There's a whiteboard in my office that hangs on the wall opposite my desk. It's directly in my view. Sitting on the top are four markers, blue, red, purple and orange. I've never written anything on this board, yet it's always covered in messages. Right now it reads, "I [heart] U". Earlier this week it was covered in so many different forms of "I love you" messages that I could no longer tell which one was written by my wife.
And it dawns on me, sitting here, how lucky I am and how much I take that luck for granted. People love me. Good people, ones who could pick and choose to love anyone they wanted, and they chose me (among others). So why can't I love myself enough--still, after thirty-six long years--to take care of myself properly?
I'm no stranger to hard work, except when it comes to self-discipline. I can budget money and squeeze a week's worth of groceries from a half-week's food allowance, but I can't budget my calories or control my eating. I can't manage to drag myself out of bed an hour early and go for a walk. I'm tired of asking what's wrong with me. I want answers. I want the people who love me to be proud that they do so. I want to follow through on everything that I promise myself, and yet all I can think of are dreamy visions of junk food and me sitting on the couch watching our new FIOS television with all the movie channels. I hate feeling so lame. But, as always, I apparently don't hate it enough. Not yet.
I've always said that it's impossible to achieve the Holy Trinity of Food: Time, Money and Health. You can have any two of those things, but never all three.
If you want to save Money and your Health, you can clip coupons, search for deals, and plan and prepare healthy meals. But it will cost you Time.
If you want to save Money and Time, then you're stuck with microwave meals or fast food. There goes your Health.
To save Time and Health, you can purchase freshly made, healthy, prepared foods, or eat out at organic restaurants. So long as you have the Money.
Right now, after purchasing a new home and furnishing it, we're trying to save Money. We both work long days and now have a house to run along with the boy to raise and the pets to care for. Time isn't an option. No surprise which part of the Holy Trinity of Food gets sacrificed.
And the cycle continues. I'd feel better if I had a plan of action, but right now I'm overwhelmed with obligations. The family, the house, the book, the job, the food, the exercise. All but a couple are pleasurable and so get the majority of my attention. But that scale keeps climbing. I need a plan.
Jul 15, 2010
Jul 12, 2010
Pause
April. That was the last month that I posted anything. Old habits die hard, and my biggest habit (besides food addiction) is laziness.
I've written this entry countless times in my head, but what good does that do? I always mean to do it, I think up a title and a few lines and then... And then life keeps moving forward. It's the way of everything in my life, it seems.
I mean to eat well. I mean to walk more, work out, do pushups and yoga, take dancing lessons, work on my book. I mean to do it all, and I mean it with a sincere energy and effort; but I guess, in the end, I still don't mean it enough.
So much has happened these past two months. Allison and I married; we bought a house and moved; she started her teaching institute. All good things. The not-so-good things: I stopped taking all of my meds and we lived in a hotel for almost two weeks. It was sweltering outside so I didn't walk nearly as much as I used to. Combined, that was an ugly cocktail for disaster. I won't know where my levels are until I go back to the doctor in September, and I'm not looking forward to it. I gained back 7.5 of the pounds that I'd lost and kept off for months, and that dinged my confidence more than I'd like to admit. I've been ignoring my health as I deal with other life events, but it's always there, just behind my shoulder, tapping me every so often as a reminder. I keep pushing it away with the idea that I feel fine, but that's not true, either, not really. I don't feel bad, I don't feel like I did in the beginning of this epic fucking journey--like I was forcing my body to do things it just didn't have the resources to do. But I don't feel good, either. I'm tired all the time, just like before. My energy level is way down and I'm reaching more and more for those bad foods that I need to stay away from. Most of it is mental, which leads to the emotional breakdown (the hardest kind to come back from). I've stopped counting my Weight Watchers points, I don't log my food, I don't drink my green lemonade anymore. My carbs are up and my steps are down. I haven't worked on my book in months. I had to hit the pause button on my life for a couple of months and now I'm trying to get back into things.
I've never really known how to do that. I'm not a person who likes routine. I wish I did. Maybe I'd actually fill one of the many beautiful journals I have in my nightstand. Maybe I'd finish my damn book. But I am who I am, and I know I won't change. Instead, I have to learn to work through and around my shortcomings. I still have my goals: lose 40 more pounds and finish my book. I'm not sure how I'm going to get there, but I know that I still want to.
Current Weight: 194.2
Goal weight: 155
Monday:
Organic Oatmeal
3 squares of dark chocolate
Ollie's Trolley cheesesteak and fries
I've written this entry countless times in my head, but what good does that do? I always mean to do it, I think up a title and a few lines and then... And then life keeps moving forward. It's the way of everything in my life, it seems.
