I want my life back

I keep telling myself things will get better, that I will be able to enjoy my old life again. I never thought my life was that great, but after all the BS I've gone through recently I realized I had a pretty decent life. It's funny how you never appreciate what you had until it's taken away from you.

I spent yesterday morning talking to the local sheriff's department and the Fairbanks police department. I was trying to find out what I could do to protect my sister from my crazy niece until I get a court ordered restraining order against my niece (which hopefully I can get this week).

Everyone was very kind and helpful. They told me to write up a brief synopsis of my niece's issues, along with her physical description and a picture of her, a copy of my guardian papers and strict instructions to call 911 if they see my niece on the premises. Then give the synopsis to the police. I felt like I was putting together a "wanted poster" on her. It made me sad that it has come to this, but she's forced my hand by threatening to get on the next plane and fly down here to see her mother. Luckily it's an adult family home with only six residents and one caregiver, plus the owner that lives across the street and pops over all the time. It's not a huge facility so they can easily keep an eye on who comes into the home.

Then I spent three hours visiting my sister yesterday. I cut her bangs short, which she prefers. The hair stylist that cut her hair last week made long bangs that swept to the side. I knew my sister hated them because she kept fussing with them. Then I put makeup on her and gave her a manicure with pretty pink polish. She's still a beauty, even at 73 and all she's gone through. I sat at the dinner table with her and two other ladies as she ate her food perfectly with her left hand.

Although my sister was happy when I got there, she was not having the greatest day. For the most part it was good, but she gets really frustrated that I can't understand her. I get frustrated because she gets mad and starts to cry. I can't figure out what is wrong, then she scrunches up her face and tries to hold back the tears. I hate it. I know there's going to be a transition time for both of us and we just have to get through it until things settle down and we fall into a routine. I really wish we could communicate better. That's the hardest part.

After dinner she went to bed, which is her normal routine. Under the instruction of the home caregiver I lifted my sister into bed. She weighs almost nothing. Maybe 130 pounds. I expected her to be much heavier. I dressed her in her soft, new pajamas that I had just bought and washed the night before. She was complaining her back hurt her but she'd been up since 7am and it was 6pm. For a woman that had been bedridden 24/7 for the last four months it's pretty amazing that she's up and in her wheelchair or the a recliner all day for the last six days. She takes her meals at the dining room table and not in her bed. She likes to wheel around he huge house in her wheelchair or sit in her favorite recliner in the family room and watch a little TV.

By the time I got home I was mentally and physically drained. I'd had a really healthy breakfast and lunch (about 500 calories total), and I was starving. I had stopped at the store to get some groceries. BIG MISTAKE. I was so tired I wanted something easy for dinner. I bought a frozen California Pizza on thin crust, some Orville Redenbacher Caramel microwave popcorn, along with a ton of there stuff, but the pizza and popcorn were going to be my dinner.

By the time I got home it was 8pm. My husband was asleep. I ate 3/4 of the pizza (810 calories) and a bag of the popcorn (850 calories). Today I'm actually going to go back and put all this in my Weight Watcher tracker. I know it was more than I was suppose to eat, but what can I say. It was a hell of a day. I'm not use to talking to police departments and putting together wanted posters. I overate. Big deal. Today I'll be back at the gym and back on track (I went to the gym four out of five days last week). I'm not sweating the small stuff anymore, I have too much big stuff to get freaked out about now.

My main goal is to settle into some type of routine visiting schedule with my sister. Spending most of my day on sister stuff isn't really working for me. I want to spend time on some Diana stuff too. I just need to find the balance.

Stress and belly fat

I’ve noticed I have a lot of belly fat, which we all know is the worst kind of fat. It’s better to carry it on your hips and thighs, and not the belly.

Even  as my weight goes down, my waistband seems tighter. The thighs of my pants are looser, but my waist and abdomen are bigger. The video from a couple days ago showed me just how bad it looks. Not only is is visually unappealing, but I know it’s killing me from the inside out. 

I have a sick feeling the growth of my abdomen has a lot to do with the incredible stress I’ve been under since September 21, 2011, when my sister had her stroke. We’ve all heard how stress produces a hormone called cortisol that causes belly fat.

I’m 56 years old and have never dealt with a mess like what I’ve gone through with my sister. I didn’t know my family was so totally screwed up, including my own brother.  If I hear him say “Poor Linda, you should be nicer to her” one more time, I think I will just freaking lose it. Linda is the crazy niece that continues to torture me with her insanity. 

