Donation Station

Being poor SUUUUUUUUCKS.

I really took so much for granted over the past decade or so. Life is just very, very different when I can't reach for my credit card to solve any problem. It's been kinda nice that I've been forced to eat at home (and I have truly been eating like a depression-era peasant...I've gotten extremely creative with nothing much more than a potato). But it's crazy not being able to swing into Starbucks for a quick caramel frappachino, or to the bar for a shot when a friend is in town. It's been embarrassing making excuses not to hang out because I can't afford the gas to get there, or dinner or drinks or whatever we were meeting for. Now, I literally find myself questioning if I'm using more toilet paper than necessary, and wondering about the legal hurdles keeping me from shutting off my utilities and living with kerosene lamps and an outhouse.

Seriously, though, I had to be very, very, very desperate to consider plasma donation. Not because it's inherently risky—it's not—but because my personal health history makes me a really terrible candidate, and my immune system is 100% not adequately prepared to keep me alive through this. Their screening process is designed to keep people like me from donating due to the risks to our health, but I have honestly never been this desperate for money. Even during that brief period between semesters in college when Rob and I squatted in an abandoned house and bought cigarettes with pennies, I still felt more financially stable than I do right now. So, yeah, I'm fucking desperate. And it's quite clear that the other donors are also not being entirely truthful for the sake of remaining eligible, but the instant cash for a relatively painless couple of hours is more than enough incentive to lie. I'm just not certain that the money is worth what my body is going through.

I've felt like I've had a cold basically since the first session, and after each donation I crash for the rest of the night and usually the entire following day as well. When I donate on Wednesday, that means I'm a zombie basically until I wake up Friday, but Friday is designated as my second donation day of the week. So I go again, and end up feeling like crap until Sunday. From Sunday until Wednesday I feel "okay", and then the cycle starts again. But I don't really feel totally "okay", ya know? By then, my arm is less sore and the bruising around the injection site has disappeared, but the constant slight head cold has kept my throat sore, my eyes dry, and my nose running. I even have a scab on my nose behind my septum ring from where I've been blowing with cheap toilet paper instead of the Puff's Plus with Lotion that I never fully appreciated before.

The donation itself isn't exactly fun—you're trapped there with the needle in your arm as it sucks out your blood, then spins it in a centrifuge to remove the plasma. While the blood is being sucked out, the blood pressure cuff is constantly as tight as it will go, and you have to keep pumping your fist like you're milking your own udders. Then the centrifuge brakes and the cuff loosens, and you have to sit still while the machine pumps your plasma-less blood back into your body. NOT a great feeling. This cycle happens over and over until they have a full liter bottle of plasma, maybe 5 or more cycles. At the end, your final blood round is mixed with saline, and it's pumped back in while you freeze to death and hourly workers pull out the IVs and put cash on your card.

My next donation is Wednesday, and I'll only get $25 for it. But my boyfriend and I have talked about the idea of me being a camgirl, so hopefully something will come of that before I let the plasma center suck the rest of my life out. Not sure how much of a market there is for pudgy camgirls with stretch marks and low self esteem, but I'd rather find out than risk getting the plague from the plasma center.

Zoloft Is Making Me Fat (...Maybe?)

I've ALWAYS been anxious. My parents have videos of me as a kid playing on a swing set, chattering about my fears. "What if I fall off and someone steps on me and my leg breaks off and then someone trips over it and breaks their head open and then I try to stand up and break my head open and we die?" "What if we're driving and an electric pole falls and hits the car and smashes us and we all die?" "What if I push the glider too hard and it comes and slices my head open and I fall down and a worm crawls into my head and lives there?"

I've dealt with my anxiety in a number of ways. When I was younger, I just cried a lot and freaked out all the time. In college, I used drugs and alcohol to help self-medicate. After the fire that burned down my dorm (with me in it), I was sent to a therapist who put me on Paxil. I only took that for a little while (it made me black out all the time when I drank, and I wasn't willing at the time to give up drinking). After my open heart surgery, I was put on a low dose of Xanax. For the last 6 or so years, I've taken a low dose of Xanax daily, but it's lost its effectiveness over the years. I mean, it didn't really REALLY help much anyway, but I guess it made me feel better. Anyway, I had to go in for a refill last month and my doctor decided to try putting me on something else.

My doctor (actually, she's a nurse practitioner but I've never met the doctor) told me that Zoloft would be a good choice for me, as the side effects aren't horrible and it's not addictive like Xanax. Being the anxiety-filled freak I am, I immediately started Googling side-effects and was horrified by the staggering volume of complaints linking Zoloft to weight gain. I almost didn't even fill my prescription. I was freaking out. But I decided to try it anyway. When I was on steroids back when I first started Weight Watchers, everyone said I would gain weight but my doctor said it was because of increased appetite, and as long as I watched my eating I wouldn't gain. The steroids messed me up a little, but she was right--I didn't gain any weight.

