faux pas - not such a nice person (me)

I was just out walking the dog in the park this morning.

Blogdog, is 11 years old but still spritely and the spring has got his testosterone levels on the rise.  He is generally a very well behaved and calm dog but now and again another dog will take his fancy (not often - usually it is Boris the Schnauzer and otherwise generally only bitches in season) and there is no reasoning with him.  Anyway, today, about 100 metres from a gate that was not our gate, Blogdog ran after a golden retriever;  he was acting all over excited - licking and fawning and wagging his tail like mad.  The GR was being walked by a young woman.  I realised that Blogdog was not going to come back to me willingly and that the other owner was heading towards and out of the gate, presumably to go home,  so I called over cheerily "please could you wait a minute?" as I did not want Blogdog running out onto the road following her and 10 seconds later would be there to grab him by the collar.  But she carried on regardless and left the park, out of my sight and with my dog in tow.  I began to jog to catch up, and called again.  I caught up with her about 20m beyond the park gate, still with Blogdog shadowing her.  I took hold of Blogdog.  I was by this stage quite cross as she was just putting her own dog on the lead and about to cross a road with a fair amount of rush hour traffic on it, still without making any attempt to stop or look back to see whether I was coming and there is no way that she can have not heard me.  Yes, my dog was at fault (although I am 90% certain that hers must be in season  as my dog would not have acted the way he did otherwise), but actually if you care about animals you would not want any dog to get lost or run over needlessly and she only would have had to wait for 10 seconds as I was clearly coming over to retrieve Blogdog.

I felt she had shown a lack of consideration and I told her so (blush) - not rudely, but definitely firmly  "I would have really appreciated it if you had stopped by the gate.  Walking out of the park with someone else's dog is really not very nice at all"  She looked startled and sad  :-(   muttered something very quietly about her dog wanting to get home, and carried on her way. I, back to the park with my Blogdog in disgrace.

I wonder if I looked intimidating - I am only small and petite but was wearing my leather biker jacket as I had just given Waif a lift to school on my motorbike (I passed the test yesterday and that is a whole other post)

It suddenly occurred to me that the owner had looked very thin.  She also had red/ blonde hair and a golden retriever like my new friend whose anorexic daughter was expected back from Oxford last Monday.  My word, this was Lucy.  I feel so bad.  I am doing my best to get my new friend's phone number to phone her up and explain that Lucy was told off by a cross lady in the park this morning so may not be feeling good (I usually just see my friend at training and around the local streets and although I wrote down her number last time, I cannot find it).  I feel mortified to think that I may have spoken sharply - nay, DID speak sharply, to a girl in a fragile state, and hope that she doesn't go home and not eat breakfast because she is upset.  She is obviously not used to the etiquette of dog walking and I did not treat her with the gentleness I would have shown to my own daughter.  This shows that I am NOT a nice person as really one should always treat every stranger on the basis of how you would treat a friend or how you would wish your own family members to be treated because you never know what private difficulties and anguishes others are nursing.

I will go and check now whether a mutual friend has got back to me with contact details and get back to you all.  I hope I can make up for this.  I really feel quite sick with guilt.

Looking to the future

I have made a new friend at running club.  She is a little older than I am and her daughter is 20 years old and at Oxford University.  I heard on the grapevine that her daughter, like Waif, has had anorexia since she was 14 years old.  She too has been treated at The Maudsley so we bumped into each other locally the other day and got chatting.

Sigh, I assumed that her daughter (will call her Lucy) would be fine by now - happy at Oxford etc but it turns out that it was not that simple.  Lucy had to postpone her place by a year in order to spend 7 months as an inpatient for treatment and is still only 42kg, despite being about the same height as Waif (about 165cm).  Apparently she phones from college complaining that she is fat because she has put on 0.5kg (FFS she must be skeletal), and has then lost it by the next week  :-(

My new friend tells me that they took part in an experimental group family therapy at the Maudsley a few years back and that she felt happy at that time that Lucy had not done any of that food throwing/ aggression that others talked about.....only to go through it herself the next year.

This tells me several important things:

- not to get complacent - just because Waif has made good progress recently does not mean that she will not relapse and have this horrid disease for years and years

- to not relax on Waif gaining her target weight of 51.5kg

- to not expect that the course of the disease will not change its nature  :-(

-  that I am right not to be intending to return to work in the near future.  I have instead applied to do a part time Masters course  (in science communication).  This will involve one day a week in college and the other studying I will be able to fit in around Waif's needs.

