Hits From Reality

Things have been pretty awful. (An oxymoronic phrase if ever you saw one)

Two weeks ago I began frantically re-feeding after dutifully attending a routine fortnightly 'weigh in' at the unit, where they have insisted on monitoring me.

I hadn't quite realised how horrific I looked until I faced the concrete reality of the much feared scales. I hadn't really SEEN my sunken sockets and protruding cheek bones.

My weight had dropped below the 5 stone (70 pounds) mark again.

They told me I had a week to turn it around or... hospitalisation.

Despite my subsequent weight gain, later blood results showed that my liver had gone into crisis with ALT levels soaring.

Last Friday was a fairly terrifying of panic stricken phonecalls from the unit, my GP and the hospital. By early evening, I was sitting in A&E whilst too kind doctors apologetically eased needles into swollen veins.

No wonder I weighed light on the scales.

I wondered if they were going to bleed me dry.

Following three days of sterile corridors and needles and bleeping machines and spidery graphs and the clinging smell of industrial disinfectant and linoleum, they were satisfied that my levels had dropped and that the alarming elevation in ALTS was either due to the effects of prolonged starvation or to the delicate process of re-feeding.

I haven't been able to think straight for a while.

I'm still struggling to order my thoughts and to complete even the smallest of tasks. The painting was one thing I managed to finish, and now this blog post is another, although I haven't got the emotional strength to write about the things I want to; things that swirl in frenetic streaks through my mind, clamouring and clambering over my sleep.

There is no rest...

Enough now.