My Jumbo Eye-Opener

It was August of 2004 and I was substituting for the secretary at a primary school that I subbed at as a teacher sometimes. I don't guess I realized how bad I felt at the time, but looking back it's a wonder they didn't have to carry me out in an ambulance. I remember the day quite clearly even though it has been eight years ago. I was wearing a blue jean dress - one that didn't touch my body anywhere, kind of like a tent. My head started hurting really bad and my vision seems a little blurry. The principal told me to go to the clinic and have my blood pressure checked. When the nurse saw what my pressure was, she got this really grave look on her face and told me to go straight to my doctor. My doctor just happened to be close by and was actually at a clinic that I worked at for over a year when I first moved to town.

I went there and explained that I had been sent from work because my bp was high. When the nurse assistant sat me in the area that they use to draw labs and took my pressure it had gone down a little. She went to tell the doctor what my pressure was and left my chart on the counter. I opened the chart and looked at the first doctor's note I saw which was from my last visit only a few months prior. My eye was drawn to the area at the bottom of the page where the doctor puts the main diagnosis or the cause of the problem that the patient presented with that day. Mine said "morbid obesity". When I read those words it was like a punch in the gut. They recorded my weight that day as 283 pounds and put me on thiazide for my blood pressure.

I thought back to a day 13 years prior when I went to the obstetrician for my first prenatal visit with my son. The note that he wrote on me the first day he examined me contained the word "obese". I was 24 and weighed 208 pounds. That was the first time I was ever presented with that ugly word in relation to my body. I mean I knew that I had some weight to lose, but I didn't realize that it was enough for a doctor to label me as "obese". If I would have gotten my head out of the sand and been prompted to do something about my weight when I weighed 208 I might have forgone the "morbid obesity" diagnosis. When I googled the term that day I found out that the excess weight that I was carrying would lead to health problems that would eventually contribute to an early death.