One Year Anniversary!

We made it! One year ago today, Caitie was checked out from Eating Recovery Center in Denver. It was not the end of her journey by any means, she went straight into outpatient treatment in Albuquerque when we returned home, but here we are, one year later and doing good! Several people she met during her 2 month stay have returned, so we are so grateful and proud that our journey has been different! It’s a little ironic that I sit here writing today on a snow day in Albuquerque. Rare and few between. It’s ironic because the weekend I went to Denver to pick up Caitie was the snowiest weekend we had during all the times we went! It was 3 degrees, and snowed so much I was certain we would be snowed in, but we did make it home, it was an adventure!

I have been struggling as of late with some writers block I suppose. After my visit for family days, I couldn’t remember the next month! To be honest, I think Caitie was on her own much more during the month of January. So I guess that was why I struggled to remember it! Both of her sisters have January birthdays, it was the height of district basketball play of Amanda’s last season. I do remember very vividly that the constant feeling of needing to be in more than one place at a time was excruciating during this time. No matter what I was doing, who I was with, I constantly had this pull in my heart that I was needed somewhere else. It was a miserable feeling but we just had to push through. Chris and I celebrated our wedding anniversary on 2/3, and then he left the next day for his turn at family days. He went alone, looking back now I wish I had gone again so we could have been together. Those days were so intense and scary and informative and it is quite the roller coaster ride. He handled it well though and certainly returned with a new understanding of this monster we were dealing with, and how serious it all can be. I must say, I am so grateful for his time there because Chris returned with a true determination to fight for his girl. He was humbled by the enormity of it, but not afraid to do whatever he could to help her get it behind her. Chris has truly been a leader for all of us in facing this straight on! I have to tell you, I was worried about this with him, he was raised in an environment where sometimes mental health and therapy was viewed fairly negatively. I wasn’t sure he would get on board with what was needed. But not only did he get on board, he led the charge. Nobody was better at sitting us all down and talking about the hard stuff than Chris. I think Caitie and I both were surprised by his openness and willingness to get into it, but that is what was needed. If you don’t deal with this difficult stuff, the real reason for why we are facing this struggle, how can you heal? And when one person is sitting there willing to go deep and get into the hard stuff, it makes you want to follow!

Before Chris went for family days, Caitie was moved to the outpatient program offered there. They moved her into an apartment on the “campus” with three other young women from the program. They still attended treatment 7 days a week for 11 hours per day. So all of their meals were eaten still together in the facility except the nightly snack, but the snack was provided in the apartment and they still ate it together and had to finish in the 15 minute time period. The difference was once they were at the apartment they were free to go out and do things around town if they wished. None of them had cars, but they became quite proficient with uber. It granted a little bit of freedom but still many restrictions. Of course in the apartment they could also use the bathroom whenever they wanted at night. Seems like a small thing but take away some basic freedoms and you will see how much you appreciate them when they are given back. As I think back on this time, I think about how much I just hated all the rules that were put on Caite, and I felt it so unnecessary to punish her for this disorder that wasn’t her fault! But now, that it has been a full year since she has been there, I can assure you those things have played a huge role in Caitie’s staying on the right track in recovery. Her vivid memories of the pain of refeeding, the frustration of having to wait for a bathroom to be unlocked, and only at certain times. The rules of non activity, and only being allowed selective outings. She relives these things and often when we are talking about her struggle to stay on track, to remain at a healthy weight range, to not allow other peoples food choices to affect her well being, we talk about those memories. Her “why” per say for never having to go through that again.

