Motivations and Inspiration for the Creation of Mezzacello
This is a very personal blog post
My body after losing my esophagus and five years with a feeding tube
There is a graphic image of me at a very vulnerable time in my life. But it speaks directly to my passion and commitment to Mezzacello and the food systems experiments I conduct here.
Here is a happier photo of me. It also speaks to my passion and commitment to Mezzacello and the food systems and experiments I conduct here. I endured and I am inspired by that, so join me.
That same body 8 years into creating Mezzacello Urban Farm
Motivations are very personal things sometimes. The motivation for Mezzacello - specifically the food generation component is very private and personal, but worth sharing to prove a point. I have lived without the ability to eat and forced to go hungry for a week due to circumstances that made the issue of food access and security very real for me.
The Backstory: What Happened
When I turned 35 years old I started having great difficulty swallowing solid food. Long story short, I dipped down to 54 kg (120lbs) because I could not eat. It turns out I have a genetic anomaly with my immune system that destroyed my esophagus.
A typical digestive system
After my bloated esophagus blew up in my chest, and an emergency surgery to replace my esophagus with my descending colon failed (it was deprived of blood flow and consequently also exploded and spread gangrene throughout my pleural cavity)
The result of these medical emergencies was that I was placed in a 4 month coma while they dealt with catastrophic septic infection. That had real-world impacts.
The Fallout
When I woke up, blind, partially paralyzed and unable to take any food or drink by mouth. I was really bummed. I also had a feeding tube that passed through my abdominal wall into my stomach directly to provide nutrition, liquids, and pain medication. The feed that was pumped into my body twice a day cost $900 a month.
In one of the five years I lived with this feeding tube, a powerful winter storm knocked out my electricity for five days. It was then that I asked my dads if I could stay with them. They had electricity. I needed power to get nutrients that I could hardly afford and required a prescription to obtain.
A New Paradigm
This was not covered by insurance, don’t get me started on insurance. I quickly burned through my savings just paying for the privilege to eat, well to get nutrients to stay alive. Cheap fast food was not an option.
For five years I lived like this. I would walk into bakeries and restaurants and just sniff - longing for tasty food. I’d stand in front of the refrigerator and just imagine chewing anything.
During those two years I also had to deal with the hole in my neck where my saliva drained. Yeah, you can’t stop saliva - it’s automatic. I wore Kotex pads taped to my neck (I called them “Throat-Texes”) many thanks to the many women that made donations of boxes of Kotex pads.
I had the coolest mutant ability: I could shoot liquid out my neck! Killer party trick.
This is also why I started wearing bow ties - to hide the throat-Tex taped around my neck and discourage unsolicited questions. It was easy for me to tie and keep tightened so I did not have any accidents.
Collateral Damages
“It was then that I asked my dads if I could stay with them. They had electricity. I needed power to get nutrients that I could hardly afford and required a prescription to obtain.”
I lost two teeth. When you don’t chew your saliva doesn’t properly clean your teeth. During this time I had to learn to see, read, talk, walk, and laugh again. This is also how, why, and when I learned Tai Chi.
One very cold winter the power went out for a week. I needed power to eat; the pump that forced pressurized feed into my stomach had no battery backup. I couldn’t get the feed to go into my stomach without a pressurized pump. No electricity became an existential threat.
It was then that I asked my dads if I could stay with them. They had electricity. I needed power to get nutrients that I could hardly afford and required a prescription to obtain.
Food Security and Food Deserts
My point here is not to solicit pity or sympathy. It is to point out why food security is so very, very real and important to me. I saw firsthand how precarious our modern food production and distribution infrastructure is.
I see clearly the true costs, purpose, and value -- and chronic waste -- of food. As a result of the miracle surgery at the @ClevelandClinic I can now eat most solid food.
The Privilege to Eat Means I HATE Waste
I hate to see food waste. There is so much of it. I am not preaching or demanding that you do anything different other than show empathy and awareness. I am showing what action looks like here.
Reflect on the food you eat; is it worth the empty calories, the waste, the fat? Are you powering your miracle body with the best? What can we do differently?
I have been challenged to stay alive. I have also been blessed with perspective, inspiration, and purpose. This is my mission, and Rick is right there with me.
I love my life, my husband, my community, my friends, my strengths and my flaws, and myself. Welcome to Mezzacello.
