When I started working for my grandmother, we (I) set some pretty strict rules.  The biggest of which was that I would not participate in any medical issues.  This was promptly discarded two weeks in when I had to remove a tick from her inner thigh.

EW.

But aside from parasite removal, I’ve held to this rule.  The thoughts behind it are 1) I’m not medically trained and 2) I’m only there two days out of the week.  If she needs help with daily things like eye drops and taking her blood sugar, she needs more help than I can offer.

I’m around to widen the gap between an independent apartment (albeit one with maid service and cafeteria privileges) and a fully assisted living facility (aka nursing home).  She wants to maintain her independence and her quality of life, so I am there to do things like help write checks for her bills, order perfume off the internet, handling her more personal shopping requests, research/discuss/aid in complicated matters such as taxes, the property in WI, etc.

The one thing I did not plan for or anticipate was how I would also become a big part of her social world.  Specifically, her dining entertainment.

My grandparents ate out 2 nights a week for as long as I can remember.  Now, not only does she not drive but she can’t see well enough to feel safe in just anyone’s vehicle.  She also hates to be far from her own bathroom and hates to break up lunch/dinner plans with friends to request a ride back early.

At first I felt awkward about how much we ate out.   It was definitely a job perk I hadn’t counted on.  Nor really appreciated since it was also around this time when I started trying to get healthy.

A few times I tried paying for the smaller meals.  And a few times I succeeded.  But it really bugged her.  Once I mentioned it to my mother and she was adamant I let Gma pay because she truly enjoyed being able to go out and treat me.

So I became deft at ordering salads and splitting desserts.  I would take a long walk in the afternoon while Gma napped and follow it up with some more aerobics while catching up on Glee and House.  Despite this weekly decadence, I managed to make progress.

Then the cancer came.

Here’s the thing.  When someone has little time left and they still have an appetite?  You encourage it.  Gma started having very specific restaurant requests and once there, very specific preferences.  I don’t think I will ever again sit down to a table where someone orders salmon Florentine with french fries.

The problem is that Gma is very much a social eater/drinker.  She’ll have a glass wine with dinner if you are.  She’ll have dessert if you do too.  (Gone also were the days of splitting desserts.  She wanted her own, damnit.)  She wouldn’t even enjoy her soup/salad if I didn’t have something as well.  This happened often since I’d order an entree salad and no soup.  Then she would stop after every fork/spoon-full to ask if I wanted some.

So, I began to eat more.  I ordered wine and dessert.  When and if I ordered an entree salad, I’d also order some vegetable side to come out when her soup/salad course arrived.

Throughout our journey with the cancer so far, Gma has had few physical manifestations that she is ill.  The cancer is already in her lymph system, so one side effect we were told of was the possibility of lymph fluid building up in her abdomen.  And that seemed to be happening, as her stomach grew and her pants grew tight.

But the oncologist didn’t hear fluid when she went for checkups.  Yet Gma kept patting her belly and talking about how it just seemed to be growing and growing.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

I’m not quite sure why I didn’t put 2+2 together myself.  I guess because in a way I wanted her to have some signs of sickness?  That sounds horrible, but it’s also what she wants.  It drives her bat shit crazy that she’s been given this death sentence and doesn’t have a damn thing to show for it.

Finally, everything clicked (for me at least) when we saw her regular primary care doctor and she got on the scale.  She’d gained 8 pounds in three months.

I still did have to point out to her the connection.  I was leery to do so.  I didn’t want her to feel the need to stop her marvelous eating and enjoyment.  But I finally had to speak up the next time we saw the oncologist to give an explanation for the large belly does not equal horrible lymph system run amok.

While I probably in part get my stockiness from my Gma, she’s a pretty petite lady these days.  She can stomach those 8 pounds as long as she’s also willing to shell out some money for new pants.

But I however, cannot afford them.  The pounds or the pants.  I don’t have cancer (that we know of) (yet).  My food and exercise choices are made in part to ward off the possibility.  So now I am back to no desserts and (for the time being) no wine.  Which means she is too.  At least with me.

Thank god she has cocktail hour three times a week with other residents of her community!

