grattitude and challenge(s) update

I just have to say that i am so full of joy and happiness and love, due mostly to the wonderful support and comments i got on my last post. The last 2 days i feel as though a weight has lifted, and i have been walking around with a spring in my step. i know that sounds corny, but it's true. It was an amazing feeling to have people i didn't even know (and people i did know) reach out to me and tell me they understood me and cared about me! So, thank you!

I know i mentioned last week that i would be doing "food challenges" once a week on thursdays and would be accountable on this blog. Well, i had to move this week's challenge to tonight because tonight we are going to chuckie cheese for my daughter annie's 3rd birthday and we will be having cake and pizza, which will be a huge challenge for me. There is no amount of cake and pizza that feels ok to me, any amount feels like a binge. And i definately do not want to be throwing up at my little girls birthday party; that thought is just too sad. SO, i thought this would be a good opportunity to practice eating some "fear foods" in moderation. That's why i didn't do a challenge on thursday; two challenges in one week is too much for even a badass such as myself :) . Especially when, really, eating in general every day is still a challenge.

Oh, and the best for last: I have not purged since last tuesday! :) :) :) !

picture of health

These are the pictures that I had such a problem with and deleted from my Backbone post a few days ago. I'm putting them back up. This is me, being brave.

After looking at them for a little bit, I have decided that I dont think they make me look particularly fat. No, that's not the problem.


The problem , in my mind, is that they dont make me look sickly, bony thin. Why do I care? This is why, and it's embarrassing, and hard to admit.
I'm afraid that if you see how normal, how average I am, you won't care about me anymore, wont bother to read my blog or comment on it. I won't be interesting to anyone anymore, and nobody will care about me.
There, I said it.

21 days

Oh. My. Gosh. I am trying so hard not to delete those pictures of myself that i put up in my last post. You know, the ones where i'm in my swimsuit and I look like a freaking harbour seal? Or the one where i'm in the rock, and my arms look like sausages? Why did I think it was a good idea to post pictures of myself anyway? What was I thinking?

Now that I'm done wigging out, let me tell you about my Exciting New Goal. My T was talking about how most habits can be broken in 21 days (for the record, she was talking about my consumption of diet soda) and i said," gee, if only I could go 21 days without bingeing or purging! That would be so great! I would feel awesome!". Then i thought why not? Why not at least try? I dont want anyone to think i'm oversimplyfying things by saying that Ed's are just habits, cause that's not what i think. And even if i can make it without those behaviors, there is still the restricting, the body image distortions, and negative self talk to deal with. But, still, just think, if i really could go without bingeing and purging, think of all the energy i would have, the money we'd save, the extra time and stress, ect ect. You know.

So I'm going to try (not that i dont try anyway). I think it will make a difference, having a specific goal with a time frame and everything. 21 days sounds like a long time, but i'm just going to take it one day at a time. I'm feeling very excited and hopeful at the moment!

Backbone state park

Happy Memorial Day everybody! We went to Backbone State Park, one of my favorite p;aces on earth. The weather was great, just a little cool. We brought my niece Jayden who is Emma's age.

Here's Annie crawling out of the hole.


Emma and Jayden in the rock. I have a picture of me and my sister posing in this rock when we were this age.

The girls at the entrance to the cave.



Well it was my favorite kind of day; hiking, wading, picnicking, exploring! The only way it would have been better is if we were camping there. But, alas, tommorrow is a school/work day. So, it's back to the grind! Love, all :)

McFlurry Challenge

Did i mention that i ate a McDonalds McFlurry the other night? Well, i did. So la-de-da, you might say. Big deal. But it was a big deal, to me.

It started a few weeks ago, when my husband got a McFlurry and let me have a taste of it. I haven't been able to get that divine deliciousness off my mind since! But, unlike a normal person who would just go and satisfy a craving, i added it to the long list of foods that i wanted to eat but never would be able to without freaking out or throwing up, and moved on. Until thursday.

