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Another Mother's Story

By: Barbara

In January 1999, Kelsey, my 10-year old daughter, asked if she could go to a weight loss camp in the summer instead of her usual camp. She had been cruising the net and had one all picked out. Her father and I reasoned that even though our daughter wasn't really overweight, if the camp would make her feel better about herself, why not? Since it was located in La Jolla, near her grandparents, we agreed that she could go. We contacted the camp, sent in the money, and put that little "to do" out of our minds. With that seemingly innocent request and unbeknownst to us, Kelsey took the first few steps on what would become a single-minded and harrowing journey toward death by self-imposed starvation.

She began to diet and exercise. It all seemed so innocent that winter. We approved; after all, she could stand to lose a little weight, right? Slowly, so slowly that we never noticed it, she cut many foods then whole food groups from her diet. A few months passed. She stopped eating with us, saying that she'd already eaten or would eat later. When we forced her to eat dinner with us, she was sullen and simply pushed her food around on her plate.

People began to comment on her new thinness. Kelsey was thrilled and loved the attention. By then, and without much success, her dad and I were trying to tempt her to eat with foods she once loved. We were beginning to suspect that Kelsey�s new eating pattern might not be healthy.

Late that spring our housekeepers pulled me off to the side and whispered, "She's getting VERY thin, don't you think?" I took a new look at her and felt a ragged, painful tearing inside my heart. She was, indeed, far too thin. I took her to the doctor, who talked with her at length about proper nutrition and made a deal with her regarding what she would eat each day. I really thought Kelsey would uphold her end of the deal. She'd always been such a trustworthy girl.

However, the weight continued to come off, albeit more slowly. I noticed she was cold all the time, even in the warmth of late spring in California, so I bought her warmer clothes. She seemed to be weighing herself obsessively; frightened, I took away her scale. She didn�t read much anymore, an odd occurrence since she�d always been a voracious reader, so I bought new books for her, new magazines. She accepted them with a smile but they sat, I saw, untouched. She was tired all the time but kept up her exercise, pushing herself until she was ragged and shaking. Her dad and I forbade her any exercise unless she first ate something. None of that helped curb her decline.

At the beginning of June 1999, I called her camp and explained to them that she no longer needed to lose weight and asked if, perhaps, she should not come. They were very reassuring and convinced me that they dealt with all kinds of kids, all sorts of eating disorders. They would assign her to a counselor well versed in her problems and she would be with other kids who were not eating enough. As long as she ate enough calories a day, they told me, she would be fine in their program. Since I was still very innocent with regard to Kelsey's problem, I agreed to their plan with a sense of profound relief that someone who knew about this would be working with her. I had no idea that, by then, she was eating far less calories a day then they had suggested. I had no clue that with each set of sit-ups, with every passing day, she was edging closer and closer to death.

Near the end of June we sent her off to visit her grandparents for a week. We figured that if she didn't eat much while with them, she would still be okay. It was just one week, right? They would drop her at camp at the end of the week. We knew the people at her camp would manage her food intake; they were professionals, after all.

Three days after she began camp, the officials called to tell us that she wasn't eating and they couldn't keep her there if she didn't begin to eat XXXX calories daily, on her own. A day later they called asking us to make arrangements to fly her home; she was probably anorexic, they said, and definitely very ill. We didn�t know anything at all about "anorexia". Just the word scared us badly.

Kelsey arrived home on Friday July 2nd. We had just learned that in August, the next month, we would be moving from northern California to Spokane, Washington, a place I had never even visited. Between the time Kelsey arrived home and the end of July, we managed two very long weekends in Spokane, weekends we had to devote single-mindedly to finding and buying an appropriate house. During this period, several times weekly, Kelsey was seeing an eating disorders specialist in our northern California town. It was in the middle of this hectic, wild, worried time, that we finally got a diagnosis about Kelsey�s condition. She was definitely, frighteningly, intently, anorectic.

Three days after we moved Spokane, Kelsey turned eleven years old. Two days later, on August 15th, she was admitted into the pediatric intensive care unit at a local hospital. Kelsey, our incredibly determined daughter, had managed to lose a great deal in about six months, almost half her body weight.

When she was admitted to the hospital, her digestive system was not working at all. Her heart was beating irregularly. Her brain had shrunk. Her core body temperature was way too low. The hair on her head was coming out in handfuls and she was growing lanugo on her abdomen. She was yellow. We had her admitted over her vehement protests. She still wanted to lose more weight. Her doctor told us that she was only a handful of days away from death.

I held her as she cried weakly, like the scared little girl she was, when they pushed the feeding tube down through her nose, through her stomach, and into her intestines. Her dad and I spent night after night, day after day, in her hospital room. We flew a procession of relatives and friends to Spokane, to care for our two-year old son, so we could spend time with Kelsey. We watched her fight her doctors about eating. We heard her scream at them, hating them for wanting to "make her fat". She screamed at us too, for the same reason. It was an exhausting, painful, ragged, hurting, confusing time for us all.

The doctor in charge of managing her anorexia, the renowned Dr. Jim States, took it all in stride. Her wonderful counselor, Lisa Middaugh, came to see Kelsey daily, as did the nutritionist. The fourth member of the team was another counselor, Rick Graff, who worked with her dad and me, trying to keep us somewhat balanced in the midst of the horror that had overshadowed our lives. We needed all this help, we were told, to get through the crises and on into the healing beyond.

She was in the ICU for more than two weeks, then in the regular pediatrics unit for another couple weeks. Throughout that time, her doctors, nutritionist, and counselors, the "team" that was charged with her care, worked tirelessly to insure her survival. Through that time we slowly grew accustomed to the idea of having a critically ill child. We slowly began to see some light beyond the dark clouds of our worst fears. Dr. States and his team would save our child.

She was released from the hospital in mid-September. A couple weeks later the feeding tube was removed. She began 6th grade the day after it came out. Though it was a few weeks after everyone else went back to school and new school to boot, she was glad to be there, glad to be doing something "normal".

That was in late September. Since then, she�s had the feeding tube replaced and removed again, twice. We�ve learned to not soar too high when she�s doing well and not to drop too low when she�s sinking. We�ve learned that this is a family disease and that Kelsey�s run with the anorexia-demons is only the outward manifestation of the ills unvoiced inside our family. We�ve learned that we all love each other and there�s nothing we cannot get through, given patience and honesty and a high tolerance for emotional and physical pain.

She�s doing better now, in these last few days before Christmas. A couple of days ago she confessed to me in a small voice that she was craving just a taste of fudge, just a sliver.

"It�s been so long," she said, sounding like a sad child, "since I�ve had any chocolate at all. Since last Christmas, I think. A year ago."

"Then have some," I told her, my heart breaking for the long, self-imposed, sterile austerity of her diet. No chocolate? She�s only just eleven. She�s missed a whole year�s worth of chocolate bunnies and birthday cakes with chocolate icing and late night hot cocoa and staying up too late with her girlfriends to whisper and eat M&M;�s.

"Maybe I will," she answered, surprising me. "Maybe I will."

~~~~~

Kelsey will recover. We grieve for the girls who do not, though, and offer their parents our most profound condolences. To the parents just beginning the journey through anorexia-hell with their child, I offer my deep and tender hope that your daughter someday craves �just a sliver of fudge�.

We�re all pretty worn out here in Spokane Washington in the last few days of 1999. We�re looking forward to health and quiet pleasures in the year to come. I wish them to you, too.

Be well.
Barbara, Kelsey�s mother
[email protected]

©2001 Barbara. Reprinted with Permission.

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