Confronting the Beast

I just went back to check my blog and I totally forgot I wrote about my upcoming medical tests. I was scared silly. The upshot is that I’m going to be just fine

For the past few weeks I’ve had some health problems and I’ve come to realize just how much difficulties in our lives block the healing or the ability to confront and face our problems. It’s easy to put losing weight on the back burner because so many things may take precedence. A few weeks ago I was having debilitating back pain. For me the key to being able to fight my demons (or my beast) is all about being conscious. Being aware of what I’m eating and why. A lot of it also has to do with writing my feelings here. Whether anyone ever reads this, it’s most important that I wrote it, that I acknowledge and record my problems and actions in this battle of eating. I couldn’t think let alone write. I was in so much pain that it was almost more than I could handle.

I went through some tests and the conclusion was that I have a fibroid tumor in the back of my uterus and an ovarian cyst in my right ovary. My doctor thinks that the location of the fibroid is what was causing me the intense back pain. I would try to walk and pain would shoot from the small of my back to the top of my thighs. It made walking the first few steps almost impossible. My doctor put me on muscle relaxers to try to relax the back muscles and pain medication. Once I’d take the prescriptions I was pretty much out of it. Again, I couldn’t write or even think about the beast. I knew he was still there, but I just let him lie quietly beneath the surface.

After about a week of pain and countless doctor visits, the pain subsided. I still don’t know why the pain stopped but it did.

The doctor wants to see me again in two weeks to see if the fibroid has changed at all or the cyst has gone away. The worst case is going to be a hysterectomy and I’m fine with that.

I can’t imagine what people go through who have a debilitating medical or emotional problem. It must take everything they have to even go day to day let alone confront and slay their beast. Even though it may take me longer than I thought, I’m ready to get back to my beast and finally fixing this problem.

Two days ago I was all set to skip my ww meeting and sit down and write about how I couldn’t find my way back to the wagon. Given my current circumstances I’ve decided to give myself a break. And bit the bullet and went to my meeting.

At the weigh-in and they told me I lost seven pounds. I didn’t believe her. I wasn’t being coy, I truly didn’t’ believe her and thought the scale was broken. I wanted to weight in again, but was too embarrassed to ask. She insisted the numbers were right and that I’ve lost a total of 23 pounds. It’s taken me three and a half months to lose those pounds, but that’s okay. I’m doing down instead of up and that’s half the battle.