Chemicals That Make You Fat

Setting New Goals

I need focus and lots of it. I have decided there are some things I want to get done. I need to make a to-do list even to get done while being housebound due to heat this week.

These include:

1. I want to have another art show. I've had three independent ones. The last one was in 2009.

2. Get a cartoon book done. I've never been published but want to get this done.

3. Find a new endocrinologist, get to the bottom of what is causing the kidney stones.

4. I have been doing more volunteer projects regarding art in the community, I have smaller goals related to this, this includes art therapy related projects and doing a painting sit-in. I live in an area that is having great things expand in the arts and culture realm.

5. I have been in a support group for fat women, it does have some diet talk but the main endeavor is support and help. I am seeking to implement small steps health wise. One thing about being in this group is they have had a lot of encouragement to offer me. They know what I am dealing with is beyond normal.

6. I am going to return hope in my life. My story is not over yet!

My Mother and Me

This goes along with the Sister Thin and Sister Fat article.

My mother has always rejected me. Some may be shocked that I would say such a thing with such forthrightness but it is true. My being fat just was the icing on the cake. One thing here, not every even supersized person faces this depth of familial rejection, while some may face "concern about their health" and other problems, there are superfat people with loving families even as they face severe obesity challenges.

Every girl wants to love her mother and for years and years, I imagined she loved me and even managed to talk myself into it a few times, but as I have grown older it became harder to do. Even describing this level of rejection to outsiders is hard, many people grew up with loving parents, and while they had their faults like all people do, describing what it is to have a parent like this is very difficult. People who haven't lived it, can't even imagine what it is to live with a parent with NPD.

 With my mother, I have never seen her cry. I have never seen her show fear or any vulnerability. She never has shared emotions with me or any feelings. We are talking someone on multiple levels I never could relate to. In the most essential ways, I was absolutely motherless, an artistic, creative, emotional type who existed around freezing icebergs.

 Growing up, life for me was constant criticism and being told how I did not measure up. This ranged from having my very personality told that it was 'wrong" to being told that I was a failure and a "loser", even during the times I became a teacher and came out of college because I did not "make enough money". A household of coldness with no love shown, I was never allowed to "be me". Some months ago, I saw an old picture album of me at 14, I was maybe 40lbs overweight, and was very tall and bigger then most girls, and remember at the time, how I was being screamed at for being "fat", which was ironic given what happened to me later.

With both parents having the very same personality and both rejecting me, I had years of counseling, I have been down every road on that avenue. The counselors that I sought out by age 18 would tell me I was a decent person and not at fault for what happened which helped me press on in life at the time before I had God's help.

The problem is even if you heal from earlier emotional abuse and are able to draw boundaries that end overt abuse, toxic people keep doing what they do best, being toxic, and cutting down others. Scapegoats who "rebel" are ostracized, take it from me, and I've had to accept that none of the parties are going to change and to move on the best I can. I have found strength to do this with the loving and kind people I do know and my friends and God especially.

Why I waited this long, I do not know, but finding out about narcissistic personality disorder, and being able to stop the self-blame I had been programmed with for years, blew the door I could walk out of to freedom wide open. At such a late age? But then I have always been a late bloomer.

Low contact was my choice for 15-20 years,  1-2 visits a year with a polite smile on my face, "don't argue", "be nice", "be a good Christian", "forgive and forget", but the weirdness continued unabated. Four weeks of visits a year for my sister, even before she had children, 10 minutes to 30 minutes for me every 4-5 years and often that was on her way home from her trip to my sister's house. My sister was the favorite, the golden child in other words, the one who could do no wrong.  My mother's house was plastered in pictures of her and her family, and none of my brother and his or of me and husband. These few visits were with a tight smile, with some decent meals and presents but no place to share opinions, or be a real person and with put downs to be had. The day she told me, "you have nothing to show for your life" , this along with other moments of the mask slipping showing absolutely no empathy or true attachment to others told me exactly what I was dealing with.

