#637

That number is significant only in that it is my 637th post, which sort of astounds me. Also, I've been running this here blog for just over five years now. That's astounding, too. With the exception of primary school, I don't think I've ever done anything for 5 years straight! Including stay at one place of employment! That this is my 637th post is not what is compelling me to write on this half-sunny, half-overcast California morning.

File this under "Personal Characteristics Which I Despise About Myself." First, some back story.

I met with my Gastro Doc yesterday. If I told you his name, you wouldn't believe me. It's sort of onomatopoetic to his specialty, actually. His name might as well be Dr. Brmph! In fact, I think that's what I'll call him: Dr. Brmph!

So, I saw Dr. Brmph! yesterday. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting. When I saw him 6 weeks ago, we agreed upon a "slow 'n steady" course of treatment which would require that I start exercising, meet with a dietician, and then follow whatever food plan she recommended for me. I met with the dietician, made a few changes here and there, but nothing significant; nothing that was noticeable on the scale or in my appearance. I stopped eating nuts and leafy greens because they were making life unbearable for me a few moments every day, so I decided to back off them for a while. That's about all I did.

The night before I had been to see my psychiatrist, from whom it had been impossible to hide my non-compliancy in terms of what is required in order for me to stay healthy and relatively balanced in all areas of my life. He called me on all my shit (pun intended! Or, as my mom would say "Punt intended!), but didn't give me any time to tuck my tail between my legs. He immediately started explaining the ramifications of my current inaction and threw out several treatment options which addressed the cold, hard fact that what I do to my body on a day to day basis has a direct correlation to how I feel in my brainal area. And he understood and explained the biological chemistry behind what I was going through and why I just couldn't up and solve all my personal issues, both physically and emotionally, the way I feel like everyone has been expecting me to do.

So you can see how I was already a little... I don't think defeated is the right word here. I think I was chagrined as I sat on the exam table waiting for Dr. Brmph! Chagrined and tired. Dr. Brmph! entered the room and read his report of my last visit aloud to me. I was sort of confused. I knew everything he was telling me because I had either told him or it had already been discussed between us.

Lest you are already formulating a comment to this post containing the words, "Hack" or "Quack," I feel like I need to stop here and point out that Dr. Brmph! is a leader in his specialty here in Los Angeles. He came highly recommended to me by someone with far worse physical issues than I have. I had to wait three weeks to see him and during that time there was never a cancellation that could get me in sooner. Dr. Brmph! is the shit. Again, punt intended.

Having said that, you can see why I was confused by this man wasting his time reiterating my last visit in such detail. Finally, he dropped something on me - a term for which I would like to coin right now: a pharmabomb. A pharmabomb is when your doctor tells you something I don't think too many people ever really want to hear: you can't manage your shit on your own, so now it's time for medical and pharmaceutical intervention. I have problems with this. As you well know.

Dr. Brmph! wanted to start me on a low-dose weight-loss drug to help me get the energy I needed to drag my fat, tired ass back to the gym and improve my overall well-being, with the understanding that it's not the permanent solution and that I would taper off it once I was feeling better and had better control of myself. This drug, even at its lowest dose, requires an EKG before it can be prescribed with confidence. He handed me a paper gown, made a joke about it's construction, and then told me a nurse would be in to do an EKG on me.

Stunned, I changed into the gown and then once again sat on the edge of the exam table feeling like a complete and utter failure. I teared up a little but I choked it back down. I pushed down my cuticles rather than consider the events which led up to the pharmabomb and my role in it.

The nurse came in and did the fastest EKG known to man. Once again, I found myself perched on the edge of the exam table, alone in the room and waiting for Dr. Brmph! to come back in. Having already pushed down my cuticles, I got up and checked my crackberry to see if there was anything work-related I could handle remotely while dressed in a paper gown. There was nothing for me, so I wandered over to the report Dr. Brmph! had been reading aloud to me at the start of my appointment and found a paragraph he had skipped.

In this paragraph he described my gross motor function as being normal (ha! HAHAHAHAH. My poor shins would say otherwise, I'm sure, if that's where my mouth happened to be instead of on my face!), as well as other things like the condition of my eyes and lungs and my neurological function. He also described my appearance and I have to say that I wish I had never walked over to that report. I wish he hadn't left my file open for me to see. But, unbelievably, I'm glad he did. I'll get to that.

