health – Chronicles of a Homebody Adventurer

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I’ve been thinking about my mom a lot lately, with the impending celebration of Mother’s Day and my upcoming surgery.

Since she died 5 years ago, any time big personal changes loomed on the horizon I have felt that familiar swell of emotion that seems to be located somewhere between my stomach and my lungs, overwhelming me physically and mentally. This sensation can last for mere minutes or even long hours.

As I would imagine is normal, I imagine how she would react to these changes and achievements. Sometimes it’s easy to imagine her reactions.

When I defended my dissertation, she would have been proud and so pleased to see the culmination of years and years of work at last at its joyful end.

She’d have celebrated as I taught my first (and probably only) study abroad course (something I always wanted to do!) in Italy in May 2019.

She’d have hurrah’ed when I landed my first post-PhD job (with benefits!) at the Institute.

She would have been proud, excited, and disappointed when I got a job at Vanderbilt and moved to Nashville. Disappointed, because I wasn’t moving back to Virginia, choosing my Nashville family “over her” (that’s how she’d see it), but still she’d have been proud and excited for my accomplishments. She loved me.

But…as my surgery date approaches, I am having a hard time picturing how she’d react to this choice and new frontier.

Mom could—at times—let her own emotional hang-ups color her response to things going on in my and my siblings’ lives. Would her own struggles with her weight have influenced her reaction to my weight-loss goals? Would she have been less supportive than she’d have liked, whether intentionally or not? Would she, as she was sometimes wont to do with others who had gone through similar procedures, make snide comments about my potential to fail or relapse? Would her encouragement be a little too cloying, her smile a little too bright, suggesting that she didn’t actually believe what she was saying? Or worse, and definitely possible, would she barely attempt to contain her unique blend of judgment and jealousy?

On the other hand, she may have reacted excitedly, full of support and pride. She did often tell me to try to lose weight before I got too old, because the older you get the harder it is and the more physically painful it is to try to take it off. My mother lived with daily pain in her joints and back, moving, sitting, and existing was a struggle. I know that this physical pain manifested itself emotionally too. I know she’d want me to avoid that. So perhaps knowing that I will avoid some of that pain in my life would make her happy for me.

But at the same time…would she have even realized that her reality was the very future I am trying to avoid? Even worse, would the idea that I was trying to avoid becoming like her— to not share this daily pain and struggle—give her (more) emotional pain?

In some ways, her death has made this easier. The risk of not taking steps is clear. I need to go on this journey for my own mental and physical well-being. Because I will never know how she would actually react, I can choose to imagine her response as loving and supportive as I would like it to be at any given moment.

However, this too is a hard emotional line to walk, because in reacting this way, her death becomes akin to a gift. One that has allowed me both the freedom to act without causing her hurt and provided me the motivation to change….

But…

How could her death ever be a gift?

Right now, I like to think that my choice to pursue a WLS and strive for a healthy life honors both her life and her death. My mother wasn’t perfect. (I mean, whose mother is?) In many ways, I am on this obesity-related journey because she was. Since, in the long run, my mother would want the best for me, I’d like to think that she’s pleased by my choice to move forward with a gastric bypass, hopeful that it will work, but fearful that it will not.

But I’ll never know.

Lather.

Rinse.

Repeat.

Since moving, I’ve gotten a few inquiries on what my progress and timeline toward surgery is now. For those of you that don’t know, in October of 2020, I started the process of getting approved for bariatric surgery. All went really well, and had I not gotten a new job and moved to Nashville, I’d have had my surgery in Summer of 2021. The idea was, once I got settled, I’d get in touch with a new surgeon and get the process rolling, which my previous surgeon told me should be fairly easy.

While not being *wrong*, the process has not been as straightforward as simply having the doctor’s look at my file and send it to insurance. On the whole, I would argue that this part of the process has been the hardest. I don’t feel like I am making progress or moving forward and I feel a little stalled. Most of the time, I know that it’s not true, but it’s hard in difficult moments to keep perspective.

Sometimes I can still see my progress in pix, other times, I feel like I am where I started. I think I can see my progress in this pic.**

I made an appointment in August for October 27 (exactly one year since my first appointment). When October 27th came, I was a little frustrated and ready to get started—I also wished I had not scheduled my appointment so late. Moving had proven to be a very big shakeup to my routine. This was expected to some degree, but there’s so many new temptations and things to try, I definitely allowed myself to engage in some bad habits and was not as rigorous about the food that I was consuming as I had been.

On the whole, however, I haven’t gained weight, and more than anything, I have been in a super consistent work out routine. I see that as a huge win because ultimately, I don’t care about the number on the scale as much as I do being healthy and in control. While physically I may not see progress on the scale, I do think it’s resulted in me becoming a little more trim and compact. (I’ve never measured inches so it’s hard to say). It’s a balance and it’s a process. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will my bad habits be overridden in a day.

At the appointment, I mentioned to the new surgeon what my previous one had said, about it being relatively easy to transfer. The new surgeon smiled and said, ”well, it’s easy to say it’s easy to transfer.” Unfortunately, she hasn’t been wrong. While yes I did complete strict insurance requirements, my new insurance measures things differently. Previously my insurance required 6 visits spread over 6 months. My new insurance requires 12 distinct visits and some of those are required to have a certain amount of time between them. Fortunately, my old appointments count to this number and I have subsequently squeezed in several more. In addition, this program has different requirements itself, whose requirements I also have to meet. It’s not going to take as long as it did before to get from the beginning point to the end, but it does feel a little like starting over. And that is frustrating.

So right now, I’m trying to finish up these old/new requirements. After I finish up all of the steps, my file will be sent to my insurance for approval. Once we have insurance approval surgery will be scheduled. Not really too sure what that timeline looks like; my general guess is sometime in spring, March-ish seems likely.

This period has also been the one that’s made me question why I am doing this surgery. I believe that body positivity is really important—and this includes loving and appreciating fat bodies and not seeing them as broken or less-than. I have ALWAYS been fat, so what will it mean when I am no longer fat and that part of my identity is no more? Will I recognize myself? What if I don’t like the ”new” me or miss the ”old” one?

This picture is on that shocked me because to my own eye I even seemed smaller, even potentially “normal fat.” Most importantly, however, I felt great and I spent an entire day outside chasing a toddler without feeling (totally) wiped.**

For example, I had an experience at the gym where a fellow big girl approached me and asked if the class I had been taking was hard for big girls. We chatted and exchanged info, and most importantly, encouragement. I realized in that moment that I like being a safe space for fellow fat people in gyms—one of the scariest spaces for someone with a fat body to occupy. But, when I go through with surgery, there will come a time when my support is no longer desired and will likely be unwelcome. I will be a “former fat,” not an “always fat.” It’s hard for me to imagine that person.

It is good to remember why I am doing this though. I am doing it because my relationship with food is not healthy. I am doing this because if I continue down the path I was on, it is almost a given that I will have an unhealthy future with type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and other health ailments. If I don’t do something to change, I could end up dead at the relatively young age of 59 like my mom did from obesity related issues. And I wish more than anything that she had done bariatric surgery and were here today. I have plans, and all of them involve me being alive and active. There are people I love who I want to spend as much time as humanely possible. They mean more to me than food.

_{**I hesitated to share pix because I think it perpetuates the idea that before is “better” and after is “worse.” I like to think that I was pretty before and after–I am still me. I share only as a mark of visual change. This is probably definitely not for everyone, but I’m a visual person. I find that a better indicator than the number on the scale. Ultimately, the best indicator is how I feel.}