So when I started the Zoloft I figured I would just keep tracking like always, and I increased my activity a little. The weather's been nice so I've been walking more than ever, I've been working in the yard, taking long walks at work during lunch, swimming, dancing, moving all I can. I've also been eating fine. I mean, I'm still always hungry, but I'm tracking everything and working hard to stay under my Points.

But I FUCKING GAINED. And when I groaned on the scale, saying "I did everything right! I should have lost! Maybe it's the Zoloft..." my Weight Watchers meeting leader immediately agreed. She said she's seen too many people gain weight on Zoloft. Other people started chiming in--"It made me a fatty!" and "Stop taking it right now!"

I gave myself a few weeks to feel the effects, and I actually really liked what Zoloft did for me (it didn't help my anxiety so much, but it did keep my temper under control and made my reactions to things a little less extreme). I just couldn't deal with the weight gain. I was on Zoloft to help alleviate my anxiety, and gaining weight increased my anxiety exponentially. Not great.

So I talked to my doctor but now, as of yesterday, I'm weaning off the Zoloft and onto Lexapro.

We'll see what happens. But I will totally be stressing out about it, just FYI.

My Pilonidal Cyst Story

Gather round, children, and prepare to be amazed and revolted by this captivating tale of...a cyst. A really big cyst. A really big, gross, humiliating, excruciating, recurring cyst.

When I had heart surgery in August, I expected to be in a lot more pain than I was. However, after approximately a decade of dealing with one of the most painful and embarrassing medical problems imaginable, the surgery pain seemed to pale in comparison. No matter how much my incision hurt, or how much my cut muscles ached, I could remind myself that the pain of my cyst during a flare-up was so significantly worse that my surgery didn't seem so bad after all.

My pilonidal cyst is something I try to keep a secret from as many people as possible. It's just so awful. I already bared all, though, while oversharing about my topical yeast infections, so I might as well throw this out there. I'm having a flare-up right now, so it's all I can think about.

There is not much information available about  my kind of pilonidal cyst because everyone's cyst experience is different. I suspect that people with issues similar to mine just don't talk about it. So I'm going to talk about it. Prepare to be grossed out. I was going to post a picture of mine but it's still too embarrassing--just try a Google image search instead, and look for the most disturbing and painful unpopped pilonidal abscess possible.

At the beginning of my college summer vacation when I was 21, I started feeling like I had bruised my tailbone. I was drinking all the time while also taking Paxil for my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (following a massive fire I was in and in which I lost all my belongings). I was blacking out multiple times every week, so I assumed it was entirely possible that I had fallen down drunk. My tailbone kept getting worse and worse, though, and after a week or so I could barely sit down. That's when I felt the lump rising. It was at the top of my butt crack, slightly to the right, and I could feel a squishy bump about the size of a walnut half under the skin. It was incredibly tender and hot to the touch. I tried looking it up online but didn't know how to describe it, so I didn't get any useful results.

After a week or so of increasing pain, it came to a head one night while I stayed up shaking and sweating. I think I was probably going into a state of shock or something. No amount of alcohol could dull the pain, and there was no position in which I was even remotely comfortable. I couldn't sit, I couldn't lie down, I couldn't even stand. I remember crawling to the bathroom that night because I couldn't get up, and I passed out from the pain. I woke up on the floor in a pool of sweat with the cyst bigger and redder and hotter than ever. The school clinic was closed for the summer and I didn't want to pay to go to the hospital, so I didn't know what to do. I was so scared. As it grew, I wondered if it was cancer. Or some kind of boil? Or like a chip from my tailbone broke off, lodged itself in my muscles, and caused an infection?

After I woke up on the bathroom floor, I tried exploring it more. It hurt too much to poke at it, but it really felt like it was a small balloon filling up with something, and that if I could just break through the skin it would come out. I gathered the equipment I could think of: a razor blade and a thumb tack (I couldn't find a needle). First I tried the razor blade. It was hard to see but I just numbed it with ice and tried slashing across the top with the razor. I hoped the infection was close enough to the surface that it would burst and I would be fine. Unfortunately, the infection was deeper than I thought and the razor only succeeded in hurting me. I tried the thumb tack next, but the pain was too bad for me to apply much pressure. I could get the point in, but it didn't go far enough in to help.

I stayed up all night, trembling and fighting to stay conscious. The next morning after fainting in the bathroom happened to be my first day as a summer intern at the library. I made it to the library with my roommate/best friend (the one I've mentioned who died so tragically and ripped my world apart) but I was literally standing up while driving there--I couldn't put my butt on the seat of my truck, so I held myself up with the steering wheel and drove as carefully as I could. Seriously, though, driving while standing is not a good thing. We made it there but just barely.

