Feeling Terrified

 

 I hope you all had a lovely Easter!  Mine was pretty low key, we didn't even have Easter dinner because I was still sick and we had big sandwiches for lunch...so we weren't hungry.  We are going to have it tomorrow night.

About a month ago I told you that I had to send Ridley back to the doggie rescue that we got him from.  They tried to find him a home, and then he started biting and snapping at people.  They said for insurance reasons they couldn't take him to the adoption fairs and they asked me to foster him until they found him a home.  I was completely puzzled.   He had never been aggressive and I couldn't imagine why he was doing this all of a sudden.

When I picked him up last Saturday they told me that they thought he was overweight and had reduced his food to a cup and a half a day.  Now Ridley is a border collie and a very large, active  dog.  When they told me that, I understood why he was biting people...he was hungry!  He wasn't overweight at all either.

Tomorrow I go in to this new doctor and he is going to put me on a six week HCG detox program starting Tuesday.  I don't process food right, and we need to restart my system so to speak.  I am overweight, but I don't really eat that much, and I eat fairly healthy.  I am not running any marathons, but I am also not a complete couch potato.  I was feeling pretty encouraged over this whole process because he assured me there are no chemicals and no side effects....that is until I spoke to him Friday. 

I knew there would be dietary restrictions, but what I didn't learn until Friday was that I have to go down to 500 calories a day.  Also no fat at all.  The no fat isn't so bad, but 500 calories is starvation mode for your body.  There are side effects from that.  Aside from fat loss, you can lose muscle.  You can also mess up your thyroid, and I already have hypothyroidism.  Now I have it completely controlled with Synthroid, but I don't want to upset that balance.  Most frightening of all, is that hair loss is a possibility too.  I want to be thinner so I am healthier...but I do NOT want to be thinner and bald!  My hair is down to my tailbone.  It took forever to get it that long.  The thought of it falling out utterly paralyzes me with fear.  Plus like Ridley I am nervous I am going to want to start biting people!

I am curious if any of you have done this program...and if so, what were your results, thoughts and views on this?  I could really use some insight if any of you have any.   I do know that they used to do it as an injection, and that there used to be a chemical component involved.  But it has been changed to remove the chemicals and now it's drops.  So the HCG is safer.  But 500 calories a day...that is very little, and 6 weeks is a long time.  I am also afraid that any weight I lose will return when I start eating a bit more. 

Edit:  I have decided to push it back a week before I do anything.  I have been sick for about 4 days, and then last night after I posted this I got some very bad news, which has me terrified in a different way...so I am not in the right physical or mental shape to do this today.  I will keep you posted.

A Heart Of Stone

Many years ago before I met R I had a boyfriend who wasn't really very good for me.  I liked him a lot, but I knew it wasn't the best situation and I broke up with him.  To protect both of us I did it in a rather callous way and he accused me of having a heart of stone.  It hurt terribly when he said that because on some level I suspected he was right.  I never let him know how much it hurt though.

Last Saturday I fractured my nose.  You know I am clumsy!  It was such a bizarre accident and I couldn't do it again if I tried.  When I did it, it hurt but I laughed.  I laughed a lot.  In fact R didn't take it too seriously when I said I think I broke my nose because I was laughing so hard.  I knew it was broken though, I have done it twice before.  Then it started to bleed and he knew I was actually hurt.  From the outside I can appear pretty tough, and sometimes indifferent to things.

Today I wasn't so tough though.  In fact I turned into a giant sobbing puddle on the couch.  (Thank goodness a kind hearted friend knew and called me to cheer me up...and she did!)  First of all I had to take Ridley back to the dog rescue.  We had him a little over a year and a half and I know it was the right thing to do.  He has terrible separation anxiety.  I thought I had worked him through it but lately he had reverted back to his old ways of trashing the house when I go away.  He is also jealous of the other animals, and while he wasn't aggressive with them he would simply nose his way in between them and I.  Entirely too much of my day was spent on him.  I knew he needed a home where he could be the only pet and have all the attention lavished on him.   So I had to put my own feelings aside and did what was best for the greater good of everyone concerned.  I chose to do it while R was away because I felt it would be easier on him as well.  He knew I was going to do it.  The thing is I loved Ridley.  He was a sweet dog, and as I drove away the look on his face haunted me all the way home.  I had put on my stone face and hugged him, told him I was very sorry and then just left him...cutting him entirely out of my life for good.