Being mocked and put down for being poor, this growing worse with husband's job lay-offs is among my memories. My upper middle class mother and daughter were not only disgusted by my body but also my socioeconomic status and made it known as I grew into further into adulthood. These family roles would not change even into late adulthood. The worse thing was the family lining up behind the "queen bees", I became chopped liver, this means not one ally existed who I was related to due to the constant telegrams from both to the others that I was "worthless" and "fat".

Triangulation with one family member pitted against one another was constant as well as constant lying to each other. In fact the whole family grew to surround my mother like a cult, with each member focusing on her happiness as the highest priority. Even per my religious convictions after I became a Christian around 12 years ago, I knew none of this was healthy.

Also as I grew older I realized how my values were different from my family, my focus in life was far different, I had left the family religion at the age of 17 which didn't bring me overt shunning like some have faced from theirs but perhaps a lower version of it. This is painful for anyone who faces this.  Life for me had a different meaning beyond appearances, and acquiring status.  While I stayed respectful, this didn't help.

No amount of reaching out, communication and trying to change the status quo worked.

For years, I was quiet, always focusing on my own life even after being disabled, always lived in another town thankfully, volunteered, went to church, had life with my husband and friends. I pushed a lot of these things aside. I am not sure what even made all of it crop back up. Losing my last community? The death of three friends including one I saw as my surrogate Mom? Facing the hard fact I never could have children or a family of my own? A mid-life crisis? Growing older? Growing into more self-respect unable to accept indignities?  All I know is things I ignored and accepted for years and years, I seemed unable to anymore.

Other things included being left out of family events finding out about them months later when one of the parties slipped up. Family events I was invited to, few and far between, but then there was no understanding for when I got ill and unable to travel or low on funds to make it happen, and no one was coming my direction whatsoever, even though they were invited. When I got sicker over the last few years, it showed me they really did not care, no one was showing up at my door. Sure, they would abate their last vestiges of guilt tossing me a few presents, or helping during a couple emergencies for appearances or to keep me off their doorsteps, but after the years of doors shut in my face, even this came with too high of a price attached. Even if she could be generous at times, it was not enough to paper over the continued invalidation and the very fact she despised me.

Someone stopping by 2 minutes to dump some presents on your doorstep to look good to others, really is not someone who cares or who is being "present" in your life. That was the weirdest scene this holiday season, me saying "Can't you stay 10 minutes to even talk?" to my mother and husband being told "NO" and them hurrying to the car, to race to their week long visit with my sister. Where is the dignity in this? There is none and the smirk on her face that day said it all to me.

Some may be horrified that I would write negative things about my mother. I guess on this blog I have the gift of some anonymity, because in real life, I usually wait to know someone before I tell them the story of my parents and family, so they know who I am first and that my story is unique. One does not want to spend one's life being perceived as "blaming one's parents" either for everything that has gone awry in their life.  I know there is risk involved that I will be seen as the one who is "bad" or "crazy". Some may even say, "You are 500lbs, your mother has every right to be disgusted with you!"

Telling strangers or near strangers that you interact with in person,  "My family hates me" doesn't earn you party invitations in other words.  People like Alison Bechdel whose graphic novel like Fun Home, I have read despite probably our obvious different worldviews, but with an appreciation for the art and story, have gone even deeper into the story of their childhoods.

I know I am not a perfect person, I certainly made plenty of my own mistakes, but then you realize when you are around people who truly care, and those who reject you to the core. It is like night and day. You grow older and especially with time feeling short in my case,  you want to commit your time and energy to the good people.

When I was young, I did not drink, or drug, and was not a juvenile delinquent. I however was a fat bookworm that embarrassed her.

While I remember being called "fat" and then looking in horror at the ages that happened realizing I was just on the cusp of plump compared to now, things got far worse. Whenever I gained weight it seemed to be a reproach against her.  When I had the huge weight gain, the parental rejection went up with each pound gained. There was no understanding, no hope, no "why don't we take you to a doctor", a 100lb weight gain that took one year to gain between the ages of 13 and 14 which took me from size 12 and normality to midsized fatness for over 12 years was ignored as well as the 400lb weight gain that would come later as I lost my hair and my skin became covered in sores. My young teens were spent being yelled at for having a filthy neck and other problems that really were medically based. The worse thing, the fact that all of this was seen as a "choice".