We had just gotten back from a family outing and i put the girls to bed and was really wanting some ice cream. As an occassional treat, i get soft serve from McD's. It's low-fat, it's safe. So i got in my car and headed out, but as i pulled in the drive -thru my mind was it was not the soft serve i was thinking of, it was the McFlurry. Then, when i checked the flavors and saw that they had Take 5, which just happens to be my favorite candy bar, i knew it was fate that i got that Mc Flurry (ok, ok, i know this is a little overly dramatic, and there is no such thing as fate as far as frozen concoctions are concerned, but hey, when it comes to food, i get a little emotional)!

So this is how, at around 8:30 last thursday night, i found myself in the McDonald's drive thru, ordering a McFlurry.

The drive home was like an out of body experience. I had the shake in my hand, and yet i wasn't bingeing. I felt strangely calm, yet there was this tingly-electric current that seemed to be running through my body, just beneath the surface. Who was thhis strange creature that was suddenly inhabiting my skin?

Then i knew. I just knew. This was a food challenge. I did one at the Center for Change. They put me alone in a room with a Pizza Hut pizza to see what would happen and I ate 2 slices and sat there for the rest of the hour, bored. In other words, I ACED IT!

So, i walked into the apartment and told my husband that i had decided to challenge myself with the McFlurry, and that no, I was not going to throw up. And, bless him, he did not make a big deal about it and let me eat in peace, with no annoying "how are you doing" questions. He didn't even ask me for a bite, which i was terrified he would do. I will admit that i am territorial over my food, especially treats, and do not like to share.

So, to make a long story short, i went out, bought a McFlurry, brought it home, ate it, and went to bed. The end. But it's really so much more than that, for me. That night, i broke all the rules, stepped outside the black and white. And guess what? Nothing terrible horrible awful happened. My world didn't fall apart. And, no, i didn't gain 100 pound overnight.

Thats what the challenge is all about. Taking a step outside the comfort zone and living to tell the tale. i think i have become slightly comfortable with my ED lately. I need to shake things up.

From here on out i am going to do one challenge a week and be accountable on this blog. i am not going to devote such a long post to it, just mention it in passing. The challenge day will be thursday.
I think this will be good for me.

"flashback 2000"

As I have had alot of free time lately, I have been dwelling on the past quite a bit like I tend to do, rehashing scenes from more tumoltuous times in my life. This, of course, brings up alot of feelings that range from anger to sadness to embarrassment and regret. The last time i felt like this, i wrote about it on my blog ("flashback 1998") and it helped alot, so I think i will do that again. So if you dont feel like reading a long one just now, this post is not for you:)

It's early Jan 2000 and i just spent a rather lame turn of the century new year's in the EDU at the University of Iowa Hospitals And Clinics (under committment, of course, otherwise i wouldn't be anywhere near that craphole!). I've reached target weight and am ready for discharge but there is a bit of a problem: the social worker can't find a placement. Even though i'm 21, the powers that be have decided i'm not to remain at liberty and am in need of constant care/supervision/maintainence/whatever. But, due to my history of not staying put, the adult group homes are all saying "no". Finally, the social worker works some magic and gets me into this place called the North Iowa Transitions Center. Sounds pretty good. I like that word "transition", makes it sound temporary. But it doesn't really matter what i think, I'm going whether i like it or not. So, my commitment is transferred, two sheriff's deputies come to pick me up, and off we go.

Did i mention that the NITC is in Mason City, 3 hours away from my home and family? The social worker is happy about this; says we are all "enmeshed". I think she just hates my mom cause my mom helped me escape from her crappy EDU the last time i was there. Anyway, As I roll into town in the squadcar, I notice that this town looks pretty small and borring, and it hits me that here i will be pretty isolated from friend and family, so this place that i am going to had better be pretty damn nice, or at least bearable.

