Grateful

Yesterday, JT and I made a trip west to San Diego.  We’re hanging out with family and later in the week I will see my college roommate.  It’s lovely to see my nephews and San Diego is straight up splendid.  

Most of all I am grateful for my ability to go places and do things; to move with ease.  For a woman who started the year barely able to walk 100 yards (and that in pain), I feel relatively invincible now.  This trip is about my goals for the post-surgery part of my year - getting past my fears of physical limits and re-learning the ability to like my body - but most of all this trip is about having fun and reminding myself that people love me in all my human frailty.  

That’s happy!

In Praise of Morning Coffee

I love my morning coffee.  In the Summer, I drink my cups outside on the front porch.  The birds chirp, I inhale the aroma of the first mug of joe, and all is right in my world.  On the coldest and darkest of Winter days, I summon the urge to get out of my warm nest of a bed because of the siren call of fresh-brewed coffee and the way the hot mug warms my cold hands.  If there is morning coffee for me, I can be sure that all will be right in my world.

Still Paying the Toll

The past two years have been hard.  JT’s post-graduation struggle, T’s departure, my father’s death, and then the disability and pain of my wonky hip…..  Each event was separate but they added up.  The break-up with T came just as my son was finding his equilibrium and at first the freedom from the daily anxiety of an unhappy and angry partner was a relief.  I was just beginning to come to terms with all that the break-up meant when my father died.  That was unexpected and knocked me for a loop.  Six months later, before I really found my footing in the face of the losses I had experienced, my hip gave out on me.  Six months of increasing pain and anxiety followed.  

I’m four months post-surgery and finally feeling that I have found my footing.   As I do that, some of the loss that I didn’t have time to fully grieve is now demanding its due.  I feel it most when I’ve had a hard day at work and on weekends.  Some nights it would be nice to have a partner who made supper and is there to help me talk through the struggles of my day. Weekends on my own aren’t quite hard or sad - I like being alone - but they are different from the life I had with T and I find they go better if I make plans.  

This summer, I feel as if I’m finally finding my way forward.  Slotted in among my usual chores, I plan activities for my weekends - enjoyable things like going to the farmers market, time at a local coffee house, finding a new-to-me park for walks, cooking supper for friends, taking up a new hobby (I’m learning how to embroider!).  I like the life I’ve built for myself but sometimes I miss having a companion.  I long for an excuse to dress up and go out.  I wish that someone would notice me and tell me that I look nice.  Mostly, I try not to linger on the losses or the sense that I am alone.  Some days that’s easier than others.

Back in the Swing of It (I Hope)

Now that the school year has ended, I’m faced with the prospect of actually having enough time to do all the things that need doing.  It’s a happy development.  I’ve got a back log of half written pieces for this blog and I’m glad to have time to finish them and write more.  Shorter work days and loads of time off mean that I’ll have time to travel, to garden, to go for longer walks, and to catch my breath.  As I approach August, and the one year anniversary of my hip’s collapse, I’m a little more grateful for all the good things in my world.  I plan to write about that, to record some of my most pressing thoughts about the medical establishment, and to renew my commitment to daily writing and more consistent posting.  The long days of June make everything feel possible, don’t they?  That’s happy!

Feeling Hopeful Again

New hip rehab is no joke and it’s taken me a while to return to blog posting.  But that’s not because things aren’t going well - quite the reverse, in fact.  I’ve started a whole bunch of posts and those half-written thoughts will become fully-developed posts in the coming days.  For now, let me simply note that I am back - whole and relieved and - most important of all - finally feeling hopeful again.  In time, I will wrestle with the complicated thoughts I have about what my life felt like as I waited for hip surgery.  I will post some serious thoughts about the gratitude I have for my sister and JT, who got me to the surgery and then through it to this other side.  All of that and more is coming.  I’m back, world, and I’ve got a lot to say!

Style Journal: Making My Peace with Pants

 As an adolescent - really as a tween - I learned that some clothes and styles were off-limits because of my weight.  Once the dreaded "not flattering" concern was uttered by my mom and grandmother, extreme self-consciousness set in.  A fear of being too fat, and therefore unworthy, took hold.  I remember dieting at the age of 12 when I weighed all of 125 pounds and was 5’3”.  After age 12, I didn’t go to public places where swimsuits were being worn.  Rather than reject the message that I was unworthy because of my body, I molded my life around the limits sent by that message.  For more than 25 years, I mostly refused to wear pants or shorts because I could not stand my appearance in them.  This avoidance continued long after a therapist explained to me that I have body dysmorphia.  She helped me to develop the tools to manage the feelings brought on by the dysmorphia and though I still experience an inaccurate view of my physical appearance, I understand it to be a thing that I don’t have to believe or accept.  So the dysmorphia exists away from my sense of self.  