When we got to the library I hobbled in, still unable to walk or sit and wearing a skirt because pants would touch the cyst. We began the first day tour, during which I was still shaking and sweating and thinking of nothing but the mind-numbingly intense, throbbing, unrelenting pain. About fifteen minutes into the orientation, the pain just suddenly stopped. I could take a deep breath finally. I stopped shaking. My head cleared. I felt blissful relief.

Then I started smelling this terrible smell. It was like a container of week-old turkey salad (the kind with dark turkey chunks and mayonnaise) that was just pulled open. Just a strong, meaty, gross smell. I couldn't figure out what the stink was, but I was so relieved by the  overwhelming absence of pain that I didn't really care.

My best friend then grabbed my arm and he whispered for me to go to the bathroom. Thinking maybe I had food in my teeth or had started my period, I excused myself and went to the restroom. As soon as I got in the stall, I pulled down my jean skirt and felt hot liquid on my legs. I touched my butt with my fingertips and was horrified to feel them slipping in thick slime. I lunged out of the stall with my skirt down and locked the deadbolt on the main door (the bathroom was empty besides me). The smell was even worse with my skirt down, and I began frantically wiping myself with paper towels. There was pus and blood everywhere. It looked like someone had been murdered. Or like I sat on a blender full of animals and turned on the blades. Just totally disgusting. And it wouldn't stop coming. As I gingerly pushed around the lump, more and more pus and blood oozed out. It was this foul brown gurgling stuff, and no amount of paper towels was going to work.

I cleaned myself up as much as I could and fled the library, praying that no one would see me. I made it back to the apartment where I could see everything better in a mirror, and just kept pushing to get more and more nasty brown goo out of me. The sticky red blood mingled with the hot white pus to make a thick marbled brown substance, and the week of festering had made it smell like rot and death.

I was not in any significant pain from the moment it had burst in the library, so I could easily press my fingers around the edge to make the liquid pulse out. It took hours it seemed before I had coaxed all of the infection out, and the skin felt loose over the now-empty cavity. I did end up going back to work the next day and told everyone I had just thrown up, but I suspect they knew something was more awful had happened. I told my best friend that it was an injury from my tailbone and he was kind enough to pretend to believe me.

I dove into researching it more and finally found the most likely culprit: a pilonidal cyst. That means 'nest of hair' (I KNOW! So gross!) and I have read many comments claiming that the pain of a pilonidal cyst flare-up is worse than the pain of natural, undrugged childbirth. I believe it. The pain is intolerable, and the shame is unbearable. There's lots of great information out there about what it is (one of my favorites is the Pilonidal Support Alliance), but no one is really truly certain what causes it or how to fix it.

There are certain factors that are common amongst sufferers: they are mostly male, mostly overweight, and mostly very hairy. Poor hygiene, sitting too long, and not shaving can also affect your chances of having a flare-up. So, yeah, not exactly something I want to share: hey, everyone, I have a totally gross cyst that comes from being fat, lazy, dirty, hairy, and not a lady. So yes, this is another one of those gross fat girl things. Not all fat girls get them, but I don't think I would have it if I wasn't fat. I think my ass fat makes my butt crack deeper, which causes more hair and stuff to get caught in there, and apparently led to my current situation.

Now, some people have pilonidal sinuses, which cause them to weep out pus and blood, but they don't get the abscesses or cysts because the infection isn't trapped. Some of those people have to wear diapers because so much nasty stuff leaks out of their butt crack. I am here to tell you that I would MUCH rather have that than have my cyst. Instead of having a sinus, or a tiny hole that allows it to drain, I instead just collect the infected fluids in a cavity between my ass cheeks. This cavity gets bigger every time I have a cyst because the infection tunnels into my tissue, and because I don't have a sinus to drain it, I have to wait until the skin is stretched so incredibly tight because of the sheer quantity of pus and blood that the skin bursts open and sprays infection all over the place.

After that first eruption (my best friend and I called it my 'anal volcano'), I ended up getting a flare-up around once a year. It was usually a week of total torture--unable to move, unable to even wear jeans because of the pain, unable to go to work or drive or sleep. I kept it a secret from everyone I could. Sometimes it ruptures in the most awful places, like a gas station bathroom or on vacation. It's terribly inconvenient and ridiculously painful, but the surgery to correct it is also really painful, really awful (they sometimes sew a 'marsupial pouch' which sounds so so so gag-me-gross), and totally not guaranteed to work. Some people have had the surgery over and over and the cysts just keep coming back.

I have had probably 10-12 cysts since then, and I have taken care of most of them myself. I've spent a decade honing my care. I learned that antibiotics won't help, and nothing really kills the pain except getting it to pop. Sometimes if I take enough hot baths with Epsom salt the cyst will weaken and burst. Sometimes if I alternate a really hot heating pad with an ice pack, the abrupt change in temperature will cause it to rupture. Sometimes I make a compress of crushed garlic that is said to thin the skin and help the infection. The bad part is that, even with these remedies, it still won't burst until it's ready. I have to honestly feel like I'm dying for around 48 hours (that's after a week of intense but not near-fatal pain) before anything can make it explode. And sometimes they just never do burst--luckily, I have only been forced to seek medical attention for two of them.