Watching shows later with superfat bedbound people in bed with family members feeding and cleaning them, I was incredulous, maybe this is why I could still even walk at 680lbs, knowing that no calvary was coming. Maybe in an odd way what I suffered actually helped me survive.

There was no family waiting in the wings to take me in. Even as a fat asthmatic with crumbling health, I had to go work with violent gang members and  young people in a group home in a giant metro city where I knew absolutely no one when I moved there, to keep myself off the streets. I was the one who really needed a group home, a hospital and the support and help I was supposed to give others. Looking back at what I faced, has given me a new assessment.

In 2001, one of her best friends of 50 years duration--an old ex-door neighbor and family friend turned to me and said, "Your mother has been disgusted with your weight, and cannot accept you!" The friend saw this as something she supported.  I would regret the visit immediately and remember begging husband to leave which we did early based on this treatment.

One part of my life is reading about others with troubled childhoods, books like Blackbird, Fun Home, and Mommie Dearest as a teen. These books helped to at least say to myself, "Others have gone through the same you have!" I still own the paperback copy of Mommie Dearest that became dogeared from my re-reading it. That one seemed to match my existence the closest though as far as I know I was not adopted and my mother was not a Hollywood Star, but she was very focused on appearances, neatness and seemed to get others to see me in a bad way no matter what I did or how much I tried to change their mind to the positive.

If you want to know what my mother was like, 80% of this link applies:

Characteristics of Narcissistic Mothers

I was basically a fat nerd with a "Mean Girl" for a mother. The meanest Heather from Heathers grew up and was my mother. Socially awkward and unable to read social cues, I was almost squished by a mother that seemed to have an IQ of a 1000 when it came to manipulating people. I was made into the scapegoat, the one who could do no right no matter the appeals I made, or the changes I tried to make to myself. At a certain point you realize that walking down the same road isn't going to work, it's time to take another.

Part of my healing that I seek now is not just the physical but inside too, and that means choosing to be free. I don't need to keep people in my life who are toxic to me.  Choosing to be me, and seeking after God's will, those who truly love me and living life according to my values.

Obesity As a Disease? Sure in my case YES

A.M.A. Recognizes Obesity as a Disease

One caveat with the above, PCOS causes fat more then other way around.

Obesity has trashed my body, but then there is a chicken and egg argument here, fat came as a symptom of failing bodily processes. That said, should some plump person with a 30 extra pounds be considered diseased? I think they need to be careful of the line they draw as to who is unhealthy, not everyone is going to be built lithe thin but of course on this blog, I have held the line due to my personal experiences that obesity is a disease and causes major health problems.

The more heavy you are the worse the problems but even people into the 200s have mild things to cope with. It seems to me pass a certain 180 or so mark for women, and past 200 for men, is when feet start hurting, the obesity starts weighing a person down and they "pay" for it in various ways. Fat is uncomfortable, and no size acceptance activist is going to change the fact that the fatter you are, the harder it is to get up the stairs. Many of them mean well, we don't want people treated like pariahs, like dirt, there are fat people in the mid-range sizes who live very active lives however the pretending that obesity is not part of a disease process is whistling by the graveyard in size acceptance circles, as Americans grow more fatter and sick from our toxic culture and adulterated food.

My only hope is that now they have named it a disease, is they will look at it's true causes and stop forcing treatments that have been proven failures over 40 years.

Tie Dye and Other Art Projects

I made this Tie Dye the other day to cut up and put the pieces up for card making. It is a relaxing hobby. I have done batik before, and hope to figure out a set up where I could do more batik for myself at home, though I would like to do more projects at the community art center I am involved with.