I mean to eat well. I mean to walk more, work out, do pushups and yoga, take dancing lessons, work on my book. I mean to do it all, and I mean it with a sincere energy and effort; but I guess, in the end, I still don't mean it enough.
So much has happened these past two months. Allison and I married; we bought a house and moved; she started her teaching institute. All good things. The not-so-good things: I stopped taking all of my meds and we lived in a hotel for almost two weeks. It was sweltering outside so I didn't walk nearly as much as I used to. Combined, that was an ugly cocktail for disaster. I won't know where my levels are until I go back to the doctor in September, and I'm not looking forward to it. I gained back 7.5 of the pounds that I'd lost and kept off for months, and that dinged my confidence more than I'd like to admit. I've been ignoring my health as I deal with other life events, but it's always there, just behind my shoulder, tapping me every so often as a reminder. I keep pushing it away with the idea that I feel fine, but that's not true, either, not really. I don't feel bad, I don't feel like I did in the beginning of this epic fucking journey--like I was forcing my body to do things it just didn't have the resources to do. But I don't feel good, either. I'm tired all the time, just like before. My energy level is way down and I'm reaching more and more for those bad foods that I need to stay away from. Most of it is mental, which leads to the emotional breakdown (the hardest kind to come back from). I've stopped counting my Weight Watchers points, I don't log my food, I don't drink my green lemonade anymore. My carbs are up and my steps are down. I haven't worked on my book in months. I had to hit the pause button on my life for a couple of months and now I'm trying to get back into things.
I've never really known how to do that. I'm not a person who likes routine. I wish I did. Maybe I'd actually fill one of the many beautiful journals I have in my nightstand. Maybe I'd finish my damn book. But I am who I am, and I know I won't change. Instead, I have to learn to work through and around my shortcomings. I still have my goals: lose 40 more pounds and finish my book. I'm not sure how I'm going to get there, but I know that I still want to.
Current Weight: 194.2
Goal weight: 155
Monday:
Organic Oatmeal
3 squares of dark chocolate
Ollie's Trolley cheesesteak and fries
Apr 27, 2010
Dream
Two nights ago I was talking to A about my mental state of being. Namely, that I hate the majority of my life. Oh, I'm grateful for everything I have, but it still sucks that I'm not doing what I love and that I'm not in a physical or mental place where I'm content and can just be. It was admittedly a depressing conversation. But it brought about an interesting dream.
I was in the hold of a large ship. Everything had the look and feel of a Pirates of the Caribbean movie, including the character that was "me" in the dream. There was a huge storm outside and the ship was the only means of escape. The hold was filled with all of my family's worldly possessions--furniture, food, valuables--but it was all covered in water that had risen up to my shoulders.
My dream-me's father was an old man who looked on the verge of death already, and he kept trying to hold his breath long enough to get into the submerged jewelry chests to rescue my most valuable gemstones so that we would have money to buy food once the storm was over and everyone was able to get back onto dry land. He dove under water and managed to come back with a handful of jewelry that I've made (for real) over the years. Then, in the way of dreams, he disappeared.
So did the water. The hold was dry and I was now sharing the space with a pirate. (He was a nice pirate, and yes he looked like Johnny Depp.) The furniture was gone and there were tables everywhere, each one piled high with lovely cakes of all flavors and colors. The pirate and I searched around the tables for the missing jewels that would secure my future once I was able to leave the ship, but we couldn't find them anywhere. Finally, hungry, the pirate cut a piece of one of the pretty cakes and his knife hit one of the pieces of missing jewelry. He then figured out that all of the jewelry had been hidden inside the cakes.
Before I could tear through them, the pirate warned me that we couldn't cut into the cakes before we were ready to eat them because they would spoil quickly once cut. Those cakes were the only food we had until we were able to leave the ship, so we had to be patient. Over time, we could cut and eat the cakes and extract the jewelry inside each one. Once the storm was over and I was able to leave the ship, I would then be able to sell the jewels and live happily ever after.
Dreams are funny. Those who know me well understand how important dreams are to me. This was an ordinary dream (not a D-dream) but it still told me a lot. I don't know if it was telling me my future, or just warning me to be patient, but either way it made me feel calmer and more in control of my life. It gave me a little hope.
I hope your dreams mean something to you, too.
I was in the hold of a large ship. Everything had the look and feel of a Pirates of the Caribbean movie, including the character that was "me" in the dream. There was a huge storm outside and the ship was the only means of escape. The hold was filled with all of my family's worldly possessions--furniture, food, valuables--but it was all covered in water that had risen up to my shoulders.
