Right now–to interrupt the story

I am knitting.  Working on my new project.  I have a bit of it done, after a frustrating time counting stitches in the beginning.  Why do I always have trouble counting those stupid stitches?  I will photograph my project when I am finished, and post it.

I woke up feeling pretty good.  I had a burst of energy at some point, probably–likely–during Puzzle’s walk.  The positive feelings have continued all day despite the vertigo that followed my first bite of food for the day (yes, I have eaten today).  The vertigo was bad, bad, bad as usual.  There was an accompanying bit of mental confusion along with the vertigo, but I think it was due mostly to fatigue, because the confusion subsided after a 10-minute nap.  The vertigo faded–eventually.  Then, I went on with my day.  I did a bit of food and toiletry shopping.  I had a coupon that I used.  Two dollars off.  Nice.

My knee has almost completely healed.  Surprise, surprise!  A blessing amidst the darkness.

I have a bunch of things to do in the next couple of days.   It’s hard to keep track of it all.  I have priorities.

#1: Puzzle
#2: Puzzle
#3: Puzzle….

We have great walks.

Vertigo somewhat improved…I am leaving shortly for therapy

I think I’m going to be okay to go.  The vertigo is finally fading.  I should be okay in a little while.  Yesterday, it lasted five hours.  Today, it seems to have been just as much of a trickster.

Meanwhile, I have a bit of ataxia from the Trileptal that I just raised to help with bingeing.  This causes “swaying” on my feet separate from the vertigo.  I also have some edema from the bingeing I did right before I raised the Trileptal.  I haven’t binged since the increase.  I had to lace up my shoes very loosely this morning.  That didn’t help my walking any.  But I was just now able to tighten them adequately.

This really sucks.

Two things don’t suck:  1) my knee injury is vastly improved.  I am off crutches completely.  They are back in my closet.  2)  I don’t feel depressed today.  Just wicked annoyed.

I’d like to close this entry with some kind of funny remark.  But right now, I don’t feel very amused by all this.

My “new life”…without running, without walking….barely eating…depressed….

Well, this is it, I suppose.  My “new life.”  And they expect me to eat?  Eat?????

I got weighed today.  The edema is gone.  Of course.  I starved it away.  The edema is what stopped me from running in the first place, and got me so mad that I walked 14 miles a day and ended up with this injury.  But I am 12 pounds less than what I was the last time I got weighed.  My doctor isn’t pleased.  She said the absence of edema isn’t the only culprit, that my lack of nutrition is the other.  Well, yeah.  I confessed that being injured for a month hasn’t exactly inspired me to chow down.

I came home and took a nap.  When I awoke, I found myself in tears.  Just like that.  Weird.

Not only am I dealing with the inability to walk without a mobility aid (cane or crutches) but I experience pain–just about every day, sometimes for most of the day.  Sometimes, the pain is very bad.  Usually, it isn’t.  I take Aleve daily.  I also took Ibuprofen on top of that, but my doctor told me no to.  So I have stopped.  After another week, I won’t be able to take Aleve anymore at this high dose.  I might still need it. But medically, it won’t be safe to use it, because of potential kidney damage.  Never mind that it could cause stomach bleeding.

The orthopedist with whom I spoke said the pain would clear up in two weeks.  That was a week ago.  I don’t see much improvement….Maybe it will be another two weeks from today….  He also said that riding the exercise bike would be the “best thing for it.”  Well, apparently not.  I am either in pain while riding it, or in really bad pain several hours later.  So I’m not going to ride the damn thing again.  It puts too much pressure on my leg while my knee is in a bent position.  Some of the exercises hurt as well, the ones done with bent knees.  So I’m stopping those as well.  I’m just not ready.

“No pain, no gain” is bullshit.  My therapist says that pain is the body’s stop sign.  There is a difference between the muscle fatigue that you get from a good workout that tells you that you are building strength (and that your muscles need a rest before you go at it again) and joint pain.  I agree with my T about that much.