This week, I am working on an article on art therapy for them, I am going back 20 years, for some of the memories but why not? I would like to write on outsider artists next and street artists too. If only I could have up with a snappy artist related title for columns, anyone got any ideas, I am open to it being fat-supersized related, they know what I look like. 

Here are some pictures of cards I made over the last year or so too. I use old calendars, recycled materials and more. This week, I am even chopping up some magazines from the 1950s for collage and other work. These are done for various community projects and also for personal friends. 

A quick painting from a few months ago done for a friend.

I am working on a graphic novel too with a cartoon character as well.

Oh and a butterfly picture I forgot to post that turned out really good...

So I keep pretty busy in terms of art projects. One thing though, if I ever want to do an art show, I did give all my latest paintings away--sold one or two, and need to do some more work for an art show on purpose and with a theme.

See: A Fat Artist

A Message To Myself

Hey, it's a good reminder for today....when the road feels long and hard, don't give up. My husband always jokes, it will be the day after the 6 foot check shows up. I hope to encourage anyone coming to read my blog, who may be facing some of the same things I am, not to give up and keep going forward. I know it is not easy.

Galatians 6:9 - And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

Another Reminder

I found this on Facebook. "Don't Let Them Steal Your Joy!" That sums up things well. One thing if you are a fat person in this society, this message is especially for my super-sized brothers and sisters, "Don't let them steal your joy!" This is one thing to remind yourself when you are told you are "bad", "lesser", etc for having a weight problem!

Romans 12:12 - Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;

Toxic People 2

This goes with Staying Away From Toxic People and Sister Thin, Sister Fat

Such decisions are not easily made, but I guess years and years of this have taken their toll and I am on the path of trying to get away from those who have me feel bad and who have invalidated me for far too long. One thing is the guilt but if you realize people are being harmful to you and your sense of self, there really is no better decision. That said it's not easy, and I realize there will be grief with having to make such a decision more upon what should have been.

What's Wrong with Doctor Offices?

Hey this guy got off easy, imagine being treated like that when you need a medicine. In smaller towns there is not so much choice "to go somewhere else" and they know when they have a captive audience so to speak.
Does anyone run into this?

Where you have to make 15 phone calls to get done what ONE PHONE CALL should be enough?

I do think I am going to talk to my kidney doctor about his office staff. My home physician one isn't much better. I am petrified and even have felt like crying whenever I have needed something medical done, realizing that to get what the drug needed to stay alive, or an insurance authorization dreading dealing with the legions of indifferent office staff, that seem to throw your paper away in the trash as they go uh-huh on the phone and ignore even the most polite messages left in their voice mail boxes which they never return, EVER!.

I've had a TEN DAY HOLD UP on obtaining a kidney drug to dissolve my large kidney stone, what if it decided to go migrate today? A surgery for me would be life threatening. These people don't care.

What I don't get is why these staff don't do things on the front end, instead of necessitating that you call them over and over, to get anything done. I would rather stay nice and polite, but then NOTHING GETS DONE, and seriously I could be here 2 months later sans kidney stone drug if I let things go or let them push me off.

They really don't care, and that disturbs me. Are they all badly paid? Overworked? Burnt out? I think the rules make it so too much is dependent on the doctor. What is worse is you want to keep things peaceful and straightforward but then if you get a little firm they turn around and tell you that you are rude when their odd behavior ruined the day to begin with.

Today's conversation, after three phone calls and struggling with voice mail jail, was "We have patients bleeding here!". Sorry don't buy that, they'd be in the ER and I'll be bleeding if I don't get my medication. I said, "I gave you a week, why do I have to call, check and babysit, every single step, I shouldn't have needed to call at all in the first place." They assured me that my authorization was ready at the top of the stack to be faxed today. I said "Could you fax it now?" but they assured me it would be done. It's Monday today, I'll call the pharmacist and see if it's done on Wednesday. If it's not, I'll be showing up in person. At least this office is local and the weather is such I am not housebound yet.

None of these things make sense to me. I have serious trust issues already with the medical establishment and they are worsening.