My dream-me's father was an old man who looked on the verge of death already, and he kept trying to hold his breath long enough to get into the submerged jewelry chests to rescue my most valuable gemstones so that we would have money to buy food once the storm was over and everyone was able to get back onto dry land. He dove under water and managed to come back with a handful of jewelry that I've made (for real) over the years. Then, in the way of dreams, he disappeared.
So did the water. The hold was dry and I was now sharing the space with a pirate. (He was a nice pirate, and yes he looked like Johnny Depp.) The furniture was gone and there were tables everywhere, each one piled high with lovely cakes of all flavors and colors. The pirate and I searched around the tables for the missing jewels that would secure my future once I was able to leave the ship, but we couldn't find them anywhere. Finally, hungry, the pirate cut a piece of one of the pretty cakes and his knife hit one of the pieces of missing jewelry. He then figured out that all of the jewelry had been hidden inside the cakes.
Before I could tear through them, the pirate warned me that we couldn't cut into the cakes before we were ready to eat them because they would spoil quickly once cut. Those cakes were the only food we had until we were able to leave the ship, so we had to be patient. Over time, we could cut and eat the cakes and extract the jewelry inside each one. Once the storm was over and I was able to leave the ship, I would then be able to sell the jewels and live happily ever after.
Dreams are funny. Those who know me well understand how important dreams are to me. This was an ordinary dream (not a D-dream) but it still told me a lot. I don't know if it was telling me my future, or just warning me to be patient, but either way it made me feel calmer and more in control of my life. It gave me a little hope.
I hope your dreams mean something to you, too.
Apr 16, 2010
Things Change
More than a month ago, I wrote my last post bemoaning my life. I really am a drama queen.
Except, that time, it was for real. Life sucked. SUCKED. In big, bold, all caps. In order to fix my body, I had to limit what I gave it. No more "this," no more "that." Fine. But then my body began to give out. Wear out. Wear thin. Along with it, my patience, my tolerance for life, my energy and my will to do anything other than breathe in and out (and barely that). I had no idea how I was supposed to live like that. I kept asking myself did it make sense to make my body healthy at the expense of the ability to enjoy my life?
So back to the doctor I went. I actually had to go back because I was still bleeding. (That's the subplot to the bigger story. I haven't stopped bleeding, daily, for more than a month now.) He examined me, took more blood, and asked how I was doing. I was honest and told him everything. Plus, he could see I looked like shit. I'm paraphrasing here, but you get the point. Something had to change.
So he changed it. He said we were going to start over, that we'd toss out the No-No List of Food. Everything was back on the table, pun intended. But I had five months. Five months to get my tail in gear and do the right thing and lose as much weight--safely, sanely--as I possibly could. Because it's a backwards domino effect: lose the weight, reverse the diabetes; reverse the diabetes, insulin stops flooding my body; stop the insulin, chill out the PCOS; chill the PCOS, get off the meds, keep my uterus and maybe even be able to get pregnant.
And here we are. In a much better place than before, and a place where I hope to stay. I feel awake again, and no longer have the urge to stay in bed and never, ever move. I can breathe, in and out, and even manage more than that. I'm grateful.
In the spirit of that gratitude, I've vowed to do everything I can to make this work this time. No more excuses, no more bullshit. I've joined Weight Watchers (for the weekly accountability) and purchased the BodyBugg (to track exactly how many calories I'm burning every day). I've compiled a list of recipes that taste good and are reasonably healthy. I say reasonably because I can't live on dry oats and lettuce, so an occasional slice of pizza is necessary to ensure that the rubber band of my willpower grows instead of stretches. Stretching, you see, just means it'll snap back into its former shape. Growth means change.
My good news: Dr. Weinstein called me last Thursday to tell me that my hemoglobin was down from 6.3 to 6.1 (under 6 means no diabetes); my triglycerides are down from 149 to 127 (proof that I've really cut my carb intake) and, best of all, my cholesterol is down from 240 to 185 (under 200 is very good).
Boo-ya, baby. I'm back on track.
Except, that time, it was for real. Life sucked. SUCKED. In big, bold, all caps. In order to fix my body, I had to limit what I gave it. No more "this," no more "that." Fine. But then my body began to give out. Wear out. Wear thin. Along with it, my patience, my tolerance for life, my energy and my will to do anything other than breathe in and out (and barely that). I had no idea how I was supposed to live like that. I kept asking myself did it make sense to make my body healthy at the expense of the ability to enjoy my life?
So back to the doctor I went. I actually had to go back because I was still bleeding. (That's the subplot to the bigger story. I haven't stopped bleeding, daily, for more than a month now.) He examined me, took more blood, and asked how I was doing. I was honest and told him everything. Plus, he could see I looked like shit. I'm paraphrasing here, but you get the point. Something had to change.
