Lively Lately #81: Anorexia relapse

Inpatient hospital stay

I went to the ER for lower back pain and incontinence.

They checked out my pelvis and diagnosed me with a UTI due to a high white blood cell (WBC) count in my urine and bacteria.

I fell onto a scratching post a few hours later at home while in respiratory distress from a Tylenol and codeine “cocktail”.

Where does one go when negligent hospital doctors caused this?

No one asked me what meds I was on before giving me the pain pill. This same hospital gave me gabapentin despite having asthma a month and a half prior.

I started a leave of absence (LOA) at work the next day and scheduled a follow-up with my spine specialist. The morning of my appointment, the receptionist called and instructed me to return to the ER. They called to let them know I was coming.

After a CT, I was admitted to the PCU for an MRI. Then suggested to get a myelogram.

Then my heart stopped beating for 10 seconds after I overexerted myself because I wanted to be a Good Patient™️ so I could be could discharged and possibly postpone the myelogram I was stressing about — and that ruined everything.

After cardiology performed several tests, my lunch was interrupted for the myelogram.

They discharged me the next day.

January 23rd still gives me nightmares.

Atypical anorexia relapse

PCP follow-up urinalysis results had the same as the initial ER visit: a high WBC and bacteria. No UTI after all.

Previous spine specialist focused on my spine, pushed physical therapy.

Physical therapy is deferred pending cardiology follow-up due to ongoing presyncope.

Every specialist focuses on their own domains, applies my symptoms to their own ish.

After PCP visit, I got home and was like, “Wait…I have been eating, right?”

I thought about my symptoms the past few month:

• All-or-nothing framing around eating and recovery
• Bloating
• Brain fog
• Cognitive dysfunction
• Fainting/near-fainting episodes
• Feeling like a different, earlier version of myself
• Hair growing in white/turning white at the root (so I’ve got duo-colored hair strands)
• Haunted by food and hunger
• Increased need for external reassurance when intake is low (e.g. permission to eat)
• Joint pain
• Jumping down 2-3 pant sizes, depending on the brand/style
• Linking my self-worth to food
• Metabolism not doing much
• Mood swings when hungry
• Not feeling sick enough/like it’s serious enough to be a problem
• Obsessing over food
• Pushing through hunger because it suppressed pain or work rewarded me for it

And that’s not even the whole list.

I realized I actually do have a problem after my psychiatrist asked me to list what I ate on a daily basis. I couldn’t remember beyond the day prior.

“Now that I say it out loud, I don’t think I’m eating much.”

She agreed.

My lip quivered and saltwater flooded my lower eyelids, but I held it back because I didn’t want to cry on camera.

I had become conscious of that fact that I had, indeed, relapsed. And that’s probably why my body revolted, why it could no longer do whatever I wanted it to.

This post was written through blurry vision and visual snow. Fatigue and exhaustion.

Published on the first day of my recovery.

Not looking forward to any of it, only to my future beyond food obsession.