Glub

15.4

Today I went on an actual outing to help my mum at the garden centre. Aside form hospital visits it's only the second or third time I've ventured from my home town since I got ill. The garden centre is closing down so it's having a huge closing-down sale.

I made an unnecessary lust-purchase.

Every month I buy a non-food "lust purchase" - a little thing just for me, for no real reason, because I'm materialistic and "things" make me happy.

So I bought a fishbowl and pebbles and a little ornament and water conditioner and fish food and tomorrow I'm setting it all up ready for my fish. I've done my research and the bowl I have can only accommodate small goldfish breeds and maybe one or two companion fish and a snail so that's probably what I'll get. I also need a filter and a couple of plants for the fishies to hide in. I'm unreasonably excited about this.

Jaws

15.4

I'm keeping a food diary for my physio because I need to get myself into the best possible shape. That's the thing about being overweight; everyone's really desperate to help you get thinner. The thing is I know I'm eating differently because I need to give her an item-by-item breakdown of every single thing I eat. She's meant to be assessing the proportions of fat/protein/carbs and coming up with substitutions to make my diet healthier and to help me lose weight.

Though, actually, she's phrasing it as "fat percentage loss" and told me not to concentrate on weight loss. The thing is, after one day of keeping the food diary and not eating because I'd have to document it for someone else to see, I've actually lost a pound after months of plateau. Well, you know, whatever works.

I woke up hungry for the first time in ages which felt weirdly good.

I still feel like a total weakling which is pretty tiresome but I'm working on it, I really am. I'm even planning to go back to work next week. We'll see.

Rehab

15.5

Oh, thank goodness, finally some good news.

I got called into the hospital and told that I had been initially misdiagnosed. What they mistook for pulmonary fibrosis is actually just a particularly nasty set of pulmonary adhesions. The symptoms are very similar but pulmonary fibrosis is a degenerative, terminal disease. Pulmonary adhesions are crappy but are far less likely to kill me in the next five years.

So, in the long term, that's absolutely, breathtakingly (sorry, bad taste pun) wonderful news. I'm not going to die before I'm thirty. I'm not going to need a lung transplant. Probably. But in the short term, as far as recovery goes, nothing has really changed.

I'm still in "Pulmonary Rehabilitation". This basically means I'm doing physiotherapy to get my lungs up to par. It's like learning to walk all over again. I'm starting from scratch. I'm a newborn.

Instead of whining about it I'm going to just have to go ahead and embrace it. That is very much my intention, in any case. I am not going to treat this as a condemnation of one of my vital organs, I'm going to treat it as a rebirth of my entire body. Knowing that I am limited means I can push my limits, but gently and constructively. I don't have to lie down, bound by the indictment of my scars. Where before I've felt like I've had to push myself too hard now I have to listen to my body, to be intuitive, to do exactly as much as I can so that every day what I'm capable of is a little more than I was capable of yesterday. My limits will change. I will challenge them.

I have to treat my body as a clean slate, like a fixer-upper of a house. There are a few cracks in the walls and the paintwork is peeling and the roof has a few missing tiles. But the foundations are solid and, with a bit of work, I can make his house a home.

I can't remember the last time I let this bad and this incredible.

Ylva is howling with joy.

Diagnosis

15.7

Pulmonary Fibrosis.

Scarring on the lungs resulting in weakness, diminished lung capacity, predisposition to chest infections and intolerance to exercise. I may one day need a lung transplant.

I know my enemy. I can look it in the eyes. I am not going to let my scars, either on my lungs or my skin, get the better of me.

I'm in pulmonary rehab and seeing a physiotherapist.

I'm going to be in the best shape I can be.

I refuse to die of this disease.

White

212

My existence is given structure by a set of truths. Three of these can be summarised as follows:

I am fat.
I am in pain.
I am angry.

These truths can be split open like a fruit on a tree. In each truth there are components which make it what it is.

I am fat.
I have a large, scarred, irregularly-shaped, partially-dimpled, porridge-coloured belly.
I have thick, outwardly muscled, inwardly chafing, bristly, firm, soft, strong, weak legs.
I have dry, inflicted, turgid, pink, overly-muscled arms.

I am in pain.
I have teeth which grind against each other in my sleep and bite my own mouth and tongue to shreds.
I have a spine with defects in the nerve and bone structure which give me aches.
I have a head which sometimes feels clamped until I want to scream.

I am angry.
I have a job which bores me sick while causing so much stress that my hair falls out.
I am largely considered inadequate at the endeavours about which I am passionate.
I failed at university, which even idiots seem to manage.
I can't seem to find a job which either pays well enough to quench my resentment or fulfil me enough to sate my sadness.
I can't connect with other people. I feel sub human. The last person I felt like I related with was fictional. And also an alien. Who eats humans.

This fruit has a name. It's called Misery. And it's fucking bitter. If it was growing in my orchard I'd chop the fucking tree down.

But it's not fruit that feeds a tree, is it? The fruits are the product and they regenerate each season. What I mean to say is these truths are true but that doesn't make them permanent.

All these fruits from from a tree with my name carved into the bark. The trunk and roots are made up of some truths of their own.

I am creative.

I am clever.

I am beautiful.

Each of these truths also has elements to them.

I am creative.
I write.
I sew.
I knit.
I draw.
I have a limitless imagination.

I am clever.
I learn fast.
I am capable.
I am eloquent.

I am beautiful.
I have a well-proportioned face.
I have a nice smile.
I have a good body shape.
I have good hair.

And these things are constants.

If I tend to this tree it will bear sweeter fruit. That's all I really have to say right now.

Sloth

I will be thin by the time I finish my book.

I've chafed my Facebook photo to one of a sloth and I'm not allowed to change it until I've finished my book.

I will replace it with a photo of me thin as all fuck looking like hot shit.

Mono

I've been fat lazy shit for a week now but enough.

Looking at my lazy, fat, gluttonous housemate/coworker has hardened me. She is a sack of bones, gristle, fat and shit. I refuse to be like her.