The latest is that my other niece called me last night (the one I’m having evicted from the apartment complex my sister owns) to tell me that Linda is on a plane to Seattle this weekend to see her mother. She was crying and apologizing for being such a loser herself, she sounded drunk, so I don't even know if it was a true statement.

Regardless, this means I have to head down to the Sheriff’s department this morning and see what can be done to stop craziest niece if she shows up at the home this weekend. I can't have her causing a disruption at the home or upsetting her mother. As my sister’s legal guardian I have control over who can see her and who can’t. For now, craziest niece is on the “can’t see my sister” list. 

Since this is such an odd situation, the Alaska Courts granted guardianship to me, Alaska Adult Protection Services and Alaska State attorney general’s office are involved, and my sister is still technically a resident of Alaska, it’s not easy to secure a restraining order against my niece that lives in Alaska. I have to hire another attorney down here to help me, and he didn’t call me back yesterday. Stress level at the moment, off the Richter scale.

Even if I could take crazy niece out of the picture (which seems to be outside my realm of possibilities), I still have the stress of managing sister’s fiances. She has some money left, but at the rate it's going, it's being quickly depleted which is scaring the hell out of me.

I paid $7,000 of bills yesterday for my sister's basically abandoned apartment complex in Fairbanks (just the niece and grand-niece still live them and of course, haven’t paid rent for two years). This is only the tip of the iceberg of month bills. There's tons more, bills for her house, medical bills, credit card bills, property and car insurance, property and income taxes (did I mention there's a possible $39,000 IRS bill looming over my head for my sister?). I pray the sale goes through the end of this week for the apartments. Otherwise, my sister is only good for a few more months. Even down here the cost is $4,800/month just for her room and board (it was $7,500/month in Fairbanks).   

Since my stress level isn’t going down anytime soon, what do I do about my belly fat that seems to be growing by the minute? It’s actually kind of frightening. I measured my waist this morning and it’s 34 ½ inches. My abdomen is 43 inches. That's really dangerous, especially at my age. I can imagine that my internal organs are covered in a really thick layer of disgusting yellowish fat, and that my organs are struggling to function.

Obviously, I need a plan. I’ve read many times that cardio will melt belly fat. Almost every day I do at least 30 minutes of cardio. I do an Intense, hard core cardio workout on the StairMaster or elliptical. It’s a crazy-fast interval program on both machines (on alternating days).  And I do mean crazy fast where the sweat is pouring off of me and my clothes are wet with sweat within the first two minutes. After my cardio, I lift weights, alternating different sets of muscles on different days. Obviously the exercise isn’t the answer to melting my belly fat. 

I just searched “Belly Fat” on Amazon.com. 3,387 matches. Where to start? I’m not really sure, but I have a feeling the answer is out there. I need to do something different. Eat different food, change my exercise. There has to be something that works. If anyone has any ideas for melting the belly fat, please post a comment. I know there are “melt belly fat” pills, I’ve seen them advertised in weight loss magazines. I’m not a pill person so I wouldn’t even consider trying a belly fat reducing pill. I’m sure it’s false advertising. There aren’t any magic pills.

I'm thinking about starting yoga. Not for exercise but just so I can calm the hell down for at least a few hours a week. Not hot yoga which I hate, but the regular kind that focuses on breathing and stretching. I like that kind.

Of course, I strongly suspect if I just lose the weight, the belly fat will be reduced significantly. That’s probably the real answer.

OMG! When did I get so fat!!!

You've probably had this happen to you. You're kind of going along in life, lots of things pulling you in different directions, and you're not really focused on diet and exercise. You're trying to make the best possible choices, sometimes you do and sometimes you don't. You think you're eating right and you're squeezing in the exercise when you can.

Then it happens. You see a picture of yourself. You can't believe your eyes. That can't be YOU!

Actually, my moment of realization that I'm fat was even worse. It was a video taken by my husband last night. It was suppose to be a video of my sister but since my husband was handling the camera there's several minutes of me wheeling around in my sister's wheelchair at her new home (really kind of fun too). But when I saw the video, all I could see was a very fat Diana:

I "thought" I was doing okay. I was weighing every day and was even down a few pounds recently, weighing 178 yesterday morning. I knew I wasn't skinny, but what the hell is that thing around my waist. It looks like I have an inflated inner tube under my shirt around my middle.