What I didn’t agree with her about was her statement, “This is a good thing, because it forces you to slow down.”  Well, that is bullshit.  I am only 53 years old, not 85. It is not time to slow down.  It is my body, and my choice when to slow down, not hers.  I am being forced by outside circumstances to stop, not by my own desire, not because I am tired or finished in any way.  After all, I was about to run a race when this whole thing started up!  So I told my T that I was angry about what she said, and she apologized, and acknowledged my opinion.

There is absolutely nothing good about this injury.  Nothing.  Well, one thing: the one upper-body strengthening benefit of using crutches for–yes–it’s been a month now.  Other than that, no, no, nothing good about being injured, being in pain, being unable to get around without a mobility aid, ending my running, long walks with Puzzle, fitness walks, and yes, my laps around the track at sunrise–for good–no, nothing good about this at all, no advantage, no benefit, no money to be won, nada.

It doesn’t even give me more opportunity to write.  I had just as much time to write before.  I am so damned depressed now and writing comes with such difficulty.  It took me hours before I could get up the motivation to write this entry.

I do have one activity that is helping me cope right now.  Knitting.  I have used my knitting to help pass that time that I spend unable to do anything else due to pain or depression.  I find it distracting and it engrosses me.  I am working on a hat for a friend that I e-mail.  I take comfort that I have a few friends left.

Sometimes, I am able to walk the distance to the gym using my cane.  So I walk to the gym, and do mostly strength training for my upper body.  Yesterday, I used the triceps pull, set it at x pounds (just over what I weigh) and pulled up my body, and held myself up off the floor like that, my fists by my ears, elbows by my chest, just hanging there as if I was hanging from the gallows, swinging back and forth a little, and held this pose, just hanging and hanging, then let myself down, and realized that not too many people, even people who work out, can do this.  I couldn’t do that before.  When I came home and it was time to shower, I took off my shirt and examined my shoulder and arm muscles.  Yep, they’re there.

I might be lame, but I am strong.  Just you wait.

An end to running, but never running out

I received bad news on Wednesday: I have arthritis in my knee.  This is a consequence of my 1999 fracture, and was recently aggravated by overexercising.  The doctor didn’t exactly say it was an “arthritis flare-up,” but I guess you could call it that.  I still choose to call it a sports injury, though.  After all, I did this to myself while doing sports.

The orthopedist showed me the x-ray.  It was obvious once he pointed it out to me.  Why this didn’t show up in the 2005 x-ray I don’t know.  It is the same pain, the same injury.  Or should I put quotation marks around it?  “Injury.”  There.

The doctor prescribed exercises, two Aleve tablets twice daily for two weeks, and ice at night.  The pain should clear up, and I’ll be able to walk fine after that.

Then he said, “No running, no walking.”

I said, “I can’t, right now.  I can’t walk much at all.”

He said, “If you do, you’re looking at a knee replacement.”

“Huh?”

“No running, no walking.  You can walk to the gym and work out like crazy.  You can work out on the elliptical, do the stairmaster, and the exercise bike.  As a matter of fact, the exercise bike is the best thing for this.  But no high-impact sports.  If you run or do lots of walking, your knee isn’t going to last much longer.”

“You mean, until this clears up, right.”

“Even after.  And by the way, you’re not a good candidate for knee replacement surgery, because of your nutritional issues.”

“Ever?”

Thus begins my new life.   Laps around the track with the sun just peeking up on the horizon is a thing of the past.  Victory Field track is past tense now.  I can kiss the treadmill goodbye.  My last run was May 16.  I ran two miles at the gym and walked seven.  Then…my last run was running after a bus.  Imagine that.

I have spent many minutes and hours grieving over this.  It didn’t hit me at first.  Yes, I cried on the bus ride home.  I always cry on buses.  I’ve cried on every bus I’ve ridden since I found out the diagnosis.  And I’m not done crying.

So I’m going to make adjustments.  Life is adjustment.  I’m going to work the hell out of the elliptical as soon as my knee can take it, and pretend that I’m running.  I’m going to climb the eight flights of my building.  I’m going to inflate my fitness ball and do core strengthening at home.  I’m going to work my upper body.  I’m going to strengthen my legs as much as I can, especially my quadriceps, which is the prescribed treatment for this disorder.  If it means showing up at the gym just about every day, well, I will.  So long as I can walk there, I’ll be there.

