A blip, thankfully... fingers crossed...

Thankfully it was only a "blip" the other day and Ben is now back to his usual, on-the-road-to-recovery self after deciding to talk about it in depth to me yesterday, which was good. And he managed to go over calories by an extra 200 yesterday. But I'd like to get him weighed when we go to CAMHS on Wednesday afternoon to see how things are panning out.

Something is up...

I get the impression he's resisting calories again after agreeing to increase them at CAHMS (because he'd maintained over the last fortnight we agreed he'd go OVER the required calories as many times as possible). He went over calories on Saturday by 200 but hasn't done so on any other day since then, despite coaxing from me... And over the last 48 hours he's been very "tetchy". Today he flew off the handle a couple of times and ended up in tears after shouting out a bit like he used to do... the kind of shouting that makes me jump out of my skin...

Our second fortnightly weigh-in...

As you know, we've changed the weekly weigh-ins to fortnightly so Ben doesn't become so obsessed with numbers. Interestingly, the last 2 weeks have been a virtual carbon copy of the previous 2 weeks, food-wise. If anything, Ben has eaten many more 'challenge' foods like cake, chocolate, ice cream, chocolate brownies, etc. Last time he put on 0.9kg but yesterday his weight was stable, with no change. So that equals 0.9kg across the whole month, around half the weight gain recommended by NICE, but never mind. As a result we've made some little adjustments to the Recovery Contract.

More about the Recovery Contract...

A couple of weeks ago I promised to outline what we've included in our Recovery Contract which has been running successfully for 4 weeks now. So here goes...

Taking the focus off the eating disorder...

On Saturday we acquired a 12 month old cat (a rescued cat from the Cats Protection League) who has been settling into our household extremely well over the last few days. The great thing is that it's taken a lot of the emphasis off the eating disorder, enabling us to be pretty close to 'normal' for the time being. Cats are also soooo relaxing. So far, it's definitely making a positive difference to everything. Ben has been wanting a cat for YEARS...

CAMHS day today...

It's Friday which means it's CAMHS day, but no weigh-in as we're doing fortnightly weighing sessions now. The psych has been away for 3 weeks, so it will be interesting to see where we go from here... The Recovery Contract is still going strong and Ben 'spent' some of the points last weekend on some models which he paints - so points really do 'win prizes'! But do they get results?

Pizza... wine... olives... fudge ice cream pudding...

I forgot to say that Mothers Day went brilliantly - a zillion years away from what happened last year. Ben wrote me the sweetest poem; the kind that brings tears to your eyes, and hand-painted a lovely card. The previous night's meal at Pizza Express was about as happy and relaxed as you can get - not a hint of the 'evil ED' as Ben tucked into a huge seafood pizza plus a side of plump olives accompanied by a large glass of white wine and followed by an ice cream pud with fudge bits in it. And then he came home and took a large bite out of some chocolate peanut brownies which he'd baked that afternoon. Result? Mama Matty grinning like a cheshire cat all the way back home. A triumph!

Laura's blog from yesterday is well worth a read...

Laura Collins is an amazing woman. What she doesn't know about eating disorders isn't worth knowing - or at least you can be darned sure she'll be on the case and know about it before you can say "I loathe ED!" Unfortunately it seems that the media don't know about eating disorders - or at least they've totally got the wrong end of the stick. It's not just mis-information, it could be potentially damaging. Laura's blog from April 4th is well worth a read: http://www.laurassoapbox.net/2011/04/9-mistakes-cbs-makes.html

Mothers Day looms...

Last year I spent a large part of Mothers Day sitting alone in my car on top of the Moors 'drowning my sorrows' in a box of Belgian chocolates which Ben had given me earlier in the day, armed with a box of tissues to wipe my tears. In those days I spent a lot of time at weekends, just grabbing some 'comfort food' and my car keys and driving off into the distance because life at home had got too stressful to cope with. I left my husband in charge while I took 'time out'...

0.9kg weight gain this week

Good news; we are 'on target' (or just about) with a 0.9kg gain over the past fortnight - and it's the first time we haven't been weighed every week. (Funny how I keep referring to it as 'we' but that's just the way it's become...) CAMHS thought Ben would get stressed and unable to cope with 14 days of not standing on the scales, but he was fine. Also, the 'contract' is still working splendidly and I am convinced that it is responsible for the progress we have made over the past 2 weeks. "Points win Prizes!" is Ben's mantra...