All of this is relevant because my current disabled status has made pants a rather valuable asset in my world.  In the Winter, I wear tights with skirts and dresses.  But as my hip disability has worsened, the process of putting on tights in the morning became difficult and then unbearable.  This  weekend, I gave up Winter tights in exchange for pants.  They are loose-fitting pants - in a size too large, as is my way - but putting them on is manageable and doesn’t aggravate my crummy hip.  I think that the transition to pants has been made easier by the abundance of wide-leg styles.  I regularly buy clothes that are too big (see: coping with body dysmorphia) and wide-leg pants are a style gift.  I like them in various forms, though especially soft, flowy knits — pants my sister has named “dress sweats.” I think I will love them even after my hip has been fixed.  I’ll not call that the silver lining of the misery - there is not silver lining enough for what I’ve been through - but it is something.  

Among the Trees: Sunshine & Hope

Most of January was damp and cold.  We had a smidge of snow - enough to earn a snow day - but mostly we had endless grey skies and rain.  I find January is a bleak month anyway, what with its late sunrises and early sunsets, but add in gloomy grey skies and my growing hip discomfort and the month had little to recommend it.  February was less than 48 hours old when it delivered blue skies and sunshine.  Though the cold persisted - it’s still Winter - the sun was welcome.  It’s also true that our days are lengthening, with an extra minute of sunlight morning and night and that helps.  Normally, Winter walks sustain my soul but my temporary disability has robbed me of that comfort.  On Saturday, when I could sit out in the back deck and turn my face to the sunlight, for a still-chilly 30 minutes, I felt hopeful.  I’m two weeks away from surgery and I am so ready for the return of walks in the woods.  Until then, I've had some sunlight and it was glorious.

Countdown Mode

Today marks my last 5 day week of school before surgery.  Next week, I have pre-op appointments on Friday; the week after that features another pre-op appointment on Thursday (side note: pre-op is just code for running up the cost for surgery) and the week after that is go-time.  Mornings are brutally difficult for me - getting dressed alone takes me half an hour.  I’m up at 5:15 am, not to enjoy my morning coffee and watch the sun rise, as was my old habit, but simply to get my crap together so I can leave for work by 7:15.  

This reality of being disabled caught me by surprise.  Because I had never had to walk this path, I hadn’t released how difficult it is to try and live a normal existence when one is disabled.  I expect to reflect on that when I get to the other side of this chapter.  For now, suffice it to say that the abled world gets to take a lot for granted. 

Plenty of people have encouraged me to take a few extra days off to ease the burden in advance of surgery.  I appreciate the idea.  But I like my job and these days it is literally the only thing I do outside of home.  I go to work, I drive to pick up groceries that the store shops for me, I go to the library every third Saturday.  That is the sum total of my existence.  So by-passing a day at school to avoid the morning struggle has costs on the other side.  My world has already shrunk and I don’t wish to shrink it further.  These days, as things are growing harder, I’m just grateful that the surgery date has hovered into view.  I am counting the days.

Cooking Journal: January in Food Restriction Mode

It is an established fact that I love to cook.  When I was denied a hip replacement until I could achieve a qualifying BMI score, my world - already being shrunk by my growing disability - shrank even further.  Once a woman who read new recipes and tried the ones that sounded good, I was now a woman who could only eat 800-1200 calories a day.  Briefly, that level of food restriction took the joy out of cooking.  Then I resolved to be on the lookout for recipes that were delicious and manageable with my restrictions.  Spinach, broccoli, and carrots were my friends, packed with vitamins and fiber to be filling.  I upped my fruit and veg consumption from 4-6 daily servings to 5-7 and used intermittent fasting on the daily so that with the exception of coffee, I didn’t eat between supper and noon the next day.  Lunch was confined to less than 300 calories.  That saved some space for supper, where my plate could be anywhere between 500 and 800 calories, allowing me to continue to try new recipes, even those that did not strictly fit low calorie specifications.  Cooking was physically hard (see: hip disability) but became enjoyable again from planning point of view.  We ate pretty well in the past month, thanks to my cooking skill and desire to try new things. 

