The Importance of Little Victories

 

OK - another weigh-in day. And, for the first time in four measured weeks, progress in the right direction. 

Today: 16 stone, 8.75. 232.75 pounds, or some batshit number of kilos.

Down 2.5 pounds on the week. I have no real explanation of why that would be the case, except perhaps that it's the first post-bathroom weigh-in in a couple of weeks, so potentially it's just closer to the truth than either of the last two weigh-ins have been.

Nevertheless, it feels like a little victory and I'm happy to take it.

Other little victories this week have included d finally (again, after about four weeks) being seen by a doctor and prescribed the right medication to help with her diabetes and her arterial embuggerance.

Four weeks of going it alone, doing the right things off her own bat before the doctor was available to get her the right medication.

In a counterbalancing little frustration, she still has yet to see the local diabetic nurse to discuss ideally non-stabbing methods of blood sugar monitoring. That was supposed to be happening today, but was yet again cancelled yesterday, postponed until next week.

The diabetic nurse works only Monday and Tuesday, creating a natural bottleneck in the number of patients she can see in any given week. And she's recently been ill, which has reduced that number even further. We don't of course blame the nurse for that - but for there to be no contingency in place to serve the diabetics of the district is absurd. The procedure states that only after an appointment with the diabetic nurse can diabetic care prescriptions be dispensed.

So, right now she's at the bottom of a bottleneck.

Which is why we're celebrating the little victories - because the potential to wallow in the big frustrations is too high.

In other news, it's a year ago today that we lost my uncle, who, while his lungs filled with fluid, was hectored and lectured by a paramedic that he should lose some weight and get some exercise.

Little victories, little victories, little victories...

The Incremental Death of the Black Spot

 

This whole Disappearing lark, while seeming to go in the wrong direction as far as my weightloss journey is concerned, is beginning to bear fruit. 

Back when we began, d's diabetic toe ulcer was such that we were sombrely warned of amputation, and chances of avoiding such a fate being around "50-50."

She's been good ever since, cutting out cakes, desserts, and the like, cutting her soft drink intake right down, and so on, so as to allow the bloodflow she has in her legs a fighting chance to regrow healthy toeflesh and fuck the black spot (her name for the ulcer, and a nod to the whole of piratical historiy and literature) right off. 

This week, there was significant progress. The black spot is lifting, under the pressure of freshly grown healthy flesh! If we were given a 50-50 chance, it seems d's efforts are driving us firmly down the right path, towards keeping every digit we have!

Also this week - after quite the game of appointment hopscotch with our local doctors, she got her new medication schedule, so she's now finally getting chemical help to maximize bloodflow and rein in the diabetic effects.

So, while I may rail against the Nazi Scales and why they continue to nudge my numbers in what is clearly the wrong direction, there is at least identifiable evidence of reduced sugar-pressure on the system. 

Yay!

The Grapes of Wrath

 

 

 

d: "This is the worst time of the day for me."

 

Me: *Chomping grimly through grapes.* "Mm-hmm."

 

d: "I want something SWEEEEET!"

 

Me: *Swallows grape passive aggressively.*

 

d: "At least you've got your grapes."

 

Me: "You WANT some grapes?"

 

d: "Hell no!"

 

Me: "I don't blame you, they're a million light years from pleasure."

 

d: "Eat the damn grapes!"

 

---

 

Soooo, that's how we're doing.

 

In additional news, the universe is clearly fucking with me.

Went away for three days last week to meet the people with whom I now, newly work. Schlepped from West Wales to Leamington Spa, and found myself on relatively short rations, inasmuch as I couldn't do my usual thing of grazing throughout the day, because - humans.

 

Did the good things - eschewed the massive red velvet cake that was offered to me, didn't drink the alcohol, had only coffee and soft drinks.

 

Let the record show that the hotel in which we stayed had no diet options - so a potentially unfeasible amount of wildly unrestricted lemonade and a fair few J2O sugar-bombs went down my neck.

 

But nothing that might under normal circumstances be considered excessive.

Had what I euphemistically describe as a "digestive flume" Sunday morning, which has only one benefit, in that it cleans out your system and should, in any even remotely fair universe, make you weigh less than you did beforehand. 

I weighed half a pound more than I did at my last official weigh-in. So clearly, that can fuck right off.

As can this morning's weigh-in. 

16 stone, 11.25 pounds. Overall, up two full pounds since I started avoiding the drawerful of chocolate I have, and suchlike other fun things.

There's a certain righteous "Fuck it all!" urge that rises when you do the better things and get what feels like "punished" for it. All I can say is my eyes and nerves and kidneys and such better be thankful for this bullshit, that now sees me closer to the next half-stone upward than I am to my original goal of the downward half-stone.

Humph.

Am off to eat a grape, dammit.

The Chocolate Bars Uneaten

Well, whoop-de-doo.

It's weigh-in day, and unlike last week, I'm here for it, at least physically.

Two weeks ago, I started out at 16 stone 9.25 pounds. 233.25 pounds, or...some kilos.

Missed weighing-in last week, and this morning's weight is...16 stone, 9.75 pounds.

Up. Half a pound. In spite of all the chocolate bars uneaten.

That's enough to inspire a hearty "Fuck this shit!" in my brain, but crucially, this time, makes no connection with my body. I'm not about to fall - or indeed, jump - off the bandwagon over this perversity. Clearly, I've eaten much more healthily than "normal," but also, there have been some carbfests, so it's not like I can rend my garments and wail to the ancient, uncaring, probably-already-dead stars "WHHHHHHY?! WHY MEEEEEEE?!"

I mean, you know what I'm like, so you know that's kind of what I want to do right now, but instead am going to be a stinking, lousy, rotten, sonofabitch grown-up and crack the hell on.

I s'pose.

