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Mad graphic.
I’ve been having a moment. Well, a very long moment that started in January and has been building ever since. This isn’t book related so if you care to skip it, feel free.

Last Friday I did not have a good appointment with my Rheumatologist. My iron levels are leading me to a transfusion and my Vitamin D levels are so low that “heart event” was mentioned as was “stroke”. To make matters worse, my BP was 182 and it continued to go up as my phone kept going off from work. It was unreal. It has never been that high and the nurse took it numerous times.

My. Health. Sucks.

I take iron. I take Vitamin D. I make good food choices about 75% of the time. I am just not absorbing nutrients and this is not something I can even control so it made me angry. I suspect that Celiac as well as Lupus have done their damage and now I am just a sieve for nutrients to pass through. Plus the shape of my red blood cells are wonky too.

After three solid days of wallowing in my misery and being angry as heck, I started to feel very small for focusing on all the negatives but sometimes you gotta get it out of your system. I haven’t quite gotten it all out yet but I am close.

This week I am making small changes to fix the 25% of my diet and habits that are not so great.

I haven’t had coffee in nearly a week but I don’t plan to give it up, I just can’t drink it right now with my BP so high.
I’ve cut my portions in half and added more fish to my diet. The family is already complaining about that because I managed to stink up the house cooking up my lunches.
I’m not exercising yet because with the low iron levels my energy levels can barely get me through the day right now but that is coming.
Trying to sleep more. Trying.
Removing sync on my work email account as soon as I leave the building.
Trying to get up every hour to walk around. I was sitting for very long periods of time… maybe three hours of intense focus before getting up. Not good.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at right now. By December, when I find out who my new doctor is, I am hoping to be down 20 lbs. Sounds like a lot but I’ve lost three since Friday so really only 17 more!

So that’s it. I got mad, pouted, cried a little, threw myself on top of my bed and groaned like Harry Burns did in the Casablanca scene of When Harry Met Sally. Whatever I can fix, I will and if I can’t I won’t.

I’m over it now.

Everything I Never Told You
By Celeste Ng
(Penguin Books, Paperback, 9780143127550, May 2015, 320pp.)

The Short of It:

Tragedy sometimes brings people together. Sometimes it pushes them apart.

The Rest of It:

Surprisingly, this novel is called a literary thriller by some. A bit odd since we know from page one that Lydia is dead. I suppose the facts surrounding her death could make this a thriller, but I never considered it to be one.

When Lydia goes missing, her parents and siblings realize that they don’t really know who she hangs out with or what she does after school. She’s been leading a double-life in that what she portrays to her family, particularly her father, is a portrait of a popular, smart high school student when in fact she is not popular at all and not doing well in any of her classes.

This American-Asian family is trying to fit into a 1970’s small town Ohio neighborhood and their challenges are great. Of the three siblings, Lydia is the least Asian in appearance. Blonde with blue eyes but the rest of the kids get made fun of and although the father sees it, he chooses to ignore it thinking that what his kids need is a thicker skin, and to just work on being more popular. It’s a lot of pressure for them, especially Lydia which makes the reader question if her death is self-inflicted or something else.

What’s absolutely heartbreaking about this story is that even before Lydia’s death, this family had problems and her death seems to just bring them to the forefront. This family doesn’t communicate with one another. They don’t seem to fully understand or know what is going on in the family or if they do, they are in complete denial about it. There are a lot of missed opportunities to love one another, and that’s the real tragedy in this novel. And just when you want and hope for the parents to swoop in and be parents, they fail miserably and you are left shaking your head over it.It sounds so bleak and some of it is but there is some hope for a reader to cling to.

My book club discussed this and there was plenty to talk about. The topic of mixed marriage, ethnicity in general and the pressure for kids to perform were just a few things we discussed. Most of us felt that the author did a good job of going back and forth in time and sharing just a enough of each character’s perspective to get a feel for them without giving it all away. In that sense, there was an air of mystery to the story which made me want to turn the pages faster.

In summary, it was a pretty good read and gave us plenty to discuss.

Source: Borrowed
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