Laundry, Grain Alcohol (?) and Boundaries
Yesterday I spent another day running around like a crazy person. I was cleaning the living room and kitchen like a fiend scrubbing while still figuring out what to pack and washing, drying, ironing and packing. When you have a chronic illness you grab the days with decent function hard and do it all. I am high on stress right now. Cannot do anything else as its raining all the time here right now, the last gasp of rainy season. We need to garden but that has to wait until the rains end.
Last night we were laying in bed, myself reading a book by one of the kids in a TLC reality television show exposing how toxic and traumatic being raised in front of the camera was, and the husband watching BBC news when the "ask" we'd been expecting happened. What ask? The ask I was talking about last week when someone was fawning over the husband. Can you guess what it was?
Yet again this person wanted us to buy her horribly overpriced water drops for weight loss. The ask was wrapped in manipulative Christianese about "blessing" us and how God was putting us on her heart that we needed this. She's lost some weight, but not as much as you might expect after nearly two years on the product. We didn't answer her at all. She wanted us and our good friends Jo and Ho to do it as a group, buy a four month supply for all four of us to the tune of well over 2K. Knitter please! Not happening. Please take your hands off our wallets.
Jo and Ho are in the final month of building their house. They have zero disposable income just like most do when they build a house. That is their main focus, not weight loss. They, like us, could stand to lose some weight, but it is not a priority.
Me, that's not my focus. My entire focus is on breathing, staying well on an even keel. Eating right. Doing physical therapy exercises to regain some small amount of balance. The husband is focused on controlling his diabetes, making sure his cancer is in remission and his lone kidney is working. He has come an ENORMOUS distance since May/June when he had a blood sugar well over 300. One day he popped a 600! Now he's gotten it down to very near that 100. I am so proud of him. He's worked hard. We're even discussing with the doctor if it might be possible for him to get off insulin soon. He's lost over 30 pounds on his own by eating right since May. That's about the same amount she's lost in two years.
My other primary focus besides our health concerns is my poor mother. That's it. Everything else is fluid and a minor thing in my mind. Even all the griping I do about church here is a minor thing. I miss being the person that never complained about church, that believed all things coming from the pulpit instead of being the one viewing it all with a jaundiced eye that cynically understands now the politics around the pulpit, and the machinery behind it. Once you see the great and powerful Oz is merely some some tiny weirdo in a bad suit with a balding head and flop sweat you cannot unsee it. I still believe. I just no longer believe in the Evangelical church but here we are. I'd have to drive two hours to find a Methodist church.
Instead of replying very rudely like I would be tempted to do we left it. Not six weeks ago the husband told her in plain language he was not doing anything not prescribed by his doctor and said don't ask again. She willfully violated that.
What I did do anew last night was pull up the NIH's page analyzing what's in those drops. We read through it together, giggling when seeing some things, horrified over others. There are a few things the husband cannot have because of the one kidney. There is one ingredient that is my instant anaphlaxsis list, and several I am garden variety allergic to. But for the first time I saw something that had escaped my notice previously - the drops are 30% grain alcohol! Dang, and I do not react well to alcohol at all I get real drunk. No wonder all those glowing testimonials about "feeling better" and the spurious claims it cures depression and grief! A spoonful of that stuff three times a day might be enough to do just that. At least take the edge off life.
It's the 1,200 calorie a day diet and the recommended exercising that come with the drops that melts the weight, not the drops.
So today I have to have a face to face conversation about boundaries and the consequences of ignoring mine.
ETA: Adding this. It popped up right after I posted this. Love this guy. He nails boundaries so hard!
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