This Crazy Life

They’ve labeled her as OCD before.  I’ve disagreed.  We had a psych assessment done in November of 2022 and he did not find any OCD.  When she was most recently in ERC Denver they tested “extensively” two separate times and did not find any evidence of OCD, only anorexia.  This has always been my opinion, but I figure it doesn’t really matter how anyone wants to “label” her.  All that said, the cleaning has gotten crazy.  Everything must be clean.  You can’t touch certain things unless you clean this and that and then only touch it with a glove, and on and on and on.  I don’t think this is only about calories and food contamination now.  I truly think it is OCD and it’s intense.  I actually think some of the ED has moved to the OCD because of the continued stress of eating at home for this long.  Not that she’s eating enough, but she’s been eating more at home than she ever has for an extended period.  So it makes sense to me that new behaviors could be popping up.  But, also, because there always has to be more to her story.  Last Wednesday we were at the doctor.  Unbeknownst to me she had not pooped for 4 weeks.  Her stomach was sore and crampy, and her ankles and knees were swelling.  Luckily, she told her doctor about this.  Her doctor was concerned when we had these symptoms on top of a 10-pound weight loss and she sent us to the ER.  The stomach pain got her a CT scan.  The CT scan showed fluid around the liver and other spaces it should not be as well as an inflamed colon.  Their first thought was IBD.  Her blood sugar of 49 got her some glucose gel and Dextrose and her heart rate of 35 got her an EKG and later an ECHO.  All these combined got her admitted to the hospital.  She was NPO Wednesday and Thursday until about 6.  They were keeping her NPO as they waited for her to poop because they were going to plan on doing both an upper and lower scope.  She had not pooped so Thursday they fed her dinner and evening snack and then put her back on NPO.  She ended up pooping later that evening so they could run tests on that.  She was NPO until around 2 on Friday when she came back positive for CDiff.  So, they decided to treat the CDiff and not scope as they are assuming this was the reason for the inflammation.  I’m not quite so sure, but we are going to finish her antibiotics and reassess.  She then stayed in the hospital until Tuesday following a meal plan and getting her heart rate up before they would discharge her.  Basically, it’s been a lot.  And now she feels even dirtier because at some point she had to have eaten someone’s poop and now it’s in her stomach and it made her sick.  So that really helps the OCD.  And the OCD helps the ED because by the time she cleans everything she doesn’t have any time or energy to cook.  It’s a vicious cycle that I don’t see an end to.  I even suggested to her let’s just go back and drink and ensure or boost plus 3 times a day.  Let’s start w/ that.  No cooking, no cleaning.  But that’s too many calories and she’s not doing that unless her doctor says she needs to.  Thankfully, we go to see her doctor (and therapist) on Wednesday.