It is not. I can see this right away. The North Iowa Transitions "Center" is really just a row of shabby old houses that are all connected San Francisco style, but not as cute. Very run-down. I am taken into the office by the lady who runs the joint (she looks like a crackhead!) and we do some paperwork and she tells me the rules. Then she takes me to my room. The room is pretty decent, but my roommate is highly emotional, resents me being there, and decides to sleep in the closet until i leave. I wander around to meet the other residents and am dismayed to find that, once again, i have been placed among a more severely handicapped population. The highlight of everybody's day seems to be getting their allowance and going to the corner store for cigarrettes and candy. Then they smoke and watch t.v. all day. Except for doing their L.B.D.'s.

L.B.D. stands for Learning by Doing, and it's basically chores. Like, sweeping the floor and cleaning the bathroom and stuff. I feel incredibly insulted and childish as i mark off my "L.B.D" on the chart every day, but i have to remind myself that maybe some people have been helped by this and need to learn these skills. Just not me ! Where is the vocational rehabilitation that the social worker in the hospital gushed that this place was known for? When was i going to transition out, back to my home?

After a few days, they noticed that in fact i was higher functioning then most of the residents and decided to send me to their "life skills" classes. Apparently this was the voc rehab i was promised, the training that would get me ready to live on my own, a functioning member of society! And today's class: how to tell if something in your refridgerator has been there too long and needs to be thrown out. Seriously. This is what we talked about the ENTIRE class time. So i did not go to any more of those classes. The next day i went to the mall.

This was one of the saddest, loneliest trips to the mall i have ever taken. I had to go because i needed new clothes, because none of my pre-hospital weight restoration clothes fit. Ideally, on a trip like this, you need support, a trusted friend or treatment center staff person. I had noone. For the first time in months, i confronted my body in a full lenght mirror and just cried. It was too much, just too much. The body. The situation. The isolation. Everything. Plus, i was purging again, had been from the first day i had gotten there. I had no therapist, no friends, i missed my family. I tried to tell myself that everything would be ok, but i didn't feel it would be. I felt trapped in a hell that i had created for myself, from which there was no escape.

That night, i tearfully called my aunt in arizona, who had been following my "case" and was wanting to help. She knew someone who worked at a beautiful new eating disorder treatment center in arizona called Mirasol, and she was able to raise the funds to get me there. I went to sleep that night with a tiny hope that i might find a situation better than this one. But the next day when i talked to the NITC director about the going to Mirasol, she said it was out of the question. Arizona was "outside of the jurisdiction of my commitment" and they would not release me. I was furious! How could they deny me the treatment i needed and keep me instead in a place that was so obviously a wrong fit for me?

I'm not proud of what i did next, it was a very "borderline" thing to do. But i was desperate. I told the director to take me to the hospital, because i would either kill myself or run before the day was out. She was angry, but she had no choice. i don't know if i would have done either of those things. All i knew at the time was that i had to get out of that place that instant!

I spent 2 weeks in the psych ward (most of the time in the lockdown section, for trying to escape) because once again they could not find a place for me. Then low and behold, a breakthrough- the social worker got me an interview with my old "friends" at the Abbe Center. They were very hesitent to take me back, since i had run from there before, so i had to "sell myself", say all the right things, about how i was committed to working with them, yada yada yada. Well, it worked, cause once again papers were signed and i was transferred. But when i got to the Abbe, i was suprised to find that i was not on the "persons with mental illness" ward. I was on the Residential Care Facility ward, with the people who were mentally retarded, autistic, or had head injuries. I learned that this was because it would cost the county 11 fewer dollars a day to keep me here, since there was no programming on this unit. I didnt care, though. I never planned to be there long.

In the end i only stayed there 3 hours. After all the paprework was finished, i was left to unpack, and i phoned my mom to let her know i was ready for her to come get me. To the outsider, this might look like bad, like i manipulated her, or she was enabling me, or some other bs like that. I can see how it would. But in reality, she had seen some of the places i had been put in by the "system". She knew that my heart, my mind, my spirit didn't belong in those places, that i had the capacity to get better but i just needed the right support. And, whatever reason, i wasn't getting that from the so-called helpers.