So he changed it. He said we were going to start over, that we'd toss out the No-No List of Food. Everything was back on the table, pun intended. But I had five months. Five months to get my tail in gear and do the right thing and lose as much weight--safely, sanely--as I possibly could. Because it's a backwards domino effect: lose the weight, reverse the diabetes; reverse the diabetes, insulin stops flooding my body; stop the insulin, chill out the PCOS; chill the PCOS, get off the meds, keep my uterus and maybe even be able to get pregnant.
And here we are. In a much better place than before, and a place where I hope to stay. I feel awake again, and no longer have the urge to stay in bed and never, ever move. I can breathe, in and out, and even manage more than that. I'm grateful.
In the spirit of that gratitude, I've vowed to do everything I can to make this work this time. No more excuses, no more bullshit. I've joined Weight Watchers (for the weekly accountability) and purchased the BodyBugg (to track exactly how many calories I'm burning every day). I've compiled a list of recipes that taste good and are reasonably healthy. I say reasonably because I can't live on dry oats and lettuce, so an occasional slice of pizza is necessary to ensure that the rubber band of my willpower grows instead of stretches. Stretching, you see, just means it'll snap back into its former shape. Growth means change.
My good news: Dr. Weinstein called me last Thursday to tell me that my hemoglobin was down from 6.3 to 6.1 (under 6 means no diabetes); my triglycerides are down from 149 to 127 (proof that I've really cut my carb intake) and, best of all, my cholesterol is down from 240 to 185 (under 200 is very good).
Boo-ya, baby. I'm back on track.
Mar 12, 2010
I'm Fine
I'm such a drama queen. To all my loved ones: I'm sorry. I'm sorry I worried you and sorry I allowed myself to sink so low into the muck. I promise I'm out of it now, cleaned off and ready to move forward.
I've lost 5 pounds in 5 days. For the first time in a dozen years I weigh 190 pounds. It's a good start.
And that's what I'm focusing on from now on: the good things. And they do exist. I realized last night during a major meltdown that my attitude was defeating the purpose of all of this. If I was set to live miserably for the rest of my life, which life was now going to be much longer because I'm actually taking care of myself, then that meant that my changes were only setting me up for a lifetime of being miserable. What's the point of that? Plus, my misery was making my family miserable, too, and enough was enough.
It's still hard, unbelievably so. I can't feel a little without wanting to feel it all, so every day is focused on just getting through it. Food is no longer a joy in life, it's just fuel. But I'm determined to find the energy to go out and do the things that other people (and me in the past) find fun. We're going rollerskating tonight. Sunday, we're taking the boy to the park in Bowie so he can spend time with his friends. I'd like to see the new Alice in Wonderland movie. I have my Don Maass conference next month and still have some work to do for that. All good things. That's where my focus is. That, and breaking the 190-pound mark over the weekend.
***
Thursday
Oatmeal, banana 79
365 organic macaroni and beef micro meal 159
Cheerios 111
Friday
Out of bed 98
Oatmeal, banana (will fill in later)
Amy's organic micro meal (will fill in later)
Cheerios (will fill in later)
I've lost 5 pounds in 5 days. For the first time in a dozen years I weigh 190 pounds. It's a good start.
And that's what I'm focusing on from now on: the good things. And they do exist. I realized last night during a major meltdown that my attitude was defeating the purpose of all of this. If I was set to live miserably for the rest of my life, which life was now going to be much longer because I'm actually taking care of myself, then that meant that my changes were only setting me up for a lifetime of being miserable. What's the point of that? Plus, my misery was making my family miserable, too, and enough was enough.
It's still hard, unbelievably so. I can't feel a little without wanting to feel it all, so every day is focused on just getting through it. Food is no longer a joy in life, it's just fuel. But I'm determined to find the energy to go out and do the things that other people (and me in the past) find fun. We're going rollerskating tonight. Sunday, we're taking the boy to the park in Bowie so he can spend time with his friends. I'd like to see the new Alice in Wonderland movie. I have my Don Maass conference next month and still have some work to do for that. All good things. That's where my focus is. That, and breaking the 190-pound mark over the weekend.
***
Thursday
Oatmeal, banana 79
365 organic macaroni and beef micro meal 159
Cheerios 111
Friday
Out of bed 98
Oatmeal, banana (will fill in later)
Amy's organic micro meal (will fill in later)
Cheerios (will fill in later)
Mar 11, 2010
Define Happiness and Health
My last post was two days ago and it feels like months.
I'm not being dramatic, at least not intentionally. Tuesday, Wednesday and today I have lived the "good" life, one of low-fat, low-sugar and low-cholesterol. I call it the Low Life Diet. I barely have the energy to write this post. I'm not kidding.