Once the emergency care clinic doctors sliced me open with a scalpel but didn't go deep enough--some blood oozed out, but the cyst did not burst. I was in more pain from the scalpel cut, but after another day or so of the infection brewing, the cyst was stretched so tight that the weakened skin from the incision split open and it burst. Whew. The most recent time was also the most horrible. This cyst had been going on for almost two weeks, and it was huge and purple. I had gotten desperate and had tried cutting it with razors, scissors, needles, tacks, and even a syringe. Nothing helped. It was around the size of an egg, and I couldn't do ANYTHING. No walking, so sitting, no lying down. I had to miss work for a couple days and I was out of options. So I went to the emergency care and the doctor there was clearly horrified and disgusted. He could barely speak, but told me that it was beyond what he could care for, and told me to go straight to the hospital ER. He even called ahead to help me get in. When I got there (I rode in the back seat, laying down on my stomach and crying...there was no way I could sit) they gave me a pain killer but it definitely did not help. The ER nurse made me lie down and she just cut it right open. I felt the liquid gush between my legs and all over my back, but she didn't stop. Instead of allowing me that moment of relief, she told me that she had to scrape out the pockets of infection or it would just come right back. She stuck something in the gaping hole and I couldn't stop screaming. She scraped and the way the small pockets burst, it made me imagine them as the pulp inside an orange--those fat little envelopes full and ready to pop. But she just kept going. And going. I like to think I have a pretty high tolerance for pain after dealing with this for so many years, but she pushed me to new limits. I didn't think it would ever stop.

Finally, she finished scraping and started cleaning me out. That was horrible but not quite as soul-shatteringly painful. Then she packed the hole full of gauze and told me to have it removed in two weeks. When I got home, I couldn't even look at it. The single time I glanced at it in the mirror, I saw the bruised and angry purple flesh bulging around a curly gauze tail that was pink with blood. I felt more like a pig than ever. When I went to the doctor to take it out, I had to hold onto the exam table while he pulled it out--it must have been three feet of bloody gauze, and the feeling of it being pulled out of my body made my skin crawl.

Since that last ER experience, I have tried desperately to avoid letting my cyst get that bad. If I get any skin that feels like a scab I can potentially peel off, I do, because I feel like it makes the rest of the skin thinner and therefore easier to burst. I clean there regularly, I avoid sitting for long periods on my tailbone, I never wear thongs, and any time I start to feel tender around my tailbone I immediately start spraying Bactine and applying hot and cold presses.

Around a year ago, I had called into work and while explaining to my boss why I couldn't come in, I lost control and started sobbing hysterically into the phone. The pain and embarrassment were just too much together. I'm glad it happened, though, because she was able to introduce me to something that one of her former colleagues had used for the same issue: ichthammol ointment. It smells like tar and stains everything and makes an enormous mess, but it helps thin the skin and, instead of bursting, the cyst just kind of starts leaking out after a couple days. I've only used this treatment twice, but each time it worked like a charm. Since it didn't burst, I don't think all of the infection got out either time, but it got rid of my pain so I can't complain. I can't believe more people don't know about this. I wish I had found out about it years ago--it would have saved me some serious pain. I mean, pain so bad that I can't help but think about killing myself. Hopefully someone searching for a way to help their pilonidal cyst will stumble across this page and try the ichthammol ointment. It's been a true miracle for me, and I haven't even had a cyst flare-up for almost a year. The ichthammol is super cheap and I just smear it on and then cover it with a small cut up square of washcloth held in place with medical tape.

But...now it's back. And now the ointment isn't working. And now I'm terrified. Since my recent heart surgery, all of my doctors have stressed over and over how important it is to keep myself from getting any kinds of infection. Anything, even something as small as a cut in my gums, can potentially lead to bacteria getting into my bloodstream and forming on my brand new heart valve. So I'm really really scared. It's 5am but the pain is so bad I can't sleep. I'm sitting on a heating pad with ichthammol ointment smeared on my butt, but it's not helping. I had to leave work early for the past two days. I almost passed out when I drove over a pot hole on the way home. I went to an art gallery opening tonight but we had to leave because I was so afraid someone would brush against my butt and I'd faint or scream. I keep accidentally bursting into tears, and it hurts to do anything. Since the abscess is basically between my butt cheeks, every time I move my butt cheeks squeeze around it and it feels like torture.

I had hoped that losing weight would also let me lose this cyst. Since it's what I consider a fat girl problem, I thought maybe, just maybe, it would disappear. Enough hard work and I wouldn't have to deal with it again.

So I'm doubly sad that I'm still facing this awful thing. And I'm so scared. I don't want the infection to reach my heart. I'm hoping it will burst on its own. Otherwise...I might be back in the hospital tomorrow. I'm not one for prayers, but I'll be praying for a miracle right now.