So what happened next? Well, i was in a shocked and traumatized state due to all that i had been to ( i didn't even get into what went on in the psych ward while i was there, sheesh) and relapsed with the anorexia and the bulimia full force. i stayed a few months with relatives and then went to Mirasol. Maybe i will write about that another time.

I know that this post was long, but it is very helpful for me to write about this, to get it out. Sometimes these days i worry that my ED is getting bad but then i think "wait a minute! You ate today! You went to the grocery store! You took care of kids (and hubbie)! You vaccuumed! You took your own damned meds! Noone handed them to you in a little paper cup after scanning your wrist! Look at all the things that you do now, that you never used to do, that lots of people, family, so-called proffessionals, never, ever, thought you would do! Go Lisa! You rock!

my life right now

not much is new, so i will just update on the random happenings in my life right now.

First and most important, my mom is finally out of the hospital! Yay! But in a weird way i feel kind of deflated. Don't get me wrong, i dont wish her ill, but the positive feelings i got from going down there and taking care of her were, well, incredible. And i felt like we really connected in a way we never did before. Well, trust me to take someone's cancer and make it about me. Sheesh! (I really am glad she's out and doing better)

It's 80 degrees here today and i had to expose my pearly whites (i mean my legs) to the world in a pair of shorts that looked cute when i bought them but now seem to make me look even shorter and stockier then before, if that's possible. I hate shorts weather! On the upside i was able to take Annie to the park today, where i ran into a friend and had a REAL conversation with a LIVE person (who wasn't paid to talk to me). I should, like, plan that sort of thing regularly.

I'm washing the girls' bedding today. Have you ever tried to strip/make a bunkbed? I'm feeling quite accpomlished!

My computer broke for 10 hours on sunday and i freaked out. I was overcome with this feeling of being lost in a vooid, not sure what to do with myself, wondering if life woulld ever be worthwhile again. Then my neighbor who is an it specialist fixed it and i was SAVED! but the whole ordeal haas prompted me to re-eveluate how much of my time i spend online and how dependent i am on the internet for my social needs/support. While i think it is a great tool, i'm wondering if i shouldn't try to reach out a little more to friends and family around me here. just something for me to think about. But i do feel so close to everyone whose blogs i read- just being away for a day, i was wondering how everyone was doing aand if everyone was ok and stuff. You all are so important to me.

Well, that's about it in my exciting life. Peace out :)

random pictures

I am still figuring out how to put pictures on my blog and still cant seem to get them on a post- can only put them up in the right margin. But i posted few more that I wanted to share.

The first is my new Facebook profile pic (since I haven't changed it since in like 6 months). Borring stuff.

The next picture is one of my mom, so you would know who i am talking about all the time. She is the one with the melanoma who is in the hospital. I went down to see her today and she is doing really great and will probably go home tommorrow. Isn't she beautiful?

This picture is a sign that Emma, my 7 year old, put on the door to her room. It says "if your a boy you have to pay $1 to come in my room but my dad doesn't have to pay. girls are free!". The arrow is a sign directing you to the other sign. The first thought i had about this, other then that it was really cute, was that she wasn't charging enough admission.

The last new picture is my emergency food storage. Since we livve in an apartment and don't have room we keep it in our bedroom. I am ridiculuosly excited about food storage and cant wait to have a basement i can fill with canned goods for the next ice age/nuclear war/swine flu pandemic.

So there's a litle slice of my life. Enjoy :)

