My journey...obesity and me...here we go!

Apr 23, 2010

People are asking me why am I taking the easy way out and why can’t I just do it on my own with diet and exercise….

well, first let me say I haven’t found anything that’s going to be easy about the lifestyle changes I am about to adopt into my life for the rest of my life having gastric bypass and, secondly, I’ve been dieting since 1972 and I weigh 295 lbs with a BMI of 56 and am on many, many medications a day for hypertension, hyperlipidemia, hypothyroidism, a bipap machine with oxygen etcetera. I think if I could do it “on my own”, I would have figured it out by now at the age of 52. 

The problem is I feel like I’m going to die any day now. Not only can I not breathe, I can’t move either. I can barely wipe my rear end without doing aerobics to reach while pulling the muscles in my sides as I twist and turn to reach to allow myself to feel cleaned. Nasty, huh…

And then there’s those wonderful yeast infections that I get under my breasts and my hanging stomach, don’t think I’ll be missing those much. I don’t even want to walk in my own neighborhood or go out in public, especially with my very attractive husband. 

I’m tired of being disabled due to my weight. It has haunted me my entire life for as long as I can remember with the exception of a few short years in the late 80’s and early 90’s when I consecutively lost 102 pounds at once and managed to maintain it for quite a few years within reason until my thyroid crashed and burned. After that, I was so depressed, bitter, angry and frustrated that I just went back to all of my old habits and here I am at 295 constantly depressed about my weight and wondering if I’ll live long enough to even make it to and through surgery. I would enjoy being able to take a shower without running out of breath. I would like to put my own socks and shoes on and tie them because I sure can’t do it now. I would like to be able to not have the steering wheel hit my stomach when I drive or grow longer legs and I don’t think there is any chance of that happening. I’d love to be able to wear heels again, cross my legs, go out without shame, have a normal BMI, not stand out in a crowd, not be the biggest girl in the room, not have to have blood drawn from my hands because my veins are nowhere to be found, not be medically morbidly obese or super obese, not have headaches due to a pseudo tumor cerebri that only fat people get, not have a towel only reach a third of the way around my huge body. I don’t even put lotion on my body because I’d have to buy it in a 5 gallon bucket and I can’t reach much to put it on anyway. I avoid mirrors and don’t recognize the woman I’ve seen in recent pictures.  I’m tired of being limited to one intimate position and praying that my husband can even get an erection considering what he has to deal with. I want to be able to enjoy be touched and not cringe at the thought of how gross I am.   

On May 8^th my husband and I are having a 10^th anniversary wedding and my biggest fear whether or not I’ll be able to walk down the aisle and stand there for 15 minutes without my back collapsing because my back hurts now just emptying the dishwasher for five minutes.

I walk like a penguin and my thighs rub together making them chaffed and raw. I can’t get out of my own way. I can’t see my toes. My pants look as wide as I am tall. I feel so old and unattractive. I feel judged, discriminated against, disrespected and misunderstood. My back hurts so badly just by standing for more than a few minutes and I get out of breath just walking around the house. I weigh twice as much as my husband and almost three times as my 20-year-old daughter. There are endless reasons why I don’t ever want to be obese again and I don’t want to forget any of them so that I never, ever end up here again.

I want to live and if I am taking the easy way out so be it.

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