When I got home, I returned a phone call that I was supposed to return last week.  I had recently told this person that when someone lashes out you when you don't deserve it, you have to just remember that they are afraid.  The irony is, today I did that very thing to that very person.  They said the thing that cuts me to the core...they said I made them nervous.  I have been told this before and it's like a knife through the heart every time someone says that to me.  I don't think I am so intimidating, but what do I know...I can't see myself from the outside looking in.  Maybe I am truly terrifying to people and I am just deluding myself into thinking I am a nice, open and compassionate person.  When I pressed them as to why, the answer really shocked me.  They said it was because of my PKD.  Make that a double knife right through the heart.  Yes I have this disease, and yes I know it will probably kill me someday...but no one has ever treated me like a sick person before.  It's not like it's contagious and it doesn't affect my day to day life that much yet.  Especially someone in that position, they are a doctor.  I thought about it, and I cannot stand the thought of making someone nervous, or putting too much pressure on them to do something they aren't comfortable with...so I called them back, put on my stone face and harshly told them I never wanted to go there again and that I would find someone else.  I don't know if it mattered to them or not because I didn't give them a chance to respond.  I simply said "see ya" and hung up the phone.  In truth they probably had nothing more than momentary passing confusion followed by a sense of relief.  But the thing is, I liked and trusted this person, and I hated the idea that I might have hurt them even though I probably didn't.  I felt it was for the greater good, but who knows maybe that's just a lie I tell myself to justify my actions.  All I know is I cannot be in the position to make someone nervous.  I just won't do it.  I don't know why I do that to some people, and it makes me afraid that is how I really am so I end up lashing out unfairly every time someone says that to me and cutting them out of my life.

I had one last small incident where once again I had to be very stoic today.  I don't even want to go into it.  I do these things with the intent of putting my personal feelings aside and doing the thing that is in the best interest of everyone.  To do that, I know that I have to come off as having a heart of stone, and being able to cut someone or something off completely without a care.

The funny thing about stone is...even though it's hard, it can break...usually when no one is looking.



What A Weekend!

This past weekend started off pretty good.  We named the puppy Ridley after Ridley Scott who wrote Blade Runner.  He loves to run all over the yard 90 miles an hour, so in my brain that somehow made sense.

We barbecued and it was just lovely.  But Sunday evening it started to rain, then it started to hail.  HARD. It hailed for what seemed like hours.  We still had hail on the porch Monday morning.   My garden is destroyed, my camellia and rose bushes are stripped and I am going to have to rake the yard to get all the tree leaves and branches picked up.

This afternoon R went off the gym, when he came home he seemed a bit off and was slurring slightly.  Then he told me he passed out in the shower in the gym.  He said his head hurt and asked me for an ice pack.  I wrapped it in a towel and he leaned back on it.  He didn't seem right and I wanted him to go to the ER but he assured me he would be fine.  When he leaned forward a few minutes later I saw a big spot of blood on the towel so I made him go to the ER.  He didn't want to, but it's a good thing I made him because he had managed to split his head open 2 inches!

They ran a whole bunch of tests including an EKG, Cat scan and a bunch of blood tests.  He ended up with over a dozen staples in his head.  When he turned over to have the doctor do it, I could actually see his skull.  I thought I was going to pass out.  I could never work in the medical field!

As it turned out his blood sugar had dropped because he forgot to eat before he went to the gym.  So after a good workout and five minutes in the steam room it must have just plummeted.  But I was terrified until we found out what happened.  It's very hard when something is wrong with someone you love and you don't know why.

This evening I had a pounding headache...not as bad as his though I am sure...and for the seventh straight night in a row they kept setting off bottle rockets in our neighborhood.  I will be glad when they finally run out.  Enough is enough already.  Poor little Jazzy is beside herself, they scare her so badly. 

After all the things that have happened this past week...or should I say the past couple months, I am simply worn out.  Things have got to turn around and get better soon, because I have gone way past needing good luck.  I think at this point I need a little Divine intervention.

I hope you all had a great weekend!  Hugs, K. <3