Update: It burst! Woohoo! Ichthammol success again!

Tumbling After

I don't want to jinx myself, but I may have knocked my body off its weight loss plateau.

I'll have to wait until my Wednesday weigh-in to know for sure, but I think I'm actually starting to lose again. WHEW. I was getting really frustrated and depressed over my lack of progress for the past month and a half.

My Weight Watchers meeting leader told me to try eating different breakfasts (apparently if you've been eating Yoplait pretty much every single morning for five years, your body gets used to it...who knew?) so I've been making banana berry smoothies and having a Fiber One bar a little later. Plus, I've been trying to get in my daily recommended healthy oil. I don't know why eating more oil is going to help, but if it works I don't care why.

Even if I don't lose this weight (but I seriously fucking BETTER lose this week) I'm still happy:
I rode in a go-kart today WITH a six year old kid and I didn't crush her! After all of my painful and cringe-worthy moments at the amusement park last summer as a result of my weight, I was really nervous about riding the go-karts. I was there with my niece (technically my girlfriend's niece, but I think since my girlfriend and I have been together longer than she's been alive, I have the right to call her my niece. Besides, she's called me Auntie all her life anyway...which I love :)). Her grandparents asked her who she wanted to drive with her since she's not tall enough to ride alone, and I died a little inside when she picked me. I did the usual watch-everyone-in-line-to-see-if-I'm-the-biggest thing. And I pretty much hyperventilated the whole time waiting to board. When we got in the car, though, I was able to fasten the seat belt comfortably and we sat side-by-side without her being squashed into the corner. And since I fit and I was comfortable, it was FUN! Really fun! And all of the pictures everyone took as we whizzed past turned out fine, without my double chin dangling down like a turkey wattle.

On top of that, I've been getting compliments from people this past week and it's awesome. Seeing my family at Easter started off the good-vibey warm-fuzzies week with everyone telling me I look good. My girlfriend commented several times, one of my best friends who only gives compliments rarely and very begrudgingly told me I've obviously lost a lot of weight, and my girlfriend's family was impressed. And then one of my employees sent me a note telling me I look great and to keep it up. I immediately employed my weird compliment-brush-off by complaining about not making any progress for over a month, and she responded with a bit of wisdom that I REALLY needed to hear. I wish I could remember exactly how she phrased it, but it was something like, "Even people climbing Mount Everest stop at base camp along the way."

So maybe this plateau is just base camp. I'm adjusting to the altitude. Now it's time to pack up my shit and move on!

100 Miles

I'm a little bit nervous about what I may have gotten myself into.

I signed up the for 100 Mile March.

Ahh!

Now, it's not exactly 100 miles at once...because then I would just die. But you're expected to walk/run/jog 100 miles throughout the month of March. My company is participating and was asking for volunteers, so I got all optimistic and signed up.

Then I tried to ACTUALLY walk, and now I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do it at all.

There are 31 days in March, so if I walk right around three miles every day, I'll be able to do it.

Unfortunately, there's a huge disconnect between that math and what I can actually do.

I picked up my treadmill from my girlfriend's brother's house (because I obviously was never using it!), plugged it in, and hopped on. I started for the first minute or two thinking "Wow, this may actually be do-able!" By the third minute, I was panting and my lungs were burning, even though I was walking at roughly the same slow pace I'd do strolling through a museum. So slow, but so painful.

By the fifth minute, I was wheezing and if my girlfriend had been able to hear me, I would have called to her to bring me my inhaler.

And by the eighth minute, I couldn't breathe, my heart was pounding through my chest, and my teeth were hurting like I was about to have an asthma attack. I turned off the treadmill and collapsed in the closest chair.

I ONLY WALKED .2 MILES.

NOT EVEN A QUARTER OF A FUCKING MILE.

And I was DYING.

I mean, it's no secret that I am lazy and I hate to exercise. I haven't been able to trust my heart or lungs enough to really do much of anything. I really try to avoid moving at all if I can help it.

But I thought I could at least WALK!

Back before I got sick and had my heart surgery, I would get up in the mornings and go for a nice brisk walk. I was hitting around a 15 to 18 minute mile, depending on how many times I broke into a jog. So when I turned on the treadmill yesterday, I figured it would take me maybe 20 minutes to walk the first mile, and hopefully I could get through three miles in a little under an hour.

WRONG.

If it takes me eight minutes to get through .2 miles, each mile will be 40 minutes. That means I'll have to  spend 120 minutes, or two whole hours, walking every night to do this 100 Mile March.

I just don't know if I can do it.

I'm determined to try, but I'm going to try not hating myself if I can't do it. I'm going to try hard. I haven't been using my daily inhaler with any regularity for the past few months, so I'm going to start using it again. It's not like losing weight is going to regrow my damaged lung tissue. But an inhaler along isn't going to get me through 100 miles.

