I understand the need to help someone out. Really, I do. What I do not understand is how it is helpful to point out something that both of us know that I know and understand. When someone is sick and makes some poor choices, they get that those choices were likely not the best ones but made them anyway. Given the choice between bad and worse, generally we choose bad. Given the choice between temporary relief and more suffering, I was weak for the past few months and made a really bad choice that gave me temporary relief until it exploded in my face. It was not worth the mess, since I had to clean it up – while still sick mind you – but you can’t put a price on the that little bit of relief.
Some background may help. I have stomach issues and type I diabetes. Together they are a super power team of hideous. The diet for both is pretty well the opposite ends of the spectrum and when one goes a little off course they join hands and jump off the cliff together. Fun times for all. Sort of. At least my middle child thinks its fun since Dad takes him to stay at Grandma’s house and they all four share one huge bed and get to talk all night and eat way past bed time and drink tea before bed too. And sometimes they stay up until midnight. While I get poked and prodded and lectured in the hospital. Usually by that time, though I am seeing double or triple, can’t focus or remember anything and hardly am able to keep my eyes open. Last time I woke up to the doctor apologizing to me since she had a really long needle stuck in my wrist and she was moving it around trying to find the artery since arterial readings are much more accurate. I didn’t wake up because of the pain, I actually woke up because I think she swore or something close to it and it sounded funny. I had a bruise from wrist to elbow the next day and a promise from the nurse not to be gone when the doctor came to take another reading. Anyway, that aside. I end up in pretty bad shape. This last time I have had trouble keeping anything inside me and so decided that for the most part I wouldn’t put too much inside of me. It seemed a good idea in theory. If you discount how you need nutrients and sustenance and all that stuff that helps you survive. Well, by the week marker I had dropped another almost fifteen pounds and was the weight I think I was when I was twelve. Needless to say, it wasn’t pretty and although I have never really been overweight or really out of shape in my life I was never really skinny either. Skinny is not easy like people think. I gave myself bruises from sitting on hard surfaces; you are too bony for your own good. I was also malnourished so I was weak and tired all the time and my cognitive abilities were reduced to that of using all my energy to concentrate on breathing and walking at the same time. So, I was in pretty bad shape and saw how I was doing it to myself but by that time I couldn’t eat because I would just puke it back out within the half hour and I really tried not to. There was little I could keep in, I resorted to drinking so many slushes because it was cooling on the heartburn that preceded the puking and since it was in there for such a short time it was cool coming out and didn’t hurt like even water did. Still does it to me but I am handling it slightly better. I also can’t see all of my bones anymore, a slight improvement. Scales and mirrors are enemies. My husband would try to understand but it gets tiring for me so I understood his frustrations, even when he tried to hide them from me. And then the inevitable hospital stay came. And that is when I got more advice then I knew what to do with. Well, I knew what I wanted to do but it isn’t their fault that the people around me just didn’t think before talking.
I went in because I couldn’t stop puking, which I knew would end up in a week or more in hospital if I didn’t get it under control, plus I was down under 110lbs, so I really didn’t have much more weight to lose (I am usually happy around the 135 mark, sometimes a little more because these sick times tend to happen and I just drop suddenly so it is like extra insurance). Got the fluids I needed and a great doctor who told me that he could keep me in if I wanted to, if I was leery of going home or I could just go since there isn’t too much to do for me except readjust some things with my regular doctor. He gave me the urgent paper to fax to her and I was on my way home. Not fully recovered but enough not to pass out when I go up the stairs. It worked enough for me. I am on a tight leash now, if anything happens I will go back and make that stay but for now I am happy where I am, or at least content not to be there.
When I got back is when the fun starts. I would just like to take this time to answer some questions that I feel are insane, inane and just plain ignorant to ask.
Yes, I am a mother and I do know that my children need me. I still wipe two out of three of their butts after they go to the bathroom. If that is not an indication that they need me, on the basic level, then I do not know what is. I am here with them all of the time, not most of the time; when I go out anywhere I take them with me, my life sort of revolves around them at this point so yes; yes I know that my three boys need me in their lives – and for more than just the butt wiping. It is hard to forget such a thing when I wake up to them and go to sleep after checking on them; after doing school work with them; after cooking and making sure that they have all the nutritional needs met; after playing with them; after taking them to hockey and gymnastics and skating and swimming and track and all of the other little things we do in those free minutes we have in a week. I remember that they are mine every moment I breathe and I know that what I am doing is affecting them. I get it. I understand and yet, here I am making bad choices that make me feel less pain. Do you want to know why? So that I can manage to do all of those things that I mentioned. So that I can be present for those three boys you are so helpfully pointing out need me. And on the days that I just don’t have the energy to take three different people in three different directions, just so you don’t think I am tiring myself out with those activities alone, I do the things I do so that I can be present enough to talk with them, keep an eye on the middle one who has to touch and deconstruct everything. Everything. I do it so that my time can be spent sitting on the couch and watching them, even if I can’t participate with them I can look at what they show me and make sure no one is going to do something crazy; so that I am not hunched over a bucket puking out stomach acid or lining or the really gross things that happen when there is nothing left to puke out. I have done so in almost every arena we have played in, there are many (not only do we live in Canada but in a city that has produced many NHL players and which prides itself on making great hockey players). I hold it in until intermission is over so I end up missing the first few minutes of the period but at least no one hears me hacking…it is kind of gross. So, to round this off; yes, I know they need me but it is a little more complicated than that.
