Doldrums

My knees and ankles are swollen like helium balloons and I've felt my mobility shrink from "I've got pep in my step" to "Better run upstairs and get the laundry brought down before I sit" to "Oh my God, please someone just shoot me."  The combination of the impending storm combined with PMS adding to an already shitty day, it got progressively worse from the moment I left my first meeting and felt my right knee scream at me as I braced myself to get balance. By lunch I was worn out just from running from my car to my desk and then to a meeting.  Stood up after that meeting and realized quite quickly that my other knee must have been feeling left out.  Over lunch at Panera, I actually did cry - tears rolling down my cheeks for no reason while I was trying to read after lunch.  I did the math and realized, well... Happy PMS to me!

I haven't blogged in a few days as I finally got my test results back.  Antibodies did not appear again, so it's "hey, nothing's wrong, your blood work was normal."  OK.  If I'm normal, why is something growing in my neck?  If I'm normal, why is it hard to swallow?  If I'm normal, why am I hoarse all the time?  If I'm so fucking normal, why is it I can't sleep at night without holding my head at a certain angle or without a certain amount of support?  No, it's "Dina, come back in three months for repeat blood work, come back in six months for another ultrasound."  Fine.  I have no choice but to play along.  I've left many an endo without ever going back because they almost all do the same thing.  "Eat 1200-1400 calories and here's your script for Metformin."  If eating 1200-1400 calories worked, I wouldn't have been being dragged to that famous weight-loss meeting from age 11 onwards always choosing the 1000 calorie diet and quitting after a month because it went nowhere.  Oh, and "Fuck your Metformin!"  My latest doctor did more than ample blood work, he spent a lot of time with me, and I liked him so I think I will stay.  The thought has occurred to my very hard head that had I stayed with a doctor for more than one visit and proved I was doing their stupid diet, that perhaps more attention would have been given.  Ya never know - right?  I'll give them the benefit of the doubt while I accept responsibility for my failures.

Still, lets go back to when I was 11.  It was 1984 and I didn't have an exercise regimen because, ya know, I was a kid.  I played basketball that year, participated in gym class, walked all over the playground at recess, walked miles around the neighborhood with my new friend Jill and I also rode my bike all the time.  I was in the fifth grade and I spent all summer perfecting my ride down Suicide Hill no-handed so I could impress a boy.  I also spent a lot of time hiking through the woods hoping I'd bump into him and then finding that I really liked being in the woods.  This is when I wasn't doing the same things with my friends.  I'm not going to lie, I liked sitting around watching TV and reading at the same time, but I was outside A LOT.  When my doctor screamed at me about my weight being 13 pounds over and that I should eat only carrots and celery, I was dragged to that wonderful place where you get weighed in and sit through a meeting.  I never got used to it.  It's not that I never had seconds of something wonderful or that I didn't have dessert.  But nothing ever seemed to burn off.  There was always so much blame.  I dreaded going.  Hated it.  I was always nervous and terrified.  I remember lots of screaming matches over food and getting grounded once for starting a fight with my Mom at dinner when she told me I'd already met my limit for servings of hard cheese that week.  I just wanted a cheeseburger and not a hamburger.  Honestly, why would you NOT choose a cheeseburger.  I know there are people who prefer hamburgers, but I've never met one.

I'd spend time at friend's houses and my friends would get to eat what they wanted.  Pans of cookies out to pick on, freedom to go in the snack cabinet without having to announce what you were doing or what you were getting, or having to sneak just one mini donut, then carry the shame around with you for the rest of your life.  I know my parents were trying to do what the doctor said and that they meant well but the dieting/failing pattern began in this year of my life and would be a constant partner with me through the rest of my life.  I can say this too, most of my friends didn't exercise all the time and most of them ate what they wanted.  I would bring healthy snacks to slumber parties, have my serving and then watch them eat all the rest.  It wasn't fair.  It still isn't fair.  Knowing people watch everything you put in your mouth is emotionally scarring and I am tired of the blame game.  I'm also tired of reliving my past every time I get PMS but I can't help the mood swing most times.

I know that people can and are ignorant, but people need to realize not all fat people are constantly hungry.  Not all fat people sit around not moving.  (I have become that way from the latest round of nothing's working.) I am tired of the people who profess that if you aren't going meat/ gluten/ dairy/ legume/ grain/ soy/ egg or something free, that you deserve what you got - that you deserve to have diabetes- that you deserve disease and I have seen people in some of the Alternative Medicine sites state things like this.  After I turned sixteen, I was less active and I did need to exercise more but knowing that between age 11 and 16, the weight just steadily crept up on me didn't really convince me it would help.  When I exercise today, I do it for added strength - especially in my legs and that's what I tell myself to get me around the track or the parking lot or the block - however many times I need to and I started again last week.  They will be hobbling saunters this week but I will hobble until my uterus, swollen and heavy like a bowling ball releases it's pint of vital life essence and then I will be walking dead until my body builds it back up.  Joy!

My oldest and dearest friend sent me something to view this week and I wanted to share it with all of you as it is an example of complete and un-inhibited bravery. 

Meet Whitney Way Thore... 
(Make sure you check out her dance videos as there is no reason if a person can move like that, that she wouldn't be able to lose weight unless something was 'not normal.')

http://nobodyshame.com

I have tried so many different things - natural supplements, cleanses, going gluten free, dairy free, once going gluten/dairy/egg/ and soy free all at once.  I've tried the Metformin, the spironolactone, the birth control pills...   I never stuck with the gluten free for longer than four months and I've read that it takes like 9 months so I'm debating whether to try again, but here's what's crazy.  I know that if you are having immune responses to substances like gluten, if you cut them out, you won't see any antibodies in your blood work.  So what do I do?  I also know that if I cut the gluten out and then go back to it, my hair will fall out.  Between my last attempt to go gluten free and my severe anemia, I've already lost over a third of my hair - probably closer to half.  I have, not only male pattern hair loss, but an overall hair loss equal to that of someone in their sixties.  The fact that my hair is extra thick and naturally curly is my only saving grace.  If I fail again, how much more hair will I lose?  Plus, giving up gluten really crimps my style.  I am single, I live a single life.  I go out with my friends on weekends.  I drink.  I taste.  I travel.  I'm Mediterranean.  I am NOT giving up my Mother's cooking.  I am not giving up exploring every cultural drink or food on offer.  I will limit the gluten.  I will limit the white flour and the bad carbs and stay healthy for as long as I can, but that's ALL I'm doing.  I'm done trying to please people.  I'm done trying to prove anything to anyone but medicine owes some proof to me - they owe me more than blame.  I won't give up hoping there is more than band-aids.  I won't give up praying for a cure.  I will also NOT, I repeat NOT give up the occasional Pain Au Chocolat. 

Besides, it's the perfect cure to counter that righteous PMS dark chocolate craving I'm going to get tomorrow.

Happy PMS indeed!