Hey guys... sorry, once again, for my absence. My uncle passed away unexpectedly on wednesday morning and he had chosen not to be embalmed, so the arrangements had to be made for yesterday. My niece (who has leukemia and an aneurysm) has a toxic gallbladder now, but they don't want to operate b/c she has pneumonia. It seems to me that if her gallbladder ruptures they'll have to operate regardless of the pneumonia, so I don't know why they just don't go on and take it out before there is a bigger mess to clean up. They want to send her to Cleveland Clinic to see a specialist for her aneurism. If she keeps going downhill at this rate, she won't make it till then. I am so fortunate and thankful that I have my health, and despite the stupid chronic pain, I'm still relatively healthy.

I have an enormous extended family... I know I've mentioned that before, but there were 12 kids on my mom's side and 8 on my dad's. All of them on my mom's side battle health issues (it would be easier at the doctor's office if the 'health issues' column had a 'select all' option, like my email inbox). My uncle was the 4th of the 12 to pass, and the 3rd in less than 2 years. He was only 63. He was a diabetic, had heart disease, needed oxygen to breathe, and was on kidney dialysis for the last year or so.

All of this because our family battles addiction.

Whether it's alcohol or food, someone in our family has had a problem with it. Emotional issues run rampant, depression/bipolar disorder and even one schizophrenic, stemming, I surmise, from the alcoholic emotional/physical/sexual abuse at the hands of my grandfather and my grandmother's suicide as a result of that. How does someone overcome that kind of thing? Food is the nice girl/guy's drug, so the ones who couldn't bring themselves to chemically comfort themselves just did it with food. And as a result, all their kids picked up on the habit.

I'm not trying to place blame, I'm just working all this out in my head and it helps me to see it in writing. And it helps me see my own accountability in perpetuating the cycle. My uncle's death because of these inner demons and bad habits has reminded me why I'm on this path, why I'm taking this journey at all.

I am not going to pass this crap on to another generation. My son got (what he calls) the 'fat kid speech' at the doctor's office the other day. My daughter is still watching what she eats but has plateaued. And we all still find ourselves abusing food. It's a process. I believe they call it 'insanity'.

Today is friday, weigh-in day. Today the scale goes back in the downstairs bathroom where I know I will use it, instead of upstairs where it's only used if I remember to do it. Today my food is already planned out. Today, I'm revisiting my initial goals of drinking water and spending at least 10 minutes outside (which I haven't done since I started the wretched philosophy class months ago). I have to do this. My family is depending on me. I don't want them to be grieving over me like we're all grieving over my uncle, like we've grieved over my 2 aunts and my mother. And I don't want my habits trickling all the way down to my grandchildren. It stops with me.