Snoopy-ing Around

So here I am again… finally. I’ve been so neglectful of my diary (and especially of my diary friends), with no valid excuse other than I find myself vegetating on Facebook instead. It’s not that I prefer FB over OD; it’s just that, on FB, I don’t really need to think much. I can just click away, share a funny picture here or there… you know — mindless “entertainment.” I’ve been missing OD for the last couple of days, though, especially those “good old days” when I could write an entry almost every day as well as keep up with those on my bookmarks list. I’ll try to do better, because I really do care about the people here on OD with whom I’ve fostered friendships of a sort. Facebook has its place for me, even though I avoided joining for a long, long time. It’s only lately that I’ve realized that OD has a big place for me, too.

Part of all of this OD-less time has been, for me, that I just don’t have a lot of anything going on, at least nothing new that I feel is interesting enough to share. I mean, I’m still taking the IOP classes (only four more to go, thank God! I’m burned out.) I’m still maintaining not causing myself physical harm, i.e. haven’t cut myself or ripped at my skin since early February. (That alone is huge, as anyone who has known me for any amount of time would know.) Changes continue at my clinic, the latest being that my beloved doctor is leaving to go back to the Northwest. My new doctor, coming from the East coast, seems quite impressive and is one of the top doctors in the US for HIV/AIDS treatment and research. It’s hard to let my current doctor go, in a way, because I really feel that, with her help (as well as that of my counselor and my psychiatrist) I have really come a long way toward re-claiming my life, which, when I moved back here over five years ago, I thought was pretty much over.

Financial problems are paramount thanks to all of the changes and programs from which I was benefitting being either dropped or changed or whatever. Those, combined with my not-too-great management of money, have made for really tight months with way too much month at the end of the money. I’ve really been struggling to stay current and, even though I have managed to do so, it’s been at the cost of the better nutrition and other improvements I was making. I mean, let’s face it: I can get more “food” for my small budgeted amount by buying the dollar frozen meals and other disgusting processed foods than I can by buying healthier, fresher and better-tasting foodstuffs.

It hasn’t helped that I’ve been crap eating a lot, either. What I mean is, okay, so I feel a little down. Cupcakes! It’s been a long day. Rice Krispie Treats! Bored. Corn chips! None of that crap should be entering my diabetic body, especially the corn chips. (Corn, straight carbs, elevates one’s blood glucose levels insanely high, IF one does a Curtis and eats the whole Big Grab-sized bag in one sitting.) I know I’ve been doing the emotional eating, which really pisses me off. I’ve caught heat recently for saying this, but I’ll say it anyway: I miss being anorectic/bulimic! I’m sure it’s NOT the case; but I’ve convinced myself that I felt a lot better when I was grossly underweight than I do now, around forty pounds overweight. That’s what I keep telling myself, conveniently forgetting that, when I was all the way down to 102 pounds on my 5’8″ frame I was passing out a lot and caused permanent heart damage, not to mention was completely lacking in energy and interest in anything happening around me. Still… I would much rather be that way again, that unhealthy and skinny, than to put up with the stares and comments (and self-hatred) that comes with my being so heavy. Yes, I’ve lost fifty pounds, and I’ve kept it off. I can’t seem to lose more, partially due to lipodystrophy caused by the older AIDS meds which has kept my belly huge, my “buffalo hump” pronounced, and my face distorted. I don’t know that I’m capable of losing any more weight because of what the meds did to me over the years. The crap diet I have isn’t helping, either. I don’t really know what to do, other than to keep trying to take a little more off. My already-low self-esteem doesn’t need the weight issues to help bring it down any further.

I mentioned the heart damage from my anorectic/bulimic days. I’ve been told by more than one doctor, a couple of nurses, and a couple of others who are better-than-I educated about this that due to the malnutrition and other issues that come from living in such a way has caused me to contract Mitral Valve Regurgitation (don’t know if that opens in a new window or not), meaning that the valve between my left heart chambers doesn’t close completely and I’m constantly leaking blood between them. Most providers have told me this is the result of my decade-plus of eating disorder. A couple have told me that that isn’t the cause.

Whatever the cause, I talked with my doctor because I’ve had some pretty scary moments over the past couple of months. Sudden moderate chest pains, with or without exertion — sometimes just sitting on the couch doing nothing — that are scary enough to make me panic a little bit but go away in a matter of a minute or two. At first I thought maybe I was pulling muscles when doing my shoulder exercises for the torn rotator cuff post-surgery. I stopped the exercises, thinking I would give the muscles time to heal, then get back into doing the movements and stretching but not quite so vigorously. It’s been a month and a half, now, since I’ve exercised the shoulders, and all I have to show for it are a recurrence of shoulder problems. The intermittent chest pain continues. Because I’m at high risk for heart problems (past eating disorder; diabetic due to HIV meds; obesity; smoking; etc.) my doctor did a quick EKG in the office. It was normal, but my EKGs always are. She referred me to the heart institute for a stress/echo test, followed by a consult with a cardiologist. I can’t get that done until July 5th, but they seemed to think that that would be okay because of the normal EKG results. I want to get this looked at and taken care of if at all possible. I’ve survived too many years with too many different disastrous illnesses. I don’t want to be taken out by something that may be able to be prevented, you know?

The other thing I had my doctor do was to look at a place on my left, outer, upper thigh. On me, “suspicious” spots are often hard to find because I’m one freckled motherfucker. Bad marks blend in with all of the freckles! But this spot, aside from being an odd color, is also raised. I guess I first found it in my sleep because I woke up having torn at it. My doc thinks it may just be scar tissue from one of my old, self-harming wounds. She froze it to see if the dead skin will flake (or whatever) off on its own. I just had this done a couple of weeks ago on a skin tag in my lower eyelid lash line, with much success. It hasn’t yet seemed to help with the spot on my leg, though. So at my next appointment, which I’m not sure when that will be yet, I’ll have a biopsy

taken. It’s probably nothing more than what my doctor said. But being red-headed and fair and having spent most of my life in SoCal and the desert SW, it’s best that I get anything “suspicious” checked out, you know?

So, well… I guess there’s been more going on than I initially realized. Once again I drone on and on, boring not only you precious readers, but myself. But I just needed “someone” to talk to this morning, and OD was it! For now, though, I need to get off of this box for a little bit to run to get my Diet Pepsi (although this article on the side effects of aspartame has me really re-thinking my diet soda intake) and a pack of smokes. I know, I know: the guy with three terminal illnesses, two of which are lung-related, should really not be smoking. I’m trying! I really am! And I’m doing a lot better, smoking less a lot of the time. Please light a candle or pray or whatever you do for me to be able to get rid of these nasty things once and for all! Thanks in advance!

Off to get my weekend going. Thanks for understanding my flakiness and not abandoning me, dear reader(s).