Ladies and gentleman, we have a diagnosis.

If you haven’t been following the seemingly never ending saga of what the fuck is up with Miss Britt’s health, this post will make no sense and be of no interest to you.

But for the rest of you - who have listened to me whine, bitch, moan and cry and waited with me, prayed for me, and emailed me constant encouragement - I cannot even tell you how over the moon with excitement I am to tell you what happened at the doctor’s office on Tuesday.

I’m going to be fine.

My second round of post carb coma blood tests came back… normal.

Now, I have to admit, when I first heard the words “you’re healthy.  You’re tests look great.” - I kind of wanted to blow something up or running screaming from the office in an attempt to show that I was not, in fact, fine or healthy.

But I didn’t.  Because, well, I’ve been feeling a whole lot of fine lately.  And even I was starting to forget why in the hell I had taken on this arduous and expensive journey of figuring out what was wrong with me in the first place.  Had I ever really been sick?  Had I ever been -

Oh.

Right.

There was the whole issue of the emotional breakdown in which I did not get out of my bed for four days.

But why was I feeling so fine now?  Why were the blood tests that had been “high across the board” just a few short weeks ago, touting my health and good fortune now?

Because I haven’t eaten carbs for about two weeks.

And I, ladies and gentleman, have Metabolic Syndrome.

It affects as many as 30% of people and it means that my body has no fucking clue what to do with a carbohydrate.  Not only does it not know what to do with it, but it freaks the fuck out - that’s a medical term - when faced with having to decide what to do with carbohydrates.

Someone with Metabolic Syndrome can suffer from all kinds of crazy hormone imbalance induced symptoms.  Including extreme fatigue and depression.

Now, after my daughter was born, I went on a low carb diet to lose weight.  I stayed on that diet for about 3 years.  And then I moved to Florida, and Adam tried to kill me with loaded fries.  And I thought - you know, I’ve been doing pretty good on this diet, what’s one plate of fries going to hurt?

The problem is that when someone with Metabolic Syndrome who hasn’t forced carbs on their body in three years suddenly has carbs, their body whacks out.  It led to a crazy snowball effect - depression, fatigue, using carbs to feed that depression and fatigue (I’m sorry, but show me a person who hasn’t assuaged a breakdown with Ruffle’s Potato Chips and I will show you a god damn liar) - and before I knew it, my body had completely fallen apart.

I ate myself into a breakdown, people.  Tell me that’s not funny.

This is a genetic issue.  It’s nothing I did to myself - and nothing that can be cured.

The good news, as my doctor pointed out, is that the treatment is cheap.

Don’t eat carbs.

I can have 20-30 grams of carbs at a meal.  That’s it.  It doesn’t matter what’s going on with my weight - I cannot indulge in carb fests.  The consequences of gorging myself on carbohydrates are far more severe than gaining a few pounds, as I’ve learned over the last several months.

It’s a very good think that I happen to have already tried a low carb diet previously - it made figuring out the problem much easier.  It’s also fortunate that I discovered this issue as early in life as I did.  In 10 or 20 years, this could have led to diabetes and some other more serious shit.  Apparently.

I can’t even tell you how much lighter I felt leaving that office.

It was such a relief to have a diagnosis that made sense with all of my symptoms.  The more my doctor and I talked, the more we were able to piece together the timeline and the emergence of symptoms and verify that - yep, this is the problem.

I’m going to be fine.

The prospect of spending the rest of my life on a strict low-carb diet is a little daunting, but I’ve been eating this way more or less for over four years now, so I have a pretty good handle on how to do it.  And the temptation to “cheat” on a “diet” pales in comparison to the realization that avoiding carbs means a lot more than maintaining an ideal weight.

If I was allergic to peanuts, I wouldn’t eat peanuts.  Even if I had been “really good”.  Or had a “really bad day”.

It feels so good to have a diagnosis that fits.  I could feel immediately how perfectly it fit, like the first time you try on a pair of designer jeans.  My symptoms weren’t imagined, and my body’s responses aren’t some ambiguous thing that I can’t quite put my finger on.

I have answers.

And, more importantly, I know exactly what to do to keep myself happy, healthy and sane in the future.

I couldn’t be more excited.

