Perhaps it was serendipity. My niece, my beloved god-daughter, just completed a major rite of passage -- she graduated from high school yesterday. While the entire year has been full of milestones -- driver's license, college acceptance, prom, senior spring break -- these past two weeks seem to have magnified it all, and both my sister and I pulled out our own yearbooks to relive our own glory days.
There is barely a page in my year book that does not have some message of encouragement and congratulations written by someone who was so important to me that I knew we would be thiscloseforever. Folded inside the pages are yellowed newspaper clippings documenting first our football team's march to victory in Nassau County Conference II-A, and then my exhausting track and field schedule. I ran cross country in the fall (the absolute slowest member of the team, I wasn't even on the senior picture -- I must have still been on my way back from the circle), winter track, and then spring track, where my specialty was the 1 mile race walk, at which I was pretty good. Our entire team was exceptional, winning championships and accolades tall year long. That, however, was not the memorable part. What I remember most was the fun we had.
We were always laughing. We were incredibly goofy. We traveled as a pack. We even went to senior prom as a team -- most of us not with dates, but with opposite-sex friends who traded running shorts for prom dressed and tuxes for one short night. And of course, we promised we would stay in touch and always be friends.
But that didn't happen. I am actually not a great long-distance friend (although social media has helped tremendously on that front). I left Long Island for college, and pretty much never came back. We all went our separate ways -- schools, jobs, marriage and kids for most. It's not that we stopped caring about our earlier friendships, it was just that our everyday lives were more pressing, and a lack of proximity led those friendships to fade. And for me, I guess, to forget how amazing the people I grew up with were, how kind and caring and accepting.
As I grew heavier, I became more and more embarrassed about seeing my old friends. I was no longer the little runner I was in high school. I had stopped running a long time ago. As I watched them document their continued activity in local fun runs and national marathons, I was sure that they would look at me in horror, and wonder what had happened to me.
Never one for being photographed, I did the best I could to avoid the camera lens, and rarely posted pictures of myself on Facebook, so unless they saw me in person, my friends wouldn't know how heavy I had become. I thought I was protecting myself, when in fact, I was hurting myself by keeping away from the people who were so instrumental in my becoming the person I am today.
And then, after 25 years, one of my oldest and dearest friends reached out after reading my first post about this journey. We've been in touch through Facebook for a few years now, and she has said before that we should get together, but I was always afraid. This time, though, she knew what had become of me, knew of my struggle with my weight, and STILL WANTED TO SEE ME, to have me meet her family!!!! So the next time I went to see Long Island, I messaged her, and she invited me for coffee.
I was terrified, and felt a little like a kid on Christmas Eve. I couldn't wait to see her, and the high school classmate she married. When I pulled up to her house, I took a deep breath, and opened the car door, at the same time she opened her front door. We rushed to one another, through our arms around each other, and had the best friend hug I think I've ever had. Once inside the house, her husband did the same. It was as if the past 35 years had melted away, and we were high school seniors all over again. I was that girl again, not the morbidly obese woman I had become.
We spent the next two plus hours catching up, telling stories, and remembering why we had been so close. Two of their daughters joined us, and must have thought we were just the biggest goofs. We laughed so much and so hard, and there were a few tears remembering friends who we had lost over the years. And then, it was time to leave. But this time, when we said good bye, we knew it wasn't forever. Jill and Chris opened the door, and I intend to cross that threshold regularly.
Next time, I hope some of our other friends will join us. For now, I am curling up with my yearbook, reminiscing over great times and remembering great friends, thankful to Jill for not judging, and looking forward to getting together again. What a great outcome of this crazy journey.
Monday, June 29, 2015
Sunday, June 14, 2015
How did I gain all this weight?
You don't just wake up one day, decide to have weight loss surgery, make an appointment, and go in. Before the surgeon agrees to do the surgery, and perhaps more importantly, before the insurance company approves coverage, you need to go through an extensive battery of tests: blood work, GP, psychiatric consult, endoscopy, nuclear cardiac stress test, pulmonary function test, ultrasound, nutritionist, pre-op educational session and of course, pre-surgical clearance. Managing all these appointments, along with a full-time job, can be tough, which is probably why on Thursday morning I had a total melt down and cancelled two doctors' appointments I had that day.
(Reminder to self, don't ever schedule anything more taxing than a pedicure the week leading up to the biggest fundraising event in our annual calendar. Our golf invitational, which nets over $135,000, is tomorrow. We are over-subscribed, players are changing by the minute, silent auction gifts are still coming on, and, oh, there is a monsoon going on.)
Back to the topic at hand...