Yippee!

Am off to a corporate entertainment gig for two days tomorrow, with travel also tomorrow and Friday, so things may be looser than usual, but still going to maintain my overt sugar avoidance malarkey, to keep the body unhappy, stressed and jittery - because that's just what you need the first time you meet your colleagues in a new job, right?

Onward, while flicking V-signs at my new half-pound fellow traveller.

The Saundersfoot Camille

 

d's coming to that point of melodrama that every Disappearing person goes through - and indeed, occasionally lives in.

While walking through the store in which she works earlier, she passed by the chocolate aisle, and she swears this complete thought went through her head:

*Sighs wanly.* "Ah! Never again shall my lips know the soft, intoxicating caress of Bournville..."

Bournville, for the depressingly uninitiated (which tends to mean my American groovers) is a bar of dark chocolate, rather than some mesmerising Mr Darcy figure, ready to sweep her up in her crinolines and kiss her in a way that makes her remember she's a woman.

Chocolate.

Damn good chocolate, to be sure. But chocolate. 

I'm away from home three days this week. The struggle, it seems, will be real.

Death of a Garbage Can

 

Apologies - we've been away for a day and a half.

In the world of delusions where this matters to anyone, it'd be quite an important day and a half - I missed the first official weigh-in yesterday morning, because we headed to Carmarthen for the day, so as to be within cabbing distance of Glangwilli hospital for ds appointment with the vascular surgeon.

Long story short on that - seems like good news. The surgeon clearly said he thought the ulcer would probably clear up and naff off on its own, with a little help from aspirin, statins, and good blood sugar control.

He wants an MRI, to get a baseline map of the arteries in d's legs and feet, and suggested two levels of surgical intervention if the arteries in her feet are dissolving like a meringue in the rain - ballooning arteries, and potential bypasses. 

What he very crucially made absolutely no mention of was any level of amputation - which came as a huge relief, in terms of the narrative we've been given so far. We're taking that as a victory.

Oh, for those who are reading this consistently - there were no plain croissants available. We're taking that as the universe throwing a bitch-curve, but also, removing the potential of a quandary.

If you're thinking "So? Go weigh-in now, show us what you've managed in a week!" - Shan't. May not weigh-in now until Friday morning out of utterly convenient and entirely borrowed "superstition." Not getting tomorrow off to any kind of negative start, because I intend to entirely hammered by the end of it, doing a shot for every leading Tory who loses their seat. 

One thing has become clear over the last couple of days, though.

I'm releasing myself of the responsibility to be the garbage can at mealtimes.

Some of you will instinctively understand what that means, but for those who didn't grow up relatively poor, here's the deal:

There are generational elements to this - If the phrase "There are children starving in Africa" means anything to you, you'll understand the generational efforts of parents to ensure their kids ate as much of the "good stuff" as possible. But if you were relatively poor, there was an extra dimension to it. 

We were never as poor as people are these days, proably - food banks were not a national network of necessity when I was a kid. There was always food in my house and my gran's, but it was usually extremely good, standard, carb-based stuff. Or if it wasn't, I wasn't interested in it. 

But somewhere along the line - my therapist would invite you to think it was about the time my parents divorced and certainties became less certain than they had been - I formed the learned instinct that if there was any of the good stuff left on anyone else's plate, it was my responsibility (not to mention my significant pleasure - which is how it got classed as the good stuff!) to eat their leftovers, as well as my own plateful. And to polish off any seconds or even thirds too, rather than let good food to waste.

I've more or less always done it.

Except when I Disappeared before. 

The last few days, I've found the mentality creeping over me to cut that nonsense out. To eat till I'm sufficiently full, not burstingly full, and then to leave the rest - my own and other people's (which to all intents and purposes these days means d's).

I'm not gonna lie (well, not now, anyway). There's a kind of fear response in doing that. Y'know how some people can't pass a picture that's crookedly hung without righting it?

It's that sensation. Somewhere, I've associated only the feeling of being burstingly full with being actually full, and being actually full with being OK, nurtured, safe from want. With the world being right.

That, I think, has played into my bingeing behavior - it's been an answer to an actual panic sensation. But it also feeds in to my grazing behavior - keep topping up, keep topping up, keep topping up and everything'll be fine.

S'probably killing me, to be fair. 

So the notion of not eating everything, including others' leftovers and seconds, actually triggers a mild panic reaction even to think about. 

But I've started doing it. And it started fairly naturally. So we'll see where it goes. Death of a garbage can?

Now, in full transparency, tonight's dinner was pad thai, and d couldn't eat all of hers. Did I step in? Yes - but I can genuinely say that that was in response to a "relatively" healthy trigger: the combiantion of continuing comparative hunger and the tastiness of the food. It wasn't in response to any panic stimulus attached to not being full enough.

Rationalizing?

Maybe, but man, the food was good.

We'll only see if the garbage can is really dead by drawing a graph of a trend over time, of course.

For now, we're taking the good vascular news, and not using it as a Get Out Of Blood Sugar Control Free card. Onward and downward are the only ways to avoid poor consequences.

(No Muppets were harmed in the production of this blog entry).

The Joy of the Green Jeanie...

 

Quite the newsy day, today. As d says, we've been working like a well-oiled machine, together and in the same direction.

Which, for the first day of a 

First of all, we went to Tenby, taking her toe along with us. It was unveiled, and a whole new concave basin of fresh puss was revealed. How did your Monday start?

d was brave while the puss was more or less scooped out of her living flesh. The podiatrist wasn't entirely able to say whether fresh puss was a good thing, a bad thing, or just a Monday, because, as she put it, "We can't tell whether it's been there building up for a while."

She did however give us some useful information on the availability of those automatic, non-stabby blood sugar monitors on the NHS, so we'll be pursuing that. In fact, d's taken an appointment with the local diabetic nurse to discuss that and more on the 8th July. 

