So, I had a sobering experience a week ago Thursday. You can read about it here.
I went in to the hospital on Monday saying I had lots of swelling and I was having trouble breathing. Part of what my Doctor wanted me to do to get me in for a kind of detox.
Turns out the chest x-ray and the echo found some other stuff too. Like lots of fluid gathering around the lungs. And the heart muscles getting stiff. Early precursors to congestive heart failure.
So I was put on a continuous drip diuretic. Every hour I had to pee. A lot.
So you can imagine how I was feeling by Wednesday after two nights of pretty much no sleep.
But by Wednesday I had lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 pounds. My Dr. said I shed at least 6 liters of fluid.
What did I notice? Small things. My fingers seemed “normal” again, instead of Trump-like sausages. My legs were back to normal instead of grossly swollen. Note to self: Be ever consistent and vigilant with your lymphedema wraps to keep them normal.
Thursday they took me off the drip and it seemed that I started increasing my fluid again. So they put me back on the diuretic, only in pill form.
So here’s what I have to do now: I have to be super aggressive in my dieting, more than I ever was before. I have to watch my fluid intake—I can’t just drink a whole lot of water and call it a day. I have to try to keep it to about 2 liters.
Once I get fully back into my working out and racing, I’ll ask her about increased water for fluid loss due to sweat.
That’s the easy part.
I had a long talk with some members of the psychiatric team as well. I’m going to be starting some outpatient stuff with one of the psychiatrists. I’ve been given some updated meds, and now I have to make the choices.
Sometimes, when a person is depressed, you can’t tell. They put on the mask, or have a passing outward appearance. But when you come inside their home, and see how far gone they really are, just to have let everything go, then maybe you can understand. I have some very hard work to do in the next couple of weeks.
I have many things to correct. Many things to set right.
And it’s so, so, easy to backslide or not even start.
And that doesn’t even begin to come close to the stressors on my life now.
I’ll close by posting a Facebook status I found today. It encouraged everyone to copy and paste it, not just share it. Let me preface by saying that while I would never ever do it, I have thought about how much better it would be for everyone else.
Can't say it enough...Many people think that a suicide attempt is a selfish move because the person just does not care about the people left behind. I can tell you that when a person gets to that point, they truly believe that their loved ones will be much better off with them gone. This is mental illness not selfishness. TRUTH: Depression is a terrible disease and seems relentless. A lot of us have been close to that edge, or dealt with family members in a crisis, and some have lost friends and loved ones. Let's look out for each other and stop sweeping mental illness under the rug. If I don't see your name, I'll understand. May I ask my family and friends wherever you might be, to kindly copy and paste this status for one hour to give a moment of support to all those who have family problems, health struggles, job issues, worries of any kind and just need to know that someone cares. Do it for all of us, for nobody is immune. Hope to see this on the walls of all my family and friends just for moral support. I know some will!!! I did it for a friend and you can too. You have to copy and paste this one, no sharing. To copy simply hold your finger on the text and the copy option will appear. Click on it. Then click on your status and paste will appear.
These next few chapters of my life will be some of the hardest writing I will do, and there will be many many tears. Especially since, as you may have deduced, I am one of those who hides everything until it is too late. I hope to fix that too.