humiliation

k, so yesterday i was visiting my mom at st. lukes and i had the suckiest experience! I was leaving the hospital to run some errands for her, and i saw this nurse in the hall who used to work at the UIHC ED program that i was in last year (you know, the really crappy one that i've been committed to like 5 times and always refer to as "evil hell"). I wasn't sure if she recognised me, but she was one of the more decent ones there, and i thought the polite thing would be to say hi, so i said "hey, didn't you used to work at university hospitals?".
She said "yes?".
I said "I was one of your patients last year on 1JPW".
Then she said "Ohhhhhhhh." Not just "oh", but "Ohhhhhhhhh", in the tone of voice that said "well, isn't that special!".
You know, the tone of voice you use when you are talking to a crazy person.
Then she just stood there and looked at me. It was very akward. I felt very stupid. So i just said "well, have a nice day" and left, as fast as i could.
When i got to the car i just kept replaying it over and over and i felt so stupid. I mean, what did i expect her to say? But she could have at least been nice, instead of treating me like some kind of a weirdo. But, maybe i am just another weirdo, to her. GRRRR. I should have just not said anything.
Eventually i let it go, but when i gat back to the hospital i did tell my mom about it. Being more objective, and a nurse besides, she pointed out that HIPPA guidlines might have prevented this person from admitting she knew me from her work in a psych facility. Which is probably true.

But she didn't need to use "that tone".

mission accomplished

One word could describe how i felt yesterday after i met with the dietitian: underwehlmed. Who knows if that is a word or if i even spelled it right. Anyway, the D was nice enough, but she did not weigh me, or even give me a target weight, two things that i had very much psyched myself up for! Mostly, we talked about my history and behaviors and goals yada yada yada, and then treid to iron out a very non-threatening meal plan. What we came up with is pretty low calorie, but is meant to be a place to start from and we will build on it later. The main goal is to stop purging. My other goals are to take a multivitamin and to drink 3 glasses of water a day in addition to the water i drink with my miralax. This last one is aimed at decreasing my intake of diet soda. I'm not ready to start conciously cutting back on the soda, but i figured if i drank more water, i might drink less soda without even trying.

She asked me if i wanted to come back in one week or 2. I hate it when they do that! I dont want to decide! I want to come back in one week, but i dont want to seem too needy! I asked her what she thought but she just kind of shrugged and said it was up to me. Grrr! In the end i mad an appt fot next thur, which is like a week and 2 days.

I guess i would say the appt was a success, overall.
I finally figured out how to put pictures on my blog! I just put up some random ones of me and my family, so people would know who i was talking about. I will probably change them once in awhile. What do you think, are my girlies cute, or what?

cold feet

k, so tommorrow is my first appointment with the dietitian and i am having some serious misgivings, doubts, fears, ect. I know people can relate to this because alot of the things i have been thinking have been written in other blogs at various times over the last several months. Like the perrenial favorite "i'm too fat to see a dietitian". But here's the deal- when i got the referral for the D i was somewhat underweight and therefore thought i "deserved " the help- not that any of you who aren't underweight and see a D dont deserve it, i just hold myself to a different standard, screwed up, i know. So anyway, since then i havent been working out for various reasons, and i have been able to eat some regular meals without purging (yay), thus there has been some gain, how much i dont know, but i know i am not underweight anymore, which is a good thing, but it makes me feel crummy and worthless and undeserving of help. Phew!

On the flipside, i am still purging every day. And im not consistenly keeping meals down. So maybe there is some value to me seeing the D. And i also would like to know what my target weight is once and for all, cause i think that the target they put me up to at the univ of ia hospital ed program (aka evil hell) was way too high. And that's not just my ed talking, i'm basing that on the charts and graphs and stuff. I mean, it was in the normal range, but at the high end of normal; why would you do that to someone with an ed? Just to freak them out? So maybe the D could give me a more doable target and we could go from there.

I really should quit stressing out about all this and just keep an open mind. I'm sure there is stuff she can help me with, even if i dont need to gain weight. And i'm going to be honest and tell her every thought i just wrote about, so she can confirm or deny any truth in my thinking.

Mom is still in the hospital. I have gotten to go see her a few more times. She is doing well, but has abnormal chest tube drainage (yuck, i know) so she cant go home until that gets better.

Oh, and Emma is going to Bosnia with Zlatko for a month on june 6th. More on that heaping pile o'goodness later.

st lukes

wow, i feel like it has been forever since i have posted...even though it has only been one day... i just have so many thooughts rolling around in my head...

