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| 6/09 200 lbs |
I am passionate about this because over 30 years ago I was listening in on a conversation between my oldest sister who died of a heart attack due to obesity and my mother. Back in the early 80s, pre-gastric bypass (or as we know it now) they did stomach stapling--basically cordoning off a part of the stomach to make it smaller with staples. My sister who at the time was probably over 300 lbs was telling my mother that she was thinking about having this procedure. She knew she was very large and wanted to do something about it--very courageous, as I look back on it. Well, evidently this conversation had taken place before because my sister started crying because mother was SO against it. My mother stated that this surgery was not safe and the staples were known to come out and so on and so forth. My sisters and I always did what my mother said; her word was gospel, I say "was" because we now think for ourselves but back then our mother had a lot of influence over us. So my sister is crying, probably even desperate about things we didn't find out until after her death but she thought this would solve all her problems. My mother insisted that she not get the surgery citing the children and 2-3 years later she was dead of a heart attack due to obesity. Whew!!!! just typing this still takes my breath away.
I was seventeen when she passed and as I have said before, the word obesity just stuck with me and I developed an internal monitor to always just try to keep my weight down!!! It is a very long and winding road but with pure determination, it is possible. I always tell people that without that startling revelation at 17 of the word obesity, I probably would be 300 lbs myself. I feel that, 300 is the new 200 when I watch The Biggest Loser. Back in the day, 200 lbs was like taboo, no one and I mean no one ever wanted to reach 200 lbs, I remember my second oldest sister (Miss Size 6, 118 lbs) and my oldest sister (they were 17 months apart) arguing over the word "fat" and its use. Many of you know where I am going with this. It was a constant battle when I was a little girl and into my teens. Fat sister, skinny sister. When I was born they were 13 & 12 years old but I didn't understand their battles, they were my pretty older sisters, one was tall and statuesque, pretty skin and thick hair and one was petite, pretty with hazel eyes and thick hair. They both married at 20 and my oldest sister had 2 children right away.
I didn't witness the anguish of weight (of course I knew the word fat) until overhearing that conversation at 14 or 15 years of age. After my sister's death and reading the death certificate, I often wondered about that conversation and whether or not it could have saved her life. I didn't get the courage to ask my mother about the conversation until 3 years ago, yes, 2009. She took my sister's death really hard and we just didn't add insult to injury back then--no blame games, just grief. She died on the 4th of July, 1983---so there were no more Fourth of July celebrations in my family, just grief. But in 2009 we were all in a different place, literally. I was really getting tired of my struggle with 50 lbs, up and down, my mother had had knee replacement surgery but had needed to lose about 50 lbs and was in so much pain that I got angry. I told her that doctor had no business doing the surgery and that she needed to lose some weight first. She started crying and said that I hurt her feelings. I apologized but I meant what I said. When she was done with rehabilitation or almost done, I took her to Weight Watchers and she is still going and losing. She says she went to her first few meetings still using a cane. I was not apologetic about that. I was feeling courageous and wanting to have the tough conversations and we did. So one day we were driving and I just asked her if Trena (my sister's name was Trena Therese Marsh-Joiner) were alive now would you be OK with her getting gastric bypass surgery and she said absolutely. She opened up about ignorance and how we didn't know the gravity of obesity and all it's complications--with something as small as stress(stress did not mean then what it me. She complimented me on saving my own daughter's life--this felt good coming from my mother---but I felt her pain and heard the crack in her voice. We continued talking about our processes of losing weight. Weight Watchers was working for her and I had begun my journey, again, detoxing and trying everything, again with some success and I continue this right now--with much more success. The picture above is of me found on the Internet, good grief. I attended a meeting at UCLA in June of 2009 and we took a picture after the 2 day meeting. I remember vividly standing on the end and trying to turn to make myself look smaller but it made me look worse, in my opinion. The horror of finding this on the Web just added salt to the wound but I also thought to myself this morning that I should post this everywhere as a reminder.
I know there are so many stories out there comparable to mine, my grief is not as heavy as it was because July 2013 will be 30 years, she would have turned 60 years old this past March. I think about her all the time. I also think about how far we have come with education about fat, calories, consumption and weight. We are doing worse because there are so many obese children but our First Lady is doing something about this. Many parents are being educated, something I felt alone with about 10 years ago. I feel we just have to be vigilant when it comes to our numbers, weight, blood pressure and cholesterol and control them by any means necessary.
**by any means necessary (for me) refers to all the different people and different weight loss methods that are out there. Everyone has to find their own path, what works for me, may not work for someone else but we have to keep trying!!!
