Don't know what day it is

Funny how the horror of Nutritional Boot Camp makes counting the days seem impossible. It's like early sobriety when I just kind of woke up out of the awfulness of it and realized I had six months. Only it's taken just four days (I think) to feel better. That's the nature of this drug, I guess, as opposed to one of the others.

Husband is better. Had a major electrolyte imbalance and a flareup of inflammation in the remaining quarter-sized piece of pancreas he owns. It's pretty sad when I have to tell the doc what blood work he might need and why his amylase and lipase might not be elevated when his pancreas is messed up.

I'm over the pissed off bit of withdrawal, I think, and am stuck now with tired. Another couple of days and all will be well.

On the phone in the ER standing near a woman who was sobbing her heart out, I overheard her say, as her companion's cell phone rang, "is it DHS?" I had a moment of intense gratitude that, though it may have been DHS, it wasn't me. I don't know what she did/was thought to have done/allowed someone else to do to her child, but at least it was not me who had to make that decision. Life is good today on just that realization alone.

How many days?

Let's see, 18 hours in the ER with the husband since Monday. Lots of uncertainty. Behind at work as a result of hanging out in Florida for a week. Fired a guy who works for me this afternoon. And yes, still no sugar. Still. No. Sugar.

It's better today and I'm getting a reminder of how I felt before I took it back. The AA book talks about those "strange mental blank spots," wherein we find ourselves doing things we swore we'd never do again.

I started eating sugar again for the 49,673d time, having failed to successfully manage it 49,672 times. I used the excuse I've used 19,162 times ~ "I can moderate like other people, I'm better now" ~ though I'd failed to do so 19,161 times. I might be exaggerating a little bit, so consider those numbers +/- 10.

Happy today despite it all. That's what being clean does for me. How easy to forget.

Day two and some perspective

Nothing like a hospital ER to provide a different slant on things. Withdrawal from white powdery substances whether heroin, cocaine or sugar sucks. Being an addict sucks. Doing the same thing again and again and again ad nauseum sucks. It's not, of course, the end of the world.

It sounds absurd, really, to be in severe sugar withdrawal, especially since my consumption has been so casual. It's looked a lot like what regular people do. A little dessert, a bag of whatever. No big deal. Working out, losing weight, consuming regular food. Only I'm not regular. I can't eat like other folks. I say it and say it and say it and still I try it again. Anyway, day two of withdrawal. Yipthefuckee.

But perspective is indeed a good thing. Took the husband to the ER thinking he was having another bout of acute pancreatitis. He was severely dehydrated, incoherent, unsteady on his feet. He's better and home and we go back to the doc tomorrow. Not pancreatitis, apparently. The other big fear is pancreatic cancer, but that's just always hovering in the background with a pancreas as tortured as his.

In the room next to us, separated by those ridiculous "privacy" curtains, was a man who was making all sorts of revolting noises as he tried to rid his lungs of an excess of fluid. Turns out he had lung cancer two years ago. He couldn't remember who his doctor was, never saw the guy after radiation treatment. Has not seen any doctor in two years, now he has a lump on his neck, can barely swallow and can't quit coughing up all of this mess.

He never saw a doctor, he said, because he's got no insurance, has been on Methadone for a long time and had little money for other things. Methadone costs a fortune, but it's a step up from the alternative in most cases. Living on the edge like that, health insurance becomes a luxury. We were there long enough to hear the diagnosis: a lung full of tumors and metasteses to the bottom of the esophagus, liver, throat.

I heard all of this, this tragedy, through that thin curtain in that ridiculously busy ER. I heard, too, the efforts of this dying man to try to comfort the reserved and dignified woman with him who described herself as his "signifcant other." I heard the doctor tell him this dreadful news and heard the compassion in her voice as she called him sweetheart and told him she wasn't going to let him go, that she was going to admit him right away, not send him on a chase to this doctor or that one.

I overheard this same doctor using the same compassionate voice to talk to a man on a gurney in the hallway. He had spent the day huffing paint and she matter-of-factly asked him if he had been huffing all day? had he eaten anything? did he have someplace to go? This man was not sick in a way that ERs can treat, he was sick from chemicals and no food and no hope, no place to go, no one to help. Addiction.

Two stories in one ER in one city. I can't imagine how many thousands more there were across the country just last night. I am a sugar addict and I chose to pick up my drug again. Right now, I have enormous hope of getting it out of my life one more time. I am also healthy, fit, insured, with good finances and a nice home and people who love me and who I am fortunate to be able to love. Alcohol was easier to get off of, or maybe it seems so because it's been 24 years.

It's just another drug and I have all of the tools to beat it into submission. I am blessed with so much and I know it. Today I am praying for those who are suffering without hope, without support, without love.

One day

One day down on nutritional boot camp. Almost anyway. As often happens when I go cold turkey off sugar, there's a screaming bitch inside of me. What more proof do I need of the fact that sugar is a drug?

I remember telling the little sweet gray haired ladies in a morning OA meeting that I was finally clean from sugar and felt like a scream with skin on. That's what today has been like.

Important alert: this crazy woman inside of me has lost the thin veneer of respectability that glosses over her native tongue, profanity. I run my head into this wall of addiction and shriek OUCH! I rub my head, back away, go about my business. I run full tilt into the wall and scream SHIT THAT HURTS!! I bandage my wounds, back away, go about my business. I run my head into this fucking wall until my skull cracks open and I scream MOTHERFUCKER!!!! I screw my skull back together and stagger away. I run full force into this son of a bitching cocksucking shit eating wall and I scream I GIVE THE FUCK UP, THAT HURTS, I DON'T WANT ANYMORE.

And having written that, there's a little voice inside that says "really? are you sure?" God help me, I am sure for this moment. I'm an addict. I am.

Taking the husband to the ER. If you're a praying person, say a prayer for Mike.