Introductions.

Who am I? That is a very complicated question but I guess that since I am starting this blog I should at least give a bit of biography. I am thirty, almost thirty-one, and living in Austin, Texas where I am a PhD student at UT in Education (I study the structures and functions of schools for the most part as well as looking at inequality in schooling). Before coming to Austin, I was a middle school teacher who really enjoyed teaching adolescents as they were my type of crazy. I am single (due mostly to me being VERY picky as well as clueless with relationships) and live happily alone with my snobby cat Emme. I value friendships and fun and spend most of my spare time catching up with friends in town and across the country. This usually includes hosts of movies and finding fun new places to eat and hang out. I believe myself to have adult onset nerdiness as I have recently discovered that I know all the things traditional nerds are supposed to know (thanks to some light summer reading – Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd). Perhaps it isn’t adult onset as much as adult recognition but that is another matter. In addition to loving Star Wars, having watched all of the Buffy series, and having a favorite Doctor Who, I also read young adult fiction when I get spare time and enjoy history factoids. The rest of my spare time is taken up with music and concerts from Indie artists. I am the youngest of three sisters and keep in close contact with my mother who lives near Houston. My father passed away in December 2005 due to hospital malfeasance while he was there dealing with the complications of his own bariatric surgery – in his case, a bypass. I am sure I will expound upon that issue further but suffice to say his death has had a profound impact on me.

As for my journey as a Lap Band patient, I am just a little over a month post-op from surgery. I have had some minimal ups and downs but for the most part am feeling great and doing well. My weight stats, so to speak, are as follows:

1) I am 5’2” and started with a weight of 283 (BMI 51.8)

2) I am currently down to 263 so I have lost 20 pounds with this thingamabob inside of me.

For the rest of my introductions though, I am going to post something I wrote in my journal a while ago about who I think I am and how my decision to band was made. I don’t know if I would write the same things today if I had the chance again but I am a big fan of having emotions and ideas validated – even if they have shifted. Looking back on it, the entry is very simplified and I don’t always feel normal, but it does give some insight into the start of this journey. Here goes –

From My Journal - July, 2010

To start, I am a normal girl (a mostly normal girl). I am successful, single, and well educated – maybe even a little too well educated if there is such a thing. I was moderately popular in both high school and college and no one ever maliciously bullied me for my weight which, with the exception of a year in college where I binged on diet pills and alcohol, has always been well above the average. Even though I have never looked anywhere near like the girls in magazines or even stock photos on non-fashion internet sites, I have managed to make it to my thirties without becoming what I consider a fat stereotype – you know, the angry girl in the corner wearing stretch pants with no friends and no fun. Oh sure, I have felt the wrath of a society hyped on being thin (people mistaking me for pregnant instead of merely fat, restaurant booths built just a little too small, and the weird looks from salesclerks who obviously think I am too big to be in their store). With these societal slants and, mostly, unconscious insults aside though, I have managed to feel pretty normal. I guess I am trying to say that I have never felt like an after-school special if that resonates. 

I guess (mostly) normal should be an accomplishment given that as I have aged, my weight has climbed well above what doctors, media, and every nosy person out there feels is a healthy weight. I hate the term healthy weight. As if some chart can tell me what is healthy for me by comparing my information to some Amazonian woman with a metabolism as fast as a cheetah. I also hate that weight has this huge public stigma. I get it, weight contains risks, but so does smoking, drinking, sleeping around, and acting like an a**hole – and plenty of people are fine with those other risks. Weight is an issue for everybody apparently as even tiny girls worry about their fat heineys and cellulite growth (poor tiny tiny girls…). I guess that is why everyone takes it out so much on people who have literally bigger issues with the sizing of their clothes; it’s like a classic Freudian coping mechanism to project onto others their fear and hatred of body fat. 

Everybody feels that they know all about weight and are qualified to pass judgment on any stricken soul who doesn’t look good in her jeans. It’s always the hottest gossip: who’s gained weight, who’s lost weight, whose new weight looks hot or not… Let’s face it, if people didn’t care about weight no one would attend their high school reunions to scope out who got chubby in the past ten years. Society reinforces and rewards those who prey on the fat, making us large moving targets for harassment, bullying, and even friendly chit chats about what is wrong with us. Do you really think I need a grocery store sales clerk deriding me for my size and my love of cheese? Lady, you are a clerk working minimum wage without health care, shouldn’t you worry about bigger problems in the world, something more important than the physical space I take up!?!