Tonight, I want to try to hit at least .5 miles. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to do a full mile.

Maybe not, but at least I'll be trying.

Daddy

I can blame my weight on a lot of things. I know most of the fault is my own. No one held a gun to my head and made me gorge myself on cheese and chocolate for 30 years.

Still, like a lot of heavy people, I believe that a great deal of my weight issues have been tied to my parents. Between the bad genes, setting bad examples, rewarding us with food, forcing me to clear my plate but rarely making me eat vegetables...it's no wonder I was chubby by the time I was in kindergarten. 

My mom is the one who cooked dinner every night loaded with carbs and butter. She's the one who gave us Poptarts for breakfast and Lunchables, Capri Suns, fruit snacks, Cheetos, and Little Debbies in our lunches. She's the one who is overweight and who everyone says I look just like. She's the one who eats stacks of chocolate chip cookies for breakfast every single morning (not kidding) and then wonders why she can't control her diabetes.

But my dad is responsible for more emotional baggage than my mother could ever dream of inflicting.

I called this blog "My Weird Luck" for a number of reasons. I do have weird luck--not necessarily bad all the time, just strange. My life has taken many unexpected turns over the years. I've come through raging fires where I should have burned in my bed, and heart issues that no one expected me to survive. I've lost those closest to me in tragic and mysterious ways. I've been faced with bizarre obstacles and managed to get through one way or another. I would attribute much of it to weird luck. Maybe the stars were aligned strangely the day I was born.

But mostly, the name of this blog is an homage to Sylvia Plath, one of many poets whom I adore and admire. The line comes from her well-known poem, Daddy.

(Go ahead and read it. I'll wait.) That poem sums up a lot of my feelings for my father. He's in my life and still with my mother, but sometimes (okay, most of the time) I think we'd be better off without him. I KNOW my mom would be. 

I think he does love me. I just think his cruelty far outweighs his capacity to love.

Take this as an example: My parents have been married for 31 years. One of my earlier memories is of my dad telling me (around 5 years old) and my sister (2 or 3 years old) that my mother was like a vacuum cleaner because she would eat anything in the house. What kind of man makes comments like that to his children about their mother? That's when I started to learn how highly my father prized physical beauty and despised weakness. Fat, to him, is one of the most disgusting forms of weakness. To elaborate on the scene I just mentioned: this was when my mother was around 26 years old and weighed maybe 140 pounds. He constantly commented on her weight, and she was a third of the size she is now. Now, he doesn't even touch her. He won't divorce her, but chooses instead to keep her with him under his constant judgement. He doesn't even bother to hide his disgust of her.

When my parents were dating, my dad apparently used to sing Meatloaf's "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" to my mother. He told her every day that it was how he felt. "I want you, I need you, but there ain't no way I'm ever going to love you." I cry every time I hear that song on the radio, because it makes me think about just how shitty it would be to live with that kind of emotional abuse for 31 years. My poor mom. No wonder she loves chocolate so much.

My dad's judgement definitely doesn't end at my mom.

When I was younger, he was more direct in his scorn and derision. He would comment on my weight, on the food I was eating, on how I was dressed. He was cruel. He was violent. He scared the shit out of me. But mostly, he was just kind of a dick. Of course, I never stopped starving for his attention and approval, and I foolishly thought that if I tried hard enough, he'd eventually magically become a good guy. That obviously never happened. Like, true story: when I was 10 or so I was looking for a Father's Day present. He's a terrible person to shop for because he just buys himself anything he sees that he wants (and he still makes my mom beg for enough money to fill up the car with gas, or to pay for her doctor's bills--as sick as she is, he limits how many doctors she's allowed to see and he cancels appointments if they're going to be expensive). Anyway, I couldn't find anything for him so I bought him a t-shirt for Father's Day that said "World's Greatest Dad." I really though that I couldn't go wrong with a gift like that. HA! Not only did he make a point to tell me that it was a dumb present, but he actually returned it and used the money to buy himself a big can of cashews. Not even joking. Ugh, that's a bad memory. So his cruel comments don't stop at my mom, and they don't stop at even my weight. He can make me feel like shit about pretty much anything in the world.

Now that I've learned to assert myself, he makes more passive aggressive remarks about strangers. "Look at that fat pig over there!" or "God, I can't believe that woman is going to eat that whole meal--I'm getting sick just looking at her!" (Oh, yeah, he's fucking racist too. That's a lovely combination, right?) I've stopped even trying to keep my mouth shut--when he's being nasty and rude, I tell him so. But that doesn't stop him, and it never will.

As disgusting as his thoughts and actions are, it's his attitude about weight that's had the most impact on me personally. Everything else I can deal with in my own way--I'm proud to support equal rights for everyone, I loved how depressed he got when Obama won TWICE (!!!!), and I crushed him by pursuing a Women's Studies degree. I've marched on Washington, I came out as a lesbian at age 18, and I never back down now when he tries to pick a fight about anything.

