Checking In: August 2023

Health-related anniversary rounds out my birthday month

Aug 31, 2023

Post-surgery, September 2004. (Photo by Rodney Margison)

Friend, I’m really uncomfortable showing you this photo and sharing this story, but I’m trusting you to be kind.

Nineteen years ago today, I drastically and permanently altered my body to fix my problems. I was 276 pounds and, as a last resort, had invasive gastric bypass surgery. My stomach was bisected to a fraction of its size and my intestines were rerouted to accommodate the new pouch. The program was so new at the hospital that I was patient number 13. The road would be difficult, but the alternative was death, so I had to take a chance.

I lost 120 pounds in one year, but the surgery didn’t fix me. My brain still saw fat when I looked at myself, despite being a publicized success story for the hospital’s advertising campaign.

I’m getting ahead of myself, though.

Just a scrawny kid: Me (second from left) with my mom, sister, and brother. (Family Archives)

I was born three months premature at 3 pounds 2 ounces and for the first six or seven years of my life I was a scrawny, wild-haired child who survived a toxic habit of eating wall plaster as a toddler. At about 9, I started to gain weight, getting nicknames like “Roly Poly,” “Porky Pig,” and “Little Fatty” from adults. I was pudgier than my thin siblings and cousins. That was when I realized I was fat, ugly, and gross.

That’s me on the far left. When the picture was taken, I liked my bathing suit and posed, thinking I was cute. After the photo was developed, I saw my pudgiest and decided I was fat and ugly. (Family Archives)

By the time puberty invaded my body, I was consumed by my weight, always dieting—as was my mom—eating sparse tuna and dry toast or Saltines and vinegar to keep the calories down. Having tuna now always transports me right back to our kitchen in a Kentucky holler.

Through middle and high school, I compared myself to all my “skinny” friends and classmates and felt inferior because of my size. I see photos from those days and grieve for that girl who only saw fat when she looked in the mirror, because she was the same size as everyone else. But my self-worth was attached to my size and weight.

In college, I gained a few pounds—to a whopping 135—and any confidence I had gained was destroyed when a TA started calling me “Thunder Thighs,” uttering the words with a chuckle anytime we passed in the student center.

Me from sixth grade to college. (Family Archives)

Let’s jump ahead.

I gained 60 pounds with our first son, topping out at about 204. I was able to drop some of that, but then my body hung onto the rest. By the time I was six months pregnant with our second son four years later, I was huge and looked ready to pop him out at any moment.

My life had become an endless series of fad diets and rebound weight gain until my metabolism and hormones were so confused that diets didn’t work anymore. At this point, I didn’t just look fat, I was bloated like a balloon. Doctor after doctor wouldn’t help me. I begged them to treat me for thyroid insufficiency—because all my symptoms pointed to that—but they said I was within the prescribed acceptable range, so I didn’t need medicine; I just needed to eat less and move more.

My husband was a rockstar—he never made an issue of my weight—but I made my weight an issue in all our issues. I felt like our relationship and my life would suddenly have no problems if only I wasn’t fat.

At the time I was working for a newspaper and wrote an article about a well-known community member who had bariatric surgery, lost hundreds of pounds, and transformed his life. I started wondering if surgery could help me, too, because nothing was making a difference. Restricting food intake and increasing exercise was just making me bigger.

The surgeon readily accepted me into the program and scheduled a plethora of pre-surgery hurdles while my insurance company fought to keep from having to pay, despite clear language that stated otherwise.

After seeing specialist after specialist, running test after test, and enduring a sleep study, I finally cleared all the obstacles and a surgery date was scheduled. The date was the birthday of a favorite aunt who died in 1978–a good omen.

The restrictions and rules were overwhelming and life-altering, but I took care to follow each one and had an ideal recovery. The work was hard, but worth it. The surgery unintentionally enabled imbalances in hormones and other body systems, but I’m still alive and strong.

(Family Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9 by Rodney Margison)

Since hitting the 120-pound-loss milestone, I’ve had ups and downs, although not getting anywhere close to my pre-surgery weight. Now, I don’t alter the foods I eat to lose weight, but to give my body what it needs and limit what it doesn’t. My goal is to be healthy, even if I teeter 20 pounds. My body seems comfortable where it is, and I try to focus on my progress and health rather than letting that 20-pound fluctuation overshadow the rest of me.

Doesn’t always work, but I still make an attempt to be comfortable in my skin—even the floppy parts.

If you want to share your struggles with weight, I’m hear to listen.

Life on Peoples Court

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