Today, I feel a lot lot like TV’s first outer space queen, Dr. Smith from Lost In Space.
Please indulge me in this particular blog offering because well, frankly , you’re not exactly catching me at my best.
It’s been a bad couple of days, but nothing that doing nothing can’t fix, except that I’m seeing double at times. That’s concerning of course, but vanity thy name is Laurie. Occasional crossed eye vision also means looking in the mirror is horrifying because I’m now seeing my ass look twice as large.
If anyone has an elongating mirror from a carnival’s house of mirrors, I’ll pay top dollar for it. Perhaps, I have slightly fuzzy thinking these days, but the plus side of that is that when I don’t have the will to fix what’s eating me inside, I can mitigate the damage of the things I actually consume by changing how I actually see myself. No psychological gymnastics involved like developing body dysmorphia. I just alter the reflection I see in the mirror. See, denial is easy to accommodate, It can come in the form of refracted full length mirror that’s relatively light weight, cheap and can be placed in the corner of any room. You look thinner from all angles. Win-rwin.
But that’s way too easy and only fixes the symptom, not the problem.
A little back ground, if I may; it’s been 11 years since menopause mercifully exited my life. I am eternally grateful to be an old crone and over and done with being a “power ovarian”. But menopause took a toll on my body. I gained weight just by swallowing saliva. How does that happen?? And did I mention I also have glaucoma? Man, I am sooooo lucky!!! My two (much) older sisters only have to contend with unmanageable hair.
Bitches.
Anyway, some weight has come off, some hasn’t. But if there’s one good thing about the MS I’m dealing with, it’s kind of obliterated my appetite. It’s not a constant, but I find some days, I actually have to stop and try to remember if I’ve eaten. THIS my friends, is an extremely new and different paradigm for me post+diagnosis because food was always my comforter, my version of high-on-the-spectrum, self-soothing rocking back and forth. Pizza could be Valium. Pasta? Ketamine. Cokes? Ativan with a Xanax push.
I hate self medicating with food and I hate that my body has weaponized it against me. It’s greedy with my food intake, It holds onto it. Meals I eat just sit around for days in this kind of gastric soup, no nutritional absorption….it’s just harbored in a central point until it’s ready to enter this fat distribution center. From there, it’s shipped out to all obvious places. I hate it. I’m up a shoe-size, thanks to chubby toes. I have earrings that no longer fit my fat earlobes. Ever gained weight in one nostril??? Well, I have.
But as bad as that sounds, some weight has slowly gone where all bad things go and I’m hoping more will follow suit. I don’t like that it comes as a result of an an illness that keeps me in bed, awfully tired and lately has me looking like a particular cross-eyed lion from a TV show I watched as a kid.
Daktari is Swahili for doctor. Gee, what gave that away? The elephant’s toothache? The signed that read “Hospital”? Or eas it the stethoscope around Daktari Marsh Tracy’s neck?
I don’t remember Judy the chimp, however.
Anyway, Matt my contractor who’s currently remodeling my living room which last saw an update during the Watergate scandal has offered to get me what I really want: a chocolate milkshake from a nearby place known for being dairy royalty. He says he might get one too, but I’m actually feeling quite peckish now and with the hunger I’m experiencing, I can’t promise I can let him finish his if he stays close by.
And when I’m through making the milkshake scene, Daddyo, I’ll punish myself for all caloric infractions by grabbing a black Sharpie and I’ll trace the many stretch marks on my stomach and thighs.
The end result should look like an original Jackson Pollock.
See ya’ll in a few days.
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