The Waiting Game

I had my intake assessment for the PHP/EIOP at the eating disorder center this morning. It went pretty much as expected, I’ve been through it before. The worst part is just now waiting. The intake coordinator I met with this morning meets with her team on Tuesday morning to go over new intakes, so she said I’ll hear from her Tuesday or Wednesday of next week with their recommendation as to which program. I don’t know when I’ll hear about whether insurance will approve a higher level of care.

I’m trying hard to work on my own to cut down on my binging and purging because of my diabetes diagnosis yesterday, but I’m not having a lot of luck so far. However, I’m going to keep trying. And hopefully I get into the partial hospitalization program or evening intensive outpatient program to help out.

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Bulimics are 4 times more likely to develop diabetes

According to a study, bulimics are 4 times more likely to get diabetes than the general public.

I didn’t know this until about an hour ago. I also didn’t know that bulimia can cause diabetes. However, an hour ago, my doctor called me. She knows about my history with bulimia and the severity with which I’m struggling right now. She told me my lab results came back, and I have diabetes. She also said it is likely a result of my 15 year struggle with bulimia. I was shocked. I am still kind of in shock.

I don’t know what it means for me yet. I have a doctor appointment scheduled to talk about it in more detail. However, I know this means I need to get my bulimia under control if possible.

Weary

I am tired. I am weary. I have been so busy this week. Between appointments, spending time at the hospital with my dad, treatment, pre-surgery stuff, helping out around the house, plus we have been going through our storage unit trying to get rid of as much as possible so we can stop paying an extra $200 a month on a storage unit to store a bunch of stuff we don’t need. That’s physically exhausting between the fibromyalgia and the rheumatoid arthritis. I woke up this morning fatigued, tired, ready to sleep another night. My body aches and my brain feels like cotton. I have another day of looking through boxes and moving furniture and then spending time with my dad at the hospital.

I’m grateful to be able to spend time at the hospital. But I feel guilty if I take time to myself because he’s there 24/7 alone, bored, restless, in pain. I know I need to take care of myself too, and I’m trying, but finding the right balance has been hard. Today is a week since we ambushed him. A week he’s been in the hospital. He’ll find out more tomorrow about when he can come home.

Update on My Dad

After my dad was admitted to the hospital, I spent the night and next day with him, keeping him company, making sure he had everything he needed, listening to the doctors to make sure we knew what was going on, advocating for him. It was a long couple days, first in the ER, then in the hospital the next day. Last night I came home and slept. I just showered and I feel refreshed.

My dad’s infection spread into his muscle. The doctor said if he’d left it much longer, it’d be in his bone, and he’d had lost the leg. I’m relieved and so thankful that my family ambushed him and made him go to the hospital. He’ll need several surgeries and lots of strong antibiotics. He goes in for his first surgery today.

My sister is taking today’s shift. I wish I could be there for him, but I also know I need to rest today. I’m very sore, my fibromyalgia is flaring up from the hospital chair I spent the last couple days in. Even with my frequent walks I didn’t escape its cruel consequences.

I talk to my dad via Facebook messenger (because it doesn’t use his data since it’s over the hospital’s wifi) often. He’s, naturally, bored and restless. The next time I go up to see him (tomorrow) I’m taking cards and we’ll play cribbage.

Planned Intervention

A bit ago I wrote about my dad’s infection in his leg and how he’s believing for faith healing and refuses to see a doctor for it.

Well, my siblings, mom, and I talked yesterday. We talked about how worried we are about him and his health, and how we’re worried about losing him. So, we have staged an intervention for tomorrow. I am not looking forward to it. I hate confrontation. I don’t want to confront him on this. However, something needs to give, because I’m terrified of losing him. So, I’ll be a part of this intervention if it give more weight to the event. I assume the more people who come together the more seriously he’ll take it.

Here’s hoping he doesn’t just blow us off.

Faith Healing

I would always hear those stories about a couple whose child died because the child was sick and the couple refused to take their child to the doctor because they believed God would heal their child. They refused to believe that God could bring healing through the doctor or modern medicine, it had to come through a narrow predetermined way they had chosen to believe in and were too narrow-minded or too stubborn or too something to accept that God might just use some other means to bring healing for their child. And because of this, their child had died.

I hated those stories because I felt so powerless. I wanted to be able to go back in time and shake those parents and make them listen. I wanted to save the life of the poor child who had literally suffered to death, but I knew there was nothing I could do to help them.

I grew up in a religious home, but my parents always took us to the doctor when we needed it and gave us medication when the doctor felt is was necessary. I never thought my parents would turn into one of those faith healing fanatics who would risk their own health in their shortsightedness.

However, my dad has turned into one of those people. My dad has type 2 diabetes. My dad believes that God is going to heal him. For whatever reason, that means he can’t manage his diabetes via modern medicine in the meantime because that would be “doubting God will heal him” so he’s stopped testing his blood sugar and stopped taking his insulin. Because of this, he developed an infection in his ankle. Well, naturally, God’s going to heal that too. My dad refuses to see a doctor about it. He refuses to accept that God might heal him of the infection through modern medicine. And as a result, the infection has grown to at least 6 inches long and wraps around his ankle and I am terrified he’s going to need his foot amputated if he lets it go much longer. But still he refuses to see a doctor about it. I’m also afraid the infection is going to go septic and threaten his very life and he’ll still refuse to be seen.

I’m scared for him, and I feel helpless. And I’m mad and frustrated because he won’t take care of himself and he’s putting his wife and me through this.

Seizures and Vulnerability

This morning, my youngest brother had a diabetic seizure. It was terrifying.

He only has seizures when his blood sugars are dangerously low. Whenever he has one, I worry that we won’t be able to get them back up in time and he’ll die.

I always have flashbacks of when I got the phone call telling me my sister had died.

His seizure this morning was worse than normal. We called 911 and gave him a glucagon injection. He didn’t respond. I rubbed sugar into the inside of his cheek while my mom prepared another injection of glucagon.

He seized for 10 straight minutes while we waited for the paramedics. He had been sitting on a chair in the living room when he started seizing. Before I could get to him, he fell off, faceplanting on the wood floor, and hitting his head on a tv tray.

I rushed to move things out of his way while dialing 911 so that he couldn’t injure himself.

Those 10 minutes seemed to last forever.

Luckily, he’s doing better now.

Are you familiar with Post Secret?

Tonight in group, we did a post secret type activity. We each got index cards and were instructed to write out our secrets on them.

Some were things like “I want another tattoo.”
Most were very intimate.
Many made me cry.

It was a rough group.

Then, we had process group. I admitted that I had been frustrated with my brother for not taking care of his diabetes the way he should be, and thus putting my mom, his girlfriend, and I in the position of just trying to keep him alive and freaking out. However, once process group started, I started feeling hypocritical because I am not taking care of myself the way I should. I admitted that I don’t know how to take care of myself, and that I don’t feel I deserve to.

I cried through my admission, and after, I started to panic and was having trouble breathing. My counselor noted that I feel a lot of shame when I feel vulnerable. It’s true. And I HATE to feel vulnerable.

My homework assignment for this week is to come up with a list of 25 reasons I’m worthy and deserving of food. I’m having a lot of trouble coming up with anything.