#this isn’t a serious or a life-threatening condition but it’s looking like a pretty hopeless one and it’s hurting me badly

[perhaps-mr-collins-has-a-cousin]

Hello praying people, I'm not doing well and would really appreciate your prayers right now <3

[amorremanet]

ten facts about sara grace!

“ten facts about my oc’s” meme // previously on… (+ sara grace’s part one)

—okay, I suck, because I meant to do this on Sunday when I got it, then spent the whole day on TV Tropes, and I meant to do it yesterday, and spent the day with my sister’s dog instead, but anyway.

1. She’d probably tell you that police procedural shows are her guilty pleasure, but it’s really just Law and Order: SVU, and as much as she loves her girlfriend, she tends not to watch it with Lucy because Lucy will probably try to argue about the science, and Sara Grace gets that science is one of Lucy’s Things and she appreciates this a lot of the time, but sometimes, you just wanna ignore real-world science and watch Olivia Benson be a bad-ass, okay

2. Her MBTI type is ENFP (Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving), one of the Idealist types, known as The Campaigner or The Champion. She shares it with, among others, Robin Williams, Dr. Seuss, Adelaide, and Stephen.

3. It’s not that she is completely hopeless at raising plants, but Sara Grace is easily distracted and easily bored in ways that make it hard for her to remember to check in on her plants as often as she needs to, and they aren’t as cute as cats, which makes it harder for her — because she definitely prioritizes the cute kitties over the plants — so, she’s pretty much given up on having any plants.

4. Pretty much everyone who knows her thinks that she is kidding about wanting to learn how to ride a motorcycle. It’s not that they think she can’t (not least since, thanks to her mutations, Sara Grace has a literally superhuman sense of balance), but to her parents, her siblings, her girlfriend, her friends, her coworkers, and her former classmates, the motorcycle thing just doesn’t mix with Sara Grace’s usual femme style and her fondness for the pretty pretty princess aesthetic

Like, when she does get a license and Seb gives her Bettie because he never rides Bettie anymore, several of the other characters are going to go, “What the Hell, Sebastian? You can’t just give a motorcycle to someone like that” and he will have to point out that Sara Grace took the classes and got her license, and he let her take Bettie on a few practice rides so they could figure out how to adjust a few settings to better fit Sara Grace’s needs and riding style, and like??

What do you want him to have done? She was serious about learning to ride, so she learned to ride. Then, she wanted a bike of her own, understandably, and he has a bike in really good condition that he’s no longer interested in riding and Sara Grace liked Bettie, and there was literally nothing underhanded about any of this so what is so hard for people to understand about, “Sara Grace wanted to ride a motorcycle”???

5. All things considered, it’s probably a good thing that most of the, “ancient magical artifacts” that could come up in the prime timeline won’t actually work, because if they did, Sara Grace would probably get curious about what they can do and try to play with them.

She’s a Ravenclaw for a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest ones is, “Curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought it back, and then Sara Grace had to go and figure out what happened because she can’t talk to animals and didn’t understand prrrrfffbt when she asked the cat about what it found out.”

6. Nominally, she’s over the fact that she never got a pony for her birthday as a kid (because, like most people’s parents, hers couldn’t afford a pony, much less the care and upkeep of a pony, especially not if they were also putting money into her dance lessons, and Sara Grace was offered the, “Do you want more dance lessons, or do you want a pony” choice more than once and picked the dance lessons every time). She’s also nominally over the fact that she can’t have a unicorn because they don’t exist in the prime timeline.

—But, when the villains decide to screw around with ancient Celtic rituals they don’t understand and tear a few choice holes in the space-time continuum, thereby allowing a few alternate universes and parallel timelines to dump their contents into the prime timeline, uh…… well.

Sara Grace understands the gravity of the situation and she is very concerned about fixing things, but in addition to getting kind of distracted by things like, “coming up with nicknames for all the AU counterparts who get dragged into the prime timeline because we can’t just call everyone by the same name or it’ll get confusing” and, “the version of Lucy from the AU in which everyone has magic instead of superpowers? Yeah, she came over with a unicorn.”

She is going to be somewhat less thrilled with the fact that some of the Silent Hill-inspired demonic monsters from the canonically designated Darkest Timeline can take the shape of unicorns, and then turn out to be…… well. Nightmarish beasts that were inspired by the Silent Hill series.

