Incognito: The Weight

From March 2005 to January 2007 I suddenly started gaining weight, especially distressing to my pant seams. I don't know if it triggered the onset of my cancer, or if it was because I was developing cancer, but the 40 pounds that appeared in less than 2 years was not a typical occurrence for my body. In fact, I had weighed within a 5 pound range for about 10 years, and felt I hadn't changed my habits enough to account for the lack of control I had over it.

There were some things doctors and I attributed to it, turning 30 with all the metabolic changes that implies, going on birth control pills (a few months only, but right before the scale began to slide). I was also under a lot of stress. Besides being 30, the other factors had been intervening "constants" in my lifetime that had barely phased the scales before. In fact, stress had typically been my diet pill, exercise buddy, and napping coach.

I had just bought a condo in a hilly part of town, walked my dog about twice a day, walked to and carried my groceries from across the street almost daily, and up and down the hills again to the internet cafe regularly. My biggest caloric vice was strong beer, but like I said, pretty much a constant in my current life and had even cut down just as the pounds arose. Unfortunately, as sweat poured out, fat stayed in, and I just kept getting bigger.

Before the first fat year was up, I decided my condo, repair, and pet bills were too much. Plus I think my place was haunted by a man in dark blue coveralls. Perhaps he is the one who rigged my car to break down in the middle of a bridge during rush hour. In any case, and for lots of other reasons, I needed to move back near my family again. I decided to ignore the thickening changes I suddenly noticed in my left breast, until my condo was fixed up, sold (in 4 days, mind you), and I was safely home to face the consequences.

I would feel bad for waiting to get checked out, if my eventual caregivers had actually taken me seriously. Even after a tumor had formed from the thickening tissue, a link was not made between my increasing fatigue, recent weight gain, and a family history of ovarian cancer. My young age was seen as no cause for alarm, and I was told to wait and get it imaged again in 6 months. An elective early removal of the growing rubbery mass determined once and for all, my cancerfun fate.

The tumor is now gone, but the weight, sadly enough, is still half there. Of course, not the most pressing of my problems anymore, it's still a factor in my ever-changing identity. It's difficult to tell people in a new-again town that you're just learning to dress several extra inches, and that when you're dancing... yes, there is some skeletal movement happening somewhere beneath those layers. It was even more difficult to tell myself to accept my new appearance, ditch the split-seamed trousers, and start acting like I wanted people to look at me at all. Ultimately, I had to take the chance that this was the best I was ever going to look again, and told myself I better make the most of it. With just that attitude, wouldn't you know it, the pounds started coming off.

So, good luck to you and your latest identity crisis. May your journey be as enjoyable as my latest shoe-shopping spree and your insecurities a mere hiccup. Check out the following links to see my former haunts...

My beloved, old condo: http://needtoknowseattlecondos.blogspot.com/2007/04/new-on-market-1928-bering-building.html
SR 520 Bridge, Seattle: http://k43.pbase.com/o4/96/635896/1/55651215.SR520Standardemailview.jpg