Change is complex, or, A conversation with my colon

Violet's colon: Rumble. Grumble.

Violet [concerned]: Everything OK down there?

V's C: Rumble. Rumble. Grumble.

V: Hmm. I sense a disturbance.

V's C: We are displeased.

V: We?

V's C: We do not like some of the gifts recently offered to us.

V: Us? What are you, a collective? Like the Borg?

V's C: We accept the offering of bread. The oatmeal we also accept. Meats and cheeses we acknowledge as appropriate gifts.

V: ...

V's C: But what is this thing called "fruit"?

V: Ohh. That. Right. Well, fruit is tasty and full of nutrients and fiber. It's good for us. Err, good for me.

V's C: We do not like this "fruit."

V: You'll get used to it. I promise.

V's C: It disturbs us. It causes distress.

V: Well, that's really my fault. You see, I didn't eat much fruit for a long time, so you got out of the habit of dealing with it, and now I'm trying to make changes--

V's C: Fruit is your fault?

V [alarmed]: Um--

V's C: We do not accept the gift of "fruit."

V: Well, you have to. It's your job.

V's C: Grumble. Rumble. Rumble.

V: Aww, come on. Fruit is Nature's Dessert!

V's C: WE DO NOT ACCEPT THE GIFT OF "FRUIT."

V: ...

V's C: GRUMBLE. RUMBLE. GRUMBLE!


And so the negotiations unfold. I guess this may complexify my recent interest in vegetarianism...

Things I learned this evening

1. I may be bionic, but I am not in the Universe for the purpose of using power tools.

2. Especially drills.

3. A crooked coat rack is better than none.

Breakthrough?

In a continuation of our assualt on the Other D, Dr. Two-Fifty graduated me to a Big Girl dosage of generic Zoloft 10 days ago. (It’s pale yellow, for anyone who shares my fascination with the antidepressant rainbow.)

A lot has changed:

1. What is this current of vitality flowing through my body? How come I keep thinking about going dancing at Culture Club, the cheesiest club in New York? Oh, right: energy. That thing that makes walking places enjoyable instead of a truncated death march.

2. Aha, I AM creative. Who knew? I, for one, had entirely forgotten.

3. Hello, intellectual curiosity. I remember you.

4. Greetings, sex drive. I remember you too. Vaguely.

5. Nonbloggable thoughts, don’t let the door smack you on the ass on your way out.

6. I can name my emotions and inhabit the painful ones without feeling instantly compelled to numb them via external means (TV, food, glass of wine, computer games).

7. I feel gentle toward myself.

Whoosh. This is a lot of change. Am I, for lack of a better term, hopped up on goofballs? I phone Dr. Two-Fifty to present my concerns.

“I think maybe we need to decrease the dosage,” I say. She asks why; I present the above.

“Are you behaving impulsively?” she inquires. “Spending a lot of money, or making sudden decisions, or placing yourself in dangerous situations?” She’s wondering if I might be having a manic episode, which is not part of my history but could be triggered by an excess of this type of medication.

“No,” I say. “Nothing like that. But I feel kind of buzzy.”

“Here’s what I think.” Dr. Two-Fifty sounds quite perky. “Maybe the dosage is too high. But all the things you describe are suggestive of recovery from depression.”

“Oh,” I say. “Right.”

“The buzziness may go away in a few days. If it doesn’t, we can reduce the dosage—but I don’t want to reduce it unless we have to, because it sounds like it’s helping you. Call me on Monday and we’ll see how you’re doing.”

Sure enough, two days later I am feeling less buzzy.

I’m not giving the medication all the credit for these transformations. I’ve been working hard to help myself in other ways—therapy, writing, making huge and painful life-changing decisions, opening up to people more than before. Maybe it’s all beginning to come together.

I worried about the trampling of my personality, of some essential Violetness, via antidepressant medication. But I don’t feel less like myself. I feel more like myself. I feel connected to myself and to other people. I feel aware.

It’s pretty cool, to put it mildly.

No poetic title comes to mind

Mrs. Violet has prediabetes.

Son of a b*tch!

Already I feel this irrational (?) urge to defend my mother from the blamers. No, she’s not obese. Yes, she struggles with her weight and with exercise. No, she doesn’t pig out on a daily basis. Yes, she overeats now and then. Piss off.

I know two other people who have been faced with this situation. One of them, my oldest friend, made major, very challenging changes in her diet and exercise patterns and got her fasting BG down to 80ish. The other, my ex, has ignored the problem for a year and a half, though he has type 2 on both sides of his family and lost his dad to complications.

Two paths, two sets of choices.

I wonder about other paths. Is there a path in which the PWP tries her damnedest, but her efforts cannot stave off deterioration into D-Land? Yeah, I bet there is. How about a path in which supreme effort leads to only temporary improvement? I bet that path exists too.

Then again, at least there’s a chance, however uncertain, for Mom to make a difference through her own efforts. As a type 1, I didn’t have that opportunity. I wish I had.

When I was diagnosed, the words tumbled out of her mouth like a confession: “Diabetes is the disease I’m most frightened of."

A few months later, she apologized. “That probably wasn’t what you needed to hear at the time,” she observed.

“Well,” I answered, “I needed to take it very seriously, and you helped me do that.” And she did. Maybe I can do the same for her now.