Know Your Enemy

'There are fifteen calories in this bit of toothpaste right now. If I brush my teeth with this much toothpaste then it would mean I'd have to do ten sit ups in order to burn off the calories and keep my metabolism up.

But the nurse is due round soon to take my stats for the morning. What if she walks in while I'm doing the sit ups? I'm not supposed to exercise so I don't want to get caught coz then they'll put me in a room with a camera.

The toilet is a one minute walk from my room. I have to walk for thirty minutes to burn one hundred and fifty calories which means that I have to walk to the toilet, back to my room and then back to the bathroom to walk for three minutes which would burn off about twenty calories. I could pretend that I left something in the toilet which is why I had to go back. They wouldn't think I'm exercising then, would they?

Oh crap! The nurse is moving me onto coffee rather than water today isn't she? Well one mug of black coffee is five calories. If I add skimmed milk then it will be fourteen calories. Which means I'll have to do the toilet routine again to burn that off. Surely she will let me have it black? I could tell her I'm lactose intolerant? Damn---they'd check my file. I'll just have to say that my bladder is really weak today.

Or maybe I could get away with walking round my room for three minutes? If I get caught then I could just blame it on boredom. Yeah---yeah I'll do that--- '

"Good morning Adrienne. Is now a good time to check your stats?"

'There is such a thing as knocking, you know'. "Yeah. Sure. Just let me brush my teeth and then go to the toilet."

---

Billie could pin point the exact moment Adrienne became conscious about her weight. They had just got back from New Orleans; they'd been taking part in Habitat for Humanity and had posted some pictures up on Green Day's website.

For the most part, the pictures were well received and had gotten positive feedback. But there had been one or two dicks who had taken it upon themselves to say insulting things about his wife.

At first she had laughed the comments off. But he realised that they had really gotten to her when he found that she'd been comparing pictures of herself with pictures of Mike's girlfriend, Brittany.

"What's this about?" he had asked when he found the pictures she had saved on the family computer.

"I was just checking something---"

"Checking what?"

"Nothing important."

"Tell me the truth Adrienne."

"She's so much smaller than me."

"And by smaller you mean---?"

"Thinner."

Her voice had dropped to just below a whisper and Billie wasn't exactly sure that he had heard her right. But when he saw how her eyes had misted over with tears, there was no mistaking it.

As soon as his arms were wrapped around her shoulders, she began to sob. "I feel awful," she said around her tears.

"But why, baby? You've never let fans' comments get to you before? Why let them bother you now?"

"It's not just the fans' comments. From looking at the different photographs I've realised that I have let myself go a bit."

"Let yourself go?! Don't be silly Adrienne. You're as beautiful today as you were the moment I met you. You have not let yourself go!"

"Well I think that I have."

He took her face between his hands. "Please don't let this get to you, Adie. You don't need to change for anyone."

"I need to change for me. To make myself feel better."

Sensing that he wasn't going to get anywhere, Billie stepped back and shrugged. "Well if you think you'll be happier dieting or whatever, then I can't stop you. But I just want to make my opinion clear that I think you're more than perfect as you are right now---"

How he wished that she had listened to him.

---

Adrienne had just finished the three minute walk around her room when the elderly doctor from the day before entered, and asked if it was OK to ask her a couple more questions.

Feeling happy that she had outwitted the doctors and had managed to exercise for a little while, Adrienne willingly complied and sat cross legged in her bed gesturing pleasantly at the chair opposite for the nurse to sit in.

"I'm sorry if I upset you yesterday Adrienne," the nurse began as she took her seat.

"That's OK. You were only doing your job."

The nurse smiled. "So I'm just going to dive right in today---tell me about your relationship with food."

"Relationship?"

"How do you feel about food?"

"I love food. I love buying it. I love cooking it."

"And eating it?"

"Sure. I eat."

"What's your favourite thing to eat?"

"Well my youngest son, Jakob, well he loves sloppy joe's. He'd eat them all day, every day if I gave him half the chance! And my eldest son, Joey, well he reckons he's a vegetarian at the minute but the other day, I drove past McDonalds and there he was---munching away on a hamburger!"

"You didn't answer my question---"

"Sure I did. I said I liked sloppy joe's and McDonalds."

"No. You said your sons liked them."

"But I meant that I also liked them too."

The nurse pursed her lips as she furiously scribbled down notes. "From looking at your charts I can see that the doctors have said that you've got to drink coffee now rather than water. How do you feel about that?"

"I feel OK. I like coffee."

"How often do you drink it at home?"

"Well my husband, he's obsessed with it so whenever he's home, there's always a full pot."

Once again, the nurse pursed her lips as she wrote. "I think I have enough for today Adrienne," she said somewhat sternly when she had finished writing. "I'll see you again in a couple of days. Thank you for your time."

The nurse chewed her lips nervously as she made her way down the hall and back to her office. Locking the door behind her, her shoulders drooped as she picked up her telephone and dialled the desired number.

She hated making this particular phonecall.

"Hello, is that Mr Armstrong?"

"Uhhh yeah, this is Billie Joe speaking. Can I ask who this is please?"

"Hello there Mr Armstrong. My name is Elizabeth and I'm a psychoanalytic nurse from the hospital which your wife is at. I hope I'm not disturbing anything?"

"No, no, not at all. Is everything OK? Is Adrienne OK?"

"Well---she is the reason why I am calling. But you don't need to worry, she's in good hands. I was just wondering if you could perhaps come down to the hospital at some point to answer a few questions about Adrienne?"

"Well---sure. But I'm pretty sure Adrienne can answer questions about herself better than I can?"

"That's the thing you see, Adrienne is in denial at the minute. She's doing something that we like to call deflecting. She thinks she is answering questions adequately enough, but what's she's really doing is deflecting the focus away from herself and onto other members of your family. I think I'll be able to get a better evaluation of her if I speak to you. Would that be OK?"

Billie's confusion gave way to eagerness. "Yes. Of course I'll help. I'm free whenever you need to speak to me."

Elizabeth smiled at the man's obvious love for his wife. "Could you come down later on this afternoon?"

"Yes. Of course. I've got to wait till my youngest son gets in from school and then I can drop him off at his Nana's with my other son then I'll be straight there."

"That's perfect. Thank you Mr Armstrong."

"No problem."

Elizabeth really wanted to help Adrienne, more so than any other patient. Not just for Adrienne's own sake, but for the sake of her dedicated husband as well.