~ Doug Borski, Sons of Butcher
Another crazy, busy morning! But first, please allow me to regurgitate my Breakfast...story. Regurgitate my Breakfast story.
Oh, no, wait. I mean tell. Tell my Breakfast story.
Ooooops! Sorry. It’s so easy to get those two mixed up, n’est pas?
I walked into the Group room for Brekkies, and saw my two bowls of oatmeal, and two cups of soy milk.
Morning, guys! I grinned at them, then stopped short.
Marauder! Marauder! I screamed inwardly (I’ve been warned about the outwardly). Who the fuck is THAT?
Sitting beside my oatmeal and soy milk was an ugly, suspicious looking stranger.
Hackles raised, I inched closer to investigate. You think you can just waltz in here, buddy? I thought, clenching my fists.
You looking for a fight, dude? BRING IT!
I ripped the plastic cover off of the plate that had been left at my seat.
Oh, RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT, I thought, and picked up the hard-boiled egg that was under the plastic plate-cover.
Grave (Wretched Cow) had made me add a hard-boiled egg to my breakfast menu, a couple of days ago. I had forgotten.
Today must be Friday! I surmised intelligently, and happily cracked my egg against the table.
While I zapped my first oatmeal-and-soy-milk, I cut the egg into quarters, and slowly ate two of them, chewing each mouthful for 20 seconds. Then the microwave went bing! and I went to retrieve my Brekkies.
I had zapped it for a whole minute - the longest you are allowed to cook anything here - so that I would have to eat it sloooooowly, and it worked - it took me almost ten minutes to finish the first bowl, and the rest of the egg.
When I got up to zap the second bowl, a random, totally outrageous thought occurred to me.
Fuck off! Are you serious? I asked myself.
Yup.
I rolled the idea around my mouth to see if it tasted right, while I waited for something better to roll around my mouth (M! Ha ha! Just kidding; oatmeal-and-soy-milk).
Okay, say it again? I asked myself.
What if, just for one day, we only eat what we put on our menu? No Extras.
Ha ha! Yeah, right, I snorted to myself. The very idea.
No, I’m serious, I thought back. Maybe you don’t have to eat as much as is humanly possible to cram in your face, before meal time is up.
What? I cried. Yes, I do, or I'll starve to death before the next meal!
You won’t, actually, thought I, drily.
Will too, I argued, stubbornly.
You Won’t.
Will.
Won’t.
Will.
Won’t.
Will.
Won’t.
FINE! I will TRY, I said sourly, before flipping myself off, then stomping back to my seat to eat my oatmeal.
I want a banana! And a bowl of granola! And some Oreos! Ed’s voice came floating in.
Oh fuck, not you too. I shook my head violently, trying to silence the voices.
The NA and all the other anorexics around the table looked up in surprise.
“Uh...Kage?” asked Nurse’s Assistant #987e9182e98 (one of the interchangeables).
“Morning, everyone!” I beamed brightly around the table.
I WANT A BANANA AND A BOWL OF -
I heard you, Dick Nuts! I interrupted him. The answer is no. Now fuck off back home, you're driving me spare.
Phew! God. Busy in there this morning. Someone really should clean that mind space out.
With my Mindful Eating in...well, mind, I finished my alloted food, and had my cup of tea. Then, for the FIRST TIME since I was hospitalized twelve days ago, I stopped eating, and didn’t have an Extra at Breakfast (or two, or three, or even like that one bad day, four).
I waited for the panic to engulf me, that I'm-not-going-to-make-it-to-the-next-feeding-so-I-need-to-eat-more-right-now! panic.
But it never came. I was happy and I was full, and that was it. I hadn't eaten too much, or too fast, or BOTH, ending up doubled over in pain.
I ate like a big girl today!
Ta da! (enter applause and/or financial donations here).
3:30 pm
Sitting up in bed, waiting for Gigi, who was supposed to be here at 3:00.
Well actually, she was supposed to be here three days ago, but she kept finding reasons that she couldn’t come in.
I suppose I could be more understanding - a visit in the hospital is not exactly a trip to the chocolate factory, is it? Especially with the motley crew of fuck ups and retards we have adorning our hallways. My personal favorite is Creepy Crazy Old Lady, who scratches at my hands and alternates between thinking I’m her next door neighbor, one of the nurses, or her mum.
Have I told you about that one? Complete dementia. It's incredible.
Check this out. I was waiting in a (stupid fucking) wheelchair, in the hallway - I needed a porter to push my sorry ass up to Level 10, cuz apparently I can't walk in and out of a goddamn elevator on my own. I was waiting to go upstairs to get an Echocardiogram.
Don’t worry, I don’t know what it is either. And I was there.
Crazy Old Lady clocked me, alone in my wheelchair, trapped in the hallway. Sitting duck.
“I packed it all up and sold it!” she announced, starting a new ungodly conversation right from the middle. “And it wasn’t junk like they have here, it was really good stuff.”
“Was it?” I smiled back brightly. “Hey, whatever happened to that armoire? The one Mable and Agnes brought from the old country? Did Nigel take it with him when he moved, back in ’44?”
“You know, I think he might of,” she mused to the wall. “But I picked up some ham sandwiches in the morning.”
“Fantastic!” I enthused. “Oh, wasn't it a good thing Elizabeth made the Titanic on time? Her favorite song was "Abide With Me", after all. Imagine how upset she would have been if she had missed that boat.”
“Yes, yes, I think so, but down the street,” she said, wringing her wrinkled old hands.
“Super!” I exclaimed. “I like those dogs, too.”
We could do this all day, her and I, chattering away without ever having a fucking clue what the other was yammering about. It seemed to make her happy, though, when someone would actually talk to her, no matter how nonsensically.