Except my weight. Partially because I know he's right--I am a fat failure--and partially because it's embarrassing to have anyone call me out about it. At least everyone else is polite enough to quietly ignore my skyrocketing weight. But not him.

My dad has always faced his own struggles with weight. When he was in high school, he was fat. According to him, though, he basically 'willed' all the weight off. Determination, willpower, and a jump rope--he claims that's all you need to drop 100 pounds. Well, maybe for him.

When he was older, maybe in his 30s, he started gaining weight again. He had bushy facial hair and looked like a mountain man. Our neighbor called him "Big Daddy" because he looked like a large reproduction of her own dad.

Then, he got self conscious and started working out again, cut back his portions, and lost weight. Now he wears an XL shirt where before he was pushing XXXL--and he loves to remind everyone about it any chance he gets. He never misses an opportunity to talk about how little he eats, how much energy he has, how long his bike rides are.

That just pisses me off. I don't want to hear about how awesome he is or how I just need to have the determination to lose weight. I fucking hate self-righteous people, and even more so when they're such dicks about everything else.

My dad, though, really knows how to jab the knife in.

Listen, this is a person I would hate if I met him on the street. He's obsessed with Nazi propaganda, he's an unabashed racist, he's heartless and cold and cruel. But he's still my dad, and in the way that all little fat girls do, I still seek his approval more than I seek anything else in my life. It's shameful to me how proud I am when he recognizes me when I get promoted at work, and when he brags about my professional accomplishments. I feel incredible guilt every time I smile at his compliments.

He knows how much his approval means, and he knows how much he hurts me. I think in his sick way he thinks he's helping...but he's not. Not at all.

Viva La Cancun

There's something coming up that's giving me a lot of anxiety. Coincidentally (...Ironically? I never use this correctly...), it's a relaxing beach vacation.

I've faced similar fear and apprehension several times since I started Weight Watchers in August. First the State Fair, then my Disney World vacation in mid-October (during the Food and Wine festival...I was like Templeton in Charlotte's Web...a smorgasbord-orgasbord! But I tracked vigilantly, walked a ton, and still lost weight). Then I faced then Halloween, then Thanksgiving, and finally Christmas.

Now I have an all-inclusive vacation coming up at a five star resort in Cancun. It's for a work function, and my company is infamous for the amount of alcohol we're able to consume in any given situation. This trip is starting out with a private, chartered flight to Mexico with drinks on-board. When we arrive, there's a welcoming party with an all-you-can-eat buffet and an open bar. EVERYTHING is paid for, totally included. There's going to be a mini-fridge in the room that's restocked daily, and everything is free. Seriously. There are restaurants all throughout the resort, all included. They have 24 hour room service that ALSO delivers alcohol to your door...for free! We're having cocktail parties with booze and super fancy feasts, pool lounging days with cabana boys plying us with mixed drinks, beach parties with VIP buffets and private mixologists. As diligently as I plan to track everything I eat, I just know I'm not going to be able to stop myself from taking advantage of at least some of the deliciousness.

The closest I've ever had to anything like this was a cruise early in 2012. There was plenty of food, but we also had activities every day that required a lot of walking, and we had to pay for all of our alcohol. This time, with an unlimited supply and no fees and only a single actual physical activity planned over the four day trip, I can only imagine how much weight I'll manage to pack on.

I'm really trying to think positively, but I don't know how I'm going to react when I get confronted with so much food and alcohol. I've severely cut back on my drinking simply because I don't have enough points to get drunk every other night, but in the past I was a bit of a lush. Of course, once I get a couple of drinks in me I start craving all kinds of fatty foods and my inhibition and self control go right out of the window.

I've got to brace myself for Mexico and try to keep myself in check, but I don't want to miss out on anything either. Isn't that a new name for an old thing? "FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out." It's always been an issue for me, and I definitely don't want to miss out on VIP buffets and open bars.

The problem is, I can't trust myself to turn down free food and liquor.

I'm just going to have to eat like a saint until then, track like a maniac while I'm south of the border, and then fasten my belt again once I'm back home.

And maybe light a candle and keep my fingers crossed that Cancun isn't going to derail me completely. I've come too far to blow it now.

(Oh, and weigh in is tomorrow too. Ay carumba.)

Family Genes

I keep meaning to write about my grandma, but I keep managing to avoid it anyway. It's embarrassing and painful and sad to think about. But here goes.

 

My grandma is awesome. Really, both of my grandmothers were awesome, but only one is still alive. I lost my wonderful paternal grandmother my freshman year of college. (Incidentally, it happened on the same day that my dad disowned me, slammed my head against a metal rod and tried to choke me out, and then told me he never wanted to see me again. They didn't tell me she was dying until it was too late to make it to the hospital. That's just another thing I don't know if I'll forgive my father for. More on this another day.) My maternal grandmother, Meme, has always doted after me, though. She sees me as a younger version of herself, and I can see it too. The way she shows love, though, is with food. ALWAYS with food.