Even harder than managing all this is the repetitive questioning, which over time become humiliating: how much do you weigh (too much)? How tall are you (not tall enough)? How long have you been overweight (forever)? When/how did you gain all that weight (I don't know).
That last question has proven to be the most vexing. Before, when I was "normal" weight, I would see obese people and wonder how they let themselves get so big? Didn't they see the scale inching upward? Why didn't they stop? Now, I know.
I didn't see myself getting so big. Sure, I gained weight in college - the dreaded freshman fifteen, and then got back to running, stopped eating every carb offered in the cafeteria. In grad school, where I was absolutely miserable, I stopped eating, ran and did aerobics obsessively. I started working at a local gym, and began weight training, too. I returned to my undergraduate alma mater for a year, working first in the training room and then the alumni office. My roommates were undergrads, and athletes, and our meals were comprised of more junk food and ice cream than lean proteins and veggies, and the weight started creeping back on.
My first "real" job was running a call center for Georgetown University as part of their multi-million dollar fundraising campaign. My compensation package included an expense fund, and my colleagues and I would go to a local restaurant late afternoon every day for a big meal before we started calling at 5:00 pm. We would work until 11 or so, go out for a drink, go home to bed, and start all over again. I started gaining, slowly at first, until I realized I was 30 pounds overweight. By then I had amore normal job, was eating on a regular schedule, started running, and found Weight Watchers. I lost all my excess weight and kept it off long enough to become a life member. I even started leading WW meetings as a sub.
I maintained my weight loss for a good period of time, even keeping it off once I move to New Jersey. I continued to run, started to ski, and even bought a bicycle, which I eventually took to China for a two-week tour with friends. I was active, healthy, and happy. Then things started to break.
First, it was my heart. I had moved to NJ believing that I was in love with a man who lived there, and if we just lived closer to one another, we would marry. Well, that didn't happen, and I didn't take it well. I started drinking (not obsessively, but more than I should), which then lead to my loosening control over my eating habits. And as most people know, when you are drinking, or are hung over, you don't want carrots and celeries. You want McDonald's.
Then I broke my wrist, followed by my hip. While the former kept me out of the gym for several weeks, the latter kept me sedentary for almost two years, between the first surgery to fix the break, and the second to remove the pins. The pounds started coming on fast and furious, and I was soon hovering around 180. I was so excited when a colleague from work, who had lost 60 pounds, told me about phen-fen. I tried it and loved it! I was down 30 pounds before they pulled it from the market. But I had never really embraced healthy eating, so I quickly gained them all back and then some.'
During that time, I was going through a lot of change -- new jobs, new homes, new relationships, and then 9/11. When the planes hit the World Trade Center, I was working as a fundraising consultant for the Red Cross, and was asked to help with the disaster recovery. That first day, I set up a calling center, and all missing persons calls were directed to me. It soon became clear that the calls I was fielding were for people who had been seen last on the higher floors of the Twin Towers. In the months to come, I would check names off my list as I read about them in the New York Times' "Lives Remembered" section.
Those names, and that experience, haunted me, until I had a complete meltdown on an airplane from Newark to New Orleans on my first Katrina recovery trip. I was flying a three-seats-across plane, and had a panic attack that was so severe I asked the flight attendant if they could land the plane and let me off. She had obviously dealt with this before, though, and lined up a bunch of airplane bottles of gin in front of me, even though it was just 9:00 in the morning. A kind doctor in NOLA prescribed me with anti-anxiety meds that enabled me to get on a return plane 10 days later, and see my physician in NJ who prescribed me with PTSD. My way of dealing with that was to eat.
I never went back to running or biking, though I did work with a personal trainer for a while. I climbed Crough Padraig, the tallest mountain in Ireland. I also tore the cartilage in both knees, and had surgery on both, about two years apart. After that, I was never able to really get back on track. I watched the needle on the scale go up, but my everyday life didn't seem affected. I was still, for the most part, able to do what I wanted.
Unconsciously, though, I cheated, using my parents and my cousin Don, who had Parkinsons, as a way to hide whatever limitations I had. I was the one who always stayed with them, walked slower, took cabs, or used golf carts to get from one place to another. Somehow, I didn't realize that I too was now relying on them, not able to get around on my own.
(Reminder to self, don't ever schedule anything more taxing than a pedicure the week leading up to the biggest fundraising event in our annual calendar. Our golf invitational, which nets over $135,000, is tomorrow. We are over-subscribed, players are changing by the minute, silent auction gifts are still coming on, and, oh, there is a monsoon going on.)
Back to the topic at hand...
