Caveat: Olive Therapy

As many know, I still have some issues eating "normally." Aside from the fact that I don't have much sense of taste, which means that food just isn't as interesting as it used to be, I also have some issues around the fact that major portions of my tongue lack a sense of touch – it's permanently numb, like it will get after a visit to the dentist when local anaesthetic is used.

This creates eating problems because it's surprising the extent to which we rely on our tongues to manipulate food in our mouths during the process of chewing and moving the food to the back of our mouths in preparation to swallow it. I can't always do this as easily or as successfully as I might hope. That is why my favorite foods now are the sort of soupy or sloppy things, pasta with sauces, soups, porridge, etc., that are "swallowable" without too much tongue movement. 

A month or so ago I bought a can of olives, because I like to chop them into my pastas sometimes. But I made a mistake – they were unpitted olives. I nearly threw them out, but in fact, I do like olives, and I can still enjoy the bitter/salty flavor of them somewhat. 

So I decided to try eating them. 

Things with seeds or pits or bones that end up in my mouth are things I normally dread – if you think about the gymnastics you do with your tongue when you find a watermelon seed or a fish bone, you will understand what I mean.

But sitting at home, I would nibble around my olives and eventually I got brave and, looking at it as a kind of physical therapy, I would try to eat the olive and spit out the pit, in the "normal" way. 

It's kind of like forcing myself to do exercise that is unpleasant but hopefully good for me. I have this idea that I can build up my tongue coordination through diligence and practice. 

So I sit at my desk in the late mornings, with a bowl of unpitted olives, and exercise my tongue. 

It gets sore, on the tip, where there are still some nerve endings (which is what the doctors so miraculously saved, and which is why I am not handicapped in talking, for the most part, despite the loss of nerves in most of my tongue). 

[daily log: chewing, 6 olives]

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