The day I start my new job, or I'd be going too.

Had breakfast (d's braver than me - she went for post-pussfest omelettes, although now I think about it, I had a fried egg roll, with yolks that burst and oozed yellow liquid, so y'know, bravery is as bravery realizes, I guess), and then - on the first day off we've had together in a while - we did Tenby. Up it, down it - d bought me a book, I bought her a couple of scarves, I bought myself a glorious, outrageous hat, and we sauntered back to town.

Long story short, I start a new job a week today. A week Wednesday I schlepp some six hours or so by train up to Warwick to actually...y'know...meet these people in four dimensions. 

That means ideally abandoning my usual style of "Two sacks of shit preacariously tied together somewhere round the middle" and actually wearing Real People Clothes.

Most of me, of course, hates Real People Clothes, but I threw some things into an Amazon basket - most of which, if I'm honest, are disconcertingly green. In my head, probably, was some idea of the traditional Riddler look.

What I personally will look like in a mostly green ensemble is the oldest leprechaun in the Lucky Charms factory, but we persevere.

The point of telling you this is that I ordered the stuff from Amazon - and it mostly fit. By which I mean it all fitted in the important ways - the jacket (Green-ish) almost did up and just needed a couple of inches taking off the sleeves. The smart (significantly more green) jeans (proper, branded ones and all - they were a frigging steal, to the point where they've already jumped back up in price from what I got them for), didn't look like they'd fit.

"Oh, those are going straight back," said d as she saw me get one leg in.

"Let me just confirm," I said, sliding the other leg in.

And they fit. They did up. I could sit, stand, walk, do everything I need to do with The People in 'em. 

Now, granted they needed a good eight inches chopping off the bottom and tailoring because clearly, you're not supposed to have a bodily girth like mine unless you're at least six feet tall. But bugger it - there's a lovely seamstress on the Strand in the village who's doing both sets of alterations for under a tenner, so screw you, unrealistically tall standards. I shall be both short and stylish!

And...did I mention, very, very green? Like Kermit's unreliable uncle, wandering up to Warwick for quarterly meetings and - I kid you not - "corporate fun."

All of which is just to highlight the fact that I bought a bunch of random clothes - off the internet. 

And, with a little faffing about sleeves and quite a lot of faffing about the legs, they fit me.

If you've never been too big to wear off the peg clothes, this will entirely fail to connect with you.

But my big folk, my tall folk, and frankly women (because why would there be standard agreement on sizes) will get the point. Yes, there's lots of ground to cover, lots of change to make, but, for instance, when I started Disappearing the first time, this would never have been an option. I even had to buy an extra-special fancy-dancy exercise bike, because none of the click-and-buy ones you can get online were rated for my weight.

So, as the Monday between jobs goes, lots of time with my girl, an impressive puss-explosion, potential information towards better blood monitoring, and an ability to buy clothes off the electronic peg - and get 'em tailored to my needs. Not too freaking shabby. 

The Croissant Conundrum

 

"I have a confession to make."

"OK," I said. I tried to adopt a priestly air, but reality was having none of it. In fact, reality went running round the corner for a quiet snigger.

"I ate a croissant!" said d, looking racked.

"OK. Well, these things happen, honey. This is a whole new way of thinking and acting. Old instincts still exist. It's like the other day with the OJ, remember?"

"Oh. Yeah, that was weird. Didn't think about the sugar content till I'd drunk it."

"Same here. S'gonna take time to rewire the instincts of decades. What kind of croissant was it?"

"Plain."

"There you go. Best kind."

"But... so, are croissants on the acceptable list or not? I need a judge's ruling!"

I swiftly changed my mental cosplay from priest to judge.

"I mean, I'm nobody's judge," I said, "but I'd say...not. Ultimately."

"Right," she said, nodding, having consigned croissants to the dustbin of culinary history with little more than a high-pitched whimper and a tragic, Ellis Island wave.

"It's just...we're going to be in Carmarthen Tuesday."

"Yesssss..." I said.

"Where one of our favourite restaurants is."

"Mm-hmm. Sloppy Joe's, I know." We'd already sssssort of agreed to get a burger there, because fuck it, ya have to eat something and there's only so much broccoli you can snaffle before you want to shoot yourself in the face.

"And they've opened up a bake shop since we were there last." She had the decency to cough. "Specializing in Viennoiserie." 

"Ah," I said.

"Was...kind of...really hoping to try a croissant there."

"Ahhhh," I said, at somewhat greater depth as a lightbulb pinged on.

"Well, I tell you what," I said. "Let's see what the toe looks like tomorrow, and see what the vascular surgeon says on Wednesday, and decide then."

"We'll have left the Viennoiserie behind before we see the sugeon," she actually didn't mumble, but could have.

To which, I'd probably have said something like "See what your toe looks like tomorrow. Buy a croissant if you absolutely feel you can't do without it on Tuesday, but hold on until you've seen the vascular surgeon on Wednesday before you eat it." Just because if we're gonna play The Moral Maze, it's worth having some fun with it.

Bottom line, an additional croissant is unlikely to have even the remotest effect on the toe or its diabetic underpinnings, but I was asked to play judge, so I did. And whereas the first one was accidental, the second would be premeditated croissantage. Which is essentially the difference between manslaughter and murrrrrrder.

Fuck it, I still had the mental judge cosplay on.

You can go back and forth on the question endlessly, and given enough time, I would do. It's be Schrodinger's Sroissant before too long - both eaten and uneaten. Bottom line, we'll see what happens, and as I say, probably very little will result either way. 

