So last post I said “it’s down to my weight”, but that’s not entirely true. The problem is that my heart is under too much pressure, is having to work far too hard, and has far too much to do. There are a lot of reasons for this, and we can’t change most of those reasons – a lot of them are medical conditions or medications. The one that we can maybe do something about is my weight, which is why “it’s down to my weight”. If I can lose some weight, my heart will have that much less to contend with.
The thing is, it’s not just that I’m too fat to exist. I’ve been this weight for a long time, and I’ve only started having these intense problems this last year. We’re likely not going to ever know for sure what happened, but back in March or April, the Great Event of 2020 happened that sent me to the hospital in severe adrenal crisis, and things have not improved since then. The current theory is that my pituitary had been steadily degrading over the years as inflammation built up; when I developed bilateral bursitis in early 2019, that was an indicator of extreme inflammation in my system as well. By March 2020, the damage to my pituitary was likely severe enough to push me over into what’s called a pituitary apoplexy and full-blown adrenal insufficiency, and that’s where I stand now with regards to my pituitary and adrenal stuff.
The problem with that is that your pituitary controls a lot of hormonal and enzymatic processes in your body, so when it’s out of whack, nothing in your body is getting what it needs. That’s a big thing for my heart to contend with in itself. Sleep apnoea is hard on the heart, and so is the treatment for my clotting disorder. I can’t change any of that.
What I can possibly do something about, with a lot of help, is how my weight affects my heart. It’s simple fact that being heavy makes your heart work harder. Being able to get to the point where I can lose weight – that’s going to be the tricky part. Right now, I’m so sick that the effort of walking from my bed to the bathroom makes my heart race dangerously. I’m at the point where, while my heart is in pretty good health in and of itself, I could actually exert myself into a heart attack, which is not a fun thing to hear or live with. It feels like I’m making excuses to not exercise, but I need to wait until I can talk to the holistic team about options and what’s safe for me to do.
It’s hard. People are doing the end of year email everyone thing, and I keep sitting here (or lying here, really) going “well, I have done nothing at all lately”. Just sitting up at my computer is exhausting most days. My legs are so swollen from fluid retention that I’ve got severely limited mobility, which is extra fun. I feel extremely useless.
I’m trying to be positive. I’m still in a bit of limbo while we wait for the hospital system to open up after the holidays again, but we have vague plans. I’m trying to be patient with myself, but I’ve had so much “you’re fat and lazy, stop it” thrown at me by doctors and society at large that it’s hard to do what I need to be doing, which right now is nothing.
The Medical Snowflake Diaries 