As I wrote "So I think I can loose some poundage...", I unknowingly opened a very dark & depressing place in my heart, and every time I went back and reviewed my posts, I felt the repeated stings of a deep sadness that I felt were contributing to preventing my healing & success, and, I have since come to realize that I am not only up against obesity, but perhaps some clinical depression too. So, I have decided to begin again, a do-over so to speak, and really give 100% effort in my fight against the demons of obesity that have surrounded my soul. I feel that by conquering the fatness & underline issues, the depression will also be resolved. I am writing SHRINK, for me, as sort of a "gift' to myself.
I feel that in order to provide an accurate, clear cut account as to how I ended up such a portly & unhealthy woman, I’ve got to reach back into my past a smidge. I will only go as far back as 1994, when I was a vivacious & thin 17 year-old with a loving family & loving boyfriend of 3 years. Now, my parents were hard working people, but absent & involved more with the lives of their friends than of their only child. Naturally, this left me with a significant amount of time alone. Mom didn’t cook and kept relatively no food in the house, and so began my obsession. And when I say no food…I mean it. I remember one time only having a few slices of bread, and ketchup in the pantry, so that is what I ate. Another time, all she would buy were frozen beef & bean burritos for 2 months straight! So, as soon as I was able, I secured a job at a local pizza place, and began spending my checks on fast food & pizza (which remains my favorite meal of all time). Lucky for me, my boyfriend’s mother was, and is, a fantastic cook. I would hang out at their place & she would always include me in the dinner plans, and offer me seconds. I loved it!
My loving boyfriend, Rick, who is now my husband of 15 years, & I may have been a bit too loving with each other, because in March 1994, in the midst of our senior year of high school, we found out that we were expecting a baby. I thought it was great…I was supposed to eat more-right? That is essentially what I thought, & no one was around really to tell me any different. During that pregnancy, I stretched my little 17 year old body by a whopping 68 pounds. So stretched, that my abdomen remains covered side-to-side & top to bottom with 1” stretch marks. Once I gave birth, via cesarean section, my stomach sort of just “dropped” instead of shrinking back to its original shape. According to my physician, I lacked enough elasticity in my skin & would eventually need surgery to pull it up to the right spot again. Depressed about that, I did nothing…except find an eating partner & continue on the path of over-indulging.
I want to say it was around 3 years later, at the age of 20 when I was diagnosed with cholecystitis or gall bladder disease, and in I went for another abdominal surgical procedure. (We are up to 2 if you are counting). Also, my doctor mentioned that my triglycerides (fat in the bloodstream) were elevated to 600, but that was all he said-he never made a big deal after that or mentioned it again. I just kept right on eating & as that manager of a cheesesteak resturant I would eat at work nearly everyday until another 2 years passed and I became pregnant with our second, and last, child. This time, however, I was careful about what I ate, and lost a bit of weight, gaining a total of only 22 pounds. That being said, on the day I gave birth, again by cesarian section, I weighed 199 pounds. Did I mention I am only 5’1”? To keep you on track, at this point I was just 23, and have now had 3 abdominal surgeries. Here is where things get dark.
During the last C-section, my astute physician noticed a few odd looking “nodules” located on the peritoneal lining of my abdomen, near my bladder, uterus, and ovaries. In removing 2 of them, we were all shocked to learn just 3 weeks later, that I had Primary Peritoneal Cancer. A very rare & deadly cancer, the only way to treat was by a complete hysterectomy, exploratory abdominal surgery with removal of the omentum (a fatty protective lining rich in blood supply) removal of several lymph nodes, and followed by aggressive chemotherapy. This all took place just 6 weeks after the birth of my youngest daughter. It entailed another 2 surgical procedures. The exploratory part tended to reek the most havoc on my body, having to make a vertical incision in both my abdominal wall, muscles and messing around with my intestines and even going ahead and taking out my appendix because “they” might as well! 4 total abdominal surgeries-how does anyone have a decent stomach after that? These are facts that are non-variables in the equation of my life; the things I can not ever change. As for the variables? I thought for sure that being a cancer patient would be just the thing I needed to knock me upside my head & get me encouraged to change my eating habits & get healthy. Let's just say I was wrong. Failed, effortless diet attempt after attempt, 16.5 years later I am still heavy. But all that is about to change. You see, I have realized something that I never have before. That fact being that It is perfectly okay to love & accept myself for who I was then, who I am now, & who I am yet to be. It is okay. I have determined that I must use the pain & sorrow from my past as fuel to create what I most desire.
I will SHRINK.