In fact, I mention all this simply because it's illustrative of the way it's possible to suddenly start overthinking when you start something like this Disappearing lark. "Oh no! The Dreaded Croissant of Irresistibility has claimed me - damn it, take the toe!"

Annnnnd breeeeeathe. 

There are other things we'll need to address, and relatively fast, but not in an immediate hurry, because the elastic of human will power is only so strong - push it too far, too fast, and it'll twang you right in the gusset.

As I say, I have yet to forfeit a nightly bowl of cereal, despite knowing it's unwise and unhealthy. So, really, what kind of judge can I be of the urge to croissant? 

We shall see how this week goes. Firstly, tomorrow - airing, visual inspection, and re-dressing of the toe in Tenby.

Oh - tomorrow, remind me to talk to you at tedious length about green corduroy...

The Amputation Equation

 

"Something just ocurred to me."

"OK," I said. "Hit me."

"There's only a third of normal bloodflow getting to the toe right now," said d. "That's why the ulcer's stone dead."

"Yeah."

"So...if they have to amputate the thing...how's it gonna heal? Without the bloodflow, I mean?"

I swallowed.

"I...think that's why we're doing this, darling."

I'm not of course sure about any of this - d has an appointment with a vascular surgeon on Wednesday, at which we hope to learn more. But I'm a middle-aged white guy, so never let it be said I let my speculation stand as less than gospel truth.

"I figure that's the race. If it starts, I sort of assume they have to head off the enblackening at the last point they think they have viable bloodflow for the recovery process," I theorized, irresponsibly. "Hence the regular monitoring appointments?"

"Ah,"she said.

Nodded.

Turned the TV to a B-movie about dark asteroids crashing into the Earth.

I'm assuming that was either just a random stab in the dark - oddly enough, we'd previously landed on "Signs of the Coming of Armageddon," and had just got up to the part where the big fuck-off asteroid named Wormwood crashes into the Earth, so there's kind of a theme to the evening - or a deliberate choice of mental channel-change, along the lines that "Things Could Be A Whole Lot Worse."

Anyway, did a small bit of walking today. Didn't feel enough, in some senses, but also felt like exactly as much as I could safely do, so bugger it, that's what was done. 

Looking forward to more information on d's condition and options on Wednesday.  After that, probably a good idea to make potentially joint appointments at the local doctors ("Place your bets - it's telephonic roulette!") to see what's what with both of us, and investigate blood sugar monitoring kit.

 

 

The Nature of Controlled Endings

 

Nothing particularly relevant to Disappearing today - I've eaten reasonably well, though an outrageous number of grapes. No walking today - no time.

Today was the last day of my current job. And unlike the previous two full-time gigs, and (now that I think of it), it was a controlled ending.

Controlled by me, I mean. Every ending is pretty much controlled by someone, but the last two full-time jobs I've had have been ended by someone else's decion.

The last one was one of those juicy "We'll give you loads of money to quietly fuck off" deals. Voluntary redundancies, I think they're called, despite that being a semantic fig-leaf to cover the truth that you're being canned. Ten of us - a whole department, were canned "voluntarily."

That's still a shame to me, because it was the best gig of my career. But the money came in hugely handy, and I was lucky to land another gig at just the right moment. Which, if you're going to do a thing, is a highly recommended pathway.

But man, was there sweating and graft en route to that happy ending.

Ironically of course, that happy ending is the role to which I'm saying goodbye today.

There was nothing particularly wrong with it, it's just that the one to which I'm going is more...me. 

More authentically me, I guess you could say.

Which feels timely. 

This whole Disappearing thing came on us by surprise this time, but you can't end a whole decades-long pattern of behavior by accident. You have to control the ending. You have to choose a pathway that - if it hasn't hitherto been more authentically you, has to be from here on out. You have to find a peace with that in your mind, or you'll fall at the first sweet-craving or hunger-pang.

Make no mistake, there's more to do. We need to see what d's new medications are, and get them, and start her taking them. We need to work out a way of doing regular blood testing, whether it's needle-pricking or something newer and more technological and less hurty and more expensive. Or if there's some middle way - whatever happens, we need to start testing.

Other things, too - I have yet to forsake my nighly bowl of cereal, for instance, which of course is a ludicrous habit. Another choice to make. Another controlled ending.

Neither of us has yet to cut out fizzy drinks, though a) d's cut her consumption right down, because she's sensistive to artificial sweeteners, and so is still ont he full-sugar version, and b) all of mine are diet, though I'm aware that's not really ideal either.

As I say, there are stages to this controlled ending. That, I guess, is what "controlled" means in this context.

And if you want to push the metaphor even further - and of course, I have no sense of subtlety, so let's - by the time I start the new job, we will, in all probability, have a new government. A deeply controlled ending of 14 years of chaos, venality, asset-stripping and deceit.

Yeah, you're right, I'm reaching now.

And on that note of closure, enough for today. A wekeend of writing, reviewing, and ideally walking awaits. A weekend of controlled...beginnings, if you like.

The Chihuahua Factor

 

Ahhh, there it is.

I've been waiting for the irritability to kick in since we started this project.

It arrived today, like a calorifically-driven period. 

The urge to eat everything in sight, and the corresponding urge to fall asleep unless there's something on which to graze, is feeding in to my mentality, and possibly d's too  here, I won't speak for her.

That jittery sense of "What do you do with your hands?" - coupled with the first actual instances of ongoing hunger (despite, let the record show, having a decent breakfast - oatmeal, eggs, toast), has made me jittery and snappy as a freakin' chihuahua all day.

Like most chihuahuas, I've gone about the place today snarling like I want to turn my face inside out and snapping at everything that moves, largely as retribution to the cruel fate that has been dealt me.

Yes, of course that was hyperbole, but you know I'm a drama queen. 