He used medical terms, but essentially he was calling me fat! Me! Fat! At first I thought, "I BEG to differ, sir! I have been WAY FATTER." In the interest of keeping it real, however, which is something I have always tried to do on this blog, I realized with a hot, embarrassed, awful feeling that he was correct. I am, indeed, larger than the average lady bear. I always have been. I always will be. But, my smallest large is more ideal than my larger large, and my poor body and brains have had to bear witness to this fact over and over again.

I allowed myself to cry for about 4 seconds and then I choked it back down again because I could hear Dr. Brmph! getting ready to come back into the room again. He looked at my EKG, pronounced it perfect (at least I get one A among all the giant FAILS I seemed to be collecting that morning!) and we started my physical exam. He was talking about the pharmabomb again and our "slow 'n steady" treatment plan when I mentioned that a new symptom had cropped up in the past few weeks: I can't really eat wheat products anymore without experiencing asthma/hay fever-like symptoms. He asked me if I had trouble swallowing during those times and I said yes, sometimes.

I then divulged a few other new facts, the revelation of which inspired him to go from "slow 'n steady" to, "I honestly do think we'll end up doing an endoscopy on you," to "I'm scheduling you for an endoscopy and colonoscopy. How's April 22?"

The morning netted out like so: 1.) I was pharmabombed 2.) because I'm fat 3.) and my desire to have a camera up my butt will be fulfilled. Sort of a lose-lose-win if you ask me, but it's reality and I finally have to deal with that.

In addition to the whole, "It's a lifestyle" thing I talked about the other day, there's something else I have to battle. It took me 24 hours of processing and a ridiculous emotional reaction to something completely out of left field in order for me to rediscover this other thing: I'm spending too much of myself on other people.

To wit, hopefully by now you've read my Maddie Spohr post (and hopefully you've donated!). News of Maddie's passing has spread through the blog-world like a California wildfire. The support that has risen up has been amazing to watch and I'm happy I could enable a small part of the awareness the Spohrs need. I've seen posts similar to mine popping up on many of the blogs I read on a regular basis and it's touching and inspiring to behold.

Except- one mommy-blogger, while expressing her condolences for the Spohr family, opted not to get involved at all. She explained that she's a Highly Sensitive Person and as such, she felt it would be healthier for her to not involve herself the way other bloggers had because she was afraid she would get too involved or, as my therapist would say, "write checks she couldn't cash."

This ENRAGED me. I had been stewing over her post for a full day, mentally composing the comment I planned to post on her site in which I would verbally eviscerate her for being an insensitive hypocrite (she prevailed upon her readership to donate funds so she could attend BlogHer, and they came through quite generously). How DARE she not take even the smallest measure and post the damn PayPal link on her home page when she herself had been a recipient of the interweb's beneficence? Grrrr!

And then, this morning, as I was angrily unloading the dishwasher after a rather stupid discussion with my husband which had me cursing the fact that I always do things for other people at a great cost to myself and my time -and often all for naught!- (this was not in reference to MFDC directly, but rather a totally unrelated situation), I finally got it. I understood why that mommy blogger stepped back from what she recognized would be an all-consuming situation for her. She was smart enough not to write checks she knew she would not be able to cash and which, in the end, she would feel tremendously guilty for and which would ultimately exhaust her - the same way I exhaust myself on everyone else's behalf but my own. This has been my pattern my whole life. (I still think she's a bit of a hypocrite, but... I get it)

That's why my overall health is where it is. That's why my personal war with my weight fostered a pharmabomb. Nobody's going to figure it out but me. Nobody's going to look out for me but me. Nobody knows what it's like to be me and, clearly, I'm still figuring it out myself! And I AM me! It's a hard lesson to learn, but my personal fulfillment doesn't lie in what I can manage to do for other people. It requires a hard look in the mirror. And many, many hours on a treadmill.

Maybe once I accomplish that I'll be able to give without it costing me so dearly. But, for now, my resources are limited and I need to conserve and restore whatever I can in the best interest of myself, my family and my future.

Thanks for tuning in, Monkeys, and letting me keep it real.