Weighing Things

I want to preface this by saying that it contains numbers - and as much as I want to avoid them it is not something I can do right now - so I am giving those with an active eating disorder the gentle advice not to trigger yourself by reading any further. If you don't fall in that category, well then you might not truly understand how to the disordered brain - numbers read like challenges - or some kind of universal permission to go lower than whatever plateau they may be hovering on. So when I went to see my doctor yesterday - she informed me when I was on the scale that I was almost ten pounds smaller than my last visit. Let's just say that it leaves me at the approximate body weight I was at when I was ten. It is a significant change - even for me - considering where I started - in a relatively short time. It helps explain why sitting or lying is becoming increasingly uncomfortable as I have lost much of the natural cushioning that protects me from feeling like even the sofa is a series of sharp angles. We are past the point, my doctor and I, where such news is treated as it might have been years ago. Where an in-patient stint or other limited option would be raised as she knows me so well and frankly has seen enough patients like me - who are no longer teenagers by a long-shot - that she knows what I am prepared for and capable of doing in response to this and frankly she knows it wouldn't make things better. So she asked me to step up my visits for a time as her biggest fear is how this may destabilize my kidneys. I honestly can't say whether the monumental stress and physically demanding work preparing and going though the process of selling our house has been a catalyst for this as I can't say - unlike many other times in my life - I was actively trying to land here - or whether this is just a by-product of my failing kidneys and the toxic blend that no longer gets filtered but sits in my system making the prospect of eating very un-appealing at times. In any event, my brain knows I am at a dangerous point - it knows that this could expedite an end to the relative stability of the very limited kidney functioning I have left. My doctor gently asked the question whether sub-consciously I was trying to hurry this along and that question sits with me now - like a lump in my throat that I cannot swallow. Do I just want this to be over?  Is my mind, as it feeds on itself, capable of finding a reason to try to extend my time - my voice - my love for the people who are closest to me? Or am I trying to spare them and myself any more of this? So for today I am counting my blessings - one by one by one...reminding myself there must be some reason my body has hung in this long with such neglectful tending - a reason hiding there somewhere - dying to come out.