How did I not see this when I looked in the mirror? Maybe because I don't look in the mirror when I'm sitting down. Maybe I should look in the mirror when I'm sitting down. Honestly, I had no idea I looked this bad. If I didn't know better I'd say I was well over 200 pounds. I wonder if my scale is broken.

Okay, so I'm upset about how bad I look. I guess what really bothers me is that I didn't think I looked that bad. Boy, what an eye opener. Videos get me every time. They do not lie.

Now I'm really serious about losing this weight. It's ridiculous I've waited this long and goofed off. I should have been at goal years ago. Plus, with all that fat around my middle I'm a strong candidate for a heart attack, or heaven foribd, a stroke!

My tools of choice to lose weight, Weight Watchers of course, and my Polar heart rate monitor, as well as my BodyMedia. I'm going to track Points, starting today.

Pictures of my sister's new home
Lastly, a few pictures of Arbor Rose, were my sister is living now. I love it. It's an adult family home with only six residents. Those are the flowers my niece Camille sent her. Camille is the sweet one.

The continuing saga

So much has happened in the last twelve days I almost don't know where to start.

My Fairbanks trip on New Year's Eve was a disaster. Remember how my sister wouldn't stop crying that evening? It continued into the next day when my husband and I visited in the afternoon. Nothing but tears and squeezing my hand until I thought she was going to break it.

I asked if she was okay. No. I asked her if someone had hurt her, yes and more tears. I looked at my husband and I felt my heart stop. My worst nightmare was for someone to hurt my defenseless sister and she could never tell us who hurt her.

This was Friday, December 30. I called APS (Adult Protection Services) in Fairbanks and told them they needed to do an immediate investigation with my sister. They did and concluded my sister had been hurt, arm and ankle twisted, by my crazy niece, and threatened. There was a restraining order put in place (at least that's what the owner of the home told me) to prevent my niece's family from seeing my sister.

There's more to this story that I'm going to leave out, mainly because my niece is suing me, or at least she is threatening to sue me.

A lot happened my since my last post on December 30 to Sunday, January 8. Things I'd like to forget, but will probably haunt me the rest of my life.

Bottom line, my sister now lives here in Seattle, about fifteen minutes from my home. She's happy, and can't stop smiling. She went from being bedridden, living in a hell hole assisted living home in Fairbanks to a gorgeous adult family home with five other residents. In only 24 hours she was scooting herself around all day in her wheelchair.

She went from wearing the same shirt and Depends all day and night, and eating in bed to getting up (with help of course), getting dressed in real clothes and having breakfast, lunch and dinner in the dining room where she can look out large windows. She eats with the other residents. In her old home she was in a basement room with a little window she couldn't even see out of and had her meals in bed. It was horrible.

She's even making friends. They told me that she and the Alzheimer's lady (a former teacher with a masters in education) talk back and forth in their own strange secret language (can't wait to see that).

I can't tell you how much lighter my heart is these days. I know my lovely sister will never be like her old self, there was too much brain damage. I do now that now she is having the best quality of life she can have for someone in her condition. She's happy. Which makes me happy.

I'm in the Anchorage airport, waiting for my flight back to Seattle. Even though I made the trip from hell with my sister just two days ago when I basically kidnapped her and brought her to Seattle (I can do that as her legal guardian per the District Attorney's office), I had to go back to Fairbanks last night to testify in court against another niece about being evicted from my sister's apartment complex (which sold!).

I really should write a book some day.

It's going to be a long and busy day

Just had breakfast of an egg, thin slice of Canadian bacon and English muffin. It as a frozen store brand, Fred Myers here, but probably Kroegers in the rest of the world. It was a "Lite" version at 220 calories. Not sure of Points since not in Weight Watcher scan app, and I'm too rushed (or lazy) to put in the PointsPlus app. Love these app. Sort of tasty, fast breakfast.

Great visit with my sister last night. She couldn't stop crying when she saw me. I told her I sure hoped they were tears of happiness and not sadness. She laughed.

Husband is here and we're heading out to see my sister this morning, then appointments and then the house (the dreaded house and mass of paperwork).

No internet until I get home on Sunday morning.

Happy New Year!