I've been thinking nonstop these past few days about what it really means to be healthy, and what it means to be happy. Is it healthy to not care if the world blew up tomorrow? Is it wrong to be happy surrounded by fun food? It all feels mixed up in my head.
I know how I'm supposed to feel. I'm supposed to love eating cardboard and feel refreshed and alert every morning and be full of energy to go out and bike ride all day long and clean my house from top to bottom and still have time and energy to be President of the PTA. I'm supposed to want to be so thin that my collarbone looks like it belongs to a chicken and the only curves on my body are the rounded ones of my head. When I'm happy, I'm supposed to celebrate by going for a hike, and when I'm depressed, I'm supposed to cheer myself up by writing a list of all the good things in my life.
I don't know how people live like that.
Don't get me wrong. I never wanted to be enormous and gross and waddle around wheezing from lack of oxygen to my fat-crushed lungs. I never had a goal of not being able to walk up a flight of stairs without having to stop a dozen times (once for each step). I've always wanted to be healthy, but in a sane way that would also allow me to eat my fucking macaroni and cheese every once in a while. Is that too much to ask?
Alas, according to my chemical makeup, it is. So now, instead of looking forward to dinner with my family, I rush home, shovel down a serving of Cheerios and run upstairs so I don't have to watch or smell them cooking the food I love. The kitchen used to be my home-within-a-home, the place where I was always happiest (next to the bedroom, wink wink), and now I feel like it's No Man's Land, somewhere I don't dare stay for too long for fear of what I'll do.
I'm not ready to "cook" my "healthy" "food" in there yet. In fact, there's nothing TO cook. And I'm not strong enough to watch anyone else use my pots and pans and stand where I always stood between stove and cutting boards and make some meal that I can't eat. A meal for MY family, for whom cooking was my major household contribution. Now I just try to stay out of everyone's way, including my own, and sleep as much as I can to escape from this "healthy" new lifestyle.
I really hope the happy part starts soon.
***
Tuesday
Green Lemonade, banana 100
Organic waffles without syrup, Kashi microwavable meal 95
Handful of unsalted pistacios
Cheerios with 2% milk
Wednesday
Out of bed 94
Green Lemonade, banana, plain instant organic oatmeal 104
Kashi microwavable meal 111
Cheerios with 2% milk
Thursday
Green Lemonade, banana, plain instant organic oatmeal 79
I'm not being dramatic, at least not intentionally. Tuesday, Wednesday and today I have lived the "good" life, one of low-fat, low-sugar and low-cholesterol. I call it the Low Life Diet. I barely have the energy to write this post. I'm not kidding.
I've been thinking nonstop these past few days about what it really means to be healthy, and what it means to be happy. Is it healthy to not care if the world blew up tomorrow? Is it wrong to be happy surrounded by fun food? It all feels mixed up in my head.
I know how I'm supposed to feel. I'm supposed to love eating cardboard and feel refreshed and alert every morning and be full of energy to go out and bike ride all day long and clean my house from top to bottom and still have time and energy to be President of the PTA. I'm supposed to want to be so thin that my collarbone looks like it belongs to a chicken and the only curves on my body are the rounded ones of my head. When I'm happy, I'm supposed to celebrate by going for a hike, and when I'm depressed, I'm supposed to cheer myself up by writing a list of all the good things in my life.
I don't know how people live like that.
Don't get me wrong. I never wanted to be enormous and gross and waddle around wheezing from lack of oxygen to my fat-crushed lungs. I never had a goal of not being able to walk up a flight of stairs without having to stop a dozen times (once for each step). I've always wanted to be healthy, but in a sane way that would also allow me to eat my fucking macaroni and cheese every once in a while. Is that too much to ask?
Alas, according to my chemical makeup, it is. So now, instead of looking forward to dinner with my family, I rush home, shovel down a serving of Cheerios and run upstairs so I don't have to watch or smell them cooking the food I love. The kitchen used to be my home-within-a-home, the place where I was always happiest (next to the bedroom, wink wink), and now I feel like it's No Man's Land, somewhere I don't dare stay for too long for fear of what I'll do.
I'm not ready to "cook" my "healthy" "food" in there yet. In fact, there's nothing TO cook. And I'm not strong enough to watch anyone else use my pots and pans and stand where I always stood between stove and cutting boards and make some meal that I can't eat. A meal for MY family, for whom cooking was my major household contribution. Now I just try to stay out of everyone's way, including my own, and sleep as much as I can to escape from this "healthy" new lifestyle.
I really hope the happy part starts soon.
