It's Amazing I Could Write This Entry at All

I was up the first half of the night with Peter, who threw up six times (the first of which tagged the comforter, the sheets, the pillow, the bedskirt, and the wall - pooling into a giant, disgusting swamp on the floor.) Dave gave Peter a bath and I cleaned the room. I then offered to take the rest of the night, as Henry had the same thing on Friday night and the Amazing Dave got up every time, changing sheets 3 times and helping Henry.

Peter stopped barfing around 2:30am. Unfortunately, I woke up barfing at 3:15 am. I was throwing up and not sleeping until 6 am, when I finally dozed until 9am. I am also in the middle of a huge Fibromyalgia flare - my arms, fingers, wrists, hips and back hurt so much that I couldn't fall asleep even though I was exhausted. I threw up the meds I took for pain relief last night and figured they'd just come right back up this morning (good call, as I kept throwing up all the way to 3pm). And on top of everything else, I'm having my period. I am as sick as I have ever been.

I had to lay in bed all day and finally got some liquid Vic0din down around 4pm, and it stayed down. I finally slept, until about 6 - just in time to catch the State of the Union address.

I have not been this sick for as long as I can remember. I couldn't even check email or use the computer until 6pm - you know that's sick for me! I was far too sick to even watch TV - I could only lie there and listen to podcasts. God bless Dave, for staying home and working while taking care of the kids. God bless Henry's friend, who invited him over to play in the snow for the day (I already have big guilt on snow days because I can't go sledding with my kids or play in the snow without putting myself into a big flare - I started in a flare and quite literally could not get out of bed).

Water is staying down, and I could actually follow some of the State of the Union. I hope I feel better tomorrow. It makes me envious of small children - Peter feels fine now (aside from the lack of sleep).

I'm also wondering if having the Band makes it a bit harder to purge the stomach-flu toxins completely. Peter barfed up his dinner, etc. I ony managed to barf up a pain pill (eww!) and lots of mucous. I wonder if I didn't have the Band if I'd been able to fully throw up the first time and therefore save myself some hours of agony. Have any of you had a similar experience? Let me know your thoughts on Lap-Band and the stomach flu.

I'm so grateful to have a support network to get me through days like this.

The Screwed-Up Perfectionist Does it Differently

Through some good debriefing and therapy, I figured out (at least some of) the source of the recent depression I went through and the scary alcohol cravings.

This season, this last set of holidays from Thanksgiving till December, is the first one I have done differently. I mean really differently – wholly, from-my-heart, at-my-core differently.

In my family (and therefore in my head) the only two choices available to me were: Complete Screw-Up, or Absolute Perfectionist. I tried my hardest to do the Perfectionist thing, and got pretty good at it in general, but any time I made the slightest mistake, I slipped (in my family’s eyes) into a Complete Screw-Up. (I will acknowledge this was not the intent of my family, and that my interpretation is unique to me. I have to deal with my own head, however it got programmed.)

This has had many different and sneakily pervasive effects on the way I do things: I think I have subconsciously chosen Screw-Up sometimes because I know I can’t do Perfectionist (no one can do it well enough, really). One huge instance (and the one this blog is about) is my weight.

My choices in the past were: Eat Absolutely Perfectly from Thanksgiving till New Year’s, loudly proclaiming my intent at every opportunity and eschewing all sweets or anything “bad”. I should be above the rest - haughty even – disdaining all those without my amazing and admirable Will Power. I have lost 35 pounds at a time in 8-week chunks this way. OR, choice two was Complete Screw-Up: eating every sweet that came my way, whether it tasted good or not. I didn’t know when I’d get to binge like this again, and we all know I’m a Screw-Up anyway, so why even try? I hung my head in shame, right next to the dessert table. I’d easily gain 10-35 pounds in a month this way.

Multiply those choices times a thousand, through many different seasons and instances, and you get part of the picture of how I got to be 314 pounds. (And how I have lost big chunks of weight in short periods, only to gain it back again, plus more).

But this year, I did it differently. I started planning ahead and stuck to the schedule to try to minimize the effects of my chronic pain and unpredictable fatigue. I had no all-night wrapping or shopping sessions, my decorations went up (and came down) as planned, and I enjoyed many a gathering while planning well-enough in advance for each to truly enjoy them. Were the events Perfect? Not by a long-shot. But I avoided the Screw-Up Crisis Mentality and the Absolute-Perfectionist-Whose-Events-Are-Perfect-But-Who-Is-
Emotionally-Unavailable Mentality and was content with Good Enough.

Also, I was Real with the food. Sometimes, I had sweets when they looked particularly good, but I could always stop after a couple. After one cocktail party, where I drank a martini too many and had an appetizer too many, I had a horrible night’s sleep. The next day I had another party to attend where I chose to only consume water. Not out of Absolute Perfectionist virtue, or out of fear of becoming Complete Screw-Up, but because THAT’S ALL MY BODY WANTED. I learned from the night before and decided to do it differently the next day – not out of shame, or out of pride, but out of desire. It was thrilling, and freeing to be so in tune with my needs.

Throughout the holidays, I lost about 7 pounds. I gained 2 back during that horrible week of sickness (physical and mental) but the scale has quickly dropped back, 3 pounds lower than before. 10 pounds in the two months from Thanksgiving to the end of January? I’m really proud of this. I didn’t gain 15 pounds (like last year) or lose some crazy Perfectionist pounds that are waiting to jump right back on – I just slowly and surely, by listening to my body and using my tool (including a fill and then slight un-fill) am losing weight.

