Revelations and a Butt-load of Lace

So…let’s back up a bit. Or, more accurately, let me share some of my frenzied investigation after receiving the news that I was well on my way to *gasp* morbidly obese. Gastric bypass surgery was all the rage at the time. A girl I bowled league with had recently undergone the surgery. Hers was a life or death decision. Being just over five feet tall, and weighing in at close to three hundred pounds, her body had just about had it. Her doctor had indicated to her that, due to her legs being just about ready to throw in the towel and a plethora of other weight-related health issues, she would be in a wheelchair before her young daughter graduated high school. She would not see her daughter graduate from college. Her overworked heart was already throwing up warning signs that a cardiac ward was going to be a regular stop in her life very soon. Excercise was impossible, as she could barely walk short distance without having to sit and rest. There were no options for her outside of surgery and a drastic change in her life. She found the best surgeon possible, mortgaged her home and had the surgery.

I talked with her about her experience. The surgery was grueling. The medications she had to take had side effects. The post-surgery meal plan was restrictive and she had to make regular trips to Miami to follow-up with her doctors for at least the first year after the surgery. She had regular psychological counseling to attend and physical therapy to track her progress and monitor her health. But…it gave her a chance at maybe living to see her child grow up. The weight she had carried for years had done damage to her body…but the surgery at least gave her a chance.

So, then I dug in to research. The surgery was not for everyone. I read stories of people who had the surgery and ignored the after-care. I won’t even go into the details…but it wasn’t pretty. Especially the stories of people who were not morbidly obese, and had the surgery as a “simple” fix to simply being overweight. The recovery was not pleasant or quick. Not addressing how they became overweight in the first place, and returning to the same eating habits, often resulted in worse medical complications than just simple being fat. Add to that, the expense of the surgery (which at the time, if one saw a reputable specialist) was huge. Giving up what little we had, simply so that I could find a doctor who would do the surgery…even though I really wasn’t a candidate, seemed selfish to me.

So…I talked to everyone I knew who was trying to, or had succeeded at, losing weight. My conversations ran the gamut from people who were (no way to put this nicely) hooked on speed masquerading as diet pills to people whose lives had become consumed with obsessing over every morsel that touched their lips. I talked to people who had become gym-junkies, working out six days a week and who could talk of nothing but their battles with the bulge. I talked to people who had tried but given up…accepting their being overweight, yet living with the knowledge that, in the future, health would become an issue. They seemed defeated and angry. I talked to plenty of people who were on the same diets, diet pills, supplements and TV-advertised “miracles” that I had already tried. And I talked to a few people who attended Weight Watchers. Some were happy with it, some were not…but all of them had seen some success.

The one defining factor with everyone I talked to was that they all wished they had tried to do something prior to turning forty.

I was on the horizon of seeing forty…so if I was going to make a real effort to shed the weight, it would seem now was the time.

So…I made a list. I listed the things that my weight was stopping me from doing and the things that my weight made uncomfortable. Everything from the superficial to the embarrassing. I couldn’t shop in mainstream stores due to size restrictions. I had to consider the sturdiness and width of chairs I sat in. Running, after or away from anything, was not impossible…but resulted in much sweating, wheezing and most usually toppling over at some point. There were parts of my body I hadn’t been able to see in quite some time. My love of pretty underwear was trumped by my need to buy granny-panties. My digestive issues had me constantly worried about where the closest restroom was and worrying about who would hear me when I was using one. Sex was, to put it delicately, a dicey and somewhat stumbling affair. Yearly bathing suit shopping always resulted in my crying in a dressing room. Family members either tip-toed around the issue of my size, or jokingly made mean comments. The list went on and on. To be fair I made a list of the positive points as well.

That I was perceived as “jolly” and had a “pretty face” did not outweigh the cons.

Finally, I went back to the photos. I hadn’t always been heavy. It had slowly crept on over the years. I hadn’t been born this way. I was the master of my own creation. I had gone from your classic kid…

to your average high school student…

to a college student full of adventure…

And somewhere I had lost control…or maybe just ignored simply being sensible. I just stopped paying attention to me, and got lost in worrying about everything and everyone else.

My first realization, albeit a fleeting one, was captured in my wedding photos. This…is a whole butt-load of lace.

This kid, who wanted to be an Olympic swimmer/actress/model/vet/model/writer/princess…

did not deserve to end up being this woman…

…who was currently afraid of cameras, mirrors and folding chairs…and had stupid coffee-table-induced injuries simply because bending over restricted blood flow to her stubborn brain.

It was now or never. So…on an early Saturday morning I found myself, feeling beaten…embarrassed…angry and a little bit excited… climbing out of a car in the parking lot in front of a Weight Watchers meeting center.