The Darkest Timeline earned that title because…… yeah, okay, all of the AU’s have problems, and some of them have it worse than others, and the canon coffee-shop AU is actually a dystopian Hellhole that takes a lot of its cues from Brave New World (like, in-universe and everything; the guy responsible for making the coffee-shop AU what it is cites Brave New World as one of his big inspirations)…

—but none of the other AU’s have Silent Hill-inspired demon monsters on the same scale as the official Darkest Timeline, so…… yep.

7. If she ever challenges you to Dance Dance Revolution, do not accept. She pointedly will not challenge you to a dance-off, because dance-offs are ultimately subjective and there’s no way to know for sure who wins, so she believes that they should only be used for fun and creative expression, not for challenges. But DDR has points and an objective score, and between her reflexes, her sense of balance, and how much she just genuinely enjoys DDR, you are probably going to lose against her.

If you’re okay with that, then by all means, take her up on that challenge. But if you’re a sore loser, just don’t do it. Because she will beat you, and while she won’t intentionally lord it over you with unsportsmanlike gloating, she can be prone to post-victory preening that most people would probably find pretty irritating.

8. Of all the movies she’s watched because her girlfriend likes them, Sara Grace has the most complicated relationship with Blade Runner. Like, she wants to like it, because she thinks that there’s a lot of it that’s interesting and well-done, but she doesn’t feel like she really, “gets it”?

She’s not sure that Lucy really, “gets it,” either, and all of the different versions of Blade Runner floating around don’t help at all. Like, she’s watched all of them with Lucy before, but Sara Grace doesn’t feel like any of them have really cleared anything up so much as they’ve made everything even more confusing, and trying to read Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? just made everything worse because she started comparing it to Blade Runner and looking for what the potential significance of the changes from text to movie could be, and she’s gotten a whole lot of nowhere on that

On thing Sara Grace knows for sure, though? Ridley Scott’s original Alien trilogy might be a good collection of films, but they’re scary and gross and given her druthers, she’d prefer to watch almost anything else.

I mean, she might not really like Todd very much — she doesn’t have much against him, but he also kinda bores her as a person — but she will be so happy to tap out and let him talk about movies with Lucy, because they can talk about gross things and give Lucy an outlet for that while Sara Grace does something else without having to deal with said gross things when she would really, really rather not, and that way, everyone wins.

At least, everyone wins unless Todd and Lucy decide to do more than just talk about movies, like if Todd tries to get Lucy to come along on some harebrained movie-making adventure that neither of them has put any real planning into so they may well end up in some ridiculous, life-threatening situation and/or trespassing somewhere that they shouldn’t, and……

Todd, please do not drag Sara Grace’s girlfriend into something like that, she would really appreciate it if you didn’t do that.

And Lucy, please do not listen to the silly white gay hipster with all the cameras and the delusions of being John Waters, Jean-Luc Godard, Gregg Araki, Christopher Guest, Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, and Tom “Human Centipede” Six all at the same time. Sara Grace supports the two of you being friends and talking about movies, but not anything that involves the two of you getting in trouble while doing something ridiculous and probably dangerous in the name of making them

Which, really, is probably bound to happen at some point, and as tends to happen when people go, “What could possibly go wrong?”, pretty much everything will go wrong, and Sara Grace only won’t say, “I told you so” because:

1. she’ll likely be more worried than smug;

and 2. Margot, Josie, or Pete will probably say it for her

9. She thinks Stephen’s jokes are funny, which will make her one of his favorite teammates.

That said, between the two of them, there is almost no impulse control when it comes to things like:

“Sure, we could Google the answer to our question, but Google is full of a lot of different possibilities and it isn’t really helping, so let’s just do this potentially dangerous thing ourselves in order to find our what would happen”

and, “Omg, an ancient magical artifact, and sure, I can see its disclaimer not to touch it, but I wonder what it does, let’s ignore common sense and touch it,”

and, “Oooooh, what does THIS button do?”