Had to take a power nap at one point, partly because screens, workloads, last-but-one day in the job with everything to do, but also, mostly, because I was sick of the stream of mental venom coursing through my brain.

Of course, the heat doesn't help.

The tourists definitely don't help - may possibly have snarled out loud at one or two this morning. It's one of those "Did I think that, or did I say that?" moments where I can't actually be sure.

And then of course, there's the most batshit election of modern times, just ready to ladle on the desire to burn everyone in the face at a moment's notice. Twitter's awash with Reform-bots, it's really quite demented. 

So all in all, there are plenty of external stimuli to my "Touch me and die" mood. But I've been this way before, so I'm trying to allow the chemical and behavioural changes their due too.

In progressive news, the new "Extreme Urgent" appointment d's been waiting for, and getting stressed about in the middle of a Vodafone no-service maintenance work week (Thanks for that, V!) has come through - Wednesday morning in Carmarthen. So that's us going to stay overnight in the town Tuesday. 

That'll be slightly odd - most of the reasons we love going to Carmarthen are food-related or food-adjacent. Interesting to see what we do there in this new reality.

But it's beginning to look prophetic that I took next week off between jobs, ostensibly to write and revise the novel I have to finish for publication. Funny how things work out, eh?

Right - I'm away to determinedly not claw holes in the couch.

The Neverending Hunger

 

"What the hell, man?"

"Yeah."

"But it's never been like this!"

"Yyyyeah, we've never done this simultaneously. Welcome - it sucks, doesn't it?"

"Yeah! This is bullshit!"

Yesterday, I mentioned the fact that both d and I are permanenly draggin' ass since we went tepid turkey and low-ish sugar.

Today, we're recognising something else.

We're both. Permanently. Ravenous.

Before meals. After meals. At any random point between meals - the urge to find a turkey and rip off its legs with our teeth is strong in us right now.

Two nights ago, we had what was, in the circumstances, a high-carb dinner - pizza.

Almost immediately when it was done, d admitted "I'm still hungry."

I tried to rationalize with her. "Are ya? Or are you just reacting to the behaviorally-programmed need to eat another course?"

She narrowed her eyes at me. "Screw you and your behaviorally-programmed ass, honey, I'm. STILL. HUNGRY."

Ya got to pick your battles in this life, and right now, our battles need to be against external forces, not against one another.

Tonight, for Reasons, we ended up having pizza again.

Almost immediately:

"Still hungry?"

"Yep."

"What the hell, man?"...

So - permanently exhausted, permanently hungry. There clearly needs to be an adjustment at some point - need to get more protein, more greenery, more vitamins in our systems.

But we're just a handful of days in, and we're still adjusting to the new ways in which we're having to think. Have yet to start blood testing, so what we're aiming for is a starting sugar level that's not completely insane (as it probably has been for years). 

But we're gonna need to figure something out about this fatigue/ravenous hunger combination, cos she's right - what the hell, man?

Welcome to the Sugarpause

 

Right - first news first - first official weigh-in today.

16 stone 9.25 pounds.

233 pounds.

105.6 Kg.

Pick one that has meaning to you.

The "story" in that is that I'm up by 0.75 pounds since Saturday. Shush, we're not focusing on that at all right now.

That means the goal by a week today is 16 stone 7.25 - but you know me, that little quarter-pound is gonna bug me, so I'm declaring I want to get to 16 stone 7 by next week. 

That's because every 7 pound marker is a half-stone (told you, you pick the scale that has meaning to you - in my case it's stones and pounds, and therefore half-stones have meaning for me as markers on the downward journey).

So there's that.

What else is news?

We're both ridiculously exhausted - is that news, or just a factor of our age and it being Evil Bastard Season? Or Summer, if you insist on the politically correct name for this annual hellscape.

We're both abbbbbsolutely dragass right now. It's ten past 8 in the evening as I write this, and I've woken from a too-short nap, just long enough to do it, before heading to bed for the night. 

She's mainlining caffeine and finding it makes her sleepier (I have suspicions about mind-type there, naturally. 

"This is ridiculous," she barely found the energy to mutter after work. "Is this down to giving up sugar?"

I shrugged one shoulder at a time. "Could be," I said. "Dunno," I admitted. "Maybe it's the Sugarpause?"

"The..." She shook her head. "I don't even wanna know."

I just mean that a behavioral upset is likely to be occasioned by any prolonged shift in body chemistry. Puberty gives us hormones, the horn and hair. Pregnancy does...a whole mass o' crap.

See also menopause. Radical chemical change in the body produces behavioral symptoms.

This is Day 3 of our Sugarpause. 

*Shrugs* S'probably not, in any real sense, a Thing, I realize. But when you've been used to a certain level of sugar coming in relentlessly (significantly in my case larger than my insulin-producing systems - there's a word, I wanna say pancreas - can cope with), suddenly changing that relatively cold turkey feels likely to have some behavioral consequences.

From memory, I expect to begin resenting happy people with icecreams - even children - and wanting to slap them soon.

Haven't reached that point yet, because I haven't as yet hit an actual hunger point - it hasn't been that kind of beginning. And besides, I don't have the energy to slap anyone right now.

Which is probably not the right spirit with which to embark on new adventures.

Oh yes - new adventures. A little bit of history. 

Can't quite remember where I was when last I stabbed blindly into the dark energy of Disappearing. Probably, I think, I was making some kind of living as an editor of books for my own editing house.

That went downhill as the economy suffered, and that little tinker of a virus started getting screentime on the news.

I jumped back into working for a living just as Covid hit.

That turned out to be a colossal screaming mistake - though I made some absolutely arse-kicking pals as a result.

The job I jumped to was at a word-farm run by a pair of utter dickheads. 

While there, I went blind in both eyes from fast-growing cataracts.

The dickheads - fired me.