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Posted in Miss Britt - stories, memes and random facts about me Tagged: blood tests, body, carbohydrate, crazy, depression, diet, extreme fatigue, health, hormone imbalance, life, low carb, low carb diet, metabolic syndrome, Miss Britt, sick | 132 Comments »

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It is said that somewhere in Iowa, a small town’s football team still takes a knee before each game.  The players and coaches join hands and bow their heads, and they defy the laws that tell them that they cannot pray together.  It is rumored that they kneel together and recite the Lord’s Prayer.

“Our Father, who art in Heaven
Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,
On Earth, as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us…”

***

His legacy is his faith.

Not the games won or the classes taught.  Not the immaculately kept football field that we lovingly referred to as The Sacred Acre.  Not the state championships or the pep talks or the speeches.  Not the NFL players he groomed or the countless coaches around the state that he mentored.

A life’s worth of work and accomplishment pale in comparison to the gift of grace brought by his death.

“Please remember to visit the Becker family,” his son said in a press conference.

“Our opinion of Mark has not changed,” his family was quoted as saying about the 24 year old boy who took their husband and father.

And we followed their lead - his lead - the way we always have.

Facebook statuses were updated to reflect prayers for the Thomas family and the Becker family.  News articles were written about the person Mark was before he became an alleged murderer.  The grief and shock and anger mixed with compassion, the movement towards grace led by those who we least expected to be able to offer it.

I’m a Christian and a Catholic.  I have heard about grace.  I have read about forgiveness and been taught the meaning of faith.

But never in my life have I seen a more real, tangible example of these abstract principles.

Today, the funeral for Ed Thomas is being held at his church - a church I could see from my backyard when I lived in Parkersburg.  The streets will be lined with cars.  The pews and basement will undoubtedly be overflowing with mourners who have come to pay their respect for the hometown hero and offer condolences to the family he leaves behind.

And I will sit here, more than 1,000 miles away, surrounded by the trappings of my perfect life that goes on just as perfectly as it did last week.

I will not shake Aaron and Todd’s hands.  I will not cry along side old classmates or rest my head on my mother’s shoulder.  I will not hold my own brothers and pat them on their backs as they say goodbye to yet another father figure.

But I will honor his legacy in the only way I know how.

I will forgive.

Today, I forgive the man who hurt me.  Not because he deserves it or because what he did ceases to be wrong.  But simply because, I can.  Because I, too, have been forgiven without being deserving.

Today, I forgive the stepfather who abandoned my brothers, abused my mother, and robbed me of pieces of my childhood with his violence and addiction.  I don’t have the strength to shower him with love, but I can find the power to let go of the anger.

Today, I let it go.  I remember that the grace required for these small mental acrobatics is but a mustard seed compared to the mountain of grace required to show compassion for the person who stole your father and husband.  I believe that the faith and love that affords them this grace is as readily available to me as it is to them.

Today, in lieu of flowers, I forgive.

Posted in Personal - Growth and Things I'm Trying To Learn Tagged: anger, becker family, church, death, Ed Thomas, family, football, gift of grace, home, hometown, Iowa, life, love, meaning of faith, men, Parkersburg, prayer our father, thomas family | 59 Comments »

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I am from Parkersburg, Iowa.

I wasn’t born there, I don’t live there now, but it is, without a doubt, where I am from.

It is - and will always be - integral to who I am.

On Wednesday morning, that part of who I am was once again hit by tragedy.  But this tragedy was far, far worse than the devastating tornado that wiped out half the town last year.

Last year, Mother Nature ripped away homes and trees and businesses.  Safety and security were torn from the lives of the people who lived there.

But this - this was so much worse.  Wednesday, the very heart of Parkersburg was ripped away in one horrible, senseless act of violence.

Husband, father and Coach Ed Thomas was murdered by former student and player, Mark Becker.

Thomas. That’s what we called him.  Unless you played football for him at some point in the last 30 years - then you called him Coach.  Even if you were a grown man yourself now, the respect and admiration in that title remained.  But it wasn’t just the boys who played football for him that were touched.

It was all of us.

Parkersburg is one of those places you watch movies about.  The community begins and ends at the football field - a field renamed “Ed Thomas Field” just a few short years ago.  So it makes sense that the football coach would be a prominent figure in the town.  But Thomas was much more than that.  As athletic director, coach and teacher, he was committed to helping to raise the kids of Parkersburg.