I have a secret to developing upper body muscles:  It’s not circuit-training or freeweights.  The secret is to get injured and spend about three weeks on crutches.  That is all you need. Get ripped, baby, get ripped.

I am able to walk Puzzle fast now.  My secret to this is to continue to use my cane.  If I place the cane down at the same time as I step with my right leg, I can lessen impact.  I’m going to teach myself to place the cane down a split second before I step, to further lessen impact.  I am going to set a limit at a mile, and this time, stick with it.

Now that I am following the doctor’s advice, I am in a lot less pain.  I don’t need crutches at this point.  I use one crutch if I’m carrying a heavy load on my back.  I am going to take my cane on the bus tonight just to make sure I get a seat.  I should just be able to ask for one, anyway.  There’s a sign that says that no one can deny a seat to a passenger, or reserve a seat.  Except for once, I have always easily gotten a seat in the front “accessible” row of the bus.  I will only need to do to sit up front for the next couple of weeks.  I guess for now I’ll be special.

I don’t feel very special, though.  The high point of my day, my run, has been taken from me.  I am grieving.  Arthritis…an old ladies’ disease.  I feel ashamed.  Of course, I got it from a fracture I had at 41, not from being “old,” but still, arthritis is arthritis, and it is not going to get better.

I hope I don’t write about it all that much, but I fear that I will, only because it’s such an issue for me not to be running.  Exercising has taken on a whole new meaning now.  It serves a different purpose.

I told my therapist today that like my leg in 1999, I feel broken.  I feel broken by my eating disorder, which is responsible for giving me osteoporosis (thinned bones), which is the reason my femur broke in the first place.  My therapist said that my eating disorder is responsible for the arthritis pain I feel in my knee, because it was caused by compulsive overexercising.  My eating disorder has broken my life.

Well, Sunday I’m going to the gym.  I’m going to work out as much as my  a____ knee will allow.  Soon, I’ll be able to do more, after the pain clears up.  But Sunday, I’m going to find a bar somewhere, and, using my newfound upper body and arm muscles, I’m going to lift myself up off the floor.

Imagine that.

 

Update: News About Me

Last night I cut my dose of Trilptal in half, from 300 mgs each night to 150.  My doctor still doesn’t know that I cut it from 600 to 300 in March.  I cut it down further because of the return of the “swaying” a few days ago.  I plan to get off Trileptal in a few days, or maybe week.  I don’t see any point in taking 150 mgs, because that I know of, it is not a therapeutic dose.  I could be wrong about this.  Don’t take my word for it.  I feel okay about this because I am also on two other anticonvulsants, Lamictal and Topamax.  I take all these three medications for mood stabilization.  They also help me with bingeing (that is, an eating binge).  I found that the Trileptal lost its anti-binge properties after maybe six weeks after I started taking it, though initially it was quite effective.  Mood stabilizers are the only medication that help me with bingeing.

Right now, I am working on not bingeing by behavior techniques, and my special friend Frank has been very supportive and helpful to me.  We have hopes that I can stop bingeing, at least for a long, long time.  After I have not binged for 21 days, we are going to have a binge party!  We are going to binge together–on nothing!  We are so excited about this celebration!  Of course, I have no clue as to whether I will be able to do 21 days, so we are taking it one day at a time.  I am celebrating x days today.  This morning, I am listening to a Daughtry CD that I borrowed from the library, and celebrating.  I have never heard Daughtry before, because I don’t listen to the radio, but I understand he’s quite popular these days.

I will probably not keep you posted on my progress.  It will be too embarrassing if I screw up.

Today I will meet my case manager from the Department of Mental Health for the first time.  This will be mainly yet another intake meeting–the third.  We are meeting with the director at my home.

After that, I am seeing an orthopedist about my knee.  It is time.  It’s been three weeks now that I have not been able to walk 1) without pain, and 2) without a mobility aid (crutches or cane).  Frequently, I have pain even when I am off my feet.  I have spent little time outside my home.  I have been miserable because of this injury.  I can no longer do this alone.  I need specialized, professional help with it.  I got an appointment very quickly.

