Here’s the deal.
As you know, a few weeks ago I went in to have my gallbladder removed. The surgery went without complications and I have fully recovered from it, but something unexpected did come up: I was found to have cirrhosis of the liver. They did a biopsy to confirm it, and I’ve been stewing about what to do about it ever since.
See, I don’t drink. I don’t do drugs, and I’ve never had hepatitis of any kind. Unfortunately, I’m on several medications for my mental illness that are known to cause increased appetite and weight gain, and an older one I was on really packed on the pounds. Combine this with the admittedly poor diet of a financially-challenged fixed-income individual and the avolition that goes along with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, and well, you get the idea.
So two months before I went in for surgery I was diagnosed with Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Apparently that diagnosis was incorrect, as it had already progressed into cirrhosis. While alcohol abuse is the leading cause of this rather incurable and potentially fatal illness, Nonalcoholic fatty liver is the second leading cause. This encompasses fatty liver caused by everything from hepatitis to obesity to diabetes, the later two I actually suffer from (they are related yes, but diabetes is also a family illness and antipsychotics increase the risk).
The solution, for now, is to drop weight ASAP. People assume I should just stop eating and start jogging… not that simple. It’s recommended that an adult male eat no less than 1200 calories a day to lose weight, which means my 100 pounds lost goal will take a while even with diet and exercise. I’m working on it though!
I’ve lost about 5 pounds, which is good, and am getting better at picking out lower-calorie foods. At the start of the month, I bought foods like salmon steaks and tilapia fillets, switched to the leanest ground beef I could find that I could afford, (which is portioned so that I never eat more than a quarter pound of it per meal, and not for every meal by far–this is a good amount, trust me), and switched from drinking coffee–which I never sweeten with sugar but do use creamer–to various teas–which are taken as is, and I no longer even consider ordering foods like pizza even if it will just be a slice. And I started walking, until the pool opened, when I switched to swimming–more fun, less exhausting than going up and down a hill (I’m a fish), and does a better job at burning calories.
One last monkey wrench in my life happened a few days ago when I came down with a massive cold. In June. Yeah, I know, but it’s possible, especially when you have friends who come over sick and don’t tell you until a week later. I’m still recovering from that hiccup, but I’m well on my way. I’m going to try and finally put up a chapter of The Revelation tonight, and another Sunday. Just… don’t be surprised if one of these falls through.