In fact, they fired me on the very day I got my Covid confirmation.

So that was special.

A week later I was taken into hospital with, famously, "24 hours till cascading organ failure." Long story short, not enough oxygen getting to the organs to keep them alive.

Spent two weeks on a Covid ward. Came back from the brink, and eventually came home on Christmas Day, for the Richard Curtis ending. Was absolutley weak as a kitten for about half a year.

While in hospital, they treated me with a drug which, in simple terms, dilated my pupils and let the catacts at the side grab hold and keep them open. So I went more blind.

So blind, in fact, I actually got one of those offical diagnoses of being legally blind.

I applied to the DWP for some kind of benefit.

They refused.

I appealed.

They refused again.

So I could make no money, but wasn't disabled enough for the DWP to give me any money.

Fun, fun, fun...

Eventually I had two cataract operations, in one of those waiting-list-busting schemes the Tories try to get away with. Treated privately, but paid for by the NHS. So, in a very real sense, thank you all for that.

No sooner had the second eye been done than I got what has to go down as the best job in my career to date. 

So much so, I actually got promoted, into a role I wrote myself. Oh the plans we had...

Came back after Christmas, starting in January 2024.

Oh.

The board (run by bankers) had decided to "rationalize" the company, and canned a whole department.

Our whole department.

Ten journalists - boom. Gone. March 2024.

Since then, I've been ridiculously lucky, given the state of the job market and the rise of AI.

I got a permanent job starting on April 1st. I got another couple of freelance roles - and dropped them, because I wanted to focus on my main role.

This is the role I'm in my last week of, because another role came along. Three interview rounds, four months of recruitment, and I got it. It's a journalistic role, but perhapse weirdly, I actually can't say too much about it. Hush hush, wink wink, say no moooore.

So that's where you find me as we both encounter this complete energy-drain. About to embark on a brand new role, as a full-on journalist, in a aubject area I've never properly tackled before. It's exciting, and scary, and fun...

But I'm going to bed now, cos I'm totally knackered...

The Hancock Toe

"Well, that's it, then. Either I shall slowly get better, or I've 'ad it."

A line from classic British sitcom character Anthony St John Aloysius Hancock, when faced with a cold.

While in his case, the fatalism is funny because it's such a cataclysmic overreaction, I'd be lying if I said it didn't resonate a little today.

As newbies and followers of the blog will know, today, d had her "Extreme Urgent" appointment with vascular podiatry to assess the state of the diabetic ulcer on her toe, and the bloodflow in her legs generally. 

I couldn't go with her this time, so a pal valiantly stepped in for company. 

The bottom line is that d has peripheral arterial disease. The bottomer bottom line is she has around 33% of normal bloodflow to the foot with the toe ulcer on it, and 50% normal flow to the other foot. 

So, that's just freakin peachy. 

The black skin of the toe ulcer is apparently necrotic. It's dead. It has ceased to be. It has inserted its own dea parrot joke here but has yet to naff off and join the choir invisible.

The reason I started this blog with the Hancock quote is because it's more or less what the doctors told d about what she comically calls "the black spot." 

"Watch the black spot," they said. "In the best scenario, the bloodflow underneath it will grow fresh tissue, and the black spot will fall off - plop - like a scab."

"Or?" said d, who can recognise one half of a proposition when it's put in front of her.

"Or the blackness will start to grow," they said. "In which case, we'll be looking at partial amputation."

See? Either it'll slowly get better, or the toe's 'ad it.

We'd already embraced the necessity of change, and radical change at that, but that of course in no way makes it easy. 

The thing about d (and about me when I'm in this zone) is that we can absolutely do the self-denial thing. The not having the dessert thing. But what we're finding is that the rhythms and routines of our lives are, not to put too fine a point on it, bastards. The sense that a meal's not really complete without something sweet. The simple watching of baking TV or having timelines flooded with dessert recipes (that latter may be my fault), all those normalized elements that have dipped us in liquid sugar and mutual enablement for 20 years, those are the things that are hard to reprogam in these early, early stages. 

It remains entirely weird that she's the one with the external, watchable signal of how our behavior's impacting us. Weird because doctors have been telling me for decades "Y'need to cut this shit out, or it'll affect your kidneys, or your liver, or your heart, or your eyes..."

And I've known the truth of it, and kept gambling, seeing how far I could push the thing before something critical went clunk.

But nothing has gone clunk loud enough to make me stop. Until now - and the clunk is on the end of d's foot, rather than my own. 

So, like medieval doctors, we watch the toe.

She's going to have new meds to take, and I keep pushing towards blood testing, so we at least have a baseline from which we can push away by positive action. And she has a referral - "Extreme Urgent," naturally - to a full-on vascular surgeon. Quite what the options are that they'll discuss, I'm not sure - I assume at this stage, simply ways to improve bloodflow to her extremities.

Onward, with news that could be better, and at least half a gameplan. And, most importantly, with out Stubborn Bastard faces on - against which no habit-pattern, no dessert craving, or, in my case, no drawerful of casual chocolate can stand.

The See-Saw of Helpfulness

 

Hello, Sunday. Day of easy grazing and multiple tempting options.

Bastard, in fact. Seductive, teasing bastard day as you are, with your acres of time in which to not think of all the wonderful sweet and carby things with which I could be filling my face.

Has been a day of more grazing than I'd like - including some popcorn about whose sugar content I barely thought once. But I also did my highly limited harbour walk again this morning.. It's by no means enough to offset what I've eaten, but it's not meant to do that right now. It's about building more healthy habits, one step at a time.

On that, had some good news - I emailed my heart specialist, because while I thought the results of my echocardiogram meant I could do more exercise, d wasn't sure, thinking I'd need the results of other or follow-up tests before that was the case.