Realizing how differently I did everything threw my subconscious into a tailspin. It didn’t know what to do if I wasn’t either Absolute Perfectionist or Complete Screw-Up. I sabotaged myself for a few days by not taking my meds and by drinking too much. The laryngitis kept me from my therapist, who might have helped me figure it out sooner. It is really difficult to make true changes, changes at the core. My subconscious likes my old crisis mentality and my weight – it’s familiar and makes me feel normal, even if it’s bad-normal. I got out of touch with my needs and tried to head back to the Screw-Up role that is more comfortable.

I am so grateful for my Lap-Band and for my therapist and for all my new-found and hard-earned skills that keep me from falling down the abyss into places where I can no longer climb back. This is the real victory. This is where it counts.

Days of Darkness

I was not doing well for a few days there. I felt horrible – the bronchitis/laryngitis was awful. But I also had a big wave of apathy. And a huge craving for large amounts of alcohol. In addition, my libido was down to ZERO. Which, if you know me, is extremely unusual.

I’m not sure where all this came from…. The after-holidays blues? I can’t think of any particular incident or thing that would throw me for such a loop. I had a few things going on – I hadn’t been able to make it to therapy because I couldn’t talk (and the week before we didn’t meet because of the holiday)… and I had not been good about taking my anti-depressant. I don’t know why I do that. Maybe because the pills weren’t going down? My band felt pretty tight for a while and I had problems with pills, but I don’t know what I was doing, letting my meds go. I kept taking my night medications, but the antidepressant fell by the wayside. Was it Freudian intentionality? I don’t know.

The apathy was really weird. I want to chalk it up to the sickness, but I’m not sure that was entirely it. I was 2 days late with an assignment for Chinese class (that truly was because I was so sick the idea of it overwhelmed me, and the online system kept crashing every 3 minutes), but usually I have the come-hell-or-high-water kind of perseverance. It was strange to know I was blowing a deadline and not really care that much. It didn’t feel like “me”.

What scared me the most was the alcohol cravings. Three nights in a row, I drank a lot. All I could think about was the cocktails. The way the ice clanks in the shaker like elaborate gears as they become little cold and sweet floating crystals adding a nearly imperceptible crunch in the smoothness of the drink. The burn of the vodka. The sweet and sour of the amaretto. The punch of the freshly-squeezed Clementine orange. The many-layered spices in the gin as it goes down. Apparently I don’t want to numb myself with bulk and straight alcohol. – I want to do it with style. Although after a while I started using a tumbler instead of my pretty martini glasses (because they hold more). And I stopped shaking the cocktails (unnecessary and time-consuming). And didn’t measure (balanced flavors no longer mattered). I just liked the buzz – the tipsy feeling of everything going a bit soft around the edges. A numbing of my awareness – of what? My responsibilities? My frustrations? I’m not quite sure. All I know, is that I didn’t want to know. When it would wear off, I’d pour some more.

I never got drunk, although I was tempted – and I don’t know why – I had never been tempted that way before. Alcoholism runs in my family, so deadening my feelings with it is always a red flag for me. Even scarier was that one night I was determined not to drink, and I did it anyway. I sleep horribly when I do that – I toss and turn and feel like I never hit REM sleep. I had a headache all night (but it was gone in the morning). It’s been days now without a drink and I don’t feel the pull at all, but I wonder where that strong pull came from. Is it part of the Band? Am I trying to sabotage my eating/weight progress by consuming lots of empty liquid calories? It feels like more than that, but I’m not sure.

I also had big problems with restless leg syndrome. I normally have periodic limb movement disorder (PLMD), which is similar, but much less pronounced – it only affects my sleep and I’m not consciously aware of it. But for those few days, my legs drove me crazy in the evenings. I had to move them constantly to keep the creepy-crawly feeling at bay. I would sit in my chair, trying to keep that slight gin buzz going, and my left leg would start agitating me. I’d wiggle it a little, trying to quiet it down – thinking I had confused my brain a bit and was just feeling edgy all over, but then it would bug me again. It felt a lot like anxiety and depression - but in a body part instead of my mind. When I have it in my mind, I want to physically shake it all off, to slough off the feeling like a molting snakeskin. In my leg, I wanted to shake it off – like discouraging a mosquito to land, or brushing off a fly. But it was constant and more insistent. I kept wiggling and it kept bothering me. After I took my PLMD meds for the night, it got a little better. But I’ve never felt the restless leg so clearly before.

It’s been 4 days since I got on the antibiotic, 3 days since I’ve had a drink, and 5 since I started taking my antidepressants again regularly. I’ve gone to bed on a regular schedule the last 3 nights, and even got up early yesterday to work out.

Today things look so much brighter and things feel much more stable, but I’m wondering where the days of darkness came from. Is it as simple as the combination of being off the antidepressant and being really sick? I don’t know. It feels like more than that, but I’ll just have to keep living and feeling and thinking and praying and writing to find out.

Speechless

No, not by any overwhelming incident, or gift (although the gifts were amazingly generous and heartfelt, and we did have a Christmas Eve ER incident…more on that later), but speechless because of laryngitis.

I felt it coming on and thought I had staved it off with a couple of days of rest and then an actual, full-on, watch-the-entire-second-
season-of-Arrested-Development-because-I’m-so-sick day. But then I woke up today, the first day of the year, with hardly any voice at all. I’m feeling mostly ok – worse than yesterday, but much better than the day before – but my voice is quite gone.

And, you've probably noticed how my voice has been gone here on the blog as well.

I’m still learning about the care and feeding of my body, my mind, my soul, and my blog. There were many things I wanted to post, but didn’t. I’m still figuring out how to do all the things that I want to in a way that feels good to me and not a chore.

Here’s to 2008. All the best to all of us, on so many levels.