The Reality of Being Fat

I’ve been trying to imagine life after the MGBP.   

At some point, I will apparently no longer need the breathing machine which pumps air into my nostrils twelve times a minute and which I have to use every night to cope with my sleep apnoea.  I also currently have an oxygen machine, which extracts oxygen from the air and feeds it into my breathing machine.  This was an addition which I acquired after further tests in October 2010 showed that my oxygen levels were way down on what they should be during the night.  Not having to cart the breathing machine around with me when I stay away from home will be a really good thing.  The oxygen machine has a room to itself in my house as it is too noisy to have in the same room as someone trying to sleep, so a whole room will be freed up. 

It may be that my asthma improves, although I don’t think it will disappear entirely, as I was asthmatic before I was fat, but any improvement would be good news.   

My stress incontinence may also improve, but scans in February showed that my bladder has dropped and does need surgery to make a real difference to this.  

My blood pressure may well drop sufficiently to enable me to stop the daily diuretics I take for that.  

My indigestion may also disappear and along with it the tablets I currently take each night. 

I take statins each morning for my high cholesterol and this will almost certainly drop to a normal level. 

Most of the above would give me the problem of what to do with my practically empty pill dispenser – a problem which I would dearly love to have to solve. 

I have also been borderline diabetic and am very lucky not to have developed diabetes.  Losing weight will make the possibility of diabetes much less likely and that has to be good. 

My knees are suffering from age and trying to carry me around and I have just had cortisone injections to try to alleviate the pain and inflammation.  My lower back is not good either and I sometimes walk with a cane now or I don’t walk.  It would be good to be able to pick things up easily when I drop them  and to get into and out of vehicles without huffing and puffing.

I have a stairlift at home and hate having to climb stairs when I'm out, because of the knee pain, the difficulty with breathing and the lack of speed getting up them.

Thank goodness, I have never really cared about my appearance.  It’s more important to be nice than to look nice.  I don’t use “products” – moisturizer, hair dye, make up (other than my lipstick), mascara, conditioner etc. etc.  I just use the cheapest shampoo and apply nivea to stop my lips cracking while I sleep.   

I currently wear very large knickers from BHS and the largest size bras - which are too small - from SuperU.  I wear men’s leisure pants trousers from Asda.  T-shirts aren’t such a problem.  Some of mine are men’s but it is possible to get women’s very large t-shirts in places like Asda, Tesco and Matalan.  I’ve never been a clothes horse, not even in my long distant slim days, but it would be lovely to have a choice again.  I always panic when flying away on holiday that I will be parted from my luggage and won’t be able to buy anything large enough to wear while I am away.  It is a problem – and one that now I won’t have for too much longer.  

When I was slim my feet were smaller and all my shoes were size 5.  As I got fatter and fatter my feet spread to take the weight bearing down on them and now all my shoes have to be size 7 and my feet are so wide that just about all I wear nowadays are Crocs – thank goodness for Crocs!  I don’t suppose I would ever want to totter about on 3” heels again, but slightly more elegant shoes would be nice.

This is me yesterday, photo taken by Keith, at the lunch I had with friends. 

Being slimmer sounds a really good idea.