Even harder than managing all this is the repetitive questioning, which over time become humiliating: how much do you weigh (too much)? How tall are you (not tall enough)? How long have you been overweight (forever)? When/how did you gain all that weight (I don't know).
That last question has proven to be the most vexing. Before, when I was "normal" weight, I would see obese people and wonder how they let themselves get so big? Didn't they see the scale inching upward? Why didn't they stop? Now, I know.
I didn't see myself getting so big. Sure, I gained weight in college - the dreaded freshman fifteen, and then got back to running, stopped eating every carb offered in the cafeteria. In grad school, where I was absolutely miserable, I stopped eating, ran and did aerobics obsessively. I started working at a local gym, and began weight training, too. I returned to my undergraduate alma mater for a year, working first in the training room and then the alumni office. My roommates were undergrads, and athletes, and our meals were comprised of more junk food and ice cream than lean proteins and veggies, and the weight started creeping back on.
My first "real" job was running a call center for Georgetown University as part of their multi-million dollar fundraising campaign. My compensation package included an expense fund, and my colleagues and I would go to a local restaurant late afternoon every day for a big meal before we started calling at 5:00 pm. We would work until 11 or so, go out for a drink, go home to bed, and start all over again. I started gaining, slowly at first, until I realized I was 30 pounds overweight. By then I had amore normal job, was eating on a regular schedule, started running, and found Weight Watchers. I lost all my excess weight and kept it off long enough to become a life member. I even started leading WW meetings as a sub.
I maintained my weight loss for a good period of time, even keeping it off once I move to New Jersey. I continued to run, started to ski, and even bought a bicycle, which I eventually took to China for a two-week tour with friends. I was active, healthy, and happy. Then things started to break.
First, it was my heart. I had moved to NJ believing that I was in love with a man who lived there, and if we just lived closer to one another, we would marry. Well, that didn't happen, and I didn't take it well. I started drinking (not obsessively, but more than I should), which then lead to my loosening control over my eating habits. And as most people know, when you are drinking, or are hung over, you don't want carrots and celeries. You want McDonald's.
Then I broke my wrist, followed by my hip. While the former kept me out of the gym for several weeks, the latter kept me sedentary for almost two years, between the first surgery to fix the break, and the second to remove the pins. The pounds started coming on fast and furious, and I was soon hovering around 180. I was so excited when a colleague from work, who had lost 60 pounds, told me about phen-fen. I tried it and loved it! I was down 30 pounds before they pulled it from the market. But I had never really embraced healthy eating, so I quickly gained them all back and then some.'
During that time, I was going through a lot of change -- new jobs, new homes, new relationships, and then 9/11. When the planes hit the World Trade Center, I was working as a fundraising consultant for the Red Cross, and was asked to help with the disaster recovery. That first day, I set up a calling center, and all missing persons calls were directed to me. It soon became clear that the calls I was fielding were for people who had been seen last on the higher floors of the Twin Towers. In the months to come, I would check names off my list as I read about them in the New York Times' "Lives Remembered" section.
Those names, and that experience, haunted me, until I had a complete meltdown on an airplane from Newark to New Orleans on my first Katrina recovery trip. I was flying a three-seats-across plane, and had a panic attack that was so severe I asked the flight attendant if they could land the plane and let me off. She had obviously dealt with this before, though, and lined up a bunch of airplane bottles of gin in front of me, even though it was just 9:00 in the morning. A kind doctor in NOLA prescribed me with anti-anxiety meds that enabled me to get on a return plane 10 days later, and see my physician in NJ who prescribed me with PTSD. My way of dealing with that was to eat.
I never went back to running or biking, though I did work with a personal trainer for a while. I climbed Crough Padraig, the tallest mountain in Ireland. I also tore the cartilage in both knees, and had surgery on both, about two years apart. After that, I was never able to really get back on track. I watched the needle on the scale go up, but my everyday life didn't seem affected. I was still, for the most part, able to do what I wanted.
Unconsciously, though, I cheated, using my parents and my cousin Don, who had Parkinsons, as a way to hide whatever limitations I had. I was the one who always stayed with them, walked slower, took cabs, or used golf carts to get from one place to another. Somehow, I didn't realize that I too was now relying on them, not able to get around on my own.
Monday, June 8, 2015
Why Sleeve?
Why am I having the sleeve? The answer is both quite simple and quite complex.
The simple answer is that I am morbidly obese, with a BMI of 55, and I ma not ready to die. There is way too much I still want to do in my life, much of which requires me to be able to walk, which is, if I am being entirely honest, not something I can do right now.
