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| LIAM HEADS INTO THE ICE CREAM |
Back then
They are always there. The three numbers in the date boxes on our kitchen wall calendar....176, 175...190, 189...weekends are bare. As are a few other days. What are these? My father Charlie is the recorder. I learn they represent his weight.
See screenshot for an example of what I see growing up
My father likes food, he likes to drink and he likes to look fit. He walks. Long walks. To Rockaway and back to do some overnight crabbing. We live in Flushing. An astonishing distance. He also snacks all night long right until bedtime. He will have to walk for days to burn the calories he consumes each night.
He rarely achieves his ideal weight. All fad diets are tried. And the numbers keep being annotated.
Summer 1963. I am recently 13. My mother approaches me, arms extended as if she might grab and hug me. What? Ruth is not a hugger. I freeze still. She places one hand on each of my shoulders, looks at my face and says "Carol, you are getting a little chubby. We'll go to the doctor and fix you"
Fix me! What a trick! I am expecting a hug. I am reeling. We march off to the doctor. On the classic height and weight scale, I am 5'1" and 103 pounds.
Okay. My mother wants it and I am going to do it. I am fat. I must be fixed. I am a quick study on calories and a ferocious dieter. Back in the 1960's it is not easy to do a calorie count. There are no nutritional labels on foods. There is no Internet to ask. There are few calorie books. I manage to figure out calories pretty close to what they are. My fave snack, Cheezits, confounds me. I am addicted. I have to know how many I can safely eat. I estimate what one would be by translating ounces and cups and figuring out calories arithmetically by hand. No calculators in those days. You have to be committed to come up with calorie counts. I come up with 6 per cheezit. When the calories counts begin to be displayed in the 1980's I am delighted to see I have computed each Cheezit calorie count almost exactly...see screenshot. 150 divided by 27= 5.55555556
Within a year my strict adherence to calories morphs into anorexia
I excel in eating disorders. I progress to bulimia in college. Anorexia is a lonely disease, In college, I am social. I have to eat. What do you do? Put it in and get it out. You don't have to keep it. Hello, toilet bowl. I know every bathroom in every place I frequent.
I have a running count of calories in my head at all times and still do.
Anorexia. Bulimia. Gain weight..Lose weight. Hide food, Throw away food. Move around food. Cover food. Exhausting. Decades.
I never give a thought to my colon. I have always thought it unusual I escaped unscathed from all those eating disorder years...no stomach issues, no tooth enamel destruction...no esophageal damage...well...I did not escape...though there is no definitive cause for diverticulitis I am going with my eating disorders for me
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| MOM, WHAT'S A COLON? |
Colon, where is it and what does it do? And what happens when it gets damaged. Here is a doctor approved link on diverticulitis
I have had diverticulosis since 2001 and periodically have had diverticulitis attacks. Apparently the cumulative damage caught up to me. My most recent diverticulitis attack starts the evening of July 13 after swallowing a mouthful of broccoli. Its treatment begins a few days later. I am referred to a surgeon immediately and surgery is scheduled for September 26th.
We have to wait to calm down the angry colon and free it of infection before the surgery.
My Doctor, Cristina Sardinha , explains to me that this condition will not improve and will keep getting worse. She asks "Do you want to have to deal with this forever, you are young. What if it happens on a trip?'
She is right. My quality of life is affected
Dr. Sardinha is the wife of Dr.Marc Sher who did Paul's hernia in 2013
They are adorable. She is Brazilian. Share the practice.
See article about them
The
last three months of multiple infections (including the dreaded cdif)
and fighting them with antibiotics are debilitating...often with
myriad side effects...all but death. But we get there.
The surgery happens. My gifted doctor and her team fix me. I stay at LIJ for 7 days.
My last doctor visit on October 11 goes well.. All infected incision sites clear.
Last pill taken that night.
Now I will know how I actually feel.
I am released on my own.
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| RIGHT AFTER SURGERY, OBVIOUSLY DRUGGED |
I am home. Recovering. Slow going. I cannot eat regularly yet, Low residue diet for several more weeks. I find it wryly amusing. I spent decades with my eating disorders controlling every morsel and now I must do the same. However, I am sanctioned to do so. I am not supposed to eat. How funny. Really. My self inflicted suffering is now the recommended treatment. Okay, not total equivalency. But close. How pleasing now I am officially approved to not to eat. Been waiting for approval all my life. And now I can let it go
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| AH, DREAMING OF A LITTLE BITE OF FOOD |
In 1997, I spent a few days at my parents' home before my father died. The numbers were still being annotated. I hope the numbers were ones he wanted to end up with.
In 1993, my mother said to me "You are too thin" I waited 30 years to hear it.
It began with three numbers.
I am fixed. I have a chance to live without pain. And fear of attacks. Thank you to my outstanding doctor and her team and Seven South at LIJ
Epilogue
In the October 20, 2016 issue of Rolling Stone Bruce Springsteen shared this insight "If you don't start unpacking your baggage, it gets heavier as you move along. The weight becomes impossible to carry and it can get pretty messy."
Bruce unpacks his baggage with 4 hour shows, a touch of klonopin and therapy.
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| NO HIDING, COME OUT, UNPACK YOUR BAGGAGE |
I had my colon reduced to a semi colon (thanks to a friend for that one)
Unpacked physical baggage. Damaged colon piece gone. Two good parts sewn.together.
I unpacked some emotional baggage as well.
I will get a second tattoo to celebrate
A friend found this one for me.
What do you think readers?
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| SEMICOLON TATTOO |
Woof, Woof