And yes…I was wearing those overalls.

When Pants Explode

Waiting really is the hardest part. And, being me, I dealt with it in the most head-on manner. If there was a potential that I was sick, then I needed to get on the ball and get appointments to check up all areas of my health. I made appointments with my eye doctor, my dentist and even my gynecologist (in hopes that he would find some big, benign cyst that could explain away everything…be removed and prove Dr. McCute wrong).

Ahhh, my old friend Denial…steadfast and loyal, yes? Comfortable, reliable and always supportive.

“I mean honestly”, I thought, “I’m not THAT fat. I’m just a big girl. And I wear it well”.

To reassure myself of all this, and keep me busy between check-up appointments while I waited for the phone call, I started searching for recent pictures of myself. Two from the previous Christmas season…

I looked cute! And happy. My husband and I were, obviously, not missing any meals…but we looked jolly. Yes, this was my first notice of my multiple chins, but hey….look at that cute hair.

Granted, I did have a majorly hard time finding a dress for that event…but I did find one that I liked…eventually.

And hey….the family picture is happy and festive! The chins were there again…and maybe my sweater was buttoned up to hide that my jeans wouldn’t button…and if I recall correctly, I was more leaning on than embracing everyone because I was not feeling well after the holiday meal. But hey…it was a holiday! Everyone over-eats on a holiday!

Perfectly good excuses from a very productive and rational person. I was feeling better already. The call from the doc would most certainly come, and he would say that he had made a mistake…been in a bad mood that day…that I was perfectly healthy and not at all at risk.

Yeah…this looking at pictures idea was brilliant!

So I went to the dentist and was proclaimed cavity free. No signs of anything amiss. Hah! Take that doc!

The eye doctor was another win. My eyes showed no damage or evidence of diabetic issues, although it was pointed out to me that I would be needing glasses in the future. Of course I would. Most women in their mid to late thirties start to notice how much the squint to see the fine print. SO…I was perfectly normal. Double hah!

I hit the gynecologist appointment on a major high and made a point of letting him know that my GP had silly concerns about my weight. Could he fax my exam results over to Dr. McCute? Certainly.

Four days after my appointment with Dr. McCute the phone rang. I was having a little snack of bite-sized Oreo minis and browsing yet more photos to prove my point. Getting older? Sure? Not the skinniest girl on the block? Of course not. But still looking goooood. I had a photo in my hand when I picked up the receiver.

Dr. McCute’s nurse’s smiling voice asked me to schedule an appointment to meet with the doc. THIS was not the norm. All test results were delivered by phone or mail. I had never been called back in. I agreed, and hung up. Then I glanced at the photo in my hand.

The picture had been taken just a few weeks previously. We were on the river with another couple, having an awesome time. I felt good, and thought I looked slammin’ in my black bikini. I was sexy and outdoorsy! Looking at the photo with a somewhat changed perspective…I saw something else.

This was not the me I saw in my head when I looked in the mirror. I looked bloated, exhausted….and squint-eyed. I had back-fat that was visible from the front and my head was way out of proportion to the rest of my body. WTF?  And again…the crushing fear was back. I looked…sick.

When my husband got home from work that evening there was much discussion. Much moaning about having to go on yet another crazy, restrictive diet. Another bank account sucking plan that would provide me with tasteless food products and a Nazi diet plan that would make me miserable, and ultimately I would give up and feel like a loser…and then have to start the whole cycle again. My husband, who I’m certain was OVER hearing me boo-hoo, mentioned that the wife of a friend of his was going to try Weight Watchers…why not buddy up with her and see what it was like. I remembered trying Weight Watchers, sometime back in the late 80s. Weighing everything I ate? Being restricted from so much food that I loved? No. Thank you.

I got up from where I had been lounging in my now blood-free overalls and headed for the kitchen for the last of the Oreos.

My husband glanced up as I passed in front of the TV and said, “Did you know the side of your pants are ripped?”

I glanced left then right. Ripped they were. Right where the buttons on the side held them together. I tugged and tugged to try to see if they could be fixed. I couldn’t even get the pieces to meet. The fabric had given way out of sheer exhaustion from trying to contain what was evidently more of me than the apparel was suited to hold.

I continued on to the kitchen, got the Oreos and proceeded to eat them in silence alternately glancing at the side of my shredded overalls and at the river-bikini picture on the coffee table.

My meeting with Dr. McCute sealed my fate. I was not dying…or sick…but he was right. I was well on the road to reaching those twisted goals. The bonus? My gynecologist reported back that I had fibroid cysts. They were common in overweight women.

Crap.

Weight Watchers, no matter how horrible, was better than having regular pants-blow-outs and girly-part issues.

