I had my first personal consultation with the doctor from the symposium only two weeks after the night I found hope. While I was there, I would experience one of the worst moments of my life followed by one of the best.
When you go to any doctor for the first time they always have you fill out the multitude of forms that include questions about your mothers, mothers, mothers medical history along with the few additional questions about your personal life that, to be honest, we're not entirely sure they really need the answers to or if they just use that information to brighten their monotonous days. For me, the forms were a grim reminder of what could be if I didn't lose weight. Family history of: Diabetes? Check! Cancer? Check! Depression? Double check! I handed the forms back to the skinny-since-birth-medical assistant, and waddled back to my seat in the lobby. The one redeeming factor in that moment was that every other patient in the room was also of a rather large stature and were desperately waiting for relief from their flabby chains.
The skinny assistant called my name and I followed her down the sterile hallway until we stopped at "it". "Please step up onto the scale." The "scale" was a large metal platform with a small digital monitor velcroed to the wall next to it. It had a rail next to it for people to hold onto and it was no more than three inches off the ground. It could have weighed an elephant but it was meant to weigh me. I was mortified.
I stepped up onto the giant plate and closed my eyes. I didn't want to know the number but clearly the medical assistant didn't see the anxiety on my face and read the numbers aloud. 316. Three-hundred and sixteen pounds. I opened my eyes and stared at the little red numbers on the monitor, sure that she had read them wrong. No luck. I wiped the sweat off my cheek. I blinked. I wiped the sweat off my other cheek. Why am I sweating so much? Wait. That's not sweat. Those are tears. I was devastated. I was in shock. I wanted to hide. I wanted to die. I knew I had gained weight, but to be over 300 pounds? This was just...I had no words.
That was one of the worst moments of my life.
I was ushered into the consultation room and as the door closed behind the skinny assistant, I lost all control. I covered my face with my sausage link fingers and the tears flowed. It was as though the band aid had been ripped off my repressed denial about the grave reality of my size and situation. Every negative comment, insult and slight came hurling back into my mind.
The first time I saw my aunt in over ten years: "Wow, you're a big girl, aren't you!?"
The last show I auditioned for: "You're incredibly talented, but I think we're looking for someone...uh, different."
There were so many of these one-liners that had been shoved into the depths of my gut in hopes of my mass hiding them forever...
The doctor opened the door, walked into the room and sat down in the wheely-stool next to me. He was not surprised to see me crying; it was clearly a site he'd seen before. He offered me a tissue, and then he began asking me questions about my attempts at losing weight in the past. I had tried every diet known to man and had lost no more than 20lbs even on the most successful of attempts. Only five years before, while I was in college I had gained almost 100lbs in a year while I was taking daily dance classes. Nothing I said seemed to surprise him.
After several minutes of dialogue, he put down his pen and looked me in the eye. "Ok, let's do this. It's clear that despite all your best efforts, you aren't going to be able to lose the amount of weight necessary to have a happy and healthy life and at this point, surgery will be preventative which is ideal." He kept talking but I was stuck on "let's do this." It was happening.
There were many additional hoops I would have to roll through over the next four weeks; ekg, stress test, ultrasound, blood work, psych exam, dietary training...but none of that worried me because I had just been given the best news I had heard in years.
That was one of the best moments of my life.
I walked out of the office that day with a laundry list of items I needed to handle before surgery could be officially scheduled but once each of those items had been crossed off, I would be only days away from the rest of my life and that was the best feeling I'd had in years. :)
