Strange Blessing?

This week, my mom is in that limbo area – feeling so much better than a week ago, still working up to being ready for surgery. We spend days lazing in her room. We talk. We read. We watch TV. Throughout it all, she puffs on a device they have given her to strengthen her lungs, and takes walks around the hallways. And slowly, out comes the story, as she realizes how abnormal her behavior has been these last many months, as she got sicker and sicker. Instead of realizing that something was wrong as her health deteriorated, that something was truly, deeply wrong, an insidious voice inside of her said, no, this is just because you’re fat. Never mind that you’ve been this same size for years, and you’ve never had trouble walking across the room before. Never mind that you haven’t gained weight, but suddenly climbing the stairs is almost more than you can handle. Never mind that you no longer have the energy to do tiny things, like get dressed every day. Like put the groceries away right away. Like read at her old rate of reading. Like watch a TV program that she hadn’t seen 5 or 10 times before. Things that shouldn’t take much energy at all were suddenly taking all of the energy she had and more, because her arteries were blocked and her brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen. And neither were her other organs.

But the illness came on gradually, and so she didn’t really notice, and she was too busy dismissing all of these symptoms as being just another side effect of being fat. Because that’s what she’s heard all of her life, from doctors, from society in general…you deserve this, because you’re fat. As if anyone deserves a heart attack.

Make no mistake, my mom harbors no illusions that being fat is good for her body. She knows the risks and burdens it puts on her body. She simply hasn’t found a diet or exercise plan that truly works for her. They all have great success, she loses weight, all is well…until the inevitable day when she starts gaining it back, and at the end of it all, she’s bigger than she was before. This has been going on for much of the last 50 years. Whenever she stops dieting, she doesn’t lose weight, but she doesn’t get any bigger either. 50 years. What a lot of wasted time, energy, money, hopes and plans. What a lot of frustration and a feeling of failure. What a feeling of being ignored or ridiculed by society. What a lot of energy spent proving to the world that she is not stupid, or lazy, not greedy or evil or bad. And where does all of this get her? In the hospital, with all of these problems that she didn’t even recognize, because she thought somehow she deserved it, and didn’t seek medical help until it was almost too late.

This all breaks my heart. I hope so dearly that now that she has decent medical care for the first time in years (Medicare, which is 10x better than any private insurance she’s had in years, and which would be the perfect single payer plan for all Americans…Are you listening, Clinton and Obama? No? I didn’t think so. Idiots.) that she can get help for some of these health problems. First, of course, is the heart bypass. Then the recovery from the bypass surgery. I wonder how amazing it will feel to have all of the blood and oxygen that she needs for the first time in who knows how long? And maybe that same physical therapy she’ll be going through will help with her other problems. Her hip has been giving her a lot of discomfort this whole time. They’re taking xrays and checking into it, not just saying, “Oh, you’re fat, lose weight and the pain will magically go away”. Her back was injured years ago, and I’m hoping that the physical therapy will help take that pain away from her. Without this pain, without being isolated on the side of an icy mountain, I hope she can take charge of her life again, rather than sitting there alone, wondering if this is it, if this is how she will spend the rest of her life. Perhaps blessings come in strange packages, and this heart attack was the catalyst that gets her the help she needs. And hopefully that feeling of somehow deserving all of this will go away.