A Visit to Dr. McCute

So of course, by morning when my call was returned and I was less of a sobbing mess, I had scoured  the internet and Web MDed myself into being confident that I had some sort of disorder. Some imbalance that was causing my weight gain, dizziness, intestinal distress and the previously mentioned passing-out-coffee-table incident.

Note: Unless you are of a sound mind (not hysterically sobbing and wailing) and have some medical knowledge, walk away from Web MD and call your doctor in these situations. There’s a reason they make the big bucks and have all of those fancy diplomas on the wall. Telling a medical receptionist that you may very well have self-diagnosed their previously overlooking your obvious case of some obscure and long ago eradicated disease will only make them talk to you in an overly calming Mr. Rogers voice after which they most certainly hang up and roll their eyes.

My doctor’s office scheduled me an appointment for later that day, after I impressed upon them the size of the goose-egg on my head, still insisting that maybe I did have some rare disease that might need to be contained. I love my doctor’s office peeps, simply because they really do just stay strong and carry on no matter how psychotic a patient may be. Plus, the doc himself is cute. That helps in most situations.

Anyway, I arrived for my appointment and was weighed and ushered into the cheerful examination room that overlooked the tree-lined parking lot. I felt better already. Doctor McCute would diagnose whatever was causing me to be all bloaty, and prescribe something or send me to get tests…or whatever, to solve my list of problems. I sat there on the table, swinging my legs and watching a storm begin to drift in from the coast. The doc arrived, greeted me warmly (and cute-ly), looked over my chart and asked for my rundown of what had happened. After I finished the dramatization, he leaned back in his chair and gave me a warm, yet concerned smile. Like in movies….when they tell someone they have six months to live, or that they have a rare disease that doesn’t even have a telethon yet.

My heart skipped a beat and I braced myself.

“Kim, you have two choices.” Dr. McCute said, flipping a page on the chart forward to note some detail and then directing his eyes back to me. “Either lose weight, a lot of weight, now…or start saving for a wheelchair and some very expensive and painful surgeries that will only extend the time you have between now and an early death.”

Bam. Just like that. I wasn’t dying of some rare, exotic disease. Nothing strange or newsworthy at all. I was simply eating myself to death. Granted, this is why I like Dr. McCute. He’s a straight shooter. And he had mentioned my escalating weight before…but not like this. It had been about a year (maybe more…as I hate going to the doctor, and only did so when I was REALLY sick) since I had last seen him.

He showed me on his chart the number of pounds I had packed on since my last visit.

It was not a small number. It wasn’t even a medium sized number. It was a biggie with fries kind of number.

Next he very gently, but firmly, explained that…yes, his scales were calibrated regularly and in proper working order, and that the body I was given was built to function properly at and carry around  about X-amount of weight.

That number? Nowhere near the figure filled in beside “Current Weight” on my chart. Not even in the same zip code.

Dr. McCute (and now McSerious) explained that not one, but ALL of my symptoms, were due to my choice to eat like a high school football team and support the equivalent of a whole other person on my internal workings and infrastructure. My stomach issues? My aching knees and ankles? My dizziness? My headaches? My sweating? My shortness of breath? All because of me. No disease to blame. No imbalance. No organs or big-bones to point a finger at and sigh. So…no disease. Yay, me! Right?

“BUT” he said, looking even more stern, “Looking at your last set of blood work results, you are well on your way to diabetes, high blood-pressure and high cholesterol…and maybe, if you’re really unlucky, a massive heart attack. You aren’t there yet, or at least as of your last visit, but YOU WILL GET THERE.” I tried some “buts” and some “what ifs”, to no avail. In the back of my head I sort of remembered a suggestion that my weight was becoming an issue and that yes I did need to adjust my eating habits and maybe get my ass off the couch now and again. Sure thing, doc! I’ll get right on that!

I believe, after that last visit, I had gone to Steak N’ Shake for a large chocolate malt to hold me over until dinner and to reward myself for being a grown-up and willingly going to see the doctor. Yay me.

I was sent packing with a script for blood work, after a very detailed description of what I had in store if the blood work came back bad. Bad as in, sick…bad as in, prescriptions and multiple specialists and hospital stays in the very near future…bad as in handicapped parking place and possible forklift removal of my lifeless body from my home.

Given an inch and my mind will run with it until it reaches Absurdville, population: Me. But the doc wasn’t kidding. He made that crystal clear.

I made it down to the car and through the drive to the lab, and even through all of the peeing in a cup, poking and blood-sucking. Then it hit me. When I called the doc that morning, I had been all prepared to have something wrong with me. Something that could be fixed with a shot or a pill….or some sort of treatment.

But now…NOW?

I desperately wanted very much for nothing to be wrong.

And I was going to have to wait five to seven days to find out.