Thanks everyone for your support and for asking aboutt my mom and stuff. I finally got to go down to Cedar Rapids to spend the day with her yesterday. First let me say that for me, walking into St Lukes is always a little uncomfortable for me, as i have been a "guest" of their psych ward many times. But the last time i was there was is 2000, so it has been awhile. Still, i get nervous. i did see one person i knew from my stay in child psych, but i didnt think he recognised me. I just held my head up and kept telling myself "that was a long time ago. I'm a different person now!".
Anyway-back to my mom. She looked really good and was up sitting in a chair and everything. I helped her go on these walks she's supposed to do 4x a day, which are kind of an ordeal cause we have to bring the iv pole and the catheter and the chest tube thingy. So it's more of a shuffle than a walk. Oh- i brought my mom the one mushroom i found the other day cause i thought she might want to see it-she hunts mushrooms too and is really sad to be missing out on mushroom season. She got ridiculously excited over it and showed it to everybody that came into the room- doctors, visitors, everybody! And it was so small and pitiful and dried up, but she really got a kick out of it. She is going too shelac (sp?) it and wear it on a necklace! My mom is kind of a hippie :)

I did get emotional one time, when i was getting ready to help my mom wash her hair. My mom said to me in a serious voice "lisa if this makes you uncomfortable at all you dont have to do it". I just hugged her and told her that i knew it was possible someday i might have to take care of her more and i was ready, or something like that. I was kind of choked up. i think it meant alot to her cause she was choked up too. Then we got down to the business of hair washing and the moment passed.

I know this is a long post already, but i wanted to write about something else. When i was helping my mom get ready for her walk before lunch i was standing with her chest tube drainage thingy in a akward position and i was feeling king of weak and could feel myself becominf frustrated and i knew it was because i had not eaten well so far that day. So i thought" I should eat something soon" and then i thought "no its too early" and then i thought " no, no this won't do at all. How can i have the strength to stay here all day and help my mom if i'm restricting!" And then and there i decided to eat lunch when moms lunch came. So when moms luch came i went down to the cafeteria, picked up a tray, and it was almost surreal. Maybe it was because i was in a hospital cafeteria, but i knew exactly what to get. There was no freaking out, no calorie counting. Meat, potato, veggie, roll, cookie. The only thing missing was the milk but ok i will NOT go that far! And i ate all of it, and didnt purge or freak out. I felt strangely calm the rest of the day.
I thought about things on the drive home. i know alot of people say you cant get better for someone else, but cant that be good motivation? Like my mom, what if she needs full time care someday and i am too sick with my ED to help out, or in and out of the hospital myself? I feel motivated right now by a need to be strong, physically and emotionally, so i can handle whatever comes next. And it felt good, really REALLY good, to be on the giving end, instead of the recieving end, of help. I am by no means cured, just extra motivated, but i'll take what i can get.

one single mushroom

k, so i was supposed to go to cedar rapids to visit my mom in the hospital, but my plans went to he** when little Annie got the pinkeye. I cant send her to the babysitter's cause she's contagious. So....guess i'm stuck in Waterloo. Which is where i'm usually stuck, but today its worse, cause we cant hang out with anybody, cause anybody we hang out with has kids, and Annie has the pinkeye. And I cant go workout, cause i cant put Annie in the playroom, cause you guessed it: pinkeye! And I cant take my kid and her eyeball germs to the mall, cause she would want to play on the play area there. And the children's area at the library is out, too. So, we are barred from doing all the things that we normally do to pass the time. Well, I am NOT going to be stuck in my tiny apartment watching Maisy videos all day!

So i have a brilliant idea; i decide to take Annie mushroom hunting! Here in this part of the midwest it is morel mushroom season, which is very exciting for those of us who hunt these things. But i never seem to get a chance to get out and look for them. And im not sure how tramping thruogh the underbrush is going to go with a 2 year old in tow, but i'm desperate enough to give it a try.