I simply asked him which reality we were in. His response was that yes, I can do more - but slowly, gently more, not jumping on the exercise bike and pedalling like a fat fuck outta hell.

Let me clear this up for you right now, because it seems to be a thing my nearest, dearest, and those who know me in real life ar eahving trouble with.

Is that something I might have done back in the day of the Original Disappearing?

Absolutely - I might have pushed it to kickstart my metabolism and tell it there was a new sheriff in town.

I'm 52 now, and I'm post-Covid. 

I know, I know, that was years ago, get over it. 

Except...no.

I don't want it to have done this, but that wretched little virus did a number on me, both physically and mentally. 

Physically, I simply can't push my body to obey my will any more. It rebels. It tells me, in no uncertain terms, to get knotted. It becomes harder to breathe, and if I push it too hard, it gives my heart licence to go tachycardic, which has been known to put me out of action for days on end - especially recently.

Mentally, I'm not the same man I was, either. I know where sentences need to go, but it's like my brain sometimes stops one station too soon, and has no connectivity to the end. Feels like a miniature cognitive stroke, frankly.

So - no. Between the mental and the physical, I'm not pushing this permission further than I can sensibly use it.

But still - it's a happy thing to have on one end of the see-saw of helpfulness today.

The see-saw of helpfulness of course, has another end, and d experienced that today.

She was told a story about the son of a local villager, who was rushed to hospital. 

Apparently, he had a diabetic toe ulcer, and he was given poor, and/or conflicting medical advice. 

He was ultimately taken to hospital and had to have his leg amputated.

There are two things to learn from this.

Firstly, these things are tricksy, and you have to watch them like a hawk. Poor lad went from ulcer to amputation in a horrifyingly small handful of heartbeats.

And secondly, stories like that are reeeeeally not what you want to hear when you have a diabetic toe ulcer and are heading in to see vascular podiatrists within 24 hours, marked "Extreme Urgent."

So that, on the see-saw of helpfulness today, is the side that's on the ground. Here's hoping there's good news tomorrow that lifts it up again.

I have work to do, incidentally, before I can jump on the exercise bike. It's been stuck in a box room for years, and there's a truly ridiculous amount of excavation that needs to be done before I can practically get on it, sit on it, and pedal it.

And I've also been looking into blood sugar testing options. I'm on blood thinners, and d has a long history with medical needles and the like, so if we can use an alternative to the daily stabbings, that'd be excellent.

Not sure whether it's feasible - the prices for the units I've seen work on a subscription model, and are pricy, and regular. There may well be alternatives via the NHS - investigation mode needs activating tomorrow.

Here's to Monday - day of hopefully good news from vascular podiatry, and the start of my last week in my current job. About which, more tomorrow!

Welcome to the Last-But-One Chance Saloon

And so we're back here.

Five years or so since I wrote an entry in this interminable blog of attempted weightloss and life-change, I'm prodding it with sticks again, to get at least one more rise out of it.

The chances are there are plenty of people I know now who weren't around for the first flourishings of this thing, so here's the upshot.

A ridiculous number of years ago now, when we lived in Stratford, East London, a doctor told me I was so life-imperillingly overweight, he'd recommend me for bariatric surgery.

While appreciating the offer, I took rather against such a path. "I'm too damn stubborn to do that," was essentially the drift.

I bought an exercise bike, started walking regularly, and completely changed my dietary habits, becoming as this blog claims, "The Disappearing Man." Lost something like six stone (84 pounds, or 38 Kg). Practically reversed my diabetes, radically reduced my medication, promised never to let it slide.

And then it slid.

That was much more than a decade ago now.

I'm not the man I was back then.

Which of us is, post-Brexit, post-Trump 1.0, post chaos and carnage and all that good stuff?

But I'm starting again.

And the weird thing is, I've been trying to get motivated to start again for a while, and failing.

Since I last wrote in this blog, I've had what people call a "brush with death," being hospitalized with Covid for two weeks and being, I was later told, "24 hours away from cascading organ failure."

I rather thought that would put an end to my dichotomy. The dichotomy of claiming I wanted to live, but eating like I was trying to kill myself. Swore and oath to that effect, and everything.

Turned out to be bollocks. 

My doctor, here, living by the sea, on reading my wiiiiildly out of control blood sugars, offered me appetite suppressants. I laughed - I couldn't help it.

"Are you under the impression I eat like this because I'm hungry?" I asked, incredulous.

"Oh," she said. "OH!" she realized.

Since then I've been on a therapeutic journey. Group therapy on "managing diabetes," which was fine as far as the other participants were concerned, but which leaned very heavily on the trappings of the "wellness" industry.

Which may be fine for some people - but do absolutely nothing if, at the churning core of your being, you're fighting against half a brain that fundamentally does not want to be well.

I was diagnosed with a binge eating disorder, and with anxiety, though weirdly, more recently I appear to be scoring higher for depression than anxiety. Thost guys do love to slug it out up there.

I don't as yet have a diagnosis of ADHD. What I do have is an increased proclivity to ask the world of social media "Is this a thing?" - and an increased and regular response rate of "Oh yeah - classic ADHD thing, that."

The more you know, I guess.

I've also been doing one-to-one therapy. That, unlike the group therapy, I find really helpful - often wishing I could have it more often, or collapsing over the line to my next appointment in gratitude. 

That started as a response to the binge eating diagnosis, and has broadened out from there, because - and here's the good news - the binge eating trigger response has significantly weakened. Control, self-awareness, and conversations both in therapy and with important people in my world, have helped me get a perspective on that. I'm still going to therapy, because while I realize it's a privilege, I wish it weren't. I'd recommend it to anyone, and wish everyone could have it as they need it. 

