Friends

Today has been good so far. I saw two dear friends, unfortunately, I was visiting them in the hospital! My friend N is on psychiatric for the eating disorder treatment. We'd been planning a visit today for a few days now. As it worked out, a mutual friend of ours (we both know her from eating disorder groups, although different ones...) was in the general hospital for a non-eating disorder related ailment, a condition called SMA, that is quite uncommon and generally happens only in young women who are thin. Many physicians and nurses are relatively unaware of this condition, and in turn mistake it FOR eating disorders, brushing off the patients with this condition as having anorexia. What happens in SMA is an artery moves where it shouldn't and squeezes around the duodenum, the first section of small intestine from the stomach. This makes eating very difficult, as severe pain results, and vomiting as well. As patients lose weight, it can get worse, because the cushioning fat disappears (kind of a catch-22). Anyways, my friend on psychiatric still only has 30-minute accompanied wheel-chair passes, but that was enough for me to take her over to see our friend D. D is on iv fluids as well as a feeding tube that is past the tightened part of her intestine, and they're waiting to see if by gaining a little weight it will not require surgery, but it likely will.

Let's hope none of my other friends get any other rare ailments for the next few weeks at least! I can only make so many prayer shawls at once!