She has always taken great pains to make my favorite cakes and dishes for Thanksgiving, Easter, and Christmas. She makes me a personal pan of stuffing without chicken broth, even though she claims she'll never understand why I'm a vegetarian. Whenever we were celebrating anything growing up, she and Papaw would take us to Red Lobster or somewhere similar. For birthdays and anniversaries, they like to buy or make thick fudgey brownies and mound ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate on top. When I spent a month at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, Meme made me a big box of homemade fudge to share with my new friends--I was insanely popular that day, even though I ate much of the fudge myself. When I would spend the night with them as a child, they'd cook a big supper and then have popcorn with melted butter afterward, followed by ice cream. When I used to house-sit for them, they'd get me a pantry full of chips, Lucky Charms, Little Debbies, and cashews.

Since food is tied so closely to Meme's relationships with me and others, it's no wonder that she also has considerable issues with food.

I've seen pictures of her when she was younger, and she was slim and gorgeous. She looked like Liz Taylor--the resemblance is uncanny. She wore big black beehive wigs and tight bell-bottom pants. She put on weight slowly over the years, and by the time I was born, she was pretty heavy. Some of my earliest memories of her are of her talking about her latest diets. She did a green bean diet for awhile, where she ate green beans all the time. If she wasn't hungry enough to eat plain green beans, the diet reasoned, then she wasn't really hungry. Later, she tried the Sugarbuster diet. Atkins. South Beach. Still her weight continued to rise.

I could see why. You only have to watch her eat one meal to see that her portions are huge, everything's cooked Paula Deen style (she's from Arkansas so most of her meals aren't completed without cornbread slathered with butter, or at least deep fried and covered in salt), and she eats like she's in a trance without knowing what she's intaking. She loves buffets as much as I do, and she always has donuts or coffee cake or cookies on hand.

Even so, she was still pretty. Before she retired, she was stylish and active, even if she was big. But once she retired, it was like she made a nest in her armchair and never left. She stopped swimming and they closed their pool. She stopped going to Vegas for their every-few-months trips because she had trouble fitting in the airplane seats (gee, that sounds familiar). And slowly she began to do less and less.

Now, she has terrible back problems. That's what she says, anyway. I believe that she's in pain, but I think the problems are more weight-related than back-related. I know, I know: I hate physicians who assume every problem with an obese person is nothing more than their weight. But in Meme's case, I think she got so big that moving became a burden, so she stopped trying. I know how she feels, because I was very close to that myself.

My grandfather now has to push her around in a wheelchair everywhere she goes. All 460 or so pounds of her. She got an electric wheelchair, but she doesn't like that as much because she can't get close to her slot machines (they still drive to local casinos since she can't or won't fly to Vegas). She needs help getting to the bathroom and standing up from her chair. It's not old age--she's in her 60s. She just became immobile. She can't put on her own shoes and she hired a housekeeper to do the chores. Her hairdresser has to make house calls because she can't go to the salon. My grandpa is so afraid to leave her home alone and risk her falling that he has to call someone to stay with her if he wants to go to the store or run an errand.

When she was in the hospital last year, they didn't have a bed that could accommodate her. They actually had to call an outside company to deliver a heavy-duty bariatric hospital bed. When it got there, the auto-inflating mattress kept failing. They had the tech out twice and I could tell that he was doing everything he could to avoid telling her that she was too big for the bariatric bed. (That's why I know how much she weighs--they made me try to fix the bed and I saw the weight. For some reason they think that because I can program their cell phone, I should be able to figure out any type of technology. I wish.) They let her keep her own mumu on because the hospital gowns wouldn't fit her. They have to take her blood pressure around her wrist because the cuff won't go around her upper arm. She acts like none of it bothers her, but I can only imagine the embarrassment she must feel.

I never wanted their senior years to be like this. I dreamed of them retiring and having more time for the things they used to love doing--fishing, boating, camping, shopping. Now, they can't even go out to dinner because Meme thinks it's too much of a hassle and it puts too much of a strain on Papaw.

That makes me really sad.

The only good news is that I'm pushing myself in the opposite direction this time. I really was starting to pick up some of her habits--asking my girlfriend to get things for me, choosing to stay home instead of going through the trouble of going out and risking not fitting into a booth or being stared at in a crowd. I'm happy to think that my senior years will be spent doing what I want to do without being constrained by my size...but is it too late to help Meme? She's the most stubborn woman I've met, excluding myself.

I've done all I can, and I'm starting to give up hope that she'll ever take the initiative to get healthy again. I feel like she's resigned herself to living out her final years like the mom in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, and that makes me want to cry. I had almost resigned myself to the same fate...the only difference is that I feel like I still have time to turn my life around. I wish I could say the same for her.