—so, as much fun as the two of them would have together, and as well as they would click and work together, they really, really shouldn’t be paired up with each other for most things unless someone else comes with them

……Strictly speaking, that someone probably shouldn’t be Sebastian, because if this doesn’t end with the three of them at an ASPCA shelter and Stephen totally failing to resist how cute Sara Grace is around the poor kitties who need homes (and yet managing to tell his boyfriend, “I love you, but no, you really do not need another dog, you have SIX already, I know that all the dogs here have sad stories and need homes, but you have six already, you’re good”)

—then it will probably end with the three of them in a situation where Seb has to try and tell Stephen and Sara Grace that hey, guys, maybe they probably shouldn’t touch that possibly very dangerous thing that they don’t understand — or at least, they have to get it back to the others, so they should only touch it as much as they absolutely have to and definitely not use it for anything yet

—and he will probably fail because shit, they’re both so eager and it’s so cute, and his boyfriend is adorable as Hell when he’s curious and excited about stuff, and okay look, Seb tried to tell them, “No” but he just…… completely lost his willpower in the face of them being cute and eager, and yes, he knows it’s sad that he is a thirty-year-old superhero who still has problems with peer pressure, but they made a really good case for why it was probably okay to experiment with the shiny thing a bit first and they did learn things, and he’s really sorry for being easily swayed by the idea of making other people happy but at least nobody got hurt, right???

At least, once Sara Grace figures out that, as much as she likes them, Stephen is easily swayed by curiosity and has an, “Oooh what does this button do?” impulse that matches her own, and Seb has problems saying, “No” to people he likes and/or cares about, especially when they’re being adorable, she’ll have the good sense to go, “Okay, we can have fun together when we’re off the clock, but we really probably shouldn’t be paired up with each other”

She will be much more resistant to the idea of not getting paired up with Lucy on different assignments — like, she’ll go along with it if there are obvious good reasons why she really shouldn’t be on a team with her girlfriend…… but Sara Grace’s idea of, “good reasons” does not include, “The two of you may get distracted from the actual task at hand because you end up looking out for each other.”

Like, “We need your skills and your talents somewhere else on this job”? Yeah, okay, that’s perfectly reasonable to her. But in the face of the other argument, she would go, “Nuh uh, no way, we can totally work together without distracting each other”… and then the two of them would do exactly that

Which? I mean, they’re not the only ones who would do the same thing if they were partnered up with their significant other (I say, pointedly glancing aside at Seb and Stephen) or with someone else they care about (I say, glancing aside at Seb and Todd, though to be fair, Todd has no business being in most of the places where Seb can be and would force Seb to look out for him instead of focusing on the task at hand because he’d be in way, WAY over his head)

But Lucy and Sara Grace are still probably going to end up learning this the hard way, and Sara Grace is going to have the harder time with reconciling the logical, “Okay, I know that this is a fair point and that there are more important things than my personal anxieties and desire to protect my girlfriend” side of her opinion, with the emotional, “But my heart says that I need to protect my girlfriend and I trust her and our teammates but I want to do it myself”

—Not that Lucy won’t have any difficulty with this, but her big issue is more that she compartmentalizes things and then tries to get out of dealing with the emotional ramifications of that compartmentalizing, not that she can compartmentalize but she would really rather not

And in fairness, they’re both 22 (with Lucy turning 23 shortly after their introduction in the first book, and Sara Grace turning 23 in the early parts of book two), whereas Todd is 30 (turning 31 toward the end of book one) and his biggest reason for ever going, “No, I want to be paired with Seb in what is blatantly not a good idea” would be that he’s working on his jealousy over the Seb/Stephen relationship, and he’s accepted the fact that he is partly responsible for this because Seb offered him quite a few chances to talk like adults and go back to being in an official romantic relationship and Todd blew him off, and yeah, he wants Seb to be happy and on one hand, he’s glad that Seb is actually with a good guy for once

(because Todd and Julian are two of Seb’s better exes, and one of them got seduced into working with very literal supervillains while the other is pretty much three bad decisions stacked on top of each other inside a pair of too-small skinny jeans and one of his Mom’s vintage sweaters, wearing a scarf in summertime and Buddy Holly glasses that he doesn’t need)

—but Todd is still jealous of Stephen (and unfortunately, things don’t magically get better after Todd gets the message that he is just jealous and completely wrong in thinking that Seb having dated multiple douchebags before means that somewhere, Stephen must have skeletons in his closet, a Bertha in his attic, an old man hidden underneath his floorboards, and/or an old friend walled up in his basement after being lured there by the promise of tasting a fine vintage Amontillado), and Todd’s being immature about dealing with his jealousy (and he’ll get through it eventually, but it’s gonna take him a while)

So, like…… Lucy’s and Sara Grace’s reasons for wanting to be paired together when they maybe shouldn’t be, and how well they deal with it, are legitimately doing a lot better than one of their teammates

10. It’s probably a good thing for Sara Grace that I cannot have the Star Trek universe in canon without getting sued, because she would absolutely try to have a Tribble as a pet. And whether she got herself an unmodified Tribble and wound up with a few billion of the little shits spilling out of her entire apartment building, or one of the ones Cyrano Jones doctored up in the animated series where they don’t reproduce like bacteria but get really huge instead, this would be really, really Not Good for everyone.