I know my husband needs me. We actually are very practical people and he does not take the time to make up stories or beat around the bush. He lays out what he thinks and feels and that is just something you have to deal with. So I know exactly where he stands and what he relies on me for. Which, is how everyone points out, pretty well everything. I help him out almost more than I do the kids, although I draw the line at butt-wiping, he is very capable of that. And that is fine by me, as I said we came into this eyes wide open and understanding. We may have been young but we understood the meaning and implications of long term and here we are. I am a little less of me than there was in the waist and he has made up for that, or so I tell him which doesn’t go over too well anymore. I mean, he is trying to get fit and is still well over a hundred pounds heavier than I am, granted he is almost a foot taller too but a girl has got to take all the ammo she can! Anyway, I know he needs me and we work around what I am going through now and he tries to help where he can. It just doesn’t work that he has a very sensitive nose and gag reflex so he is useless in that area but he helps me get by. Just as I help him. In the end, again, yes I know he needs me.
My favorite one is as soon as a woman starts losing weight she has an eating disorder. I didn’t think I was fat before. I was actually happy with my size and I didn’t even own a scale, my husband was the one who bought one and for work out purposes for himself. He doesn’t mind if I use it but I don’t think it matters to him one way or the other. I get curious when others talk about their weight and I wonder at the numbers they put out. I don’t think any of them are realistic. I am light now and the weight they say and I have bones sticking out all over the place and nothing left of me. That is not pretty or beautiful and it is the ideal weight?! Maybe I am missing something since I was never a true dieter like that, healthy diet sure, overall eating habits changed, yes; but not the diet to lose pounds kind of thing. More for the added energy and longevity. And none of this feeling I have now, which since my problems are all of a metabolic nature, diet is pretty imperative. So, that question answered.
Finally, one simple final thought that I always wonder when these people are done giving me this truly inspiring advice. I mean, I understand that you care; the reason for pointing out how many people need me is an attempt to motivate me to change and get better and all of that but I still can’t help but let my mind wander. You understand that most of what happens to me is related to anxiety in some form, that stress takes an actual physical reaction in my body and creates a portion of the deadly, toxic things that help to maintain this level of un-health. So, why the hell do you then ask questions that ingrained in their very nature and purpose is to induce stress? The point of telling me that these kids need me, that my husband would be lost without me, that I will likely die if I keep this up, is to create anxiety but in reality what I need is to actually reduce my anxiety level? Do you realize what you are doing? Do you like being part of the problem? I know you are attempting to help me out with a solution, and I am grateful to you but really, just as you point out to me to think…maybe you should too? Pots and kettles come to mind, as do geese and ganders(?); however, I am too polite to say this to most people and then the people I do say it to are the ones that are there to help me through thick and thin and it comes out rude. Well, I am sorry but it gets tiring and hard to handle when every time I turn around someone is pointing out how not healthy I am. I know. I live in this body and I feel it falling apart, and although I may not seem like I am trying to get better, I am. I am trying. It is hard and it is daunting. So perhaps, whoever is reading this, when you see someone you just want to shake and tell them to get a grip you can’t watch them tear themselves apart…maybe that is not what they need. They get it, believe me most of the time these people know what is going on. It just is so hard to change that and get going in the right direction. A helping hand, a word of encouragement, some assistance doing the tasks that are now becoming increasingly difficult: this is the help that is needed. I am sorry to say that most of the time trying to make someone who suffers from anxiety feel guilty enough to change actually makes them anxious enough to get worse. That is the reality of the situation. I know where I stand in life. Unfortunately at this time it is with swollen ankles, bloated belly, severe stomach and intestinal pains, unbelievable nausea, and an extremely pms-y disposition. But at least I know it. And I do intend to change it. I know I have people that rely on me, things to do, people to see, and even some housecleaning to finish; so yes, I do want to change, I do want to get better. I am working on it. You can help me to do so or not. But if you are just going to rain down the insane, inane and ridiculous advice and line of stress inducing questions, please find someone else who needs your help more than I do. That would be anyone else.
A/N: last chapter I said that PapaBooks had a stroke a few weeks ago, one of the reasons I was not on this site as often. It happens that this sickness discussed here actually caused me to have to go into the hospital for a week...three days after he did. I felt sorry for BigMamaBooks as the hospital I was at and the one he was at were on the exact opposite sides of the city, actually mine was not even in the city but a town that sort of expanded to touch city limits to ours and is close to our houses, his was about 45 minutes away. it also snowed...like a lot and the windchill went down to -45C, after being super nice that all the snow melted and was consequently turned to ice....and it was a weekend so the city runner people were slow on the uptake and didn't get the roads being sanded and cleared of the like two feet of snow that got dumped on her. PapaBooks still had little recollection of anyone aside from his children, brothers and wife so I told her I understood that although I was spoiled my entire life I would not complain if she didn't come to visit me but went to him instead. He was also very perceptive and although i didn't tell him i was in hospital so he would worry more (I have had this happen a few times in the past) he kept telling me he felt like i was sick and that he needed to be there for me. It was hard, parents*shakes head smiling* Needless to say, with official warnings to stay at home unless you need to go out, I was alone with my thoughts and this popped out. this whole concept actually and there are a bunch more commentarants coming. I had a week. The hospital had no internet (seriously), I don't like the Booklets coming to the hospital and they were staying with relatives who are from the desert, so snow and windchills and such evoke hibernation, and Mr.Books was unable to leave his client load to another and had to go to work nights. So again, alone with my thoughts. And a pen and notebook. Be prepared for more gems from the Library!