I have not weighed Waif recently although I try to gently remind her several times a day to eat.  Often I get an "oops, I only had cereal for breakfast" (this morning for instance) or somesuch in reply at which point she will go and have some more.  As she now has a budding social life, she is having quite a few meals out of the home so I have no real idea of what is eaten but I am trusting her for now and also reminding her that she needs to be 48.5kg by 31 March if her orthodontic braces are to be fitted.

Meantime, I am in the middle of marathon training.  I ran the first 18 miles of the course this morning so am having a little sit down this afternoon.  I have almost given up on hoping to lose a couple of kg before the race, which is 5 weeks away, as it is so much more important that Waif does not see me skipping meals (which I also find very easy to do, just like her).  Half of me wants to be independent and not have life revolve around an eating disorder but half of me just wants Waif to be better more than anything else in the world.  It is easy to forget how worried I was this time last year and to forget to keep concentrating on recovery.

The battle against my daughter's anorexia is my real marathon.

Orthodontics

I took Waif to the orthodontist today.   Her teeth are as crooked as a sevenpenny piece and she has a horrendous bite.  I had told her that there was no way she could havebraces until she was a proper weight.  Her current target (95% of her recommended weight for age/height) is 51.5kg.  At her last weigh-in she was 47kg on the nose.

Anyway, she has been eating brilliantly for the last day or two.  She made me proud yesterday by having GRAVY on her roast potatoes which is something she has not done for 2 years.  Her older sister said, not unreasonably as Waif has spent 2 years saying so,  "I thought you didn't like gravy" and Waif flatly retorted that she did, like it was a known world fact.

Anyway, I had told Waif last week that she needed to be 47.5kg for today's appointment but didn't push the point, and although I asked her a couple of times if she had weighed herself and if she was 47.5kg, she chose not to give me a straight answer and I still took her to the appointment thinking that this was not the final crunch point.  But the upshot is that I have coughed up a few thousand pounds and the braces are due to be put on on 31 March.

Waif looks well now: although still thin, her skin is glowing and she has a liveliness and spirit back.  The psych was immensely reassured that Waif's periods have started and is now much more relaxed which has rubbed off onto me a little.

So....my big dilemma is whether I stick to demanding 51.5kg by 31st March (which seems a very tall order and one that could cause conflict) or settle for continued slow weight gain, and I won't even cross the bridge of her simply maintaining 47kg as that is not in any of my acceptable world views.  My inclination is to be happy with normal, varied eating and a steady gain even if she doesn't make the 51.5kg figure but I do want to lay down a marker in the sand right NOW so that I can forewarn Waif and also make myself stick to it by reading back this post.  Perhaps 48.5kg??

Meantime, I am training hard for the London Marathon but weigh more than I have ever weighed really......I am 10lbs (4kg) heavier than pre-Maudsley and this is not good for a fast time!!!  In my ideal world I would do sub 4 hours but at current weight, I reckon it will be closer to 4h25.   Basically, I am secretly aiming to get DOWN to 51kg whilst I want Waif to get UP to it.  I am 4cm smaller than her so it would not be too thin for me, but just right.  However, I am not sure if I should be open about this and explain that I am NOT having pudding because I am trying to LOSE weight but that waif MUST have pudding because she needs to GAIN weight, or whether that would be a trigger for her.  Obviously, her health comes first but I can't stop my own life impinging a little (I am not perfect).

In all this, I can't keep from feeling such utter relief that my current dilemmas are not of the same order of magnitude or worry as those of a year ago.  We are lucky.

Flying Solo

With such a long gap until Waif's next appointment at the Maudsley,  everyday eating is like cycling without stabilisers for the first time.  You know that feeling you get the first time you go on a Motorway after passing your driving test?  Despite the fact you felt confident approaching the slip road, somehow once on the road it feels scary - there is no escape and HOW fast exactly is that lorry coming up behind you going?  It takes grit not to panic.

I took Waif to the gym yesterday, as is our wont on Mondays.  I settled for a swim as I had run 13 miles on Sunday so was having a rest day.  She set off for the running machine at 5.30pm.  "See you about 6 here in the changing rooms" was my parting comment.