[type2diabetestreatments-blog]

Dealing with Diabetes Distress

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/dealing-with-diabetes-distress/

Dealing with Diabetes Distress

(*this news item will not be available after 05/17/2017) Thursday, February 16, 2017

THURSDAY, Feb. 16, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- People with diabetes have to think about their condition and make treatment decisions constantly -- and all that extra work and worry can lead to psychological distress at times.

"Diabetes distress" isn't the same as depression, however, diabetes experts note. It's a condition unique to the 24/7 demands that come with diabetes, particularly for people dependent on insulin.

"The day you develop diabetes, it's like the universe just handed you a new full-time job that you have to do in addition to whatever else you're doing. It's a special job that has a big impact on the rest of your life. There's no pay and no vacation," said William Polonsky, president of the Behavioral Diabetes Institute in San Diego.

Alicia McAuliffe-Fogarty, vice president of lifestyle management at the American Diabetes Association, put it this way: "Diabetes distress is the extra burden that people with diabetes have to carry. They have to do everything that other people do -- take care of work, family, finances -- and in addition they have to make sure to check their blood sugar, remember to take their medicine and/or adjust their insulin doses, count carbohydrates when they eat.

"It's a day-to-day and minute-to-minute burden. It's doing everything 'right' and still seeing your blood sugar levels go up," she added.

Diabetes distress is a range of different emotional responses that come with dealing with the burdens of caring for diabetes, Polonsky explained.

"It's being fed up and overwhelmed with the demands and concerns of diabetes. It's feeling powerless in the face of diabetes. It's knowing that despite your best actions, sometimes those [insulin] numbers go up and down and it seems beyond your ability to influence. And it can negatively influence one's quality of life," he added.

The phenomenon hasn't been well-studied -- Polonsky said he and his colleagues are in the middle of a study on diabetes distress that will hopefully answer some questions about the condition.

He said diabetes distress probably affects about 30 percent of people with diabetes at some point in their lives.

"It's not everybody, and it's not all the time, but it's pretty darn common, and a whole lot more common than depression" among those with diabetes, Polonsky added.

Diabetes distress and other psychological conditions are common enough that the American Diabetes Association added a section to its Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes - 2017 guidelines on screening and treating people with diabetes for distress, depression and other mental health concerns.

The new guidelines, published recently in the journal Diabetes Care, suggest that providers screen all of their diabetes patients with standardized tests for these conditions.

A demanding juggling job with no breaks

There are two main types of diabetes -- type 1 and type 2.

People with type 1 diabetes don't make enough insulin -- a hormone the body needs to use the carbohydrates in food for fuel. Because of this, people with type 1 rely on insulin injections or insulin delivered through a tiny catheter inserted under the skin and then attached to an insulin pump worn outside the body. People with type 1 diabetes using shots may need five or six insulin injections daily.

In people with type 2 diabetes, the body is no longer able to use insulin properly. Most (95 percent) of diabetes cases involve the type 2 form of the disease. Sometimes, people with type 2 diabetes also need to use insulin injections.

However, using insulin is a difficult balancing act -- too much or too little can cause problems, even life-threatening ones.

When blood sugar levels drop too low from too much insulin, people can become disoriented, and if levels drop even further, they may pass out. Blood sugar levels that are too high and left untreated over time can cause complications such as kidney troubles, eye problems and heart disease.

To keep track of blood sugar levels when using insulin, most people rely on glucose meters and a lancing device that pricks the finger to draw out a drop of blood. This may be done as few as 4 times a day, or as many as a dozen or more times daily, depending on how blood sugar levels are fluctuating.

And, many factors besides insulin can influence blood sugar levels. Food, alcohol, physical activity, emotions such as stress, and illness all can cause unpredictable changes in blood sugar levels.

It helps to find strength in numbers

Both Polonsky and McAuliffe-Fogarty said it's important to recognize and treat diabetes distress because it can have a negative impact on blood sugar management.

"In some studies, diabetes distress can impact diabetes care more than depression," McAuliffe-Fogarty said.

Antidepressants aren't likely to help someone with diabetes distress, according to Polonsky.