As to my anorexia…I am still restricting…eating mostly vegetables….My weight is dropping…again….

I still have edema and I hate it.  But it is lessening.  Today I said to myself, “Fuck it.  It is going to be hot out. I’m wearing shorts.”

I have developed these incredible upper body muscles from using crutches.  Forgive me for boasting, but last time I was at the gym, I was nearly able to lift my entire body off the floor using the triceps pull.  My muscles are larger now (muscles really show when you are very skinny) and I am absolutely positive that I can lift myself off the floor entirely now.  Next time, I’ll give it a try when nobody’s looking.  Of course, I’ll take the pin out of the resistance thingy after I’m done!

I still get vertigo. I get it about 75% of the time–that is, I get it ten minutes after the first morsel of food I put in my mouth in the morning, and it lasts for several hours, 75% of days.  There seems to be no pattern.  On Sunday, it lasted all day.  I swear I am not making this up.  I know it comes from my anorexia.

I have been keeping Microsoft Excel charts of my food.  I have been doing this obsessively.  I spend hours at it.  I print them out at the end of the day.  These are secret charts that I plan on showing no one.  I think the only good thing about it is that I am learning Excel!  More on this later.  I intend on writing an entire entry discussing these charts.

Okay, enough.  Have a nice day.

My second 5k–reflections on a race not run

I woke up this morning, race day, to face a record-low temperature of 44 degrees here in Boston, meaning perfect weather for the Larry Kessler 5k race for AIDS at 9:50 at the Hatch Shell.  My alarm had sounded at 4am.  I was getting ready.  I had everything planned out for today, everything written down.  I dressed, laced up my running shoes, and got ready to walk Puzzle, my dog.  Surely, this was her day, too.  We would take one of her usual routes, though.  I didn’t want to disturb her routine too much, even though today was different.

Yes, today was different.  Every day had been different for the past several weeks–since the injury.  As we rounded White Street, passing the condo complex, and headed up Main Street, I began to weep.  I was walking with a cane, barely able to sustain a half mile’s distance before experiencing problems with my injured knee.  I placed the cane carefully along with my right leg, to ensure that I kept weight off of the problem side.  I wondered if anyone would pass by and see me crying.  But no one did, not even anyone in a car, because it was so early.

Not only was I sidelined with an injury, but I was suffering from infected sores in my mouth, edema, and morning vertigo.  All of these medical problems had appeared over the past month or so.  Surely, I was not in good shape to be running a race.  This was compounded by the fact that I had taken time off over the winter, slowing my pace considerably.  I had expected, after the first of these medical problems–edema–appeared, to finish this race in 38 minutes.  I finished my first 5k in 34.

The edema I have is called “refeeding edema.”  It results from long-term self-starvation from my eating disorder.  While my first 5k was a celebration of feeding myself, my second 5k–or, rather, not running my second 5k–is the acknowledgement that I am not feeding myself or treating my body with the love and healthy respect it deserves.  Yes, I am abusing my body.  Yes, I starve myself.   I still have this edema.  I starved it away, but it came back after two binges.  I am currently starving it away again.  Yes, I have an eating disorder.

The sores in my mouth come from cuts in my gums.  The cuts come from bingeing on raw vegetables.  I can’t eat raw vegetables really fast, because I have missing molars.  If I do eat raw veggies fast, my gums get cut up.  They even bleed in my mouth.  One of my molars is missing because I split it in half bingeing on dog food last winter.  It had to get pulled as a result.   Yes, I have an eating disorder.

I get morning vertigo after I eat the first bite of food, or sustenance, in the morning.  I go brush my teeth and 1o minutes after I’ve eaten, or had a bit of milk, I have the vertigo.  It lasts several hours.  Several hours of my head spinning.  The vertigo following eating is most likely from malnutrition.  Yes, I have an eating disorder.

