EATING

My Christmas bulb in bloom!

I’m eating. I don’t mean from hunger. I know why. The PT secretary threw my receipt at me. My only satisfaction is that it rolled off the counter down onto her desk and she had to put it back up again.

When she began to harangue me from the week before I told her “No more from you. It goes nowhere. When you’re finished writing it up, let me know.”

And I sat down.

The throwing came when she threw it up on the counter for me to sign. My hands shook as I handed it back to her and quietly said, “The only thing you owe me is an apology.”

This is same one who walked away the week prior because I protested an overcharge. I know intellectually that her lack of professionalism and courtesy is her problem, not mine.

Yet there it is. I eat when I am treated badly, when I feel bad despite what my thoughts tell me, that she’s in the wrong, childish, and rude. And you need not feel bad about other’s nastiness.

Yet I do. And my go to relief is food. Except that it’s not. It makes me feel as bad, just in other ways. Self-hate ways. But so does being treated badly. A throw back from childhood of course, when atrocities to my body were supposed to be kept silent, and bore on my own tiny shoulders. Of course I’d grow to allow transgressions, though lessor ones, and feel wrong, bad and somehow to blame.

My appointment with the specialist was unfortunately later the same day, a day that for the first time enough snow had fallen that Samuel had to fire up the snow-blower. Even though Samuel drove, I fretted over snowy conditions, and that a first time patient was allotted only 15 minutes, and more worries over seeing a surgeon. You know what surgeons like to do. Lastly, I’ve seen so many medical people in the past few months, each with their own opposing opinions that one more is about tipping me over the edge.

I prepared the day ahead by typing out all the tests and procedures I’ve had lately. Three CAT scans in one year to rule out diverticulitis. Strike three, strike OUT! I should have said NO to that last one in the ER. No more. I don’t have DIVERTICULITIS.  

I liked him almost immediately, especially when he said surgery, if that’s even needed, isn’t even anything to consider at this point. He didn’t rush me. And he didn’t need the paperwork I had worked so diligently on because, miracle upon miracle, he had taken time prior to read my history. 

When my ‘stress tears’ fell he said, “I don’t know why you’re crying.”

“I’m scared! It’s scary to be bleeding and not know where,” I immediately answered, wiping my eyes.

He looked me in the eyes and discussed what was going on and how to treat it for now. He put me at ease. I have another medication to take 4 times a day which will help heal whatever is bleeding. OK, I’ll need a notebook for that.  

His ability to pinpoint where the bleed is came down to, “Anywhere from mouth to butt.”

How can I not like this guy? I like, no, need, directness, even if I don’t like what I hear.

He also said, probably based on his assessment of my stress, “You’ll either get better, or you won’t.” 

Now others may not like or appreciate such a statement, but I had to laugh out-loud and so did Samuel. It’s not easy to get a laugh out of me lately.

But yesterday took its toll. After luxuriating in several weeks of good sleep because my arm calmed down along with my fears, I woke. And the secretary’s rudeness invaded my thoughts. I gave up and came out to join the 3 am news team, took a pill that makes me groggy the next day…and I ate.

I haven’t been overeating since the hospital stays. I’ve been very careful. But I’m back on track. Because after a groggy morning of feeling crappy and eating too much for breakfast, I remembered my work. Take care of yourself, be loving. Being loving is asking, what can I do that best takes care of me? Eating right, taking the medications, doing my exercises, using a softer approach by remembering just how hard this past year has been and all I’ve had to cope with.

I began to feel better. Not because of what anyone else did or didn’t do, because an apology will not likely be forthcoming from the secretary, but because of how I talk to myself and treat myself.

Back to basics.

Nosy Molly had to hop up and see what I was doing!