Fairbanks, Alaska...hell has frozen over

I'm in the hotel dining room and just had a quick dinner of a salad and a hamburger patty. I took off the bun, and just ate the patty with the lettuce and tomatoes. I said no fries and a salad instead, they still  brought the fries and the salad. They're the skinny, seasoned fries and look really salty. I didn't eat any, didn't really even want them. I honestly can't remember the last time I ate beef. Actually, it tasted pretty good.

About Fairbanks, the most God-forsaken place I've ever been when it's thirty-three degrees below zero. I can't believe I lived in the interior Alaska for thirty years before I left here. I forgot how miserable it is when it's this cold. It literally hurts.

It was pitch dark when I got here at 3:30pm, and so cold I thought I had frostbite by the time I got the car scraped off (covered in ice and snow). It has awesome heated seats...a new requirement for any future Fairbanks rental cars in the winter.

I had a bit of an anxiety attack on the plane. Actually, I had it at work before I left for the airport and it just continued on the plane. A sort of mental breakdown after reading an email from my brother (who I thought liked me). He said I was too hard on my crazy niece, and our sister would want me to be kind to her and help her. I couldn't stop crying. This same thing happened to me after I think my third trip up here. Where the tears wouldn't stop and my heart ached with pain.

Honestly, I'm out of kindness, forgiveness and love when it comes to my niece. She's attacked me for the last time, and I will not fall for the false sweetness which turns to mean, hateful and very hurtful behavior.

I saw a quote in the Oprah January magazine that I left up in the room. Basically, it was about running away from toxic people. I get that. My niece is toxic. If I was to put a label on her, I would guess it's bipolar. I'm not sure, but there's definitely something wrong with her.

My husband is flying in later tonight. Thanks to Sarah's comment, we'll be having a bonfire of paperwork outside at my sister's house. She doesn't have a fireplace, but she has a 123 acres of land, no neighbors and the house sits on a river. Lots of snow too. Of course, not sure how I'll be able to handle the -40 temperature since her place is always ten degrees colder than in town.

Thanks you guys for all your kind comments. Your support and kindness continues to amaze me.

I'm off to see my sister. I hope I don't cry when I see her. It's just so sad, but it's life and I have to make the best of it.

Really? Fairbanks again?!

I swear I have the most dysfunctional, crazy, weird family in the world, and I don't mean that in a good way.

After weeks of listening to the whining and complaining about cleaning out their mother's house, one of my nieces (the most crazy of the crazy) called me yesterday (the first time since she changed all her phone numbers a month ago). She demanded to be paid for her time for helping her mother by cleaning out her mother's house, as well as for her gas for driving the six miles to the house.

Oh.My.God. Are you serious?  Yes, she was serious and NO-FREAKING-WAY will she get paid. I don't get paid and darn it...you don't get paid. May I remind you, this is for your mother! I'm just totally flabbergasted over this latest event. Who are these people?! Their mother, my sister, practically dedicated her life to them and this is how they repay her?

After contacting my attorney, I decided to fly up to Fairbanks tomorrow night. Friday morning I'm having all the locks changed on my sister's house. Then I'm meeting with an auctioneer at the house to discuss how to go about auctioning off all my sister's personal belongings and household items, then to the realtor to sign the listing agreement. My brother will visit the house once a week to make sure it's okay.

The children...they are DONE. I don't want to hearing about it anymore. They seem to take joy in telling me what a mess it is and how they're mother had a shopping problem and how hard they're working. I've had enough. Keep in mind these aren't young people, they're between the ages of 46 to 49 and neither of my nieces even have jobs.

Here's the forecast for Fairbanks, and where my sister's house is located twenty-three miles out of Fairbanks it's always ten degrees colder. That would make it a low of -46 degrees. Yuk.


I'm probably going to stay at my sister's house, which is going to be very weird. No internet, TV, or phone (and my cell phone barely works out there), I had it all turned off to save money. The main reason I'm staying there is I'm on a shredding mission while I'm there, to shred as much paperwork as possible in a day and a half. My sister doesn't own a shredder. That alone should tell you something.


The diet and exercise
Still at it, gym every day as usual. I didn't track my food today, but I don't think I ate enough because my family situation was stressing me out. The worst thing about going to Fairbanks is that I'll miss my Saturday Weight Watcher meeting. Very frustrating.

The good thing about this trip, I get to see my sister, even if it is for a short time. I really miss her.