Day Eight

I decided this morning that I’m going to schedule an appointment with our family doctor for the end of the week, which will be about the halfway point of the fast. Friends have been urging me to do this since I announced the fast. I’m not doing so because there’s anything new happening with me. The main fast “symptom” is weakness and loss of energy, nothing else. But the thought of 24 more days feeling like this isn’t a happy thought, so it does make sense for me to be checked out by a doctor I trust.

I remember doing this during my longest water-only fast, in 1992, which went 42 days. That fast was in protest of the planned government celebrations of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in what is now called the Americas 500 years before and a call for the next 500 years to be very different than the last 500. At about the two week point of the fast the dozen or so of us doing it went to see a doctor at a community clinic. I remember the doctor I saw becoming very aggressive with his questioning of me when I told him what I was doing. When I told him why, he let up a bit. He did tell me that I was dehydrated. When I said, how could that be, I’m consciously drinking a lot of water, he asked if I was in-taking salt. I told him, a little. He said, not enough, that I should be taking about a teaspoonful each day, that because I was drinking so much water it would be washed out of me and I didn’t need to worry about it being too much.

So I’ve been following his advice on water-only fasts ever since. On this one, I’ve developed a routine of drinking hot water with salt several times a day. It’s almost a highlight of my day, the nice feel of warm water as I drink and actually tasting something when I do so.

It’s hard to drink the amount of water I need to drink, but I’m doing it. I’ve come to see my doing so as pretty much “taking my medicine.”

I feel a little bit better this am, not quite as weak as yesterday, probably because I did consciously do less work yesterday, took more time off to rest, watch TV, walk around my yard or read.

The news this am reports that Trump is inviting 2,000 people to a rally at the COVID-19 hot spot, aka the White House. I think Trump is actually trying to spread the disease, following the advice of his non-scientist “scientific advisor” in the White House hired several months ago. He’s a big proponent of the “herd immunity” theory of how you deal with pandemics. Trump is pathologically off-the-charts sick.