I offer this information not as an endorsement of diet culture or food restriction.  They are physically and emotionally destructive, the biggest predictor of the development of disordered eating, and unlikely to reduce weight in the long run.  Bodies need nourishment and kindness; diet culture and food restriction denies both of these important things.  Medical science should know this but orthopedists are not very enlightened when it comes to weight and I was forced into food restriction. When my new hip is installed, I will keep to my daily food and veggie commitment but look forward to renewing my relationship with cheese, which I have missed terribly, nearly as much as I have missed being able to walk more than a few minutes a time.  

Embracing Barbiecore

There is an inevitable moment in the Winter season when I have had enough of the cold and snow.  When it happens, I turn to pink sweaters to see me through to the day in March when I will pack up my Winter tights and wool sweaters and declare Sassafras Spring.  That moment of Winter weariness came earlier than usual this year - likely because the cold aggravates my already unhappy hip - and last week I began to actively fantasize about Spring.  Usually I get through the last week of February and start of March by wearing cozy pink sweaters.  This year, the pink sweaters will start before Valentine’s Day.  For starters, I’ll be off work for my surgery.  Without the need to appear sensible at school, I can sit around home wearing whatever I damn well please.  And what I please is looking to be a whole lot of pink. 

Return of the Bullpen

 Last night found me back to form, completing my Sunday night chores to be ready for the school week.  I organized my school bag, changed the sheets on my bed, watered my pants, and got the bullpen ready. 

These habits are the glue of my world and help me to feel organized and ready for what the week will bring.  These days, when daily living is hard because of my (temporary!?!) disability, I am grateful for the order of these established habits.  

Worthy

At the December 15 appointment where the surgeon qualified me for the hip replacement surgery I desperately need, I was instructed that I could expect surgery in 6 weeks and that the scheduler would be in touch within 10 days.  When 10 days without a call passed, I called the scheduler.  She was polite but had no date - or even a prospective date - and indicated that I’d have a four week lead when she finally got me on the calendar.  It’s been three weeks since that first appointment; and more than one week since I called the scheduler.  I still don’t have a surgery date. 

The joy and relief I felt on December 15 has begun to wane.  As each day without a surgery date comes to a close, I make the struggle upstairs to bed where in the quiet darkness, I fend off the waves of despair that I feel.  With the help of my amazing pain management doctor, I can get some rest, but I haven’t had a full night of sleep since August.   January 16 will mark the start of my 6th month of living with crippling hip pain.  Over the last 5 months - 5 months - I’ve learned some tools to manage the disability.  But my world is small.  I go to work and then I come home.  Once home, I mete out the last of my energy to cook supper or run a load of laundry.  Groceries must be picked up as I can no longer walk through the store.  JT is indispensable; he does the bulk of our household chores while also trying to keep my spirits up.  He is my daily source of gratitude and grace and he never complains about helping me. Walks outside, a trip to the movies or a bookstore or to a cultural event are simply not an option.  Food restriction remains in place so even if I could go to a restaurant (I can’t), what would be the point?  My life now is small and getting smaller. Everyone reassures me that once I get a hip, a life rich with prospects will re-emerge.  I hope so, but I fear otherwise.  I recognize the dangers of that fear. It’s incredibly easy for me to slip into despair and to wonder if any of these doctors who swore an oath to do no harm actually give a damn about me.  In this case, actions speak louder than words, so I know the answer.  

Still, I try to choose hope.  For my Christmas stocking, I bought myself a mystery box from my favorite jewelry shop.  Inside the box was a tiny silver ring engraved with the words “I Am Worthy.”  It feels like the universe delivered this timely reminder just when I needed it.  Being required to lose weight to qualify for necessary medical care is demeaning and demoralizing; a daily reminder that my needs matter less and that I am not worthy in the eyes of some doctors.  I play a waiting game for medical care denied me because I am fat; it’s a game that makes me feel that I am not worthy at all. So I slip my silver talisman on my finger and struggle onward.

Among the Trees: January 5

The woods around me are quiet as Winter takes hold.  A Nor’easter is forecast for the weekend - our first prospect at real and significant snow in nearly two years - and I continue to wait for word of when my hip replacement surgery will be scheduled.  Without the hip, mobility is a challenge for me.  I miss the ability to walk at all, but especially to walk outside in the Winter woods.  Without a surgery date on the horizon, I don’t think that February will find me able to make the solitary Winter walks I used to enjoy.  I have great hopes for March forays into the trees.  For now, the backyard dogwood branches remind me that even in Winter’s cold, Mother Nature is making plans.   