All of us.

It didn’t matter if you never wore a uniform or caught a pass.  We were his job.

I remember how worried he was about me when I had my first big heartbreak.  My ex-boyfriend was a star player on his football team, and the love he had for him was evident.  But so, too, was the concern he had for the 17 year old cheerleader who found herself feeling lost.

“Hey, Britt,” he’d catch my eye in the hall, “how you doin’?”

And he’d stop and search for the answer in me.  He wasn’t the type of man to bring a girl into his classroom for a heart to heart, but he told you with a nod and a cautious smile, a pause in the hallway and a penetrating look, that he saw you.  And that somehow things would get better.

A year later when I decided to set my sights on a boy in my class with a history of partying and irresponsibility, he made his concern clear again.  He warned me.  He cautioned me.  He reminded me that I was good enough.  Of course that doesn’t say much for my husband, I suppose - the irresponsible teenage boy that Thomas tried to steer me clear of.

But that’s what he did.  Ed Thomas kept his standards high and insisted that you rose to them.  And if you didn’t, he stood steady in his convictions and patiently waited for you to realize yours.

He was a father to my brothers when no one else was.

I got the news Wednesday from my mother.  And one of our best friends.  And my aunt.  And my dad.  And my brothers.  And a former co-worker.  And an old classmate I haven’t talked to in years.  The facts were inconceivable to those of us who knew - who know - what Ed Thomas is to Parkersburg.

I got on Facebook and immediately received chat messages from people I hadn’t spoken to in over a decade.  It was as if we were all searching for our bearings, reaching out to find something we knew now that our anchor was gone.  Someone.  Something.  Anything that could tie us back to that place that we come from.

And then there is Mark.

The suspect.

I have known Mark since he was my son’s age.  He was my little brother, Jay’s, best friend until just a few short years ago, when the drugs and demons that hounded Mark finally became too much for Jay to compete with.

Becker.  That’s what my brothers and the rest of the guys called him.

But my mother and I called him Marky.  Because he was a Marky.  He was quiet and shy with a big, easy grin that spread across his face whenever you told him you were glad to see him.  He sat on my front porch two summers ago and played poker with me and talked about how cool it sounded that we were moving.

He thought my daughter was adorable.

And he killed a man on Wednesday.

Brutally.  Viciously.  He walked into a room full of high school students and shot Ed Thomas with a gun.  Over and over again.

I don’t understand.

I don’t understand the horrible betrayal that must have flashed through Thomas’s mind upon seeing Mark point a gun at him.  I don’t understand what must be horribly broken in Mark’s head that he could be capable of taking a life so violently.

I don’t understand how that town will survive this.

Or why they should have to.

Posted in Friends and Family Tagged: Ed Thomas, family, friends, home, Iowa, Parkersburg, tragedy | 90 Comments »

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I’m not used to being fragile.

I am, as a general rule, the strong one in almost any situation.  I’m the one who makes decisions and get things done.  I’m the one who bounces back and pushes on.  I’m the one who can handle anything, and usually do it with a self deprecating smile.

But I don’t feel strong right now.

I feel unusually weak and ill prepared to handle even the smallest disappointments.  My ego is frail and prone to bruising.  My sense of self - the thing that has always guided me - is suddenly ungrounded and easily toppled by the slightest breeze.

I’m uncomfortable in my own skin.

I can’t remember the last time I was so aware of my every flaw and so desperate to hide them from the world.

I feel small.

I want to both shrink away to avoid being noticed and curl up to something bigger to avoid being lost.

My God, I’m pathetic and maudlin.

The thing is, I’m not always sad.  Really.

I laugh and play and talk and on the outside, most days, I look exactly the same as I always have.

But on the inside, I feel a tentativeness that is completely foreign to me.  I don’t feel confident enough to charge forward blindly, secure that I can handle whatever I run into.  I am, instead, afraid of running head first into something that can bring me to my knees.  Something.  I don’t know what - because the things that have shaken me lately have been unexpected.  My ability to predict what will sting and what will not is off kilter.

I don’t know this version of me.