At 6, I got out of the sauna (honestly, I had swum first) and headed for the showers.  No Waif.  Ho hum, she will be here soon.  6.05  no Waif.  6.10  no Waif and I had nearly finished drying my hair.  6.15 no Waif....oh well, she had some earphones to buy first so perhaps she had a delayed start, or maybe she has bumped into a friend.  At 6.20, just as I was considering heading up to the weights area to look for her, she finally appeared, looking exhausted.  She told me that she had gone for a long session on the running machine "because we haven't been to the gym recently."    Hmmm.......   she was then too full to finish her plate of supper noodles and/or to eat pudding, and refused a bed time snack because we had run out of cheddar cheese.  It occurred to me that I also didn't know if she had eaten an after school snack as she had gone straight from school to her art lesson before I picked her up for the gym.

I try not to worry on the basis of one day, after all a run once a week is healthy and as far as I know she ate a good breakfast and a reasonable lunch but it does feel odd and scary allowing her so much control of her own and seeing her missing food on her menu.  I have suggested to her that she ought to weigh herself weekly to check that she is still putting on weight and on track for her current target of 51.5kg which is, after all, 4kg more than where she is now.  I am reluctant to intervene or try to wrest back too much control as I know that when she is 15 or 16 years old that will not be possible and she has to learn to eat sensibly on her own.  It feels like the first day I let her walk to school alone across the park (aged 8, with her older sister, aged 10, in charge).

Meanwhile, whilst tidying her room, I came across an old diary from when she was 12, with a list of calorie and weight loss goals  :-(    She had made herself a star chart grid.  She was aiming at being only 36kg  :-(  I wonder if I should talk to her about that, or keep it, or bin it.

Maudsley visit 47kg

Well, that went well  :-)

Waif has put on 0.9kg in a fortnight.  The psych is pleased that Waif has hit puberty and said that was a very good sign.  She said that 47kg is a magical figure at which periods start and that Waif must indeed be naturally a very slim build as her hormones kicked in below that.  She said that, in view of the fact that Waif is naturally skinny (like the rest of the family) she would be content to see Waif at 95% of her healthy weight.  I have mixed emotions about this ...partly, I am grateful as I don't think Waif would be happy to be 100% and would consider herself chubby and that could trigger renewed dieting, but partly I am worried as all I have read indicates that the goal weight achieved and aimed at is very important to long term recovery as the sufferer tends to see it as a MAXIMUM never to be exceeded rather than a median point to oscillate around.

So, we asked the obvious question as to what 95% weight for age/height would be for Waif.  We were told that, very roughly, you take 110 off someone's height in cm, and that gives you their ideal weight in kg.  So, Waif is 165cm which gives about 55kg.  Of course, her target figure is actually a bit less as she is only 14 and we are not going for 100%   In fact her 95% goal turns out to be 51.5kg, rising to 54.2kg if she grows another 3 cm.

The psych is keen to discharge Waif within 6 months (with follow ups thereafter) and our next appointment is not to be for another 8 weeks.  Bliss.

Ok, confession:  Waif and I were each asked to fill in a questionnaire.  We both did so and I asked Waif whether she wanted to take them back to reception.  She said she wanted me to do that.  Reader, I am only human and sneaked a quick look at Waif's answers.  She had put that generally the psych understood her and asked the right questions and that she never felt inhibited by having her parents in attendance.  I hope she is being honest as that is good news,but you never can tell with Waif as she always wants to please and could well have answered "as expected" rather than truthfully.

On balance, Waif appears to be enjoying life and all it has to offer.  She is also eating regularly and sufficiently.  I couldn't be happier if I had won the lottery.

Growing Up

Waif has become a woman this week at the age of 14 and a half....it must be a sign that her body has enough nutrition on board to still mature which I take as a positive sign that she is not currently damaging herself by her lack of weight (or not too much).  In a second rite of passage, she also had her last deciduous tooth taken out on Friday as planned.  She was very brave and was more concerned to know how long the anaesthetic lasted than anything else, as she had a rendez vous with her new (first) boyfriend.  Hmmm...... I do hope that Waif is not triggered to lose weight because she imagines this is what boys like whereas in reality they don't actually want to hug a bag of bones.  I hope she is more sensible than that, though.  She does seem to be.

I am looking forward to getting to know the BF and hope that he will be good, kind and loving to Waif as she could do without a broken heart just yet.  I would have been able to talk to him on Friday night but managed to fall/slide down the basement stairs when answering the door so was in no fit state to chat!  He must have thought I was the strangest woman in the world as when he came in (Hubby answered the door as I couldn't) I was lying on the sofa (7pm only) muttering about how I would be able to get up in a minute when I felt better.  I am still very sore actually and can't wait for the bruising (right hand side lower rib cage, kidney area, hip, thigh and elbow) to subside.  I hate feeling unable to function properly and am not a good patient.   Still, not being able to train today meant I got my tax return filed a whole 24 hours before the deadline.