A Wish for Peace

The last few months of 2023 were rather a shitstorm, both personally in terms of my health and in terms of world affairs.  The October 7 Hamas attack and the devastation in Gaza that followed has been heartbreaking.  Explaining it and discussing it with my idealistic and hopeful 8th grade history students has been extraordinarily hard.  My own reserves are spent thanks to my deteriorating hip and the ways in which I am disabled by it.  As a woman who thrives on her independence, I have not handled the waiting with any kind of patience or dignity.  Even as I understand that anger will not help, I yield to my fury more than I should.  When I found this lovely tag among my Christmas wrapping collection, it spoke to me on so many levels. 

As I continue to play a waiting game for my hip replacement and prepare to return to school next week, this tag will be my mantra and a reminder to control what I can control and to be the master of my anger, not mastered by it.  

December Cooking Journal: When Eating Isn’t an Option

The requirement that I lose weight to be allowed the hip surgery I desperately need was frustrating on many, many levels.  I think that all people deserve the healthcare they need and the overwhelming evidence is that fat people benefit enormously from receiving a new hip if they need one.  While I looked for a surgeon willing to treat me immediately, I also hedged my bets and engaged in food restriction.  I wasn’t hungry so much as I was angry. I love to cook and try new things.  My mental health suffers tremendously when I count calories.  But my crummy self-image was nothing compared to the pain of my crummy hip, and so I did what needed doing.  

Contrary to all the bullshit spouted by the media, I’m not fat because I lay about and eat bon bons all day.  I’m a person who eats 5-7 servings of fruits and veg on the daily.  When my hip doesn’t ache, I am active.  My metabolism is shot to hell from years of weird food rules and restrictions.  Fifteen years ago, I learned intuitive eating techniques that were the way out of the cycle of misery brought on by near-constant dieting.  I adapted the strategies I learned from intuitive eating to limit food and shed the 30 pounds that would earn me a qualifying BMI for surgery.  I made the food I craved, including this yummy soup, ate limited portions of it, and I let my anger burn.  In this way, I was able to qualify to have medical care.  That requirement is totally fucked up, of course.  But I played by the bullshit rules and won't stop doing so until I have the hip I need and deserve.  

Things That I Miss

To qualify for the medical treatment I need (yes, we’re still on the topic of hip replacement), I was forced to lose weight.  Setting aside my fury over the fact that weight was used to exclude me from life-saving healthcare with little medical evidence in support of the policy (and clearly, I cannot set that aside), I immediately set to work limiting my food intake.  It’s a hard world to live in for a woman who loves to cook and feed people, but it is the world I am currently living in and will live in until the day I get the hip that I need.  I miss the world of intuitive eating - where I could eat when I was hungry and choose the food I craved.  Salads with homemade dressing?  Yes, please. Grilled veggies with burrata?  Coming up.  A cookie or two after supper?  Help yourself. The occasional icy cold Coca-Cola?  Sure enough. 

Instead, I drink water and eat small portions of food - 800-1200 calories a day - and think of nothing but food, even if I am not hungry.  I hate this existence - and yes, that’s a strong word - because for me it is accompanied by immeasurable self-loathing and obsessive calorie counting that finds me frantic with worry that I should not eat at all.  Or should throw up what I do eat. And the fact that I am doing this because medicine has arbitrarily defined me as too fat for medical care well…..let’s just say that doesn’t ease the problem of self-loathing.  I miss so many things: liking myself and valuing my body’s strength, the ability to make a new recipe without considering the calories involved, the endless mental space to imagine instead of obsessively fret about food.  The other day I made cookies for the 7th grade and I would have loved to eat one.  I didn’t because I was petrified to slip from food restrictions in advance of my appointment with the surgeon.  So add that to the things I miss - not the cookie, but my rational brain - one cookie would not a disaster make.  I miss being able to enjoy the food I eat.  I miss being able to have a treat when I want it without consuming fear that one cookie stands between me and independent living.  I miss the way body positivity and the HAES movement made me feel like my BMI was the least interesting thing about me.  These days, my BMI is the only interesting thing about me.  It’s brutal to miss being a person who genuinely liked herself, full stop.  When you add in the dreadful limits that exist in my physical abilities as I live with this painful hip, it’s a wonder that I am still fighting for my life back.  But, damnit, I am fighting.  And I deserve to exist.

