twentyfirstcenturycanary

… After that last post, I re-read some of the comments, and thought, you know maybe I need to go to some Overeaters Anonymous meetings, and talk about this. Its logistically tricky getting to OA but if I was talking to someone else who was trying to say stop drinking, I would say put the meetings first and do whatever it takes to get to them.

I suppose its been harder to stick to it since the hospital cancelled my operation date. or maybe just because it’s extremely difficult. Either way, I’m finding it very hard to stick to the diet. A lot of the time I think ‘I just can’t do this’. Other times i genuinely think I would cope better and lose more on a low cal diet rather than no food. The side effects are horrible and its an unrealistic way to live life. I’ve not shared a meal with my boyfriend for weeks, or cooked for him, or him for me. I’m starting to think maybe being this ill-suited to a liquid-only diet is just a test, and I’m failing, and they won’t give me the operation. If I could have dieted like this anyway I wouldn’t be going for the operation.

I always thought that my eating disorder is my lifetimes work; that by the time I had got some equilibrium with it I might be 60. By then, at this weight, I’d probably be in a wheelchair or dead. So my thinking is that the operation gives me a chance to live longer, do more, and hence have more opportunity to work it out. After all, its hard to go to therapy after work if you’re carrying 16 stone of extra weight and every step leaves you tired.

Now I’m just sick of calling the hospital, sick of the side effects of a VLCD, tired, anxious, and resentful. And late for work.

Anxious, numb, nauseous, low.

There we go, that was a good blog post.

I can look at statistics for my blog and its had over 1,100 reads. Some of you leave comments, some email and text me, or send cool postcards.
Talking about all this is hard, but as the old saying goes, if you keep doing what you always did you will keep getting what you always got. So I am trying to do what doesn’t come naturally to me: being honest, talking about it, and not eating. All at once.
It makes me feel a lot like just hiding under the covers.
Messages and emails and cards and texts and hugs and woo and love and stuff keeps me going so keep it coming.

I bet you at least a pound of that weight gain is phlegm.

Well fucking ARSE. Between Saturday 12th and today, I’ve put on FOUR arsing pounds.

Off to todays weigh-in. Spoken to the hospital several times and with luck, fingers crossed, my op will be rescheduled for first week of July. So that means 14 weeks total on liquid only diet, of which this is week 7. Having said that, I won’t believe anything till I’ve got it in writing. Still no explanation as to why my 19 June date has been cancelled, but the word on the street is its a scheduling fuckup by the main scheduler, who by all accounts is not a stranger to a formal complaint..

Well, physically I’m stuffed with the cold and somewhat jittery from anxiety.. BUT I do at least feel emotionally perky and positive, mainly I suspect thanks to the support and friendship of all of you lot. Still not sorted at the hospital, but I’m working on it and ready for whatever they throw at me.

I can’t make it anymore.

I went to my doctor for help with this 22 years ago. She was patronising and useless. I went to an eating disorders group, that didn’t work because it was at night and I would’ve missed the last bus home. I was 16 then and knew in my heart something was really wrong. I knew other 16 year olds didn’t sneak out of school, buy different food in four different shops then sneak somewhere to eat it. None of my friends worked three nights a week plus all day Saturday because they needed the money.

In my early twenties I tried again. Some university in conjunction with my new big-city GP surgery was running a pilot group for ‘the obese’. I went to two sessions, then my boss said it was tricky letting me have a whole day off per week. That one died a death. I didn’t fight for it because truth be told I found the facilitator patronising and the process of group sharing painful and difficult. I had no experience of therapy or recovery at that point.

So I continued. And got bigger, and bigger. Through dislocated knees, bursitis, plantar fasciitis, panic attacks, depression, alcohol addiction, pneumonia, bronchitis, glandular fever. Bigger and bigger and bigger I got.

I’ve been vegetarian, vegan, macrobitic, done slimfast, slimming world, weightwatchers, lighterlife, and the cambridge diet. I’ve fasted, starved myself, and crash dieted and lost and gained and lost and gained. I’ve spent £80 or £90 on food, eaten it on the floor, vomited it out, eaten again, fallen into a coma-like sleep, started again and crawled into bed shivering and sweating and filled with regret, swearing i wouldn’t do it again.. and then did it again.

I’ve had psychotherapy, group therapy and spiritual healing. I once considered becoming a Hare Krishna. One year all I ate was bagels and pot noodles. I’ve had loans for a new carpet and grants for homeless resettlement and loans for studying and overpayment mistakes all adding up to thousands of pounds none of which have gone on studying, carpets, or anything for which they were given in good faith. I’ve stolen too, my entitlement to feed my addiction knows no boundaries. If you take the money from someone who is too stupid to miss it its their own fault and anyway if you spend and eat immediately no one’s any the wiser and its like it never happened. I ate the evidence.

Today I went to the hospital for my pre-op appointment. I’d been told they would take blood and blood pressure and fill in a few forms. The nurse looked me up on the computer and asked me when my operation was scheduled. Nineteenth of June, I said. She tapped a few more times. Hmm, no, you’re not down for the 19th June. Your surgeon doesn’t even work on that day, its a Tuesday, he only works on a Friday. Must be a mistake, I said. The scheduler called me, weeks ago, and arranged this date. I’ve scheduled the time off work, I’ve planned everything, and I’m on a 12 week pre-op diet that ends on the 19th. Nothing to do with her, she took my blood pressure and said I’d need to ask someone else. Definately not on the system, she said.

I went up to the fourth floor, to the bariatric department. There were two nurses who i’ve seen on and off over the last 14 months for blood tests and weigh ins. Don’t know thier names though. I told them what’d happened. Nothing to do with us, out of our hands. Call your surgeon’s secretary, they suggested. She said it was nothing to do with her, and to try the admissions secretary. The admissions secretary said it was nothing to do with her and that I must be mistaken, she had never informed me of the operation being the 19th. Nurse #1 took the phone and had a go, said how could i have got a pre-op assessment form if I didn’t have a date booked? No answer. Nurse #2 had a go. Nothing.  I didn’t know what to do or who to talk to. Just go and get your heart test they suggested.

I went to the third floor and had my heart test. The heart test guy didn’t have any suggestions.

He told me to take the results back to pre-op assessment and they would sort out my operation date. I went back, there was no one there. A nurse appeared but he didn’t have time to help out.

I feel like the last five years since I initially went to my GP and asked about surgery I’ve fought so hard and encountered so many stupid admin errors and walls and i’m so sick of being treated like an inconvenience. I fell off the wagon big time tonight and feel like crawling into a hole.

Today I did a wee walk by the canal, same walk as last week, and i did feel like it was slightly easier. Other than that I don’t really feel the loss hugely yet, my jeans are a little looser but I’ll have to lose more before I can really tell.

Other than that, I want a fucking sausage sandwich with tomato sauce, I do, I do, I want one so much. And I’m fed up of being so tired all the time.