My knee injury is an overuse injury.  I used to run and walk a total of 10 miles a day, and I did this for a month.  Fine.  Then, I increased to 14.  Not fine.  My body gave out.  Hence, this injury.  And every time I think I’ve licked it, I overdo it, and pain and regression in healing result.   I tend to overexercise.  Why?  Don’t let me fool myself.  I do it to lose weight.

Yes, I have an eating disorder.  I have anorexia nervosa.  I was eating okay since I got off the psychiatric unit in March, but started actively starving myself again May 1st.  I have not eaten normally for one day since then.  I have generally restricted, but have binge/fasted a bunch of times as well.  I am in no shape to be running this race.

And now I sit here, hungry.  What am I hungry for?  What is missing in my life?  What are my desires, hopes, wishes, and dreams?  Do I even know?  Am I so starved that I have lost touch with what my body and soul need?

What did I dream of when I signed up for this 5k?  Did I dream of strength, power, and speed?  Did I dream of winning, in my own way?  Did I dream of feeling proud of myself for accomplishing yet another goal among the many I have accomplished over the past few years in spite of my eating disorder–graduation, National Novel Writing Month (twice), getting published, and my first 5k?  Or did I dream of the race process itself, of concentrating on the road, keeping my eyes ahead, pushing myself, pushing myself, pushing onward, onward, onward, thinking of nothing else?

Perhaps it is in my resignation that I am not running this race that I acknowledge that I am indeed smothered by my anorexia symptoms right now, pulled under, defeated.  I cannot run 5k.  I cannot even run.  I am only now beginning to walk without a mobility aid such as a cane or crutches.  But eventually, I will be able to walk a mile again, then a mile and a half, then two–without setting myself back–because I will be healed.  Eventually, I will be running.  But it will take time.  A long time.  I know now that I must not attempt to do what I am not ready to do until I am fully healed.

And that goes for my anorexia itself right now, too.  I cannot even begin to be expected to gain weight until, in my mind, I am ready to do so–otherwise it will backfire.  This has happened time and time again.  It is happening now.  This is why I am restricting–because I was expected to gain weight way, way before I was ready.  Yes, it backfired.  I must be ready.

Maybe this analogy won’t work.  I know my injury will heal.  Of this, I am certain.  But I am not certain that my anorexia will heal.  Sure, I go up and down in mind and weight, but overall, I am not really getting better.  To add insult to injury (sorry!) I had this same injury in 2005, and it improves when I lose weight!  So there is a problem here.

Maybe my attitude will change, though.  I cannot predict the future.  There are other races, lots of them, coming up.   November, December…maybe I’ll be running by then.  Maybe I’ll be fit enough to race then, which means eating right, taking care of myself, and treating my body lovingly and with respect.  That is the key.

So today, as I sit here and write these words, and gaze over at my dog, sleeping beside me, I wonder what she is thinking, her mama laid up…probably nothing at all.  Because to Puzzle, it doesn’t matter if Mama raced or not.  What matters is that Mama is staying alive to be Puzzle’s mama.  Well, I plan to do just that.  Not only that, but I’ll sign up for my next 5k as soon as I’m completely ready to race–and not sooner.  Promise.

This is unreal

I woke up pounding the pillow this morning.

I just don’t want to go on.  The depression is unreal.  I hate my life.

Frank isn’t up yet.  It’s six hours earlier in Hawaii.  I kept asking myself, “What advice would he give me, if I were to ask him?”  He would tell me to call my T. So I left a message for her.  I know that she is busy all day, though, and will have no time to talk to me.

I have been in a lot of pain from this injury.  Apparently, that brisk two-mile walk the other day was such a huge mistake and I am paying for it still.  The pain radiates right down my shin bone.  Today, it doesn’t hurt much at all.  I am not banking on anything.  The pain usually starts at 10:45am.  Frank says I should have waited until I was healed completely before attempting to start up with an exercise regime.  I was in so much pain yesterday and the night before that I missed therapy.  I have heard that pain causes depression, or at least makes depression that you already have a lot worse.

Doctors ask patients to rate pain on a one to 10 scale, where one is the least pain, and 10 is the worst pain the patient has ever experienced.  I experienced the worst pain ever when this technician injected dye into my vein before an MRI.  He stupidly chose the tiniest vein on my arm for this injection.  I screamed when he put the needle in and pushed the lever.  I will not have dye again.  I will tell them I am allergic.