One Step Closer?

On Tuesday, I officially made the weight requirement for my orthopedic surgeon to perform the hip replacement I so desperately need.  The news was overwhelming and all I could do was cry.  That afternoon, I moved my orthopedic appointment up to the 15th of December.  I’m still holding the line on food restriction and though the pace of my weight loss has slowed - a thing bound to happen once my metabolism caught wind of what I am up to - I remain on track to lose a pound a week.  Food restriction will continue in earnest until the day of my surgery - a date yet-to-be-scheduled.  And that’s the fly in the ointment right now.  

When I see him on the 15th, I am fearful that the surgeon will move the BMI target and require that I lose more weight.  I have no especially rational reason to believe this; my primary care and pain management doctors have reassured me that the surgeon won’t do so.  But none of this journey has been rational. The surgeon’s adherence to BMI, a health metric well-discredited, is where the irrationality started and my less-hopeful self assumes more stupidity will follow.  Of all people, the orthopedic surgeon who told me on September 21 that the only treatment for my pain was a hip replacement surely knew what the next three months would bring.  In September, I could still walk without a cane and could make it the length of several football fields before I needed to rest.  By October, I needed a cane to make the length of a single football field.  Now, I can’t walk that far without excruciating discomfort.  I can't grocery shop or go anywhere by myself.  I cannot sleep at night without narcotics.  He knew this would happen, didn’t warn me, and really didn’t seem to even give a damn.  My lack of faith in his word is understandable.  And yet I met the goal and I am holding on to hope for a surgery date and with it, the prospect of a return to the full life that I long for.  

Four Weeks

After a glorious week off, classes resume this morning.  I love my job and all that it entails, so I’m not sad to return to work.  I spent a great deal of my time off resting my crummy hip and it was a happy thing that I could string together a few hours without pain nearly every day.  School days aren’t like that for me and I’m staring down the abyss of busy, painful days.  That’s hard to embrace, though teaching is a very good distraction from my discomfort. 

At the end of this 4 week stretch, I’ll have two weeks off.  That will end on January 5, the same day that I will see the orthopedist for a re-evaluation and - fingers crossed - move toward scheduling the surgery that will signal the beginning of the end to this nightmare.  As I face the next weeks, I will keep my eye on that prize and do everything I can to be the recipient of good news on January 5.  I struggle with the fact that because I am fat, I have to *earn* the medical treatment that will restore my mobility and stop this pain, but that is a story for another day.

In Which the Indignities Pile Up, part 2

The first time I ever liked my body was when I was pregnant with JT.  The pregnancy and delivery of a baby I had grown inside me were life-changing in so many ways, especially in terms of my relationship with my body.  I could make human life and my attitude toward myself slowly began to shift.  I wasn’t skinny - and never will be - but I felt strong and able.  I began to work out in earnest - not to lose weight but because I liked the way it made me feel strong.  In the years since JT’s birth, I’ve gained and lost weight but never deliberately.  Once I learned that dieting was a one-way ticket to formidable and overwhelming self-loathing, I rejected the practice.  My dysmorphia never went away but could be avoided by not looking in the mirror or joining pictures.  I learned to wear the clothes I wanted to wear because they felt good and because the fat-girl rule of “choosing something flattering” seemed stupid and constricting.  Since pregnancy, I haven’t weighed myself because that number on the scale would destabilize the whole house of cards that was my sense of self.  My outward confidence was unshakable.  Internally, I was sometimes less confident.  So I avoided triggers that brought on self-loathing: dieting and a scale were out; intuitive eating was in.  Deliberate and specific food restriction were out; eating what I craved and what tasted good was in.  Seeing any doctor was risky because weight would inevitably come up and no setting was safe.  I once had a dermatologist tell me that my skin cancer risk was higher because of my weight.  She said it in a disgusted tone that caused the resident to come back in and apologize to me after the doctor left.  By then, I was a sobbing mess and the resident handed me a tissue, patted me awkwardly on the shoulder and recommended a different dermatologist, one who understood the science (being overweight does not cause skin cancer!).  I found a decent gynecologist and got regular pap smears and used a convenient clinic for the occasional sinus infection.  When arthritis in my knees required gel shots, I sought an orthopedist.  Treatment came only after a stern lecture about my excessive weight.  But the treatment was successful and enabled me to return to a busy life of movement, so fuck that doctor became my attitude.  