And that starts the more complex answer. I have become so heavy that my body no longer works the way it used to. It is very hard for me to walk more than a minute or so without losing my breath and breaking out in a full sweat. My back hurts, my knees ache, my hips are stiff, and all I am trying to do is get from my car to my office in the morning. Exercise, which I used to love, fills me with dread. When I am invited to a professional meeting, social event, trip to the city, or to walk my dog with friends, it is all I can do to not have a full-on panic attack, wondering how close can I park to where I need to be, what will the temperature be (I don't want to walk into a meeting or party a hot mess), or how to explain that I do love my dog, I am not being lazy, but MY BODY HURTS.
It also gets in my way. Once, riding in a taxi in NYC, I couldn't put the seatbelt on because it didn't fit. I actually own an airline seatbelt extender, because up until recently I was a frequent traveler. Going out to eat is a horrific experience -- what if I can't fit into the chair/booth? What if the chair breaks beneath me? Yes, I have had that happen.
Sometimes when I drop things, I leave them there because I can't bend down. If the book I am looking for at the library is on the bottom shelf, I don't get it. Same with items at the grocery store. My stomach gets in the way. Shoes with shoelaces? Gave them up ages ago.
So, I stay home. I skip social outings unless they are places I know well and can navigate. I ask colleagues to cover meetings for me if they require too much walking. Can't remember the last time I went to the city to wander around, something I love doing. Haven't been to one of my nephew's baseball games since late fall. I am already wondering how close we can get to my niece's graduation venue.
I haven't ever told anyone this. I have been embarrassed. Somehow, it has been better for people to think I am anti-social than to tell them the truth, which is that I am afraid that I won't be able to do what they've invited me to.
I am tired of being afraid. I am tired of sitting at home. I am tired of missing out on so many things I love, and avoiding old friends who I haven't seen in decades, because I know they will be horrified by my morbid obesity.
You see, I wasn't always like this. I was never skinny, but I was normal. I ran. I could run forever. Same with walking. I've walked entire European cities on my own. I know what the possibilities are, and I am doing what I need to to return to them.
This blog will document my journey, and explain how it is I got to where I am, and how I hope to get to where I am going. I am grateful to have you join me.
The simple answer is that I am morbidly obese, with a BMI of 55, and I ma not ready to die. There is way too much I still want to do in my life, much of which requires me to be able to walk, which is, if I am being entirely honest, not something I can do right now.
And that starts the more complex answer. I have become so heavy that my body no longer works the way it used to. It is very hard for me to walk more than a minute or so without losing my breath and breaking out in a full sweat. My back hurts, my knees ache, my hips are stiff, and all I am trying to do is get from my car to my office in the morning. Exercise, which I used to love, fills me with dread. When I am invited to a professional meeting, social event, trip to the city, or to walk my dog with friends, it is all I can do to not have a full-on panic attack, wondering how close can I park to where I need to be, what will the temperature be (I don't want to walk into a meeting or party a hot mess), or how to explain that I do love my dog, I am not being lazy, but MY BODY HURTS.
It also gets in my way. Once, riding in a taxi in NYC, I couldn't put the seatbelt on because it didn't fit. I actually own an airline seatbelt extender, because up until recently I was a frequent traveler. Going out to eat is a horrific experience -- what if I can't fit into the chair/booth? What if the chair breaks beneath me? Yes, I have had that happen.
Sometimes when I drop things, I leave them there because I can't bend down. If the book I am looking for at the library is on the bottom shelf, I don't get it. Same with items at the grocery store. My stomach gets in the way. Shoes with shoelaces? Gave them up ages ago.
So, I stay home. I skip social outings unless they are places I know well and can navigate. I ask colleagues to cover meetings for me if they require too much walking. Can't remember the last time I went to the city to wander around, something I love doing. Haven't been to one of my nephew's baseball games since late fall. I am already wondering how close we can get to my niece's graduation venue.
I haven't ever told anyone this. I have been embarrassed. Somehow, it has been better for people to think I am anti-social than to tell them the truth, which is that I am afraid that I won't be able to do what they've invited me to.
I am tired of being afraid. I am tired of sitting at home. I am tired of missing out on so many things I love, and avoiding old friends who I haven't seen in decades, because I know they will be horrified by my morbid obesity.
You see, I wasn't always like this. I was never skinny, but I was normal. I ran. I could run forever. Same with walking. I've walked entire European cities on my own. I know what the possibilities are, and I am doing what I need to to return to them.
This blog will document my journey, and explain how it is I got to where I am, and how I hope to get to where I am going. I am grateful to have you join me.
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