# Me Needz Teh Food



## Polednice

Seeing as I'm in hospital and can't sleep, I thought I'd share my woes with you all, because I know you all love a depressing rant 

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I have an annoying headache and haven’t been able to sleep so far this evening (despite a number of Tchaikovsky-accompanied attempts), so here I am writing aimlessly. It’s been 38 hours since my last meal – a pathetic little bowl of bland cornflakes, with a mocking sprinkling of sugar, and a bitter cup of tea – so, if you do the rather complicated maths involving a 72-hour fast, that means I have 34 hours to go. ****.

Well, if I’m lucky, I might not have to wait another 34 hours before the nurses get the phone call to “Stop the fast!” and rush to bring me an assortment of left-over cakes and biscuits from other patients’ evening meals. Last time I did this blasted fast, I was a mere 60 hours into the whole demi-starvation ordeal before I was able to sink my teeth into the most sublime lemon cup-cake ever made and force it down my gullet without savouring a single crumb. However, for the fast to end early, my blood sugar has to reach near-rock-bottom; and for that to happen, my pancreas has to still be mightily deformed.

So do I want a pancreas-gone-wild inside me, flinging insulin carelessly around my body? Well, yes actually. And I don’t say that lightly just because I’m so pathetic that I can’t handle another ~30 hours without food. I am desperate for my blood sugar to drop because, otherwise, there is no explanation for my symptoms: for my incessant, concentration-busting tiredness; for the searing pain in the middle of my back every time I eat; for the muscle tremors I have when I’ve accidentally missed a meal or done too much (i.e. five minutes) exercise. If I leave this hospital without being told that I need some more of my guts ripped out, then I will be in limbo. I don’t have any parathyroids left; my pituitary is the innocent tumour in all this; so what the hell would be wrong with me?!

At the moment, things aren’t looking good. My post-breakfast starting blood sugar was 9.8 mmol/L, and the following results (tests being every six hours until I drop below 2.5), have been in the range 5.7-3.9, the most recent being 4.4 (seeing as I’m not eating anything, I don’t know how my blood sugar rose from 3.9 to 4.4 – quirky bodily thingamebobs, or just inaccurate machines?). I can’t remember what I’d dropped to by this time during my last fast, but I have a feeling I was at least hitting the low 3s.

All I know for sure is that, in the state I am in, I can’t return to university. There’s no conceivable way I could complete my degree with the kind of fatigue I experience on a daily basis. So, whatever the outcome of this fast (please don’t let my painfully empty stomach be in vain!), I will just have to continue pushing for answers so I can get on with my life again.


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## itywltmt

At least, you have Internet access at the hospital - that has to be something of a comfort...

I hope this doesn't sound too hollow, but get well soon and hang in there, buddy.

Pierre


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## Polednice

The internet has been a great saviour, actually. I wouldn't get it anywhere else - I have it here just because it's a teaching hospital, and I'm a student at the university


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## Potiphera

Hi Polednice, 

Sorry to hear you are going through a rough patch. I hope you will be feeling much better soon. 
Best wishes 
Potiphera.


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## Sid James

i also hope you get better. you are young & your body can recover quickly. don't worry too much about study/work, health is the most important, once you deal with that, you will be on the right path. just "hang in there" as pierre says above...


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## samurai

Polednice, I am so sorry to learn of your continuing physical and emotional travails. I wish I could say that I believed in God so that I could say a prayer for your quick and complete recovery; however, I'll say a prayer in my own secular way.
Hang in there, buddy, we are all pulling for you!
Sincerely,
Steve Marcus


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