After Chris returned I decided to take a weekend trip to visit, and kind of last minute I invited her best friend Jessica to come along. Jessica had been one of the few people besides family that Caitie had felt comfortable with telling about what she was going through. Jessica was trying very hard to understand it all, although it was difficult for her. Jessica agreed and we surprised Caitie with her visit. It was fun to see Caitie so happy, and for the most part the weekend went well. We went on a dinner outing and that was very difficult for Caitie. All this time she has only been eating with other people suffering from some sort of eating disorder or her family. This was her first time to try to eat again with someone whom she had shared hundreds of meals with in the past. (They were high school friends so had lunch together all the time.) But now it was different, and although the meal was most definitely a struggle, it was good to practice. Her days in extensive treatment were going to come to an end very soon. I think the reality of that set in during this weekend visit. Not that we weren’t all very excited to bring Caitie home, and she had come so far and seemed so close to full weight restoration. But the reality of taking this on ourselves. Of us now being responsible to make sure she was getting enough to eat, and to know if there were problems. We had failed so miserably at that before, would we fail again? What if Caitie decided she didn’t want to continue on her own? Would we know how to convince her to stay healthy? The program in Denver had been so good, what if the program in Albuquerque wasn’t? There was only one option, if it wasn’t a good one we would be out of luck. The fear of it all was intense. Nevertheless, after this weekend visit, we were told that Caitie’s team had decided she was ready. She would be discharged on a Monday, February 19th, President’s Day. Chris’s parents wedding anniversary. I already had the day off from work, so I went to pick her up by myself. The day after I got into Denver it started to snow, and it did not stop until we left on Tuesday morning. Her last day would be that Monday but she was required to do a full treatment day, so they didn’t leave the facility to be taken back to the apartment until 7:00pm. A shuttle drove them back and forth from the apartments, so I met her at the apartment so we could load up all of her things. She had her luggage, and a box of all the items they had taken from her when she came from the Acute hospital. The extra blankets, and pictures, and heating pad. We loaded her things as it was snowing away! Her roommates were excited for her and sad to see her go. However, they were also excited that I had a car and was willing to drive them somewhere without having to pay for a uber. So, we took a trip with her and her three roommates to Michael’s, so they could buy yarn for their knitting projects! I know that this was a real snowstorm, because even the Denver folks were not out driving around. The roads were dead and we were the only people at Michael’s at 8:00 p.m.! It was crazy but fun, I sure am glad we didn’t get into an accident though. I am native to New Mexico, I don’t have much experience driving in snow! After we dropped the roommates back at the apartment Caitie and I left to stay at the Ronald McDonald house. We had stayed there so many times over the past months and Caitie had never seen it. Here is the crazy thing. It is the first time I am now with Caitie, we are responsible now for her meal plan and I screw it up immediately. The roommates went back to the apartment for their nightly snack. I had no snack for Caitie. It was late, the roads were a mess, and I did not have a plan! How could I have not already thought of this? We ended up stopping at a Circle K near the Ronald McDonald House and bought water bottles and Caitie got a granola bar or something. She struggled with what to pick, but she found something. Then it suddenly hit me, we would be driving home the next day. What would we eat. Fast food restaurants were certainly a big fear for Caitie, but what else do you eat when driving 6 hours home? I was immediately convinced that I was going to fail my daughter. Mothers guilt is a real thing. It consumes the heart. Rational thinking does not always win when this is overtaking the brain. But guess what, we did fine. We went to Starbucks for breakfast. We bought a little extra for a snack. We found a Subway for lunch, and made it home for dinner. Was it perfect, not really, but it worked. Was I completely panicked that we didn’t get enough calories? Yes. Did I think one day wrong would ruin everything? Yes. Was that right? No. This is what I try to learn, none of us are perfect, we just have to keep moving, keep trying, keep fighting for what matters. Sometimes that will be enough. Sometimes it won’t, but as long as we get back up, keep moving, keep trying, and keep fighting for what matters we will be okay. The next few months of trying to meal plan and make sure she was on track were a mess, but somehow we got through it. I will write more about that next time. Because it is a whole other story.

I have crammed quite a bit into this blog, so with that I will sign off this time. I am so very grateful for this anniversary, we are still fighting and holding our own! It hasn’t been perfect, but we all know that expectation is ridiculous! Thanks for reading, and always supporting me and my family! It holds me up more than you know! Here’s to one year down!