Dear Diary

[LyndaLu]

Dear Diary:

My niece and two great-nieces were just in town for a visit for two days.

The girls are 4 years old and 6 years old and are quite energetic and happy kids.

Their energy level was so amazing, it made me feel even older than I really am .

My niece and the girls were in town during their spring break from school, coming

into Phoenix from Idaho for a visit to see my elderly mother. My mom cannot

travel and so every once in a while my niece and the girls will fly down for a

two or three day trip. The visit went well and I think everyone had a good time.

My mom had not seen the girls or my niece for two years. Kids grow very fast

in two years . We all went out to dinner, along with my auntie and her

boyfriend. Then the next day I took my niece and the girls out to lunch for

my nieces 35th birthday. My sister was supposed to come along on the trip

also, but she got stuck at home in Idaho with the flu . I am sure that

my sister really missed being along for the visit.



My niece and the girls got delayed on

their flight down here and had to spend their first evening in a hotel in Denver !

My niece and the girls are international travelers and they travel quite well

and the lay-over did not make them any worse for wear. My nieces husband is

from Japan and the family travels there every year ( a 13 hour flight ).

I am amazed at the imagination and intelligence of the little ones,

they are so smart for being so young. The highlight of the trip for

the girls was being able to go swimming at the outdoor, heated pool

at the YMCA here in Glendale. They are taking swimming lessons in Idaho and

they swim quite well for their age. Gosh, they take piano lessons

too and they have tried skiing also. I sure did not do those things

when I was growing up! Maybe things are different for kids now-a-days?'



The little ones and my niece are now back in Idaho, enjoying

the rest of their spring break vacation time at home. They will be going back to

school on Monday. I am glad that my mom got to have some visitors

from out of town because she is all alone most of the time, and the

break from the daily routine was for sure a welcome one. When

you are older and almost home-bound, you enjoy any time you can

spend with other people, no matter how short that time is.

Lynda Lu

PS: The temperature is predicted to hit 92 degrees today. Say what !

[LyndaLu]

Dear Diary:
I feel crappy this weekend. My whole body hurts. My muscles hurt
and my joints hurt. And I am so tired. It just doesn't make any
sense. I have stayed home all weekend, which is probably not
helping my joints any by staying sedentary. I am supposed to be
starting Session Five of the program and this will be my hardest
Session ever because it is about eating right and exercising, two
things that I never do. Ugh. I am overweight and sedentary.
I have arthritis, bursitis and joint disease and because I hurt
I don't like to move around. But I need to move around so that
I hurt less. ( Sigh ). I have a feeling that I am gonna be stuck
on this Session Five for a while until I can get it all figured out.
I have access to a treadmill at my apartment complex "work-out"
room and so I have no excuse not to use the free treadmill.
I am just all bummed out this weekend because I don't feel
good and I am tired and I don't see how Monday is gonna be
any better. I am unemployed and have no where to go and
nothing to do. I never in my life thought that I would be in
this situation where I have all these physical things wrong
with me. I had something to do last week because my
relatives were visiting and I was busy helping my mom.
I gotta get out of this weekend slump and not turn it into
an entire week "slump". My sister in Idaho had the flu
for an entire week last week, so I guess I should not
be complaining about my aches and pains when she has
been SO sick ( and she has rheumatoid arthritis which
is worse than what I have and she has Sjogrens's
Syndrome too ). Lynda

[tina martin]

Lynda, I'm so sorry about weight and lack of exercise oppressing you. They are my anchors to deal with all I must. There was a segment on 60 Minutes tonight about the awful problems sugar causes. So maybe you can start there. It's a very addictive substance, tough at the outset. Key is not to bring it in to begin with.

Exercise is my great hobby. It is an adventure to explore any aspect. A treadmill is great. Make it interesting with music, a very good start.

[LyndaLu]

tina: Thank you so much for your support. !

[tina martin]

You're welcome, Lynda. I've been at this a long time and have learned that in supporting others, we also support ourselves. I need to do this for myself most every day. Am old and when I learn what happens to my old relatives and know I'm probably next, I can go under very easily. One cousin has suffered a debilitating stroke, a s-i-l collapsed with a broken hip, brother is dying a slow, hideous death. This can get rough.