Butterfly House Butterflies

I like to go to Butterfly House at our local nature center where I do birdwatching too, and take snapshots of the butterflies. There is one that hung out on my hand too.

I love antiques

I often have thought I was born in the wrong time period, except modern medical technology keeps me alive, I always felt like I was born in the wrong era. Does anyone else relate to this? I can't afford many antiques due to lower income but when I can find them cheap, I will buy one like this Geography book: the older maps are fascinating:

In my apt in the living room are pictures and frames that do date from the Victorian Era.  Older means better to me, and if it's not clothes due to my size or food, it's bought used. Thrift stores are far cheaper to find things at then new.

One of my best friends, a college friend of 30 years duration, works in estate sales, so this is a shared interest of ours. We discuss how they over-estimate the prices on Antiques Road Show on PBS. I usually cut them by at least half, and think about what they mean when they say something may get the money at auction or retail. 

I have a collection of Victorian and some later photos-instant ancestors one can find at any antique shop that I have been collecting for some years. Here are acouple:

One dream job in an alternative universe would be antiques dealer, if I ever won the Lotto, the antique shops around me would be in heaven. LOL

Sister Thin, Sister Fat

My sister wants  little to do with me, which has been very painful and cost me relationships with my nieces and nephews.  I had to stand up for myself the other day, when she told me that my 830 square foot apartment which is in a safe and nice neighborhood was "not good" enough for her and two of her school aged and beyond children  to visit for more then 10 minutes. Really I just wanted an hour or two, maybe to make a meal? I haven't seen them in a couple of years. Was this too much to ask? 

Lest you all wonder what is wrong with me, to have my family disdain me so, realize I have enjoyed many close friendships, through out my life. To me my friends are my family, when I lost a few friends over the last years including Pam who was like a surrogate mother to me, that was tough. That said, I have been blessed by many kind, good and giving friends.  One part of living life to me is making sure to seek out positive and good relationships and community, that is where healing and goodness lies especially when dealing with such immense health challenges.

Even over the last week, a friend of nearly 30 years and I spent some days together. We love antiques-even if I can't afford to buy, I love to look and we made a tour of antique and thrift stores that was quite fun. With another friend, great times and conversation have been made as we make cards and talk about books. Another friend who I met online has been an extraordinary blessing to me. Many of them are like my "sisters". The way they treat me stands in stark contrast to this other stuff.

Maybe in my act of writing about some of this other "stuff", I can do better in letting it go and moving on beyond it. I hope so.  I am praying about moving beyond toxic relationships for good too, I have been on the low contact plan for some years, but that has been enough to cause me too much heartache. There comes a time when you face that some relationships are too toxic for you and that one must walk even for the sake of your own dignity and integrity.  I wanted my nieces and nephews to know me even though I only saw them once every two years or so at my mother's house, and now they are old enough. This is too much pain to carry.

The last few years have been a discovery of finding out about certain personality disorders and why I grew up in a family with no empathy, compassion and where the rejection seemed far harsher then just blamed on the weight alone. I delayed posting this article and even took down one article where I posted about her, you see I loved my sister very much when I was young, we would share our bedroom, jokes, fun and laughter--I have even old letters dating back to those times where that sister seems forever lost. Over time, I had to accept this love was not held in return especially as we grew older.

When she was young, she almost died of a very rare autoimmune condition, I was told as a child, "Take care of your sister!", and I did. My brother and I were even sent to be cared for by other relatives and I remember the very youthful memories, of hospital waiting rooms, whispers and fear. She was 3 and I was 4. One time later when she was a teen, I would save her life, as she was having an asthma attack and my callous parents told her to tough it out which she did obediently, and I screamed and begged for them to take her to a hospital and she passed out and turned blue on the way into the ER.

She would survive all this but then when I got sick, no one paid attention and no one cared. What is really creepy today is that both of us would form an opposites poster, she got hyperthyroidism and became extremely thin, around 120lbs on a 5 foot 10 body while I have dealt with severe obesity. Sister THIN and Sister FAT, like Jack Sprat and his wife. Her with pinched features and the same color hair but an extraordinarily thin body. Even when young she was far thinner then me.

