I've had a bit of a rough time of it since my last blog post. My abdomen started swelling more, my breathless got worse, I couldn't eat and I had zero energy. After a few days spent entirely in bed we decided to go to the hospital to sort everything out. The main problem was I didn't eat so the weight was dropping off me and bare in mind I my swelling problem meant that I should have been gaining weight. You can really see how the weight has gone from my upper chest and shoulders. I've found bones I didn't even know existed. They didn't really do much at the hospital. I'd already doubled all of my water tablets but perhaps they took a long time to kick in as I started feeling better after being admitted. I started eating a bit better and they decided to let me go home after a few days as it would be a lot easier to eat lots of fatty foods at home rather than in hospital. They've threatened me with a feeding tube if I loose more weight. I'm just hovering over a severely underweight BMI at the moment and even though I've been stuffing my face since I left hospital and eating between 1,800 and 2,200 calories every day I haven't actually put on any weight. Although I haven't lost any either. According to my dieting app I should be gaining 1.5kg a month so fingers crossed that happens soon!
I'm feeling really insecure about the way my body looks now. I suppose if I was big and everyone kept saying "oh my god you've put on so much weight" and "have you lost weight yet?" and every time I tried to eat people said "why are you eating that? Don't eat!" I would feel the same way. I guess it's enivitable to feel self conscious about something everyone keeps talking about and you have to keep thinking about in order to accomplish weight gain or loss. I feel exceptionally angry at those posts that crop up every day on Facebook. Those "before size zero there was something called beauty" and "no one wants to hug a stick" posts. I find these really horrible. I wouldn't say, "no one like a fat person" or "oh these plus size models are disgusting". But FYI models are skinny because it's cheaper to make sample sizes of clothes in smaller sizes because it uses less fabric. Models all have to be the same height and size as the mannequins so that fashion designers can make clothes and know that they're going to fit whatever model they employ to wear it. It wasn't like an industry got together and decided to define beauty as skinny. There's no need to be cruel to thin people! I know people say they'd kill to have trouble gaining weight but I assure you if you were in my position you would be complaining too!
I'm slightly concerned that I'm going to look like a drug addict after my transplant being so thin and with the medications making your hands shake. At the moment I look like some kind of child refugee who's got some serious bloating issues. Practically I'm constantly really uncomfortable with my bones being so close to the surface of my skin. I'm sleeping on a foam mattress and I still wake up with either my shoulder bones or my hip bone feeling seriously bruised. Size zero isn't all it's cracked up to be. I have a renewed sympathy for people with eating disorders.
On to some good news, I have actually been feeling loads better since leaving hospital. I've had a run of really good days, which is brilliant. As long as I have a reasonable nights sleep I can pretty much garentee that I'll be able to get out of the house if someone invites me somewhere or I make plans, which is a huge improvement. Of course I will have the odd bad day but at the moment I'm enjoying my run of good days.
My upcoming excitement is that I'm going to have my Hickman line fitted next week. Okay, so I'm weird to be excited about this but just the act of doing something that might possibly help my disease is much more preferable than sitting around waiting for the next lot of bad days to land me back in hospital on a feeding tube. Although I swear I'm going to be so annoyed if the new medication makes me sick cause I can't be not eating again! Mostly I've heard good things about it and hey it's something to do, mixing up medications and changing dressings, which is much more exciting than sitting breathing into a machine every two hours. Even though the medications is continuously pumped you only have to refill it every 12 hours and change the dressings on the line once a week so it's a lot less effort on my part. Sure having the line fitted isn't going to be much fun and I've heard they're really painful and bruise up a storm when they're first fitted but I'll deal with that. I've had a lot of catheters in my time and I can't imagine it being more painful than that. They both involve sticking tubes into arteries at the end of the day.
The only annoying thing is that because it's changed every twelve hours you have to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day because if you suddenly stop the infusion your body can go into shock and people have died from sudden withdrawal. So I think I'm gonna go for 11am and 11pm as I like a good lie in because I wake up a lot in the night and although I go to bed early I don't get to sleep till 12 usually. I'm never going to stay out later than 11 so I'll always be home. The morning one might be a bit more problematic. I'll probably have to get up at 10.30 to mix up all the meds in time to change it over at 11 but if I have to go somewhere. Most likely a hospital appointment I'm going to have to change it on the road, in a cafe or at the hospital, which might be a bit annoying. But I don't think there's going to be a good time to do it really. If I did it earlier in the morning I'd have to do it earlier at night, which might interrupt meals out and visiting family and friends, which will probably be more annoying.
So you'll probably be hearing from me after I've had my line fitted or before if I have any more thoughts. Thanks for reading!