Probably the second worst pain I have ever experienced was a certain headache so bad that it made me throw up before I could answer the question, “Is this the worst headache you’ve ever had?”  My broken leg didn’t hurt nearly as bad, except when I fell down a flight of stairs wearing the cast two days after I broke it (my femur was completely severed).  Then surgery on the bone.  That hurt.  Cramps from my tubal ligation hurt.

Once, I said something really mean to my dad.  We were alone in the bedroom.  He lost his temper with me and slammed a wood thingy over my head.  It was the only time he did something like that.  He slammed it a number of times.  It’s a wonder I didn’t end up seriously hurt.  I hesitate to write about it because this was so unlike him.  I guess he just snapped.  I think he shocked himself. He didn’t apologize or anything, just left the room.  I don’t remember whether my head hurt or not, or whether I cried, or how old I was.  It didn’t hurt afterward at all.  Whatever bump was supposed to develop disappeared by magic, like my feelings, just brushed out with my hair the next day, or the next moment, or the next nanosecond.

So the dye injection was a 10.  My leg fracture maybe a 7.25, a 9 when I fell down the stairs.  Cramps from the tubal ligation, a 7.5.  The headache, a 9.5.  This knee injury, as I write these words, is about a 1.5 and so far, not worsening.  A rapidly worsening 1.5 warrants Ibuprofen, because it can reach 5 in no time.  Yesterday, pain in my knee reached 7.5.  Tylenol with Codeine does nothing, but Ibuprofen alternating with Tylenol seems to help.  Yesterday I took Ibuprofen 600 twice, four hours apart, with Tylenol in-between, then I didn’t need anything more for the rest of the day.  Today I have taken nothing.  Ice helps, so I ice my injury when I take the Ibuprofen.   They say not to take Ibuprofen like this for over two weeks.  I assume I won’t have to.

It is now past 10:45 and I’m not hurting too badly.  Wow.  Wonders never cease, as they say.

When the grocery delivery guy came just now (yes, I broke down and used peapod.com–again) he saw me on crutches, and smiled at me.  Guess he felt sorry for me.  Maybe not, though.  He goes to people’s houses all day long and sees everything….Does he wonder about their lives?  Does he wonder about their suffering?  Does he wonder why they order from peapod.com in the first place, instead of going to the grocery store and spending far less money?  In turn, have I ever spent even one moment of my day wondering about the peapod guy?  Until now, nope.

So I can sit here, maybe wonder about the peapod guy, maybe get outside myself for a minute, maybe put away the stuff he delivered, and finish writing this entry, or I can sit and feel sorry for myself…I choose to act right now.  If I do not act, the goodies will just sit there in the middle of the floor and rot.  It seemed that yesterday getting the circulation going in my legs helped the pain in my knee, rather than just sitting still and resting.

I’d better get moving.  See you later, alligators.

 

Update on the Mysterious Unexplained NIGHTMARE Knee Injury of 2005 Revisited in 2011

Okay, I just broke down and took a Tylenol with Codeine.  These are left over from my tooth extraction.  The dentist gave them to me.  My knee is that bad.  This is the worst it’s been.  I can barely put weight on it.  I haven’t a clue how I’m going to take the dog out tonight, except I do know that sleep helps, so I might just get some shut-eye and then wake up at around midnight, or maybe 2am, and take her out then.  She’ll hate me for it, but there’s little else I can do.  I sure can’t walk with just a cane right now.  If she has to wait over the entire night, she’s okay with going to the bathroom in her crate.  It’s a large crate for her so there’s plenty of room (god knows she did it all the time as a pup) and I can’t have her mess up this wood floor.  But I shouldn’t get ahead of myself.  This royally sucks.  I’ve already called my therapist and told her I might not be able to travel tomorrow.