Even getting her thyroid zapped with radiation didn't bring any weight back. The only problem was, why was I seen as a bad person on the opposite path for getting so sick and fat? My brother one time, told me he defended me as my weight was mocked and maligned among relatives, he told them some of what he knew I had faced.

Some of us, I suppose grow up in families where they break apart. Having the close friendships I always enjoyed from age 12 on, where a close female companion was always important to me, I did share this with my sister to around the age of 16, then everything "changed". Did my going away to college at age 17 change it all? Even before then in high school,  I knew my sister saw me as an embarrassment for being fat. You know something is wrong when your own sister pretends not to know you when you approach her in a high school hall.

My sister was the favorite child you see, favored above all the rest. I was the "scapegoat" to the personality disordered and even though I was an A and B student and my sister a C student, my parents favored her with even my brother noticing this as we grew up and the physical evidence being made manifest in my mother plastering her house with pictures of my sister, husband and her thinner children, and no pictures of me and my husband or my brother and his children which are more overweight to this day. Sure I questioned this, but it was to no avail. Everything was about presenting a perfect showroom and life to these folks. The websites that discuss growing up this way, talk about the triangulation that narcissists will do to their own children, and the broken apart relationships.

My sister while we got along into our late teens even though I knew she was the favorite child, as I fought my way through college, and then later poverty and my severe weight gain was told I was "not worthy", "not good" and that I was a "bad" person. Later I would learn how scapegoating works in dysfunctional family systems but my sister drank the Kool-Aid and threw me under the bus without hesitation. Trained to take care of her, I would not understand how weird it was to be told to do your sister's homework or school projects up to her two year degree by one's parents. So the person that exists today has no problem looking down on me, and thinking I am "not worthy" and treating me accordingly. She took to her "training" by my parents like a duck to water. Having heard some rumblings about how one niece may be like me in personality although thin and they hate this fact, fills me with worry for that niece, I pray for her.

She married an upcoming executive that would make 6 figures, at the age of 19, and never lived on her own away from home. She would never face crime, the rented room life with milk crates, jobs like a residential counselor heavy with responsibility but low on pay. Things turned especially when my mother told her not to let me be in her wedding, that my then size 22 body at 6 feet tall, would "ruin" the pictures and I was "too fat". I was 20-21, and she was 19. My sister went along with this. At the time I remember feeling so hated, and this is really when my health was starting to go downward. Today as I have grown into my middle years, I realize how terrible all of this was, but then being so young had no context to understand what I was facing.

Maybe when I am brave enough I will share more, but let me just say, that I know what it is to be alone in this world, at that point in life, I had not developed the close friends save for my college friends who had left and started their own lives at that point in time. Can you imagine the daily bulletins I got about being fat, an embarrassment and worse?

It was awful as as my sister got older she jumped on the narcissistic bandwagon. My mother comes first to her. In fact pleasing, appeasing and being like my mother comes first. She even wears her hair in the same exact style of my mother and seeks to dress like her, like a little Mini-Me. Personality wise there are matches too, an over-focus on appearances, no close attachments and very few emotions outside of anger. One thing, trying to relate or talk things out does not work here. Any desire to meet these folks half way, discuss "feelings" is like bouncing a rubber ball off a brick wall that smacks you in the face, especially since many feelings are not even shared or related to. You either toe the line or get out. The worse to me is all the being lied to constantly.

As she grew into a upper middle class stay at home mother with 4 children, and I struggled with poverty and the rest, she seemed to gaze upon me more and more with the same disgust as my mother. Now I understand the temptations of sibling rivalry and such, and one's own sin of envy, but I have great relationships with many people who live at all economic levels, so just the fact things became this way were a disappointment. I certainly was willing to look beyond the differences from my direction.