Waif saw Black Swan on Friday night.  my hubby and I saw it on Saturday night.  It's a brilliant film, dark and intense, but had I seen it first, I am not so sure I would have considered it suitable for Waif so she is lucky she got in there first.

Our  next visit to the Maudsley is late on in the week.  I hope Waif will have upped her weight a little although she does seem to look rather thin at the moment.   Four days to go.....   needless to say, we would both (Waif and I that is) be very upset if she has lost any so we must make sure that doesn't happen.  In fact, I will take her a late night snack right this minute.

Back for a bit

I had hoped not to be back at all, and definitely not quite so soon.

The Good News is that Waif has been growing and steadily  (slowly) putting on weight.   She now weighs 46.2kg (clothed).  This is wonderful and I hug this knowledge to me when I look at where we were this time last year.

The Bad News is that because she is older and taller, Waif has (just) fallen back into the anorexic range  :-( at 85% of a healthy weight.

We had this wake up call at a visit to the Maudsley (with Christmas ski-ing and psych holidays it had been 4 weeks) last week.  I have not felt yet that I have reversed this ship....Waif left the house this morning without time for breakfast which should never happen.

I guess I have handed over too much control too quickly...the fishfinger sandwich at breakfast had been quietly swapped for cherry tomatoes on toast...still 2 pieces of wholemeal toast but nowhere near as many calories.  This struck me as okay as she also has cereal and milk, but more often recently has not drunk her juice.

Waif spent the whole of last term deciding that she needed to be asleep by 8pm so we had also dropped the late night snack (or else ate supper so early to fit in the late night snack that we dropped the coming home snack instead).  She had been looking very healthy on the sleep  :-)

It is difficult to move back to our starting position of more calories but that is what we need to do.

At Christmas everyone was commenting on how well Waif was looking, and we were asked by ever so many people whether she and her older sister (see left) were twins as they are now the same height and both have the same long blonde hair and big eyes.   Older sister is also very slim.   But now I look closely, I can see that Waif's thighs are once again concave from her knees and that her chest has flattened out.

As Waif is a little older (14 and a half now) and has more local friends, having been to the local school for a year now, she is also spending much more time out of the house and away from where I can remind her to eat.  She has just acquired a first boyfriend.  I am not sure what that means other than hours in the park after dark watching him skateboard in the cold.  I hope to entice him into the house soon, and get to know him a little.  I worry about Waif as although she can be as headstrong as an ox, and can boss me around utterly, she also has a very vulnerable side to her personality, and an innocence, or rather naivity, despite the fact that she believes herself to be streetwise.  I am also not sure, in a school that is mainly boys, what she considers to be normal interaction at her age and suspect it would consist of things I had never even heard of when I was 14.

Waif is still not happy to be alone in the house even though she will wander round town after dark.  I have not understood that yet but it bothers me that she does not feel safe at home.

Meanwhile I am training for the London marathon, and Waif and I are regulars at the gym.  I hope this is okay to do and does not knock Wiaf off course.  THe maudsley said that normal family exercise was fine as long as it was not excessive or obsessive.  Waif and I go together twice a week to the gym and she runs 3km.  That seems fine to me.  She is a good runner but I don't encourage her to take it more seriously as first she has to put on some more weight!

I have made an appointment for her to have out her last babytooth on Friday.  She is then able to get orthodontic braces (which she needs) but I have long said to her that she will NOT have them until she is a good weight.  I have a horror of her teeth not being strong enough and cracking, or of her finding it difficult to eat as much as she needs when she is growing and recovering from anorexia at the same time.   I have spoken tot he orthodontist and he backs me. It might work out okay, oddly, as the NHS waitlist is about 2 years and so she can sit on that knowing that if she can maintain a healthy weight she can have the braces earlier as we will go privately.

At the Maudsley, I mentioned that I might be going back to college or work next year and Waif threw a bit of an ab dab.  She thinks that I need to be home for her.  perhaps I do but the psych thought that Waif was being rather controlling.  I suspect that if I start a college course, it might take a long while before Waif even notices as any MA will be largely self directed study.

Sigh, so many issues.  But we will get there!!!!!

The pics are Waif (above) and her older sister (lower picture) taken at the weekend by a friend for her art project - theme of enchanted garden.

Waif has had her lips blocked out with concealer -she is not really that pale!!