One day I will Be Normal...Not!

By  Nicho

 

I have been obese all my life. I was given away at 6 months of age to an elderly ‘aunt’ who, although she did love me in her own way, had about as much idea of how to raise a child as she did astrophysics.  She would, these days, be called a ‘Feeder’.

There was no room in my vocabulary for “No thank you, Auntie Jinnie” for I would receive a sad look from her mournful face and something on the lines of “ But I queued up all afternoon for those” or “ I walked all the way to Wavertree Road for that for you…”  or similar such emotional blackmail. 

So, being the people-pleaser I was (and still am) I didn’t argue and ate the proffered cake or whatever it was. I didn’t even like the cakes – I still don’t.  But, in those days you did not argue with an adult – you did exactly as you were told and the idea of not doing so was totally preposterous!  

The results of this being, by the time I was sever years of age I was also seven stones!  I know this because my big brother Brian – nearly 12 – took me to the local shops and he spent two of his precious pennies to weigh us both on the big round cumbersome machine in the doorway of the Chemist.

From school-age, I lived with my Mum and family in the school-week and every week-end and holiday - including Christmas – I was packed off to Aunti Jinnie’s again.
I had no friends, for when do you make your friends? At the week-end, playing out with school chums, or going to the morning matinee at the pictures to see Gene Autry, Flash Gordon and the original Batman, I believe. I had to ask my husband because I NEVER GOT TO GO.

My Auntie was very house-proud – never to be seen without her green overall – and so it was “Sit there and write a story” or “Sit there and draw something nice” or sometimes my uncle Joe would set some ‘sums’ to keep me occupied.

I had been bought a bike for my Seventh birthday but was never allowed out of the garden on it.
The result of all this, as you can no doubt guess, was a steady increase in weight and loss of self confidence to match.

I was teased mercilessly at school and outside.  “Hey Fatso” was a good one and “look at the arse on that” another of ,very, very many unkind  comments – too many to recount and indeed I’d forgotten most of them five minutes after they were uttered, so de-sensitized was I.

Even one of my junior school teachers joined in. He never missed an opportunity to put me down or be cruel.  Mr Jones was a giant of a man – he stood on my desk once and I put my ruler next to his foot. His foot was longer than my 12 inch rule….
He was Welsh and had black horn-rimmed glasses and greasy black hair.

One occasion, we were waiting in a little queue waiting for him to mark our work. For once, I was relieved! I knew mine was right and it was tidy too! He had nothing to pick on me for. Or so I thought…

The little boy in front of me was one of the nice kids – Kenneth Barnett – and Mr Jones decided to have a go at him –poor Kenny was in a tizz – this giant booming at him “what’s two and two boy!” Now, as one of the brighter kids in the class, clearly Kenny knew that answer but was too terrified to speak.  Jones continued booming and when Kenny totally froze, it was clear Jones was getting no more from him so he started on me.

“Go to reception class in the infants and ask the youngest child what two and two is!”

I, of course, answered with “…but I know what it is – it’s fou…” I didn’t get to finish.

“Shut up and just do what I say” he screamed at me. I knew there was no point in arguing – it would just get worse for me. So off I went and did as I was told, not wanting to do what HE wanted me to do which was to hide somewhere and not do his command.

Yup – daily life with Mr Jones was full of little joys like that or the time he needed one of the kids to stand on a table to stick something on the wall and asked for the tallest – me. He laughed fit to bust and said “Ha – there isn’t a table in the school that will take HER weight. She’d break it!” He said this whilst standing on said table. Six foot five and about – I’m guessing now I have a son that size – at least 17 stones.  Some of the kinder kids looked away, ashamed of him but some of the ‘other’ kind, laughed along with him and kept it up for some time afterwards, as they had validation from a teacher.

I was at an extremely low ebb and started refusing to go to school.  My Mum brooked absolutely NO nonsense so I was amazed when she said she would intervene on my behalf!  She had never stuck up for me before?

A little while later she asked me how things were at school and I told her that he’d seemed to have got bored of being a bully and left us almost entirely alone! But I thought it might be because of his arm. “Why?” she asked “what’s wrong with it?”
I told her it was in a cast so he must have had an accident.

It was not until just before she died she told me that on telling my oldest brother David about this bully, he’d said he’d have a word with him instead because if he was a bully, he might not treat my Mum with respect and David wasn’t a small man!
Apparently, he’d had more than a word!

So it went for the next couple of years – the comments went over my head by now – but I wondered why people thought it was okay to speak about another person in that way within their earshot. It baffled me. It STILL does!

By the time I was 12 my weight had risen to a massive 14 stones!  I got a bit of confidence (I’d passed the 11 plus and got into a prestigious High School) I put my foot down – I was NOT going to Aunties every week-end and holiday any more. It was making me fat and miserable and I had no friends!

I lost two stones within a term and got to 12 stones at the school nurse check in. It was the first (and only) time I was pleased to be weighed in public.
I remained thus for the rest of school and even dipped to the top eleven stone level once or twice when it was found I was good at some sports.

But those days being what they were, it wasn’t the ‘done’ thing for young women to ‘run about like hoydens’ so when I left school, the sports stopped and the only exercise I had was walking my dog – which I did most evenings but it wasn’t enough.

There were no sports centres then. The only Gyms were full of sweaty, old men boxing and women were not allowed. Women weren’t ‘allowed’ a lot of things, I was to discover! 
About this time, was the ‘Twiggy’ era.  My god – if I felt out of sync before ….!

Buying clothes in a size 16 was next to impossible. The town was filled with ‘Boutiques’ from which nothing over a size ten was ever known to emerge.  