McAuliffe-Fogarty suggests checking in with your health care provider so you can go over your current diabetes management regimen. It's possible that changes in your management might help, she said.

Or, it might help to have a visit with a diabetes educator to go over some of the basics again, she recommended. Many people with type 1 diabetes are diagnosed as children, and as adults may not realize they're missing some of the basics of diabetes education.

"Maybe pick one or two things that would make the most impact on your management and focus on those one or two small things, and you'll likely achieve those goals. Then set one or two more goals and move along like that -- not everything needs to happen at once," McAuliffe-Fogarty said.

It's also important to look for "evidence-based hope," Polonsky said. Many studies have suggested that with consistent modern management of diabetes, many people can live well with the disease.

"Most people have heard the scary messages, but with good care, the odds are pretty good you can live a long and healthy life with diabetes," he noted.

Both experts agreed that support is an important component of treating diabetes distress. "You don't want to do diabetes alone. If you have someone who's rooting for you, that really helps," Polonsky said.

He said parents or spouses can give a person with diabetes a break by taking over the management of the disease for a little while. It gives them a "diabetes vacation."

For some, distress can get more serious. Depression isn't always easy to spot in someone with diabetes. And some of the physical signs of diabetes, such as low energy, could signal that someone's blood sugar is out of whack, Polonsky explained.

McAuliffe-Fogarty said about one in every four or five people with diabetes will experience depression at some point.

She said signs that suggest you need to speak with a mental health professional include: changes in appetite and sleep patterns, having no interest in activities you once enjoyed, social isolation, feeling persistently sad or hopeless, and having a down mood on more days than not.

SOURCES: Alicia McAuliffe-Fogarty, Ph.D., vice president, lifestyle management, American Diabetes Association. Alexandria, Va.; William Polonsky, Ph.D., C.D.E., president, Behavioral Diabetes Institute, San Diego; Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes - 2017; January 2017, Diabetes Care

HealthDay Copyright (c) 2017 HealthDay. All rights reserved. News stories are written and provided by HealthDay and do not reflect federal policy, the views of MedlinePlus, the National Library of Medicine, the National Institutes of Health, or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

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[charlottebent-blog]

Booby Charts

I’ve always been a moaner. Even before this illness I’d like to think that I had perfected the art of whining - never more content than when I’m drinking coffee and having a moan. My current complaint is the weather. It seems that overnight Manchester has made a bitter transformation. Having sunk into a depressive winter I can’t help but feel like I’m living in the Day After Tomorrow, tackling common folk for the last tin of tomato soup in the corner shop. As I seem to have lost all ability to regulate body temperature, I daren’t wear less than two pairs of slipper socks due to risk of contracting frostbite and losing a vital limb. Leaving the house, I have difficulty detaching myself from my hot water bottle. As I reluctantly tear myself away from it’s toastiness, I seriously debate how socially acceptable it is to carry the hot water bottle around with me, tucked under my t-shirt as if bearing a child. I decide against this in fear of a) having someone congratulate me and comment that I look like a whale/hippo (it’s safe to say any remark made about my body shape is taken critically) and b) fear that the hot water bottle falls out unexpectedly in a public place i.e. tram station platform, and I am required to explain its circumstances to a bunch of strangers. Nothing spells out crazy like a brown, fluffy, heated object falling from your body.

Arriving at the clinic, I am greeted by Paula thanking me for the bath set I gave her (something, in hindsight, I regret or should’ve filled with some sort of acid to avoid future appointments/mental prodding).  As she peers at my hair I’m suddenly overly conscious that I have forgotten to brush my hair. Although I refused to brush my hair for most of my teenage years, I now take great pride in remembering to brush my hair a minimum of two times a day (having learnt that I spent the best part of 5 years with my hair resembling a knotty, dishevelled, squirrel mating hedge). Paula asks me how my Christmas was. I tell her it exceeded expectations and she appears just as thrilled as I was to hear about my newly padded bottom. I also inform her of being able to eat out with minimal mental meltdown. Looking pleasantly surprised, Paula asks how I came to the decision to eat out that night. So I tell her. You do it. You grit your teeth and try not to let the voices sink you. You eat. Not because it’s fuel or medicine. Not because that’s what people do. But because you love your sister more than you hate food. And when you fear the unknown, you find reassurance in the form of a sisterly hug in the toilets of the restaurant.