Hey, maybe I can skip weight check on Friday–??????  This better not last that long!  On the other hand, let’s hope I can miss weight check on Friday anyway.  🙂  Let a meteor land between my apartment and my doctor’s office, making roads impassible.  May her scale be abducted by aliens.  May weight-checks for EVERYONE be permanently abolished.

Imagine that.

Passion and my knee injury

I have always had a tendency to go overboard.  Always.  I take everything to the extreme.  When I set my mind to doing a project, I ultimately put passion into it.  This is probably one reason why I developed an eating disorder.  I put passion into my dieting and went overboard with it.  (I no longer put passion into my restricting because restricting is no longer a project.  It is my life.)  I didn’t just make one dog sweater.  I have made 17, maybe more.  When I was a kid, I got on my bike one day and rode 100 miles just for the heck of it.  When I participated in National Novel Writing Month this year, I didn’t pace myself; instead, I finished my novel in 17 days.    I have worked 14-hour writing days.   I have pulled many, many all-nighters.  When I collected stuffed animals (this embarrasses me no end) I had over 100, and had their names memorized.  (Needless to say, I got rid of all but three.)  I invented not one but a dozen muffin recipes.  The list goes on….

So when it came to my recent extreme, exercise, yes, I went overboard.  Of course I did.  Exercise means not only staying in shape, but burning calories.  Right up my alley.  I do have an eating disorder, right?  I walked or ran 10 miles a day for a month.  This worked out okay–I guess.  Maybe.  Then, suddenly, I increased to 14.  No, no no no no no.  Three days later, I ran after a bus, the “straw that broke the camel’s back.”  That did it.  My knee gave out.  I was injured.  I was injured.  I was injured.  No more running.  Not for a long, long time.

No more walking, either.  I was on crutches for about 10 days, then gradually moved off of crutches and was able to walk okay, a little at first, using the crutches when I needed to carry something, and then, finally, off crutches entirely.  Improvement was rapid.  I was careful.  And a bit wiser about overdoing it.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.  Yesterday morning, I walked my dog a mile and a half.  This was a half mile further than I had promised myself I’d walk.  This morning–two miles.  Three hours later–pain.  As the minutes passed, the pain got worse and worse.  Now, I’m off it completely, hopping around the apartment.  Boy, do I feel like an idiot.  And that’s exactly what I am.  An idiot.  I overdid it yet one more time.  When, oh when, will I learn?

I don’t even know if I’ll be able to walk without crutches later today.  I don’t know if I’ll be able to walk without crutches tomorrow.  I might be back to square one with this injury.  On the other hand, a bit of rest might do the trick.  I’m icing it and resting it.  Still, pain.

Shit.

There are people who are intense about everything, and there are people who are laid back.  They say there is such thing as “Type A” personality, which is the anxious, rushed kind.  Intensity isn’t the same thing.  Being overachieving isn’t the same thing.  Drive isn’t the same thing.   Problem is, I am on overdrive.  I am burning.  I desire…intensely.  I write in this notebook passionately.  The title of this notebook, The Starvation Transformations: how hunger befriends me, nourishes me, and betrays me, is passionate.  I write, I write, I write.  And I hunger.

A bit from my journal

Here’s what I wrote in my journal tonight.  I’ve put in ellipses where I’m leaving things out, but there’s very little to leave out.

“Got vertigo after breakfast.  Apparently this is from ED.  Now, I don’t feel like eating breakfast.  Maybe just eat a little bit.

I walked Puzzle this evening w/no problems, no pain, w/the cane.  I will ditch the crutches within a week, except when I’m carrying a load on my back.  I am thrilled that this seems to be over.

did well w/”restricting” today.  I will probably lose…edema.

I attribute the improvement in my knee to WL [weight loss].

Also that I have been sensible this time + done lots of resting + caught it in time.

Edema is gone.

I am wearing shorts + a t-shirt today….I don’t care if the world knows I have anorexia.

I gained 12 pounds of edema + plan to lose it all.  Probably tomorrow morning it will be gone.

Wow…a clever T, she almost got me to fess up.  I feel horrible about lying.

I want to be very, very, very thin.”

Now that I read this, I realize that it could have been written by a young girl.  But I am 53 years old.  Where has the time gone?