so unless I win the lottery I'm out of luck.

Normally I'd try to give a set of links on how you can cyberstalk the person who helped out with a suggestion, but I can't seem to find much of an online presence for Mike.  So in addition to the link for the Pearl Jam site, I'm providing links to a few other sites that you should look into supporting.

The official Pearl Jam site is here.

I also recommend checking out the following links:
Advocacy For Patients With Chronic Illness
The Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada
The Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America
The National Association for Crohn's and Colitis (UK)

 *The reason can say only two stood out, is because here we are 17 years later, and I can only remember those two songs.
**There is actually a fourth group, and they are people who have had the same surgery I'm going to have. That response seems to be "It doesn't matter, once you have the surgery you'll be able to eat whatever you want".

Jason

Why I'm doing this

I realised that this blog will take some time to get rolling, and I'm going to need to do something to keep everyone interested until the suggestions start rolling in. So I decided that I should write a bit more about the motivations behind this project.  And forgive me as it may get a bit long winded.
I turned 30 last week (Thursday to be exact) and last night was the party for it, thankfully I was not hungover this morning.  Now when talking with a friend of mine I found out that he thought that what I was searching for was going to be my last proper meal ever.  This is not the case,  this search is for the "last meal" that will go through my colon. I'll have the surgery, they'll take out the colon, and in return I'll have bag on the outside of my body doing most of what the colon was supposed to. It'll take some time, but in theory within a few months after the surgery I will be able to properly eat a meal. There will be a period where I will be going through a liquid only diet, a bland diet, a low fibre/low impact diet and in time I'll go back to solid foods and proper meals. I'll still have a bag attached to my stomach for when my body is done with said meal (there is no real delicate way to put it).

So if the change to what I can eat is only temporary, then why am I doing this?

 For me Ulcerative Colitis has been a disease of "whens" not "ifs".  I've been on two drugs almost the entire time, Salofalk and Prednisone. We have tried other courses of action. Last year I was on a drug called Imuran, which put me in the hospital as the drug caused me to develop Pancreatitis.  A  couple of months ago I was on Remicade, the first dose of this drug gave me Serum Sickness, when we tried it again I went in anaphylaxis. With the failure of both medications it leaves me with Prednisone.  And Prednisone is not a pretty drug.
 Let's say I attempt to stay on Prednisone and I manage to keep the disease under control and my colon lasts another 10-15 years, I will develop diabetes and osteoporosis from the long term use of Prednisone. During this period the risk of me developing colon cancer shoots up dramatically, and my colon would get removed due to cancer. If I stay the course I'm on now, and continue with my medication regime.  My medical life become a series of "whens".  "When will I develop diabetes?". "When will I develop osteoporosis?".  "When will I develop cancer?".  And after all of that I will still each the inevitable "When will they remove my colon?".  Ultimately this is my choice in the end.

There is a difference between knowing something is going to happen and being ready for it, and quite simply I'm not ready for it.  Which is why this blog and my search for this "Last Meal" exists, it's a form of therapy to help get me to that point.

 When I was a kid I wanted to be a chef. And in the end I got there, I worked in restaurants, I graduated from culinary school. But I realised it wasn't the being a chef that I was in love with it was food and cooking. In fact working in a kitchen made me miserable. Except for the first restaurant that I got a job at.

I remember being in high school and working as a dishwasher in a small restaurant. And at the end of the night I had to sweep and mop the kitchen.  But at the end of the night there was a specific smell, it was a mix of all of the herbs and spices that the Chef used that would accumulate on the floor, and in sweeping them up they would mix together and fill the air. That would have been 13-14 years ago. A couple of years ago I went into small grocery store and I can't explain it but as I was walking through the store there was the exact same smell in the air, and I was flooded with memories. The wait staff that was there, specific CDs that the chef would play when it got busy. The restaurant doesn't exist anymore, and that makes me a little sad, as they were like family and not only did it mark a period in my life, but it helped me define who I am today. There are dishes and sauces that I learned there that I still make from time to time, and when I do that it's the same rush of memories and feelings.
What I'm trying to say is that with food there are memories, the two are forever linked.  This blog is as much about the emotions and stories that are tied with food, as it is about the food itself. So I don't just want to know what I should have, but I want to know why I should have it.  And it doesn't necessarily need to be realistic.  If you were on road trip and you stopped at a diner in Kentucky and ordered a burger, and that the burger was the greatest burger you had ever eaten. I want to know where it was, I want to know what made that burger awesome, but most of all I want to know the story that lead you to that burger, and why you think I should go track that burger down.

Write me, tell me what I should eat and why.
And if any of you know Belle & Sebastian, I sent them a request through their website, tell them to check their mail.
Thanks
Jason
TheLastSupperProject@gmail.com