The Stress Diet

It's nice to buy new clothes.  If you can afford it.

I bought these pants yesterday, as I am down to one pair of pants that fit me (all are too big).  I'm on the (unintentional) stress diet:  get very stressed out, eat fewer/smaller meals, extra pooping, lose weight.  This is a diet brought on by high stress situations:  breakups, moms with life threatening illnesses/in the hospital/surgery, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I like losing weight.  I could definitely stand to lose some pounds and I am certainly not regularly exercising.  It's just the knowing that this is why it's happening, the running to the bathroom every few hours, the inability to enjoy food that bugs me.  I like food.  I want to taste it, smell it, enjoy every minute of it. 

On Monday, my mom texted me that she was headed to the emergency room, that her back was too painful to stay at home with her battery of ultra-strong pain meds.  She was headed to the emergency room for a Delaudid drip. 

So I got up from my hangover couch (I drank my weight in sangria the night before at a BBQ), got in my car and my boyfriend and I drove over the bridge to the hospital.

When we got there, we saw my mother, eyes closed, being wheeled down the hallway by a hospital employee.  In her empty "room" (the tiniest, wall-less excuse for a hospital room I had ever seen), sat my step-father ("dad"), staring at his ipad.  He filled us in on the progress (there was none) and told us that she was getting a cat scan.  She would be back soon.  So we waited.

When she was wheeled back, my mother looked pale.  She could barely open her eyes or move in any direction.  She was completely miserable.  She held my hand and we talked a bit, mostly about the terrible movie that was on tv.  Until her pain meds kicked in, at which point she became silent but agitated until she finally closed her eyes.  It was at this point when I started to have a panic attack. 

A surgeon came in to tell her that her best option was this surgery where they inject concrete into your back to repair your compressed vertebra.  She's doing that surgery today.  In an hour and a half.  Supposed to wake up pain free.  If this is true, I am going to eat a whole pizza for dinner tonight.

When I left the hospital on Monday, after realizing I was having a panic attack (from seeing my mother nod out on synthetic morphine), I was so relieved to be back in my car, back at my house, back in my comfort zone.  Mine.

I took a couple of "down calmer" pills and watched television until after midnight. 
Getting up for work was hard on Tuesday.
Getting up for work is hard most days.