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.