In an effort to improve the mood, I tell Paula that I have rediscovered my laughter. Never have I laughed so much than in the last week, primarily at my Mum’s participation in family games, which with the addition of wine is only made more entertaining. My particular favourite being her Canadian accent that sounded like a Pakistani cowboy. What’s funniest is that her efforts are genuine, meaning that you find yourself trying to contain your laughter at her adorably, pathetic yet deadly serious attempts. Similar to watching a child’s first piano recital, as they play 1 out of 8 notes to ‘twinkle, twinkle little star’ correctly - just enough to uphold their determination and pride.

Over two years of mental distortion and mistaken identity, means that I don’t know myself anymore. I don’t know which thoughts are mine. It’s not as if my thoughts are broadcasted in my voice, whilst Shanna’s are projected in a high-pitched elf like tone. They’re undistinguishable. Paula asks me what the negative thoughts are. So I tell her: greedy, worthless, self-hatred, disgust. Asking if I’ve ever used these words ordinarily, I nod. 'Yes, my dog is greedy’. I sense that this is not the response she expected. She makes me consider whether I should ask my friends/family if they also experience these thoughts, in order to indicate that the negative noise is not mine. Although fairly certain no one has snuck in, I examine the room in search of my nearest and dearest. After 10 seconds with no appearance of familiar faces, I put Paula on the spot. 'What makes you feel worthwhile?’ She hesitates as I watch her mentally gather her reply, carefully scanning her answer before speaking, to ensure there is no mention of food/exercise.  

'Family, friends, work, dog, social life’. Recognising that she has carefully selected all things I can relate to, she reaches for a piece of paper and a pen. Paula draws two circles next to each other, I resist chuckling at her drawing that closely resembles a pair of breasts (a very wobbly, crooked pair at that). The circles (or boobs) are transformed into two pie charts, one chart has a large segment dedicated to body size/weight, the other chart is labelled the similarly, but has a smaller segment.  The pie chart represents life. Of course the boob with the larger body shape section is mine, she explains that at the moment I prioritise this over pretty much everything. Essentially to reduce this I need to eat (shocker) and increase the other aspects of my life. She questions what I enjoy. I don’t know. I don’t know whether it’s what I like, or what Shanna likes. Rather than dwell on this Paula suggests that I add a new aspect, something I have not already got on my boob/pie chart. My misfortunate relationship status is an ongoing joke in my family. Therefore, when Paula asks whether I’d like to meet someone I, naturally, laugh. I inform Paula that there’s more chance of me eating a tray of cream cakes than finding a boyfriend. Eager to divert the conversation, I decline the prospect of adding something else into my life that will most definitely go wrong. With the silence growing increasingly awkward I am forced to remember my previous failed relationships. Memories flash of hopelessness and isolation as I urge for Paula to say something, anything.

Sensing my desperation, Paula questions my future. Do I want children? Do I balls. All I see on facebook is boasts about chavvy, bratty toddlers, with a pair of horrifically drawn on eyebrows as a pitiful excuse for  a Mother. It’s safe to say that the only kind of baby I’m broody for is a food baby. Having made it evidently clear that I would rather snog a pigeon than have a screaming, bloody being extracted from me, she says that I must have some plans for the future. No. If there’s something I don’t need it’s more structure, more organisation. I have enough bizarre routines to abide without having to consider what I’m actually going to do with my life once I get it back to its previous, sane (ish) form. If I make plans I fear unaccomplishment (spell checker is telling me this isn’t a word, but I feel it should be therefore I am sticking with it). If I fail to meet my goals it’s more negativity, another aspect that I cannot control. Feeling I have more than outstayed my welcome, I hop onto the scales in a bid to leave sooner (I’m also aware that my dog has been left for over 2 hours and has recently showed signs of urinary incontinence). Learning that I’ve lost more weight this week than any other week ever, I get the feeling that I won’t be leaving as soon as I’d hoped and prepare myself for a kitchen flooded with dog wee. Apologising, I explain how the  multiple milkyways and twixs I’ve eaten haven’t worked their magic. She looks concerned and threatens an appointment with Milky Julia. In an attempt to avoid a dietician about as qualified as a McDonald’s employee, I make a move for the door and come to a mutual agreement that I have one week to show progress.

Whilst exiting the comforting warmth of the clinic, Paula comments on how effective the anti-depressants appear to be i.e. I managed to speak without producing a single tear. As I am released back into Arctic conditions, I account the weight loss to excessive shivering and prepare myself for more teeth-gritting and food-eating.