Kind of hard day today... went shopping with my dad and he was so tired and sort of loopy towards the end. I left him in the car to run a last errand and when I got back, I could see he had been crying. At dinner he said his memory was getting bad and that he thought it was part of the cancer and that he hated it. He later said he hated having the tubes and the bags and that he never wanted any of it. I wonder if he would have let himself die of kidney failure if Christmas hadn't been coming up. We tried to let my mom practice changing his tape after he showered and he was getting frustrated at how slow she was and how she wasn't quite getting it. So I saw tears coming out of his eyes as he laid on the bed waiting for us to get finished. I rubbed his arm a bit, but I'm not sure if that helped - this is the part I'm so bad at. The emotional stuff. He's better at it, being able to hug me when he caught me crying (about being fat and feeling I don't have any control over my awful ED) and console me until I pulled myself together. I feel like I'm learning how to be parent to my parents only they are cognizant of their need to be parented, unlike babies who don't know any better. It's weird and distressing to me, but I want to help both of them so I'm trying to get better at it. I think the physical side and the emotional piece are going to get harder and harder as my dad gets closer to death. I'm not sure I'll be able to handle it, but I'm going to try.
I was doing ok with eating the last few days, at least not bingeing and I was proud of myself and happy to see the numbers on the scale not going up again. But I blew it tonight. Ate too many chips after the shopping trip, ate too much dinner because it tasted good and my mom makes way too much food sometimes (although the times she makes too little, that irritates me too because I feel like she's making some comment about how much I should be eating), and then I ate too many pineapple spears. The final piece of lack of self control was that I brushed my teeth and flossed, but then fell asleep on the couch watching TV. When I got up, in a bit of haze I dove into the nut butters and a sunbutter bar. Ugh. Big backslide.
We have to go out tomorrow morning because the cleaning lady is coming and so we're going to brunch at Zippy's, a Denny's-like restaurant that's super popular in Hawaii. I want the sweet bread French toast, but that's a no-no since it's full of allergy foods, so I'll probably have rice and some piece of meat (also probably laden with allergy ingredients) instead and then I'll be pissed because I couldn't have what I really wanted. I've been trying to be less rigid about food and I do have mild symptoms because of it, but I'm not sure my system can deal with the bread. But I desperately want to eat it. Isn't that sad? I wish I didn't care. But I do. I want to eat what I want to eat, but I can't anymore. Anymore than I can keep my dad from croaking. I hate not having control over my life, my disease, my body. It scares me that I'm going to die from inflammation that turns into cancer or some other disease, but then I think I should just eat what I want instead of living forever and succumbing to whatever dementia my mom has. No matter what the path, it doesn't seem like a good option.
But, to not end on a horribly depressing note, I am glad to be here to help my dad and my mom and to spend time with them. It's hard, but I think it's worth it. And I think someday I'll learn how to stop all this overeating, bingeing, stuffing down feelings with food and being angry about my lot. It's just taking longer than I want it to. I just can't lose hope that it will happen. I hope the universe is hearing my requests for help and to bring grace and peace to me and my family.
Off to bed now... I think tomorrow may be a hard day and I need to not be tired.
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