***
Tuesday
Green Lemonade, banana 100
Organic waffles without syrup, Kashi microwavable meal 95
Handful of unsalted pistacios
Cheerios with 2% milk
Wednesday
Out of bed 94
Green Lemonade, banana, plain instant organic oatmeal 104
Kashi microwavable meal 111
Cheerios with 2% milk
Thursday
Green Lemonade, banana, plain instant organic oatmeal 79
Mar 9, 2010
Shades of Grey
Let me tell you a story. It's a little graphic and angry, just so you're warned. It will include words like "menstrual cycle" and "blood clots" so read ahead at your discretion.
I began my new drug, Januvia, on Thursday. Coincidentally, my menstrual cycle had started a day or two earlier. My period takes its sweet time getting here, even after it's made the annoucement that it's on its way, so I wasn't bleeding much yet. By Sunday night, the heavy day stage had arrived. I anticipated the usual pattern of 24-36 hours of bleeding like a stuck pig.
I always bleed a lot. I also clot, big dark-red blobs the size of my palm two or three times during a cycle. Big deal. Been doing it for twenty-five years now and it's nothing scary or even gross anymore. It is what it is. But by Monday morning, I'd racked up at least half a dozen clots and they'd doubled to the size of my whole hand. And I was bleeding even more than usual. By the time I got to work, I'd lost the usual amount of blood in two hours that I normally lose within a full day-and-a-half. At work, I went through two full days' worth of pads and tampons in two hours. Sometimes I had to change again before I even left the restroom. Then, at around 11:00 a.m., I bled through my clothes. The stain was a six-inch-square patch of red surprise. I called my doctor.
Have you ever had to call your doctor for anything other than an appointment? There's no feeling like the one you get when you briefly tell the receptionist why you're calling and instead of the usual, "Thank you, Ms. Baumann, I'll leave the message for the doctor and he'll call you back as soon as he can." you instead get, "Please hold on a moment," and less than a minute later the doctor is on the line. That's way fucking scarier than a whole bucket of blood, I swear it is.
So I told Dr. Weinstein everything and he said, "You need to come in. Can you come now?" I work in D.C. and he's sixty miles away in Baltimore so, in a nutshell, no I couldn't come now. We agreed to meet at 4:00.
In his office, he reviewed my blood sugar log (and praised me for the great work I was doing). Then he told me I need to be on cholesterol meds and the birth control pill in order to regulate my period. I told him I didn't want more pills, that I wanted to fix things through weight loss and diet, and he was understanding but adamant. "That's great," he said, "but if you're learning to tightrope walk, your first step shouldn't be to remove the safety net. If you want to lose the weight and then come off the meds and see how your body does, that'd be fine."
Then he said we could talk about it more after he'd examined me. (We always talk first and examine second.) Even though my bleeding had slowed considerably by that point, apparently I was still pretty bad off because he had to use extra pads and kept saying softly, "Wow, there's just so much blood." He asked me if I was dizzy and I admitted I was. This is normal, it seems, because as I asked him later, you actually can bleed to death through your period. Your own blood vessels "wash away" the lining of your uterus, and my blood vessels just wouldn't stop washing. Those clots, which I'd thought were actual pieces of the lining, were actually huge amounts of compressed blood. That's when he insisted that, for this month at least, I go on the pill at least to stop the bleeding. (The estrogen in the pill apparently heals the vessels and makes them stop pouring out blood.)
He asked if my uterus had been contracting, and I said it was. Then he said he's have to do another biopsy, just like the first one of months and months ago. I wasn't worried. I can deal pretty well with pain and I'd been through it before so I knew what to expect. First came the needle to my cervix to numb things. Then the little brush-wand through the cervix and which would then bend at a 90-degree angle in order to do a 360-degree sweep of my uterine walls. Last time it was rather uncomfortable. This time it felt like someone was dragging their nails inside me. And then punched me for good measure.
When it was over, my sweaty hands let go their grip on the paper gown and I tried not to cry on the table. Dr. Weinstein was as kind as ever and the pain was through no fault of his. My insides were so traumatized by the bleeding and whatever else was happening that it was as if every nerve was a live wire.
Al helped me to the bathroom and held me while I kept trying not to cry. I knew what this all meant. A blind idiot could see it. Things were steadily getting worse. In his office, after the biopsy, Dr. W told me gently and plainly that we had to get this under control or I would get uterine cancer. He didn't mince words, though he spoke kindly. There was no other option. Either it gets fixed or else. And there's only one way to fix it.
Food.
Of course.
No more candy, ice cream or sweets (except the occasionaly dark chocolate piece)
No more potatoes, period
Very little carbs of any kind including the whole wheat variety, because of my cholesterol
Limited dairy and red meat, also because of my cholesterol
No fried foods
No fast foods
No foods cooked in butter
Here's the bounty of what I can have:
A few fruits and all the non-starchy vegetables that I can choke down
Skinless baked chicken the size of a deck of cards, 2 or 3 times a week
Fish (which I don't eat) 2 or 3 times a week
Dry beans
Olive oil
Nuts (no peanuts), 1 serving a day
Lucky fucking me.