So!  I got bigger during the holidays!

Actually, all throughout last year I got bigger and smaller.  And then bigger some more.  And then some smaller for a change.

I would get really fed up and determined I was going to stay on track and just do it and <insert positive sports metaphor here>.  For about two weeks or so the scale would comply with my wishes and show numbers sliding down the rabbit hole.

Then it would stop.  Repeat until you feelings lean more towards failure than fed up.  Every time I eased up on my diet and exercise, some pounds packed on.  Clothes felt (feel) tight again.  I’d hit a good patch of uninterrupted weeks and start the whole cycle over again…and yet.

Let me back up.  To March 2009 when I went to my doctor and said despite new exercise routines and diet I was not losing weight.  Blood work showed borderline hypothyroidism.  Weight gain (and difficultly with weight loss) is a symptom.  As were a few other vague issues I’d had that I attributed to my lifestyle.

I received medicine for hypothyroidism.  And the weight came off.  Not easily, but it did.  I felt I could concentrate better, my energy level was better.

The thing is – the medicine I received, T3 & T4 hormones, would have had this effect whether I truly needed it or not.  And after a year, my blood work showed I had a tad hyper thyroid.  Besides being asymptomatic any other way I could see (in fact, my weight loss had already started to slow down), the hormones had started messing with my heart.

Every since my doctor decided to take me off thyroid medicine without doing any follow-up lab work to reassess my thyroid levels, I’ve wanted a new doctor.  When I came to her with a girlie problem that is a known system to hypothyroidism and she offered 3 possible cures that did not include looking at my thyroid levels, I knew I’d never go back to her for a regular physical again.

But I have not wanted to use hormones, lazy thyroids, or other impaired organs not in my control as an excuse.  Tom and I also quit hiking as frequently around the same time because it was getting hella-hot in FL.  When I started running and hot yoga I packed on 6 pounds of lean muscle and looked awesome no matter what the scale said.  (Yes, I just complained about the heat in FL and then blithely mention I PAY to do exercise in a 101 degree room.)

Besides not hiking, I hit the height of my travel plans over the summer.  And then ever since my 5K race at the beginning of October, I’ve had one injury after another.  I keep telling myself that I can’t look for other health problems as an excuse when the tried-and-true “eat less, exercise more” hasn’t been fully tested for months now.

Then on Christmas Eve Eve, I had a tiny cancer removed from my calf.  I would have mentioned it but carcinoma definitely does not deserve its own post.  (Yes, I wear sunscreen religiously.  But I am a pale, freckly, moley girl like my mother.  Who’s had about a bazillion removed so you can imagine her sympathy level.  “Huh.” I believe is a direct quote.)  I had stitches right smack dab in the middle of the front of my leg.  I spent between Christmas and New Year’s Eve sitting with my leg elevated, drinking and eating.

So obviously, especially on the heels of a nasty New Year’s Eve hangover, I wanted to start this year back on track.  And to just do it.  Possibly even be the eye of the tiger.

Except…lord I am just so tired of it all.  Tired of failing.  And tired of doing nothing about failing.

Instead of getting back on track, I’m taking a small side detour.

Oh, I’m back to my regularly scheduled workouts.  And I cut out alcohol for the month.  I’m getting about 5 to 9 servings of vegetables a day.  Very little refined sugar.

But what I’m not back to is plugging in numbers to an app or a spreadsheet.  I’m not hopping on the scale every morning ready for it to decree my day a success or not even before coffee.

It feels…right.  I can concentrate on how food tastes and how exercise makes me stronger instead of equations and graphs.  It also means I’m not trying to work the system to figure out how I can have an extra glass of wine or piece of cake.  (I do keep a food/exercise journal for data in case this flops and I am weighing myself here and there.  But neither of things for now is used to determine my daily course of action.)

I am being strict with one particular app.  The calendar.  If I haven’t seen progress by March, I will find a new Dr as well as a personal trainer/nutritionist.

Overall, I still weigh less today than I did one year ago.  I have more muscle.  I have greater stamina.  But I know I’m not done with this journey and I’m ready to get help to achieve it if need be.