What people don’t understand is that fat people don’t go around loving their elastic waistbands, they hate it. They hate their body and it reciprocates, at least for me. Regardless of whether or not I make an effort, my body is predetermined to put on weight. This is an awful predicament which often makes me not want to try. Needless to say when I give up hope and don’t try, I fulfill all those stereotypes of fat people not doing anything about their fatness. So, if I am not on a diet, well then it is my fault that I gained. The trick is, even when I am on a diet it is still my fault because my body wants to gain weight. For example, two years ago I moved to a new city where I began a much healthier lifestyle. I fixed my ankle which kept me from being active, I ate far better, and I walked and exercised more often. The result: I gained over 25 pounds for my healthy efforts. My body hates me and there is little I can do about it. How can anyone that doesn’t have the same issues really understand what that means? Compound that with societal views on fat and my own emotional connections with my father and weight and it is no wonder that my weight is a tricky subject. 

Last December, over seven months ago, I decided that I would have to go on the offensive with my body. I had just finished a growth spurt of new weight and was depressed by my absolute lack of progress I had made over the past two years to stem the tide of gain. My body was intent on accruing weight like it was saving up for the next ice age. From what I have been told this horrible trail of weight gain is due to both my unique hormone levels and genetics. It turns out not only am I predispositioned for utter fatness but that my sensitivity to hormones actually speeds this process along. Faced with a future of looking like I eat small children for breakfast (I promise, I don’t), I decided that it might be time to try something radical. I went in for a lap band seminar and consultation just before leaving for family vacation. 

I will leave greater detail of the band and the procedure for another time, but suffice to say that it is a silicon band surgically tied around the top of the stomach that only lets small portions of food in at a time allowing people like me to more effectively starve ourselves to smallness. The band can be adjusted and has all sorts of newfangled and modern features which kind of make it sound like a car. Mostly, it is just a big rubber band acting as a chastity belt for my tummy. I don’t sound so positive about it do I? Well, I am not. I am not crazy about having a foreign thingamabob inside of me that keeps me from eating like a normal person. It is a big step; it is drastic; it is the worst thing I have ever done to myself. Why did I decide to do it then? A horrible thing was needed to keep my body from doing other, even more horrible things to itself later in life. 

Right now I don’t have any of those issues which obese people are a greater risk for, but I know it is coming. I’m actually really healthy right now if you don’t put me on a scale. I don’t have high blood pressure or cholesterol, my heart is dandy, and I don’t have any health issues which threaten me. (I do have PCOS which is a disorder where cysts form on my ovaries, but it is under control for the time being.) Even with a clean bill of health though, my weight is a warning sign for hurt and sickness ahead. Diabetes is like a nightmare waiting to come true and I have seen it before, in my father. I was scared to think of what biological tortures my body would do to me if I didn’t start a war with it first; that is why I chose to have a doctor open me up and physically alter my body forever.

When I went for my psychological clearance for the surgery, the counselor told me that most people say they do it for the looks, they are just tired of looking fat and having all the hoopla that goes with it. Though I empathize with that and do truly want to look better, I did it out of pure, unadulterated fear of what could come. See I am a scholarly and logical person; while I do want to look better and fit into cute clothes, I know deep down that doesn’t make me who I am. While I fear I won’t find a man who will love me enough to be my life companion without being more attractive, I know that I would only take on a life companion if he loved me for every part of me, weight and all. And while I fear the growing stigmatism and hatred in today’s society for the overweight, I know deep down I am pretentious enough to overcome those idiots who don’t have half as much going on as I do. What I do fear though is losing my freedom and independence because my body hates me and is slowly defiling my shape to the point I cannot be me. 

That’s how I came to be with new suture marks across my stomach and an invention inside of me that will be there long after all of my fleshy and bony parts have decomposed. Well, that and six months of doctors’ visits and clearance tests plus another month for insurance authorization.