But I know I don’t like it.

Posted in Personal - Growth and Things I'm Trying To Learn Tagged: ego, Fragile, sense of self | 84 Comments »

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Shmritt and Shmadam

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there was a girl named Shmritt.

Shmritt was best friends with a boy named Shmadam, and they did everything together.  Shmritt and Shmadam had other friends - lots of friends, really - but they always knew that they were each other’s best friends.  And that was important, because Shmritt and Shmadam were 12, apparently.

Then one day, Shmadam made a new friend.

Shmadam liked this new friend a whole lot.

In fact, sometimes, it seemed like Shmadam liked this new friend even more than he liked Shmritt.  At first this made Shmritt very angry.  She yelled at Shmadam for being a bad friend and tried to give back his super special friend decoder ring.  Shmadam said he was sorry and promised to be nicer to Shmritt - and she let him keep his super special friend decoder ring.

But then Shmritt got sad.

The only thing worse than an angry Shmritt is a sad Shmritt.

Shmritt cried and cried.  Then Schrmitt cried some more.  Then Shmritt’s husband, Mister Shmritt, came home and asked Shmritt why she was so sad.

“Shmadam doesn’t love me anymore,” Shmritt sobbed.

Mister Shmritt put his arm around Shmritt and told her everything would be OK.  He patted her on the back and rocked her back and forth while she cried.  And then Mister Shmritt did something really amazing.

“Of course Shmadam still loves you,” Mister Shmritt said.  “No matter what, you will always be special - because you are special.  And Shmadam knows it.”

And Shmritt was amazed at Mister Shmritt’s powers.

Shmritt tried to explain to Mister Shmritt that he was special, because he wasn’t jealous or angry or afraid of her friendship with Shmadam.  But Mister Shmritt would hear none of it.  He just shook his head and smiled and promised Shmritt that everything would be OK.

Shmritt and Shmadam tried very hard to be friends again, just like they used to be.  They talked and talked and talked, because Shmritt and Shmadam loved to talk more than anything else in the whole world.  Shrmitt thought that maybe everything really would be better from now on.

Then one day, Shmritt and Shmadam took their friend, Shmilly, to the Magical Park for a fun day of waterfalls and rollercoasters.  Shmritt and Shmadam and Shmilly had lots of fun together.  They laughed and screamed and were all very glad to be friends.  Shmritt was glad that she and Shmadam were friends again, and she was also glad that she had Shmilly as a friend.  Everything was perfect.

But then, the very next day, Shmritt’s magical beans that she took every day to make her awesome decided to not make her awesome.  Or something.  Or maybe Shmritt was tired.  Or something.  Or maybe Shmritt felt like things were still just not quite right with Shmadam.  Or something.

Whatever the reason, Shmritt decided that once again she was sad.

Shmritt was very upset and didn’t know who to talk to about it.  She was tired of talking to Shmadam about Shmadam.

Shmritt and Shmilly

She talked to Shmilly.

Shmilly listened while Shmritt talked.  Shmilly listened while Shmritt cried.  Shmilly sat and sat and listened and listened while Shmritt talked and talked and cried and cried.  And then Shmilly did something really amazing.

“It’s OK to feel what you’re feeling,” Shmilly said.  “And you’re not crazy or pathetic.  And I’m not judging you.”

And Shmritt was amazed at Shmilly’s powers.

Shmritt tried to thank Shmilly for being such a good friend.  She told her how much it meant to have someone be there to talk through things with her, without trying to fix anything or make her feel bad about being such a cry baby - even though she was, in fact, being a cry baby.  But Shmilly would hear none of it.  She just shook her head and smiled and promised that everything would be OK.

Later that night, Shmadam showed up at Shmritt’s door to show her that they were still friends.  Very best friends, in fact.  Mister Shmritt smiled and was glad to see his wife happy again.  Shmilly called to say that she needed a friend, and Shmritt and Shmadam took timeout from their personal drama to go and return the friendship that she had so lovingly given earlier.

Everyone laughed and hugged and promised to always be friends forever.

Or at least until they grew up and went to high school.

The End.

Posted in Friends and Family Tagged: adam, best friends, crazy, friend, friends, friendship, husband, love, Snackiepoo | 87 Comments »

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