What lifts me up every day is my walk and a connection to nature. It is good exercise but really so much more. This morning I am off to a gym and a yoga class. Don't always want to go, but would so hate myself if I did not go. So I bribe myself with a nice sporty outfit and go.

[LyndaLu]

tina: You are not " next " ! You are the healthiest person I have met here. You are my
inspiration.....I went for a 15 minute walk outside today. I took in the great Spring
weather, it was a sunny day with a nice breeze this afternoon. I was going to
walk on a treadmill, but then I thought why should I do that when the weather is so terrific.

I am sorry to hear about your relatives, but I just don't think that is the direction that YOU
are going. You are at the gym and doing yoga, that is fantastic ! Keep up the great work !

Lynda Lu

[tina martin]

Thank you, Lynda, that's very sweet of you. I do try my utmost. Yet our perspective can change when we see what happens to our peers. Exercise helps a great deal.

It is so good that you walked outside. It is something I look forward to every day. It is snowy today but I'll go anyway. The gym and yoga are at our city rec. centers. They are wonderful. I used to go to a weights training class, now can go on my own. Exercise to music is a joy every way. If you have a city rec. center maybe you can explore it. Ours has a TOPS (taking off pounds sensibly) program that is inexpensive and that people have found effective. Just a thought.

[Loveslife]

Dear Diary,

I've been away awhile, but you know how busy I've been. I won't apologize for my absence as I simply do not have any emotional energy to spare. I realized today that I am going through every stressor one can go through in life, with the added stressor that my daughter is in a maximum security prison.

I'm moving in approx. 6 weeks to Florida and today I am mind numbingly sad. Beyond sad.

I talk to Brooke every night on the phone around 9 when she calls me collect. She is reading the 7 Wonders That Will Change Your Life.

I just got back from my 2nd prison visit. Tears are streaming down my face and mascara is all over the place. We talked for two hours and played cards. I brought her the few things she asked for, which were mostly rice cakes and food without calories.

I met her AA counselor and she seems nice.

Prison is a very .....searching for the right word.....desensitizing place. She introduced me to Amanda who murdered someone, I forgot the story. Whatever.

I had such hope that she would make it when she leaves prison in September. She will go from prison to a shelter and then hopefully be accepted to the realization program in NY which is a full time out patient program. She wants to take the injection that Dr. Keith wrote about. I'm going to try to set up an appointment with him so that I can learn how this can be done.

I'm in tears because I noticed today that her nose is caving in. Her teeth are practically gone, she is almost bald, BUT HER NOSE IS CAVING IN.

I looked it up on line. It's from cocaine use. Eventually the cocaine breaks down the cartilage in the nose and it caves in. Even if she stays clean, her nose will continue to cave in. Only a huge, huge, huge operation can fix her nose, and that's not going to happen because I don't have the money to pay for it. Her stepmother does. Her father won't communicate with her until she is out of prison, but she needs hope and positivity in her life NOW, so I am trying to provide that for her.

I am slowly, bit by bit, losing my daughter right before my eyes.

Julie. Well Julie dodged a huge cancer scare, but will need to be checked every six months for the rest of her life.

She tested positive for carrying the cystic fibrosis gene. Her fiancé now is required to be tested, and if he is positive too then there is , well I don't know really.

When I learned this I went off the deep end on a rant about forced mandatory testing and how we are trying to create perfect children.

My psychiatrist told me that was because that was the "safer" place for me to go. I chose to focus on the cause and effect the testing will have on our society, rather then the fact that I might never become a grandmother. Or rather, Julie might never become a mother. Or, she may become the mother of a child with Cystic Fibrosis.

On a positive note, I adore, adore, adore, Julie's future stepdaughter, 2 year old Julie. (yup, same name). I took her for a manicure and out to friendlies for her first restaurant meal and video taped the whole thing. Scott, my future son in law said that some day little Julie will call me Grandma. I don't care if it's wrong. I want her to call me grandma. I love her as if she were my own grandchild. The waitress told her and my Julie how lucky they were to have me in their lives.

Diary, Brooke's nose is collapsing. Diary, I don't think she is going to survive. Her eating disorder is the root of her problems and I just can't fix her.

Love,
Me.