If Covid taught us anything, it's that honest conversations are important, and at the risk of unfortunate (though possibly not inaccurate) comparisons, dedicated time with a professional who's literally paid to serve your underlying needs is staggeringly freeing. No one in your life should necessarily need to be your confessor, your guide into your own reactions, and all the other things a therapist can be. I joke that nobody else gets paid enough to listen to me witter on about myself. The professional therapist establishes that relationship, and it's been enormously helpful. I'm much less prone to binge eating now - but I don't see the therapy stopping any time soon. It's become that valuable.

So why am I back, trying to re-establish the Disappearing Man?

For a couple of reasons.

Firstly, I have a heart condition, and it's been a touch on the uppity side lately. I went for an echocardiogram, and apparently have yet to dramatically damage the cardiac muscle. 

The corollary of which is that the condition's been acting up more because I'm way too heavy again and my diabetic blood saugar is appallingly high. So while I appear to have dodged a cardiac bullet, medical authorities are once again coming to me with serious faces and the idea that  "You really need to knock this shit off, man."

That's slightly shifted my perspective, but hadn't, in and of itself, given me the impetus I needed to start again. It has somewhat confounded my therapist that I haven't particularly been able to equate "living longer" with an imptus to action. I've always worked on the principle that pleasure and longevity are separate things, each with their own due weight.

More than that though, my wife, d, has become a motivating factor. 

She's diabetic too, though she freely admits she's been ignoring that for around five years. She takes no medication despite being prescribed some, and, like me, never tests her blood sugar.

It's entirely fair to say we've been enabling one another in our lifestyle for years. 

It's slightly complicated by the fact that cooking, providing nourishment and flavor, and particularly baking, is her chief "love language," as well as her biggest source of fun and relaxation.

Except now there's a Thing.

Long story short, I've had diabetes in my family since I was a child. My maternal grandmother was the first of us to be diagnosed, but my bio-dad, after a lifetime of heavy drinking, also succumbed. He in particular is relevant, because he had an issue with diabetic neuropathy in his feet. That led to gangrene, which led to amputation, and while he was recovering from that, his heart gave out and he died.

So in a sense, we've been melodramatically watching my feet for decades, waiting for something to go wrong.

Now, something's gone wrong - but not with my feet, but d's. She has a diabetic ulcer, and this week, we got her tested - and the bloodflow to her feet is significantly less ideal than could be wished. She's seeing someone in vascluar podiatry on Monday - they rang and told her she was an "Extreme Urgent" case, which does wonders for one's sense of speed, but little that's positive to one's sense of immortality.

The one thing they impressed on her above all is that whatever treatment they can give her, the one thing that will be necessary is good diabetic blood sugar control.

Neither of us have tested in yeeeeears.

But where I'm a wheedler and a gambler and a finder-out of loopholes to maintain enjoyable behaviors over anything that smacks of responsibility, d's more fundamentally sensible. So we're about to embark on what for her probably doesn't need to be a Disappearing campaign, but certainly a life-changing shift of approach.

Me, I'm calling it Disappearing, because damn it, it works in my head.

There are complications - I'm waiting to hear back from the heart doctor whether my echocardiogram result means I can start exercising more vigorously than "the occasional walk around the village" he prescribed when I saw him face to face.

My exercise bike is actually in a box room...covered in boxes. So there's work to do before I can unearth it, even if I get the all-clear to do so.

d's got issues, too - in recent years, she's broken the same ankle twice, so walking any real distance gives her pain. She also works standing up eight hours a day, after which one is hardly inclined to do exercise without immediate reward. So quite what the Disappearing process looks like this time around, I'm not sure. Come, by all means, find out with me.

Let's do starting stats before we get the hell on with our lives.
Weighed this morning, post-bathroom (Yes, dammit, it makes a difference).
Am 5 feet 6 inches tall, or 1.67 meters.

As of this morning, I weight 16 stone, 8.75 pounds. That's 232.75 pounds, or a fuck-ton of kilos.
You're going to make me work it out aren't you? Hang on...105.6 kilos.

So while I'm around 36 pounds heavier than the lowest I reached on my first, most successful Disappearing stint, that's a fairly important chunk of poundage.

What's more, I jsut depressed the ever-living shit out of myself by looking at the NHS BMI calculator. Yes, I'm aware of all the reasons not to go by BMI, but it's at least a ready reckoner right now. I am of course obese at this weight - no one would argue with that, least of all me.

Ideal weight according to the NHS? Between 8 stone 3 pounds (a stone is 14 pouns feel free to do your own calculations) and 11 stone.

That means just to touch the outer limits of "normal" for my height, weight and ethnicity, I'd have to lose 5 stone 8.75 pounds. Practically 79 pounds. If we go by the lower limit, I'm a smidgen over two "Ideal Tony's."

I absolutely cannot imagine my life at 11 stone. Don't think I've been that weight since I was about 17 (following a previous successful Disappearing attempt).

But the medically-recommended maximum weigh loss is 2 pounds per week. That works out at just under 40 weeks, if the loss were aggregated smoothly over time, which of course, absolutely everybody knows is won't be.

As I say, the Disappearing this time round is different. The exercise limitation is a factor. The frank fact of my age is a factor. But the fundamental challenge remains the same - change or die.

d's having to confront a similar medical issue is making me enthusiastic to try and do it again, so as to support her in her journey - which as I say, is different to my own. But if we can be The Disappearing Couple, our lifestyles will change in ways that might (because of course there's never a cast-iron guarantee) keep us around and working just that little bit longer.

So let's do this thing. Official weigh-ins will be on a Tuesday morning (more our of tradition than anything, but also in case I have to schlepp to meetings and/or events on a Monday). Blood testing results will come as and when we either find or get new testers.

Yippee, Skippy, we're disappearing again.

The desk drawerful of chocolate will mostly have to stay where it is until it rots...