It's taken me over two hours to write all of this because I have to keep stopping to compose myself. I am at work, after all.
Not many people understand why this is so hard. Allow me to explain.
If I told you that you had a serious health concern, a really serious one, and that you needed to fix this health issue immediately, would you do whatever was necessary to make things right with your body? What if I told you that the only fix for your health issue was to be rendered completely color-blind? Not the usual kind where blues and greens get mixed up. I mean completely unable to discern any kind of color at all. Would you be okay with the idea that you'd be a perfectly healthy person who could only see in shades of grey? That you'd never again see the beautiful blue of your lover's eyes, or the golden red of your son's hair? When other people ooh and aah over the gorgeous cherry blossoms or spectacular fireworks, would you be able to stand there and smile politely, having only a memory of those things?
This is what it's like for me. To everyone who doesn't have a food relationship like I do, this may sound dramatic and extreme, and maybe it's both, but it's still the truth. This type of dietary restriction severs huge parts of my life. No more dinners out. Why? Because I'm not strong enough to sit there and have a good time eating my salad and broccoli while everyone else is enjoying a steak and a baked potato. And no, I can't ask or expect--I won't ask or expect--my friends to limit themselves just because of my stupid health issues. It also means no fairs or outdoor (or indoor) events where they sell food. A cokehead wouldn't be expected to walk through a maze of cut Columbian Gold, would they? No luches with friends, no eating out at all, unless it's at some miraculous place that sells only what I can eat. No family dinners, because why in the hell would I subject anyone else to this shit. Maybe, if I'm a really good girl, I can still do Thanksgiving. There, something to look forward to.
So my stress is still at the same level--my job is nothing but a paycheck that I can't give up, my workdays are 12 hours long thanks to my commute, I have no time for family or writing career thanks to my full-time health regime, I'm nowhere near where I want to be in life--yet my one and only affordable stress reliever is gone. Now what?
Seriously. Now what?
And if I read one more article where someone recommends replacing food with working out, I'm hunting the author down and taking a dumbbell to their head. I fucking mean it.
And the worst part of it all is that I'm not supposed to feel anything about this. Can't feel sad, because then I'm just feeling sorry for myself. Can't feel angry, because it's my own damn fault. Can't cry, because that's just plain wussy. Having to swallow this and pretend that it's just another day in the neighborhood is killing me faster than potatoes were.
This is my life now.
I began my new drug, Januvia, on Thursday. Coincidentally, my menstrual cycle had started a day or two earlier. My period takes its sweet time getting here, even after it's made the annoucement that it's on its way, so I wasn't bleeding much yet. By Sunday night, the heavy day stage had arrived. I anticipated the usual pattern of 24-36 hours of bleeding like a stuck pig.
I always bleed a lot. I also clot, big dark-red blobs the size of my palm two or three times during a cycle. Big deal. Been doing it for twenty-five years now and it's nothing scary or even gross anymore. It is what it is. But by Monday morning, I'd racked up at least half a dozen clots and they'd doubled to the size of my whole hand. And I was bleeding even more than usual. By the time I got to work, I'd lost the usual amount of blood in two hours that I normally lose within a full day-and-a-half. At work, I went through two full days' worth of pads and tampons in two hours. Sometimes I had to change again before I even left the restroom. Then, at around 11:00 a.m., I bled through my clothes. The stain was a six-inch-square patch of red surprise. I called my doctor.
Have you ever had to call your doctor for anything other than an appointment? There's no feeling like the one you get when you briefly tell the receptionist why you're calling and instead of the usual, "Thank you, Ms. Baumann, I'll leave the message for the doctor and he'll call you back as soon as he can." you instead get, "Please hold on a moment," and less than a minute later the doctor is on the line. That's way fucking scarier than a whole bucket of blood, I swear it is.
So I told Dr. Weinstein everything and he said, "You need to come in. Can you come now?" I work in D.C. and he's sixty miles away in Baltimore so, in a nutshell, no I couldn't come now. We agreed to meet at 4:00.
In his office, he reviewed my blood sugar log (and praised me for the great work I was doing). Then he told me I need to be on cholesterol meds and the birth control pill in order to regulate my period. I told him I didn't want more pills, that I wanted to fix things through weight loss and diet, and he was understanding but adamant. "That's great," he said, "but if you're learning to tightrope walk, your first step shouldn't be to remove the safety net. If you want to lose the weight and then come off the meds and see how your body does, that'd be fine."