Then my hip failed me in spectacular fashion.  I *knew* that no orthopedist would help and, true to form, the first three I saw told me I needed a new hip and then refused me surgery.  One refused until I could meet a BMI target; one refused until I lost weight but promised surgery in 1-10 years if I lost an unspecified amount of weight.  One rejected me with no expectation of surgery or explanation but weight was of course the reason.  That there is loads of research reporting on successful hip replacement for high BMI folks doesn't seem to matter.  All of this feels like my fat self and the life I've built don’t matter.  So it is that my confident self has landed squarely in territory that I know to be dangerous for me: I must restrict food to lose weight in order to receive the medical treatment that I desperately need.  Each day that I am denied what will be life-saving and life-altering surgery is a day I live in pain with a side-serving of self-loathing.  At work, many people have offered commentary - mostly along the lines of “I hear that when folks get a new hip they are so sorry they waited “ - as if to urge me to take action.  At first, I smiled and nodded.  But as the commentary continued, I’ve found that honest talk shuts that shit down.  So I tell people who make that comment,“I’m too fat to get a new hip and I’m working on fixing that so I can have a hip.  But thank you for caring.”  It shuts people up - and embarrasses at least some of them.  But it is both galling and humiliating to be in the position; an open acknowledgement that I matter less because I am fat.  I’m hopeful this story has an eventual happy ending.  Thanks to a ridiculous amount of food restriction, I am on-target to meet the BMI requirement one orthopedist set.  I will see that doctor in January and part of me is hopeful; most of me is convinced that he’ll refuse the surgery and set another BMI goal.  But I am doing everything I possible can to get a hip and to prove that I matter.  When this is all over I hope I can laugh about it.  Right now, I just feel incredibly angry and humiliated, like the 5th grader who was once told she was too pretty to be fat.  Now I know that I can be as pretty as I like while I am too fat to matter.  It’s not much comfort.

In Which the Indignities Pile Up, part 1

I’ve been fat for most of my life, at least since the third grade.  For the same amount of time, I would avoid that word: fat.  It felt pejorative and mean.  Knowing how society feels about fat people, I steered clear of it.  Chubby, curvy, chunky….I could live with those words.  But fat - and any discussion of weight or words like overweight and obese - were off-limits. My aversion started in the 5th grade, when the pediatrician explained to me that I was “too pretty to be fat.”  At the time, I was just over 5 feet tall and 110 pounds - taller and more solid than most of my classmates - and I was already horribly aware of how my bigger body was received in the world.  I was a quirky kid who l loved to read and swim and ride her bike.  I struggled to make school friends….girls in fifth and sixth grade did not like the same things I did and so I was an outsider.  I liked food and probably ate too much of it.  I can say with confidence that school lunches were not helpful; neither was my time spent as a latch key kid.  My mother had some weird food limitations habits - she was forever dieting - and that didn’t help my sense of self worth or teach me to eat only when I was hungry.  In  my family, food was restricted in all sorts of ways and so those arbitrary rules governed eating for as long as I can remember.  But it was the way my body was received by others that was most alarming and from 5th grade onward I quietly embraced the message that I was fat and therefore deserved the second class status that fatness demanded.  In Junior High and High School, I secretly restricted food.  For a good long time, I was 5’3” and weighed 125 pounds.  I still felt fat, ungainly, and unworthy.  

My inner shame was often stifled by my outer confidence.  I was - and am - well-spoken and confident of my smarts.  I rode that ability into high school Forensics championships and admission to UCLA.  

In college, I learned to embrace myself while cloaking my feelings about my weight.  I did gain some weight and worked mighty hard to get rid of it by throwing up, a trick I learned in 7th grade and really embraced in college.  I was never slender —— that was just not in the cards —— but I did learn to live in my large body and side-step the dysmorphia I experience toward it.  I worked with counselors on and off in college and grad school and I found my coping tools.  I never liked my body and I often cloaked myself in clothing to hide my appearance.  I also made damn sure that *no one* knew how I really felt about myself, adopting a “fake it ’til you make it” approach to fat self-esteem while never, ever using the word fat or acknowledging my feelings about my weight to anyone but myself.  That’s been one of the hardest parts of the challenge with my hip - the fact that I am suffering because I am fat cannot be denied or hidden away.  But that’s a story for another day.