PS
All Brooke wants is a simple life. She said she deserves to be happy, she wants to remain clean, she would like to be married and be a drug counselor and try to help someone else.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GOD PLEASE LET HER DREAMS COME TRUE.
Courage. We talked a lot about courage.

[Loveslife]

Dear Diary,
I am continuing to pack and talking to Brooke every night. She cries every night into the phone and I just try to soothe her.

She is so obsessed about her eating disorder and counts her calories or tries to anyway, from prison. She told me that every time I visit she has to have a "cavity" check on the way back to her "section".

I have nightmares about this every night now. She said she still wants me to visit and I'm the one keeping her going.

Please, Dear God, let my daughter have a happy and healthy life soon.

I printed out the article that Dr. Keith wrote and I'm going to mail it to her today, as she and another inmate want to learn about it.

I can't bring the article to her, it has to be mailed.

My heart is so heavy.

On another note, I absolutely adore Julie's new family and her new soon to be step daughter. I love being with little Julie.

I love it.

Love,
Me.

[Loveslife]

Dear Diary,

I have just re read my last two entries and I must say that after reading them I was in such a desperate place.

I visit Brooke every Wednesday in prison and we talk every night on the phone. It is so surreal. So unbelievably surreal.

I see people in the visitors room and then go home and google the prison and look up some of the names and match their pictures with the people that I see and sure enough, some of the people I google and read about were sitting just a few feet away from me.

Brooke is literally in prison with some of the worst murderers in the world. Wednesday I was sitting next to a woman who had her husband gunned down.

The "black widow" is there.

Ugh, I better get off this train of thought.

Brooke is getting stronger each week.

We are finally talking (or I am finally learning how to talk about) her eating disorder and how to overcome it. She is learning after 16 years how to let food remain in her stomach. Each day is a struggle for her, but she has only purged once since being in prison. She tells me that eventually her thoughts will catch up with her actions and she will be well.

I am starting to have faith that she will be well. This whole thing has always been about her eating disorder. The drugs were just away for her to try to curb her appetite, and then she became a hard core addict.

So, we sit and play Uno, her favorite card game, during our visits. Her hair is starting to grow in and she had color in her face for the first time 2 days ago. She is terribly frightened and is suffering severe panic attacks, so I have asked her to call me when she has a panic attack so I can try to talk her off of the ledge.

She said last night she is scared she is going to have a heart attack and die in prison.

It's important that she maintains calm because if she doesn't, and has a panic attack, they can take her out of "the alternative drug program" and she won't be released after 6 months. She will end up serving 2 years so it is imperative that she remain calm.

She is so terrified of the murderers around her and said that rule number one is "no eye contact".

Anyway, hopefully Brooke will be released at the end of September.

I do believe she will remain clean and I do believe that her eating disorder will no longer be the center of her life.

She is actually eating and keeping food down.

Her teeth are falling out. That's what she told me.

Oh Diary. I'm so sorry that I'm not writing anything uplifting, but I need to get all of this out of me. I see my psychiatrist faithfully every Monday at 1pm and she is really helping me through this and helping me help Brooke.

I have nightmares every night that I'm in prison or cell doors are closing on me.

It's so weird when I go to visit her. Just the whole process is weird. The facility is so old and across the street is where the old death row inmates were housed. Now, pregnant inmates are housed there and they are allowed to keep their babies with them until the baby turns two.

I do not believe/feel that Brooke should be locked up with killers. It is just all wrong.

Oh, and her drug program diary, do you want to know what she is learning in her "drug program?"

They played a game yesterday called "The ghetto picnic". I'm going to a ghetto picnic and I'm going to bring .... Brooke said "apples". The next girl said "barbiturates, the next girl said "cocaine", the next girl said "drugs", on and on. I asked Brooke where the drug "counselor" was and she said she was behind a glass wall and not listening.

Brooke does go to the AA meetings and the NA meetings and she said those meetings are helpful. She also goes to the chapel.

Ok, I'm done.

This is consuming me.

I resent anyone right now who is not in jail. It's true. i feel so angry all the time, unless I'm talking to Brooke.

The good news is that God is giving me the strength to handle this. I've been praying to God to make Brooke stronger, but it turns out he is making me stronger.

Love to all and I'm very sorry that I have been of no support to anyone.

XO

J.