So we head off to Hickory Hills park; about 20 miles outside of town, and it starts to rain, but thats ok. I still figure i made the right move; anything is better then what we were doing before. It stops raining by the time we get to the park and I pull off the side of the road near an old tree where i found some shrooms last year- a good bet. I have to carry Annie thruogh the underbrush, since we are not using a trail, and i set her down in a claer spot and procceed to scour the ground, but no luck.

Then we go the the next place where i have found them before, and here i find one "little gray", a kind of smaller, gray morel. This gets me very excited and i am sure we will find more, bunches, but again i am dissappionted.

Annie is tired of being IN in the woods, so we find a trail and walk for a little bit. We ggo over some bridges and see some baby geese and willd flowers and i am just thinking how happy i am that Annie is having this experieence in nature ang hoping she is enjoying it when she starts to whine "i want to go home! I want to watch cartoons! I want to watch Maisy". Sheesh.

Before we leave, we visit the wildlife exhibit and feed an apple core to an elk and see an albino deer. Annie falls asleep on the ride home. When we get back, I wake her up and feed her lunch and wrestle some eyedrops into her eyes. And put her to bed.

So, i only found one mushroom. Am i dissappionted? Yes. Sorry we went? No way. I can think of worse ways to spend a morning in quarantine.

cancer

my mom is in surgery at this very moment. She is having a growth of melanoma removed form her chest cavity. most people think of melanoma as being a skin cancer, which it is, but my mom's is stage 4, which means it has gone inside the body and has infiltrated the lymph system and stuff. It still doesn't seem real to me. Like, 18 years ago she has a cancerous mole removed, and then everything was fine, until this last december, when she found a lump in her breast. At first they thought it was breast cancer, but a biopsy showed it was melanoma, and the only thing that the doctors can think is it spread from the mole that was removed 18 years ago. So anyway, they removed that lump, and she has been on interferon to help stop/slow down the growth of new cancer in her body, but since december this new one has grown in her chest despite the treatments. And it is in a bad place- near the spine and the aorta. So i hope they get it all.

She will be in the hospital 5-10 days. She is going to have two chest tubes and an epidural for the pain and a various other tubes and medical thingys. I am going to drive down to cedar rapids as much as i can over the next several days to see her. i am kind of stressed ou cause i still have my kids to take care of here- chris is working and has finals this week. And i had to reschedule my therapy and my first dietitian appt, but i am going to stilll go to my psychiatrist appt this week, cause i am running out of meds. I am doing ok, though. Still cant seem to get through a day w/o purging, but i am having some success with eating small portions of regular meals and keeping them down and not freaking out too bad. because of this my weight was up slightly when i weighed myself the other day, but i am trying to have a healthy attitude about it. i figure i might need a little extra padding right now, a little margin for error, because between my moms cancer and dealing with my evil ex and the upcoming move, i sense some stressful times up ahead. I dont want any stress- related weight loss to put me in the danger zone. Does that make any sense?

It's so beautiful now, and we are outside playing alot, and it's kind of weird, but sometimes i find myself getting angry at the sun. You know, because it gave my mom this cancer. Which i know is totally irrational. And not to mention stupid, since the sun gives every living thing on this planet life, every day. i guess i'm just feeling angry. And helpless.

turd

no, this is not another post about my bowels (though things in that department are running smoothly athankyouverymuch). I just wanted to state that my ex is a Turd. A big, fat Turd. That's all.

swimming

today I made the ultimate sacrifice for my girlies- I hauled our stuff to the Y, donned my swimsuit(which seems to have shrunk since i bought it), tiptoed into the freezing pool water, and stuck it out for almost an hour! I hate swimming! I hate getting wet! I hate rude kids who splash me in the face! I stood there, one eye on the clock, wishing i could magically be transported somewhere warm and dry and not full of screaming kids.
But....
I love watching the girls! I am so proud of them! Emma is such a good swimmer ( all the sweet old ladies lingering after water aerobics said so)! And even little Annie was trying to go it alone in her life vest, saying, "I did it! I swimmed!".
The warm glow of pride that i felt almost made me forget that my extremities were numb with cold.