I'm Shrinking.

So, I've lost a lot of weight. 

At first, I was like "Well, this isn't too bad." I mean, I will take a few secondary gains from all this medical nonsense. (There aren't all that many to be had, after all!) When this started over a year ago,  I had been on the heavier side of things and didn't mind slimming down a little bit.

I lost about 10 lbs right away, from stress and the problems with my mouth (sores, and difficulty eating). That was perfectly fine with me!

But then in March, a lot of tough things happened (increase in pain, trouble with meds) and I lost my appetite. I began to lose more and more weight, in part because I was in bed all day and not eating. But, when I got better, my appetite didn't return and my weight kept going down. The weight loss happened so quickly that I seemingly jumped from a healthy weight to feeling every inch of my hip bones and having a thigh-gap.

My primary concern is that I am genuinely terrified about not having good nutrition so that the immunotherapy can work. I think about this constantly. I know that I need to eat. 

I am still wearing a lot of my old clothes, so it is hard to see my shape. And, as we all know, wearing clothes that are too big for you does not help you look skinny; they make you look bad. Ugh. So unfair. 

Great. Now I need to go shopping, so glad that is an easy task. 

Oh wait, there is a deadly virus and we can't go shopping at all. 

Swell. 

I bought a few things online to help get through the summer, but I know that I need more. It would also be nice to try clothes on and actually know if I am now a small or extra-small. Am I a size 2? 0? Hard to say.

When I went to VA, I was so lucky because I had some gifts from those who went through their closets and gave me their smaller sizes. I actually now have some very lovely items for work (when? if? we go back). It felt amazing to put on a dress and have it actually fit my body. It felt nice to look nice. I dream of wearing them to fun summer functions or on a date... I'll keep dreaming. 

Also, of course, I need to be getting some exercise to keep up my cardiovascular health and not waste away. Exercise, as we know, burns calories! I take a little walk and my apple watch gleefully announces the calories I've lost. 

What an upside down world I am in! 

The kicker, of course, is that last spring (2019) when I switched my wardrobe for the summer, I threw away everything that didn't fit me well. I was trying to acknowledge that I was not going to get much smaller with age, and I assumed that I was going to get pregnant that summer. Oh how wrong I was! 

I am in such a different space than I could have ever imagined. I had hoped to spend last year growing larger and larger with a baby in my belly. Everything is different now. I am smaller than I have ever been as an adult. Growing our family is not on the horizon. The future is uncertain not only for me, but for everyone. This virus means I do everything differently, and I don't know if it will go back to the same ever again.