I saw the ED doc on Friday and she was being so abrupt and brisk with me, I thought she was mad, so I asked her about it. Her response was, "It's just really hard to see someone dying, which you are. I'm not mad at you though, I know how hard it is, the sicker you get, the harder it is to pull yourself out of it, even if you want to." The edema really alarmed her because apparently it's caused by the blood vessels being so weak that they are unable to hold the fluid in so it leaks out into the tissues instead - only present in severe cases of malnutrition. I left the appointment feeling scared and shocked at everything she told me, especially the part about being at risk for a heart attack any second.
That same night, I was lying in my bed reading cookbooks and I suddenly got this chest pain and shortness of breath. It was sort of down my sternum and it hurt more when I breathed deeper. It was the most miserable night I'd ever spent... I honestly thought I was dying but I couldn't move. Then at 5am I tried to get out of bed but it took me 2 hours to muster up the strength to roll over and push through the pain to sit up. I don't know if it was a heart attack or something cardiac related but it was fucking scary as hell. I kept thinking, what if i die tonight? did I say goodbye properly to everyone? Is there anything I need to do RIGHT NOW before I die? I didn't go to emergency because I didn't want to overreact and have them tell me it's nothing and feel even more like crap, but looking back, i probably should have gone. You know how it is, minimizing everything, telling yourself everything is fine when it's not...
The good thing is that the chest pain broke the purging cycle. Now hopefully I can take this and run with it like a few months ago when I had the stomach flu and then I went p-free for almost a month. That's my goal, to purely restrict, no purging for me. Hmm... we'll see how that goes. Then my heart will have a rest too if I am not purging, right?
Woah, this is s serious wake up call, Tianne! I hope you are going to get into IP and soon. I am SO worried for you!!! I am thinking about and praying for you.
ReplyDeleteWow, that would be scary! Although I'm no doctor and I don't know for sure, I would think that if you stopped purging it would have to help. Even if it won't help with the edema or those sorts of things, it would still be good and not purging sounds like a good goal to work toward. Even if you simply start by purging less, remember that is still something (actually, somewhat of a big step). I don't know if you take any vitamin supplements or not, but that also would be a good thing. I used to take one of those complete multivitamins plus some extras like iron and calcium -- just whatever you lack. I would also recommend trying to eat something like a powerbar. I don't know how many calories you'll be eating, but powerbars contain all sorts of supplements so they wouldn't be wasted calories and they hardly seem like food (nor could you possibly want to overindulge on one!!). If you haven't already, perhaps you might want to check in with your doctor too, just to see what might have been causing the pain. I keep you in my prayers Tianne and I know you can be strong and get through this all. I'm so glad to hear that you're working on giving up purging too!! ((Hugs)) xoxo
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