My sister was thin, I was not. There are people I have in my life who love me even despite me being fat and my other challenges. Sadly my sister is not one of them. I do grieve this but I can't go running to the empty well anymore. I wanted the laughing fun girl who cared about me back who was a dear sister to me but I realized this was a hopeless dream.  I am happy to be me in the way, that I am glad I was able to grow into my own person. I think being a Golden Child, can form a gilded cage of its own that becomes a trap where a person only cares about appearances. At least I am free of all that. Sister Thin, Sister Fat. 

Medical Update: My Nightmare Body and Scary Medical World

I gained 30lbs in 2 and half months which is very scary given I was exercising almost everyday making sure to never miss a walk and was eating healthy enough. I did have company and the weather has been great so was out and doing far more, so very exhausted, it could be water weight.
I feel like time is short, so I was running around trying to "live life" and do things with a friend while the weather allowed it and I was out of my housebound cage.

The nurses at my kidney doctors were even in shock I gained so much and so fast. The expression on their faces was very interesting. My husband said "Remember at Weight Watchers, they'd notice you gaining 30 even within 2 weeks and losing it!" Yes I remember that, the ladies there doing the weigh ins, one told me to go to see a doctor. I told her I had serious medical problems already being monitored.

When I tell you living in this body is a nightmare, I am not holding back anything. It is a definitely nightmare. Diet and exercise make you lose weight? What an absolute joke. I feel like I live in an alternative universe having been cursed with a monster body.

My kidney stone the one caught in the kidney GREW, they told me that I could have surgery to remove it, very risky, or take pills to dissolve it, only problem is the medication to dissolve it contradicts with Spiroaldactone, so that means the doctors have to find another congestive heart medicine and I get to have PCOS or endocrine androgens raging through my body but I told the doctor that is less risky. Anesthesia which is needed in the other procedures feels like a death sentence with my breathing problems.

I found out this, that I am too fat for any of the EWLS tables where they blast the kidney stones with sonar [who determines these things?] even two hours north of me at a larger medical center. I am seriously scared to be honest, it is a lot of stress. If you know of a place that can work on someone at my size [486-516lbs] please tell me. Please pray for me. Nothing seems real with this body. I had enough to deal with medically before the kidney stones knocked on the door.

I told the kidney doctor that I need an endocrinologist to get to the root of why this is happening. He has made a note of my history of Pseudo-Cushings-I showed him the old medical records of the high cortisols. I know for a time my parathyroids were off, and they are testing the PTH levels though those are normal now, so I do not know what is going on. I know ever since the kidney stones started a year ago I have not felt right. So many chills, exhaustion and other weird signs. My body temperature is always very low--95 or 96. The medicine I'm on to keep the kidney stones at bay, allpurinol has worked but how long can I stay on it without side affects? I even drank some Braggs Cider Vinegar reading on line it dissolves kidney stones and that is not pleasant tasting, even watered down.

I am praying but I feel often overwhelmed with my own body.

Giant and Fat

Fat and tall can go together!

Can Birds Get Fat?

World's Fattest Man Dies at 900lbs

World's Fattest Man Dies The Obesity Epidemic in The Pacific Islands.

The factors for this epidemic of obesity are a dramatic decrease in physical activity and a dependence on a Western diet. The traditional foods of the islands such as fresh fish, meat and local fruits and vegetables have been replaced by rice, sugar, flour, canned meats, canned fruits and vegetables, soft drinks and beer. The total population of the 21 island nations, territories and commonwealths in the Oceania area is just under 2 million. In

I get the feeling that the obesity problem in Polynesia goes far deeper then people eating some spam and rice instead of fruits and vegetables. Their bodies seemed to have been altered via whatever is being put in Western food. You see this globally, everytime American food products hit the shores everyone starts fattening up WHY? People ate food before, and there is no proof all ate perfect "diets" in earlier times. Also one factor is poverty obviously too impacting this. There are some people who physiologically are more prone as "canaries in the coalmine" as well. What did the 900lb man eat? They certainly don't look too wealthy, what did the wife cook and make for him? I am sorry to hear that he has died but I am not surprised the world's fattest man came out of Polynesia either.