From the Horse's Mouth

As I explained to my counselor yesterday, I hate taking pills. I hate feeling dependent on synthetic crap to make me "work right." I hate needing medicine. I hate owning up to the fact that I have any disease or disorder. But I do: High blood pressure. Hypothyroidism. Diabetes.

I talked at length for most of our session to make clear the feelings I have about asking my doctor to go back to taking medicines that regulate my hormones and insulin output. I do take high blood pressure medicine without complaint...mostly because I feel horrid if I don't. The headaches and general discomfort have hammered that prescription into my daily life. I hate that, too.

But I went on and on about how I've been able to regulate the Diabetes AND increase thyroid activity by diet and exercise - not to mention that I've been truly consistent with neither for a year. Of course I didn't mention that part! Fortunately, I've been to this counselor regularly since before my mom died and she knows that while there was a good six months, once upon a time, when I DID do spectacularly well via diet and exercise (and was improving my BP and every other important regulated system in my body,) that time is past...and my attitude toward drug-taking is obsolete.

I tried to diffuse her argument, saying that I did it once so could do it again. Do you know want what she said to me? She said, "Isn't that interesting that you want to be healthy, but you want to do so on your own terms. You want everything to work out the way you want it to, but you're not willing to do the things you need to do for that to happen." I was quiet for the pause. "Isn't that what your mother tried to do?"

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I can't say what I felt at that wallop, but I heard the truth. And in the span of only a few minutes, I relived the aching hours spent watching my mom's body disintegrate before my very eyes. That is what she tried to do. How much am I like her? And how do I stop before I become what she has become?

The question led me to a day long search for a physician who works with patients who experience metabolic syndromes like Diabetes and Hypothyroidism (and whose family history is full of heart disease and strokes and cancers).

I found someone who has a private practice over 2 hours north of where I live and I'm going to go see her. I've already sent her an email sort of outlining what is happening with me. My luck, she is taking new patients and can accommodate out of town people like me...and has done gobs and gobs of work to help individuals like me whose genetic predisposition is the suck.

So tonight/this morning I feel intensely mortal, delicate as tissue paper, and have not been able to sleep with all the worry over what my body is doing now. I am sorry it took such a jolt of awareness to make me look in the mirror that doesn't reflect Wendy: separate from her mom, but Wendy: the overlay on her mom's sad image. At least it took.

Out with the Old

The definition of insanity is an idea I've taken very seriously, and paid better attention to, since the (June) death of my mother. I can't continue to look for windows of opportunity to leap at possible weight loss options, or dive into a program designed to make me thin and healthy, only to come up short or quit too soon. Behavior like that isn't going to make me anything but tired and even more overweight - but I've done it for most of my life. The result of that pattern has yet to be successful. I'm trying something new.

But first, a picture to share: My mother was a little over 300 pounds in her hospital bed. She didn't weigh that much because of fat. She weighed that much because of fluid, an abundance of which was the result of blood product backed up because a faulty valve would not permit it to flow through her heart.  She was swollen and it hurt her to move and to breathe. It prevented her from properly feeling my hand in hers.

I could believe that my mom would be living today if not for that valve, which is a truth, but the greater truth is that my mom would be living today if she was able to end her addiction to truly harmful foods.

It is an embarrassing idea, food addiction. It's not a gritty or street feel like drug or sex addiction, not a sorrowful, shameful feel like alcohol addiction. It has its own little sting and it's own slow, costly, painful game of roulette.

I have a food addiction and a major weight problem to pair with it. And like my mother I tried very hard to not have one any more, but an addiction is an addiction is an addiction and it is still there at the end of the diet program. It is still there when the commercials on TV tell you to run for the border. It is still there when you've stayed up way, too late and are honestly hungry again. The addiction doesn't stray.

I am NOT in agreement with America's new attack obesity - let's get that said right now.  I AM in agreement with Americans using their God-given free will to change their lives, so no government bailouts in the form of special diets and crude lawmaking, thanks. I believe I can manage my addiction, and I'll tell you how:

By choosing to accept that I will always be addicted to food - especially certain ones. By understanding the response of my body is the result of my choices. By creating a supportive environment for myself. By sharing the process. By making my life about me and my health.

That's not to say, "Fuck everybody else." It's to prevent me from being over 300 pounds in a hospital bed with no way to get out of fluid-filled prison. I'll tell you how I'm doing that, next.