July 18th - blog 1 - updates and weights...

Well by now you guys seriously need an update. Shockingly, yesterday morning after I’d just posted my blog Adele approached me saying she had been given specific instructions to weigh me on the chair scales, yesterday. (Thursday – i.e. an out of pattern day…???) The specificity with which Jen had handed this over to the night staff made me suspect a change of plan, a different approach and a daily, chair scale weight as opposed to a twice weekly hoist scale weight. On I jumped…petrified…

…and I weighed in at 33.05 kilos. I nearly had a heart attack that I’d broken the 33 barrier – it was what Mum had laughingly asked me to do when I was 32.9 on the hoist scales on Tuesday…!

This was fantastic news. It socked it to them even further than the visible eating, the compliance with the observation, and the continued smiling throughout what could have been a more traumatic ordeal for me. During the day it transpired on discussion with the Drs that plans hadn’t been altered at all. No-one had conversed with either Mydli or to her knowledge anyone on the medical team about the potential of changing what Dr Sinha had specified for my weighing on Monday…

…as the mystery deepened I was aware that I would have a dieticians meeting yesterday. It transpired that both Natasha and Kelly had invited Dr Gordon to come along with them to discuss things with me. Thank God I had not only clarified what time they would be coming, been asking to see them all week, but also needed some Wild Rice from Tesco which had meant Mum leaving early, arriving early and being present also. It gave me some stability instead of being thrown into a confrontational-style assessment of eating. It also lent me some strength and some forcefulness without too much rudeness or over-expression whilst I pointed out, fairly unequivocally and directly to both Natasha and Kelly, and to Dr Gordon, precisely what I had done, what I was going to continue to do and what I felt about the way they had panicked regarding what I had already planned.

Dr Gordon’s pathetic, ‘You’re BMI has broken 13 which is great, I’m pleased…for you…’ Gosh it’s so hard to convey her simpering attitude which talks in bridged sentences which contain semi-hesitations whenever she arrives at anything she perceives might be sensitive to the person to whom she is talking. She then purses her lips as if searching for the right expression, puts a hand up in the air and swirls a finger around and when she finds the ‘correct’ phrase (in her head) she stops swirling, makes a half-hearted stab and, in typical psychiatrist’s softly-spoken phraseology hisses something through a strained neck which is entirely inappropriate. This whole performance and the tone of artificiality in which it is conducted only serves to leave me cold and to leave her looking as if she’s uncomfortable with using any words whatsoever. I think in general Mum and I make her uncomfortable. Her confession is that my case has ‘baffled’ the medical professions both locally, at St George’s and pretty much throughout my history. Not content with therefore not having a diagnosis from their mental health side, they have now decided that funding is only available for yet another assessment – this time not with St George’s but with a Dr McClusky at the Priory in Roehampton. She will apparently come here – but I’m more than a lot relieved that it feels like I am now out of the St George’s loop – even for the private funding. My hope would be that the funding panel, given such obvious success and progress, would deny funding for any further psychological assessment and certainly for any inpatient treatment in a psychiatric unit…

…my argument of course would always be: I would assume an eating disorder unit would be to treat an eating disorder. Whilst my past may have contained a myriad of disrupted, uncomfortable, uncertain and, if you want to use the word, ‘disordered’ behaviours around food, show me the evidence of either those or any remnants of those in my behaviours around food now. If you perceive me to have a problem with eating – where? And we will never agree on the foundations for, the reasons behind, the progression of and the manifestation and experience of my habits and processes with food over the course of my life so far. Yet evidentially we can agree on one thing: whatever was happening doesn’t seem to be affecting me anymore. I am loving eating, loving gaining weight and loving being comfortable within what I have to do in order to achieve the goals of doing so. So what is the need for their services?

Anyway, I think this will all transpire to become necessary and relevant further down the line. For now, however, back to the meeting. Natasha was unsurprisingly taken aback. My ready meals made a bit of a mockery of their tables from Waitrose’s foods which demonstrated the snacks, meals and breakfast ideas which they had come up with to gain 500 calorie intake. My labels, my preparedness of diaries and confession of meals and snacks and openness seemed to floor them and make them feel role-less once again. It was only as Natasha grasped to say that this wasn’t happening and that maybe the meeting was the instigator or motivator in my doing this that I realised I had once again taken the precise ‘control’ of the situation that last week was designed to relinquish me of. It was therefore left to merely confirm a resort to original twice weekly weights, but an agreement to do this on the chair scales and not the hoist. Tuesday and Friday, on the chair – plugged in and charged – and outside the ward doors (that was my specification to ensure no battery problems). This gave me a groundwork which said 32.6 – 32.8 – 33.05 was my progression of weights. From 200 grams in 4 days (my stressful weekend) to 250grams in 2 days – shit that was improvement. But it also dictated I would be weighed again this morning. And whilst Mum said I should object, I have wanted nothing more. I wanted things to be officialised. I wanted to start as we mean to go on – and spent the evening paranoid about it. I also spent a little while awake in the night but actually slept as well as I can here – fairly thoroughly. I have not been awake since 4am like yesterday but was still dozing at half 6, which is good.

At quarter to 7 I made my way to the end of the ward and attracted the nurse’s attention. A complete stranger to the ward, she had no idea who I was or what to do really and has muddled through all night. This she was competent at, however…

…33.15 kilos…

That’s amazing. 100 grams in a day – consistent weight gain…and I am at BMI 12.95 (despite Dr Gordon being a nincompoop and saying that my BMI was 13 yesterday though I was a whole 150grams away from that. I had a goal on Tuesday, when I thought my weight was 32.9 kilos, to be at 33.2 kilos (i.e. BMI 13) today (Friday). Now we have revised down to the chair scales, my weight on Tuesday was 32.8 kilos (100 grams less) – meaning I’ve nearly achieved my goal, despite being revised down 100 grams! I’ve put on 350 grams in three days – no-one could ask for more. Particularly given that I could not have had a bowel movement any later on last night - truly meaning I was not holding onto anything that might have tipped the scales...!

And I’m so looking forward to trying Thai Green Curry again! It’s all I can think about! Hehehe!!! That’s next Saturday, though – I have so many things to try until then!!! Gosh I’m really enjoying this. Do you know what though; I’m enjoying the meals and not the snacks. I don’t like the frequency of the interim bits…they’re the uncomfortable eating bits. Yet in here I would not change it for the world. I wouldn’t want to and cannot be bothered to shove more calories into a meal. This plan will be fine but I’m learning that when I get out I can do whatever I want and still be fine – the meals will be even tastier, they can be larger and there will be no need for biscuits and sugary sweets and everything that is essential now…

And every time I worry about why I don’t really want a snack and nothing feels as if I want to eat it – I’ll remember Thai Green Curry…and smile. Because I loved every mouthful – and I also let every mouthful love me! And that’s the other thing I recognised yesterday as possibly why I’ve been so adamant to eat and not have supplement drinks. This way I can experience and demonstrate my enjoyment of food, specifically food. This should further evidence my case when I am next assessed by whomever from wherever, whenever about whatever. Immersing myself in the food must be indicative of something encouraging around consuming it? It is also really pleasurable for me – and so I don’t actually care that I’m spending a fortune (or will be once I pay the credit card bills). It is so, so worth it to reintroduce this body to proper nutrition once more. In the way I like it – but also in a way that satisfies others who have certain requirements. For my release. And yes, it irritates me that Dr Gordon will be able to write me down as a ‘success’ in her books – a ‘cured case’. Because my healing will have little indeed to do with her – and all to do with me and my intent, heart and purity of the truth of my comfort with food now. Which has absolutely nothing to do with her AT ALL.