M&S DID do a size 16 but your grandma would have looked old fashioned in it. Crimplene was the order of the day – a kind of figured nylon which was not only hot and sweaty but CLUNG to you if you didn’t wear a ‘foundation garment’ and such apparel was not on the shopping list of anyone under the age of 40!

So I learned to make my own clothes. My Mum had a stash of old heavy linen sheets she never used (she’d got those horrific nylon sheets !) so she said I could have them. Some of them were like actual drill! How anyone put them on their beds I have no idea and laundering them must have been a nightmare but they made fabulous bell-bottomed jeans!  I even had people in clubs coming up to me and asking me where I’d got them from!
The lighter fabrics were made into tops – mainly smock tops which were in fashion at this time.  Saved me a fortune in clothes, which I then spent on shoes and boots! Never had a problem with me feet!

I became a singer in a band (several actually) and that was all kinds of fun!  And no-one seemed to care that I wasn’t built like a pipe-cleaner because I had a great voice.
I had boyfriends and in a way being fat was great – it filtered out the knobs who were only interested in arm-candy – my boyfriends were nice people!

I met my lovely Hubster and married and had four fab kids and the grief was passed to them. Now it was “Your Mum’s fat!”  Dear god – how do some people bring up their kids?  They must HEAR these things to repeat them!  I know at least one of my lads had - and won – a fist fight because of it. 

So, yes, I would have at some point liked to have been ‘normal’.
I did join gyms etc but with four kids, a husband who worked shifts and a full time job, it was impossible to do ANYTHING at the same time every week. It was also expensive. I had kids to clothe and feed and a mortgage to pay – there was NO MONEY for frivolous things. We’d never had a family holiday until a friends Mum offered us her caravan in Wales.   The kids always went on one with the school or the Church but me and Nic never had one. Every month we were still about two thousand pounds in the red right up until they left home for Uni or flat-life, then it started coming down a bit.

All was on an even keel then fate decided – nahh – lets pose another problem for her to solve….

I was on my way to work in my car, stationary as there was a red light ahead.
Some daft woman in the house on my right, decided to reverse out of her drive and across the road at about 30mph and got me!  I saw it happen but had cars both ahead and behind me so couldn’t move!  So, back damage and extreme pain for the next eight years.   But at least the compensation under my insurance paid the overdraft off! Silver linings – you have to take them where you find them.

However, once again immobile,  my weight piled on again. Seventeen stones and climbing. I changed jobs to a local firm which was nicer as the girls there were civilized – unlike the mob at the Old Swan branch. Wendy, Kathy, Julie and I had a great system and we had fun too. We had a weight-loss challenge – which I won – bit unfair as with me being heaviest I would be bound to lose more temporarily. Keeping it off was the secret I didn’t have.
But fate hadn’t finished with me yet…..

Fibromyalgia.  It is one horrible, cruel condition and way back then, it wasn’t known about so you were a liar and a drama queen  or it was ‘in your imagination’ along with CFS, Lupus, ME and all the other conditions we now know a little more about..
It was never officially diagnosed so I got no help from anywhere and had to carry on working – I couldn’t even get a blue badge…….

I remember going Christmas shopping for presents for my now grown kids and I got out of the car in the car-park of Next, walked to and into the store and there was not a seat to be seen and I HAD to sit down or collapse.  So I went back to my car and cried my eyes out.   I think that is when my depression began, actually, although I didn’t realize that until I just wrote it.

I was popping Solpadeine like sweeties – I didn’t want any of the heavy drugs that came with Fibro – they turned me into a Zombie – so I just carried on – in retrospect, I don’t know how!

I put more weight on until at twenty-two and a half stone I said “Enough! No more bloody diets – they do not work! You just put it all back on and more with it.
I went to my lovely doctor, who had tried his best with my different symptoms, but had no idea about Fibro (neither did I until a friend on a craft forum sent me a link to the Fibromyalgia Association. She had it and recognized my ‘whinges’ for what they were). Good grief – it was like my shopping list! 
But I knew if I persuaded my doctor to read up about it and diagnose, I wouldn’t get what I wanted – Bariatric surgery!

I got my surgery – which,, by the way, is not cheating, it’s not a cure it’s just a tool.
You still have to do the ‘work’ yourself and if you don’t – you put the weight back on.
I lost seven and a half stones and it has stayed off apart from one stone which keeps bobbing up and down. Try as I might – I can’t get below fifteen stones. But now I know why – thanks to a Dr Gabriel Weston who has done a long medical study on sets of twins – one fat one thin – to find out why.

I’m not going into it here – it’s too complex and long but suffice to say I will never, ever be ‘normal’.

The surgery was amazing though and gave me a new lease of life – I in fact think it SAVED my life because I would not have seen seventy two carrying another two women around. So I got rid of one of them – she can walk – but I’m stuck with my twin.
The good news though, is that the surgery fixed my sleep apnoea, my diabetes AND…wait for it…my Fibromyalgia! Yep!

I don’t know how or why but when I awoke after surgery I was waiting for the pain to hit. I was on my back and could NEVER lie on my back – it was too painful. I asked the nurse when the anaesthetic would wear off and she said “Oh – that wore off ages ago.”   Gobsmacked is not a big enough word!

That was 11 years ago and I’ve had no significant pain since. Not until about a month ago, that is.. 

I’ve had a cough for about 18 months which has not cleared up with anti’b’s or steroids so doc though he’d try me on a different asthma inhaler.

Bad idea. I got every symptom on the list of side effects, one of which is muscle and joint pain . I’ve been off that inhaler for a month now and almost back to where I was with everything except the fatigue and the muscle-pain.

The bad point is it’s making my gym visits very unfulfilling when I can’t do what I could do eight weeks ago with ease.

I just hope the Fibro has not come back.
I really would have liked to be ‘normal’,  just for a bit……...