Saturday 4 June 2016

Oh Hey There! When Did You Get Here?

So it's been a while. Things have changed. As time demands.

It's now a few years after my last post. I'm not even sure what my last post was regarding. I'm sure I was complaining about something or other. --I still do that. I try to not be so negative anymore though. I'm not sure if you've ever tried that, but it's fairly hard. At least for this woman it is. I'm grateful though. I don't always show it, but I am. Take right now for instance. I'm tired. My neck hurts. I want to write this but there's a cat who's decided to take over my lap and upper body, making me squish myself into a human pretzel and crane my neck so as not to disturb him. I'm grateful that he trusts me enough to know that I know it's his way or hell to pay... Hahaha!
Let's see... what's new.... what's new.....
I hit my version of rock bottom. I'm not ready to get into details yet but let's just agree that it was rock bottom. -If there is a sub-floor to that rock bottom, I don't want to ever visit it or even know about it. The final realisation that I was at the bottom was right around my birthday in 2014. So, Monday, December 22 of 2014 I agreed to go to the hospital to see my doctor who was usually in on Mondays running a clinic. I thought I was dehydrated. I figured just an IV of some saline solution and I'd be feeling better in no time! I had had a whole battery of tests throughout that year and we were still trying to figure out what was wrong. I was vomiting constantly and could just poke my stomach and puke on demand. It was kind of like an odd party trick that no one really wanted to see. If it wasn't coming out of my mouth it would make a break for it through my lower intestines. I wasn't sure what "it" was, but it was what I likened to an evil gremlin living inside my body. That gremlin was a fucker for months. There was massive weight loss. Total mushy brain (think spaghetti soup being what the building block for thought process would be like and that's what I was "working" with.) There was trouble walking and the very idea of climbing up or down stairs was a workout (trying to figure out how to lift one leg after the other and get from point A to point B without shaking so violently it would cause a tumble.) I was grey. My skin was grey. Grey. --So I must have just been dehydrated, right?
Let me repeat, I was GREY. I had no idea I was grey either. I knew something was wrong but the standard tests throughout the year missed the obvious. The standard tests I went to with my trusty Gatorade bottle in hand (as I was wont to have for so many years prior.) Or got a ride to with my random pop bottles stuffed in the bottom of my purse (as I was wont to have for so many years prior.) Just those few things could have figured it out. Those few things...... times a bazillion things..... full of alcohol.
My insides went on strike. All the puking and shitting and shaking and spaghetti soup and grey colour.... That was the negotiation talks. My physical body was in negotiations with my mental self-worth/deprecation/loathing.

My will is strong.
My body went on strike.
My will is strong.
My body almost didn't bother to hold out long enough to form a picket line.

The day I went to see about being dehydrated is the day I was admitted on the spot. I was told that had I not went in, I would have had maybe two weeks left to live. My liver had given up and shoved all the jobs over to the pancreas. The pancreas got pissed off and was so stressed out, it started to eat its feelings. --Which, by that, I mean it started to eat itself because the booze was just not nourishing enough (or it just didn't particularly like the taste of jagermeister and vodka.) Either way, my body decided it had had enough of me and my ways.
I spent Christmas in the hospital. I was released Christmas night. When I left the hospital I was still under 100 lbs and now had track marks all over my body from the multitudes of IVs that had become extra limbs during the stay. I looked like.... well, I don't know exactly what I looked like, but I'm betting it wasn't especially pretty by most standards.
Anyway, my body was tentatively listening to my self-worth/deprecation/loathing repeating the words of some long-lost versions of myself saying I would do better. These interminable versions called "hope" and "courage."
I'm coming on to a year and a half now since the day I went to the hospital. I haven't had any alcohol since. My body and self-worth are in arbitration and I expect it to be lifetime of hammering out the details. Self-deprecation and self-loathing are still lurking in the recesses but they've been stripped of most of their power. Self-worth is kinda hanging out with Hope and Courage. -The ones that showed up when I had forgotten they had been there all along. The ones before the alcohol ever charmed me. Before the alcohol ever  took hold.
Like I said, my will is strong.
--And I'm not ready to talk about it all.... Hahahah!