Though, of course, the moment I left, she just forgot, so I don’t know why I kept bothering.
“Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!” she yelled suddenly.
Ah, fuck this, I thought, and stood up to walk away, leaving Crazy Old Lady and my (stupid fucking) wheelchair abandoned in the hallway. I’m waiting in my room.
Ooooh, it's finally Dinner time! Brb....
6:30 pm
Just back from a Death March (named for Auschwitz! Get it?) around the hospital, following Dinner, which was a moderate success.
The trouble was, by the time Dinner came around, I was starving. Seriously, I was counting down the seconds to get into that room. I did my Mindful Eating thingummy all through my vegetarian ravioli, steamed veggies, and two kiwis, and even for my Extra, which I knew I had to have. The dinner they had given me was not big enough, plus I had to have extra food for the three and a half hour break.
I made something I was totally comfortable with - a single bowl of cereal, half full of Rice Krispies, half granola. And even though I had to slam my tea after, when I was done I felt good - perfectly full and satiated, but not too full.
So why, then, did I have that second cup of tea? WHY? I know what happens when I get too full - I just spit the tea back up, and if we aren’t outside, I don’t get to just spit it out; I have to swallow it. And I know that having that second cup of tea after dinner is going to take me from comfortably full, to painfully bloated. So why do I keep fucking doing it?!
I know that I try to fill myself up as much as I can at dinner, as much as I can stand to ingest, so that I will make it to Snack time. But my body lets me know when I’ve had too much by trying to push it back out again.
Really, I know before that when I should stop eating or drinking.
I just don’t wanna.
I actually brought the second cup of tea along on our Death March, and was trying to slam it down as we walked, even though I could feel my belly getting more and more distended.
Dump it, Kagie, I told myself. Just stop this, right now.
No! Ed screamed back. Gotta get full. Gotta get numb.
Never be enough to fill me up, Dick Nuts. You know that.
Ed and I fought back and forth, until he finally convinced me to just finish the goddamn tea before it got cold. It was only a cup of fecking tea, after all.
Wasn't it?
I took a big swallow, then yanked the styrofoam cup away from my face and threw it against the wall of the hospital, where it bounced into the garden.
The family counselor who was leading us on our Death March (eins! zwei! eins! zwei) turned around in surprise.
“Kage, you ok?” she asked, taking in the tea, splattered white across the mud.
“Yup,” I said, and bent to pick up my styrofoam cup. “I was just getting too full, and needed to stop.”
“Okay, then.” She shrugged and turned around again.
So. The cup was about half full when I wrenched it away from my mouth and sent it flying, so I am choosing to see this as a victory - I haven’t actually been able to do that yet, to stop. I always just drink the tea, so that my belly will be full longer, regardless of the consequences.
So, a victory.
7:30 pm
Kinda down right now, though nothing too bad. I just miss M, Baby, and Billy, and wish that things could have been different. But this line of thinking will bring me nothing but trouble, so I need to stop.
I guess it started when Gigi came to visit. She acted so...inappropriately.
She sauntered into my hospital room half an hour late, and stopped in her tracks.
“It stinks in here!” she exclaimed, in front of all the other anorexics and a couple of nurses.
“Gigi,” I tried to shush her.
“No, seriously, it smells like pooh in here.”
“It’s a hospital room, Gigi,” I said a bit more sharply, but she paid me no heed.
“I brought you some magazines,” she said, and handed me a stack. I flipped through them; they were all her old ones, I recognized them from her house, and check out what they were about: food, a furniture catalogue, more food, cooking, and WINE.
Jesus Christ, I sighed, and put the magazines down so I wouldn't have to look at them.
“God, you need a pedicure!” she exclaimed, wrinkling her nose as she examined my toes.
“Yeah, so, anyway! How’s work?” I asked desperately.
“Oh, it’s good,” she said, sitting down on the bed beside where I was laid out, waiting to do vitals. “Do you think you’ll dance in the clubs again when you get out?”
I snorted. “Yeah? NO.”
“It’s too bad,” she mused thoughtfully. “I mean, I used the money I made from dancing, and made myself a millionaire. Millionaire-ess!” She laughed gaily.
I smiled thinly.
“But you...” she said, and gestured to my body, lying prone on the bed.
Why are you here? I wondered.
When I had done my vitals lying down, Xtina the Nurse helped me get up. I had to stand for two minutes before she could do my vitals again, and as we were standing there waiting, Gigi cleared her throat.
“I need water,” she smacked her lips, and looked pointedly at Xtina.
Oh my God, I thought. She’s a nurse, not a fucking waitress!
“I can take you to the nurses station to get one when I’m done,” Xtina said politely.
Just then, Auschwitz-the-Lifer walked into the room, and went to her hospital bed. She started rummaging around her drawers.
Gigi saw her and hissed in a (fucking loud) stage whisper, "Look at that girl! She is way sicker than you."
“Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!” yelled Creepy Crazy Old Lady, from out in the hall.
Gigi sat up straight. “What on earth was that?”
“An crazy, attention-starved octogenarian with dementia,” I snapped.
“Why can we hear her so well?” she wondered aloud. “Is she in the room next door?”
“No, she’s in the hallway. There aren’t any rooms left.”
“What?” she turned back to me. "Are you serious? There are people living in the hallways?"
I nodded.
Gigi gestured expansively around the dorm room. “Makes you realize how good you girls have got it, hey? All this luxury, just cuz you won’t eat!”
Okay! Please leave, I thought.
Well, until she handed me some cash, which I am putting towards bills and my graduation tattoo. Then I figured I could handle her for a few more minutes.
But honestly? I would have given the money back, just to not have had her say those things.
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