Wednesday the 12th of August – Counting Calories

Under the Little Red sun, Princess Amaranta, dressed in her most fetching gown sits in her magnificent emerald studded, gold plated carriage accompanied by her Mother, Queen Myra. King Rock proudly rides alongside on his noble stead. They wave to their loyal subjects as they make their way to the Ball. Fairy Tinkerpawl, flutters not far behind…But…On the stroke of midday, the carriage turns into a wheel chair. Amaranta’s frock becomes a jogging suit. And it isn’t the Ball but the Hospital they return from.

Mar’s down to 45 Kg. She’s too weak to dress herself, let alone walk. Hidden under an enormous umbrella (to protect her from the sun), we wheel her every day to the hospital. She stays usually until midday for her medication. Mostly Potassium which explains why she feels so tired all the time. She has no appetite and hardly eats. The little she manages to swallow usually comes out the same way. The doctors curiously don’t seem to accord much importance to nutrition. Eat little but frequently is the only advice we extirpate from them. They say convalescence takes time and Mara must be patient. We’re very worried though and it drives us to desperate measures. From reasoning with her to cajoling to blackmailing to forcing her to eat, our attempts are met with angry frustrated retorts. She tries so hard but disheartened, finds it very difficult to ingest anything. We search for foods with high caloric values or that encourage weight gain. Dieting was never part of our family culture. Counting calories even less so, and I never imagined I’d be doing just that for the opposite reason. Our enquiries among Pharmacists elicit stares of disbelief. They eye us from head to toe and must be thinking we got it all wrong. If anything we should be losing weight for the summer, not gaining it!

Mara feels very down both physically and mentally. All these months are taking their toll on her. And on us. It’s harder for us to boost her moral. It also doesn’t help that we’re exhausted. We just wake up low on energy. Mara senses our tiredness and it makes her feel extremely guilty: “Paula, you’re tired of me, aren’t you? I’m so sorry.” It breaks my heart to hear her say that. I tell her I could never tire of her but she still feels bad about putting us through this. She thinks she caused this illness to happen! I tell her: “Mar, we don’t know why this happened. I don’t think we’ll ever know. So what? It’s not about the situation. It’s about how you deal with it. And you have been, you are exceptionally strong. So draw whatever lesson life offers you and come out of this even stronger, even healthier, and even happier than before. One thing is for sure. Your life, our lives, will never be the same. They can only get better.” I tell her this. I tell myself this, even if after the 10th time, the lines sound tired, worn out from over exertion.

The best news is that Richard came over the weekend for a few days to help us recharge. He saw very little of Mara but this time, selfishly, I asked him to come for me. I didn’t even ask. I demanded! Fortunately, he happily obliged.