Then he said we could talk about it more after he'd examined me. (We always talk first and examine second.) Even though my bleeding had slowed considerably by that point, apparently I was still pretty bad off because he had to use extra pads and kept saying softly, "Wow, there's just so much blood." He asked me if I was dizzy and I admitted I was. This is normal, it seems, because as I asked him later, you actually can bleed to death through your period. Your own blood vessels "wash away" the lining of your uterus, and my blood vessels just wouldn't stop washing. Those clots, which I'd thought were actual pieces of the lining, were actually huge amounts of compressed blood. That's when he insisted that, for this month at least, I go on the pill at least to stop the bleeding. (The estrogen in the pill apparently heals the vessels and makes them stop pouring out blood.)
He asked if my uterus had been contracting, and I said it was. Then he said he's have to do another biopsy, just like the first one of months and months ago. I wasn't worried. I can deal pretty well with pain and I'd been through it before so I knew what to expect. First came the needle to my cervix to numb things. Then the little brush-wand through the cervix and which would then bend at a 90-degree angle in order to do a 360-degree sweep of my uterine walls. Last time it was rather uncomfortable. This time it felt like someone was dragging their nails inside me. And then punched me for good measure.
When it was over, my sweaty hands let go their grip on the paper gown and I tried not to cry on the table. Dr. Weinstein was as kind as ever and the pain was through no fault of his. My insides were so traumatized by the bleeding and whatever else was happening that it was as if every nerve was a live wire.
Al helped me to the bathroom and held me while I kept trying not to cry. I knew what this all meant. A blind idiot could see it. Things were steadily getting worse. In his office, after the biopsy, Dr. W told me gently and plainly that we had to get this under control or I would get uterine cancer. He didn't mince words, though he spoke kindly. There was no other option. Either it gets fixed or else. And there's only one way to fix it.
Food.
Of course.
No more candy, ice cream or sweets (except the occasionaly dark chocolate piece)
No more potatoes, period
Very little carbs of any kind including the whole wheat variety, because of my cholesterol
Limited dairy and red meat, also because of my cholesterol
No fried foods
No fast foods
No foods cooked in butter
Here's the bounty of what I can have:
A few fruits and all the non-starchy vegetables that I can choke down
Skinless baked chicken the size of a deck of cards, 2 or 3 times a week
Fish (which I don't eat) 2 or 3 times a week
Dry beans
Olive oil
Nuts (no peanuts), 1 serving a day
Lucky fucking me.
It's taken me over two hours to write all of this because I have to keep stopping to compose myself. I am at work, after all.
Not many people understand why this is so hard. Allow me to explain.
If I told you that you had a serious health concern, a really serious one, and that you needed to fix this health issue immediately, would you do whatever was necessary to make things right with your body? What if I told you that the only fix for your health issue was to be rendered completely color-blind? Not the usual kind where blues and greens get mixed up. I mean completely unable to discern any kind of color at all. Would you be okay with the idea that you'd be a perfectly healthy person who could only see in shades of grey? That you'd never again see the beautiful blue of your lover's eyes, or the golden red of your son's hair? When other people ooh and aah over the gorgeous cherry blossoms or spectacular fireworks, would you be able to stand there and smile politely, having only a memory of those things?
This is what it's like for me. To everyone who doesn't have a food relationship like I do, this may sound dramatic and extreme, and maybe it's both, but it's still the truth. This type of dietary restriction severs huge parts of my life. No more dinners out. Why? Because I'm not strong enough to sit there and have a good time eating my salad and broccoli while everyone else is enjoying a steak and a baked potato. And no, I can't ask or expect--I won't ask or expect--my friends to limit themselves just because of my stupid health issues. It also means no fairs or outdoor (or indoor) events where they sell food. A cokehead wouldn't be expected to walk through a maze of cut Columbian Gold, would they? No luches with friends, no eating out at all, unless it's at some miraculous place that sells only what I can eat. No family dinners, because why in the hell would I subject anyone else to this shit. Maybe, if I'm a really good girl, I can still do Thanksgiving. There, something to look forward to.
So my stress is still at the same level--my job is nothing but a paycheck that I can't give up, my workdays are 12 hours long thanks to my commute, I have no time for family or writing career thanks to my full-time health regime, I'm nowhere near where I want to be in life--yet my one and only affordable stress reliever is gone. Now what?
Seriously. Now what?
And if I read one more article where someone recommends replacing food with working out, I'm hunting the author down and taking a dumbbell to their head. I fucking mean it.
And the worst part of it all is that I'm not supposed to feel anything about this. Can't feel sad, because then I'm just feeling sorry for myself. Can't feel angry, because it's my own damn fault. Can't cry, because that's just plain wussy. Having to swallow this and pretend that it's just another day in the neighborhood is killing me faster than potatoes were.
This is my life now.
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