Angela in OA

PHOTO: I'm at Bosch Baha'i School with the Rancho Cordova Baha'i community, about six months before I entered food addiction recovery. I may have weighed more than 306 pounds, from the way I look in this picture.

I can’t recall the exact month or day that this happened, but I know the season and the year—it was late winter, 1987 that I entered the rooms of Overeater’s Anonymous and stayed for a while. (For those of who are familiar with the traditions of 12 step programs, please be assured that I am not breaking my anonymity by revealing this because I am no longer a member of OA.) I had attempted to attend the meeting a few years before, but I wasn’t ready.

The entire experience seemed completely surreal to me, from the circle in which people sitting to the way they said “My name is Janice (or Susan or Betty) and I’m a compulsive overeater.” Why did they do that? And why the rest of the group keep saying “Hi, Janice (or Susan or Betty)” in response? Then there was what felt to me to be an interminable silence following the short testimony given by Janice (or Susan or Betty), which was quite uncomfortable to me. The silence lasted until another person raised her hand, and I felt like I could breathe again. I was hoping they didn’t want me to say anything because I had no clue what was going on. Besides, nothing I heard seemed to relate to the reasons I came to OA in the first place, which were: a) I wanted to lose weight and, for the first time in my adult life, live in a normal sized body; b) stop my then-husband from sleeping with other women by losing weight, since he told me that was the reason why he did it.

An aside pertaining to the letter “b” in the previous paragraph: I know this is a hot topic with many women, and I promise it will be the subject of another blog when I get enough serenity in my recovery to stop referring to my ex-husband as a “piss-colored bastard” and many other “choice” monikers that I have retained for him over the past 20 years.

Every single word coming out of the mouths of those OA members were incomprehensible abstractions to me. When it was over, I decided to ask a few of them some burning questions: “What is abstinence? Does it mean you just stop eating completely?” (The thought of that kind of abstaining from my best friend and lover, was terrifying to me.) The ladies smiled graciously and told me that the OA program suggested that they eat three moderate meals a day with nothing in between, avoiding white flour and sugar. Since I was well over 350 pounds at the time this made no sense to me. Did that mean that I could eat as four huge slabs of thick crust pizza for lunch and a plate filled with macaroni and cheese for dinner, as long as those items were made whole grain wheat? Yes, they responded. OA does not endorse any food plan, and what you eat is between you and your Higher Power. I liked that concept because it seemed to me that I would get to continue eating the foods I loved and still lose weight. If that program could do that for me, I was all for it. Eating whatever I wanted, even though it was supposed to be in moderation, seemed heavenly to me.

But the skeptic in me wasn’t convinced, so I asked them, “Is that how you all lost weight?” Again, they smiled. “Yes, that is part of it, but the program also promise release from the pain.” Inwardly, I scowled. What pain? What are you chicks TALKING about? But that’s not what I said out loud. “So what you are telling me is that if I eat three moderate meals a day with nothing in between, I will lose weight.” “You will, if you keep coming back. It works.” Well, none of them were particularly large; in fact, one lady looked down right skinny to me. Even more importantly, she told me lost eighty pounds by doing the three-moderate-meals-a-day-with-nothing-in-between deal, and kept it off for five years. That impressed me somewhat. I had reservations about whether I could do the same because I had a lot more than eighty pounds to lose. But for the first time in my life, I had some hope about what to do about the most difficult issue in my life, which was my weight. An idea was planted in my mind about recovery from OBESITY (versus compulsive overeating or food addiction), which was that I could lose the weight and eat whatever I wanted as long as it was limited to three moderate meals a day.

After all, as OA explained to me, my food plan was between me and my Higher Power, who is certainly powerful enough to change my body chemistry so that I would experience miraculous weight loss on that food plan. I was going to slide into home base, free and easy. Since I didn’t hear any objections from the heavenly realm, I proceeded to define moderation as a large dinner platter or bowl heaping with whole grain pastas and/or breads and cereal products with sauces, protein and fats. And I could have dessert, as long as it was made with whole grain flours and natural sweeteners, like honey, raw sugar, agave nectar, brown rice syrup or molasses.

Wow, where was Overeater’s Anonymous when I was suffering through that contemptible Armed Forces Diet! I would have been saved from all that agony! OA was, indeed, a miraculous program. The prospect of being able to lose weight without going through the horrible deprivation, mood swings and stomach growls, not to mention being able to eat food that actually tasted good, was extremely appealing to me.

“I lost weight WITHOUT dieting!” I heard some of the ladies in OA enthusiastically proclaim that, year after year. I believed them; they were living proof. But there was something very faulty about the way I translated those words while applying them to working my program. So I ate my three large feasts a day with nothing in between, avoided all refined white flour and sugar, went to Overeater’s Anonymous meetings faithfully each week, and waited for the miracle to happen.

To my dismay, I gained more weight. My body became overwhelmed with the very serious health consequences of carrying over 200 pounds of excess weight. After while, I could no longer work because walking for more than two feet at a time caused daggers of pain to sear through my lower back and left hip. I became wheelchair bound and mostly dependent of my family to get me around town for shopping and medical appointments. I came to realize that the three meals-a-day-without-anything-in-between and eating unrefined sugar and flour was not working for me. But what else could I do? I had tried everything, Weight Watchers, hypnotherapy, protein diets, liquid fasts, Nutri-System….you name it; I’ve done it. I even had Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery in 2002. That did work for a little while. But I began re-gaining the weight after I was one year out of the surgery. At that point, I became severely clinically depressed and placed on very strong anti-depressants under the care of a psychiatrist.

Another aside: My unofficial pre-gastric bypass weight is 400 lbs, which I can't statistically verify. At the time, I refused to get on a scale, and most bathroom scales didn't register weights over 300 lbs anyway. However, I was massive enough to bust the zipper on a pair of size 54 waist jeans, which I paid big dollars for from Irene's Sport Shop on Arden Way, Sacramento. Irene's is a specialty clothing store for large women that carries up to a size 8x. I wore a size 5x, and I was still attending OA meetings during this time. When I entered Kaiser Permanente's gastric bypass program a year later, I had lost about 30 lbs through CEA-HOW, which was another 12 step for people with food issues. In order to qualify for gastric bypass surgery, I had to lose another 10% of my body weight, so I went a strict vegan diet and lost 30 pounds. I weighed 331 pounds on the morning of my surgery, which July 11, 2002. My lowest post-operative weight was 235. I entered my current recovery program in October, 2007 weighing 306 pounds. I now weigh 183 pounds.

It has been one hell of a journey, but I’m no longer on that road spiraling downward. I'm now working a 12 Step program that addresses my particular brand of total insanity around food. I thank Overeater’s Anonymous for introducing me to the 12 Steps, but I am too far gone to work a loosely structured program like that. It works for some who don’t have the completely bizarre mental twists that seem to justify destructive eating behaviors, like filling up a dinner platter to an overflowing capacity and considering that mountain of food a “moderate” meal. And I thought I would lose weight by eating that way! Only an insane person would hold onto such delusional thoughts.

There are a lot of people like me who live every day of their lives in the same kind of delusions. They are FOOD ADDICTS.

Hi, my name is Angela, and I am a low-bottom, gutter level food addict.

Oprah's Weight Gain

Food addiction. Plain and simple. It doesn't matter how much money you make, how much you exercise, how many fitness coaches and chefs you have...they aren't there when you put a little bit of this and a little bit of that in your mouth, then wonder why you gain five pounds in a week. The food addicted mind conveniently forgets all those little bits, and eats healthy in front of the world. How do I know? Been there, done that. I don't have Oprah's money, chefs or fitness coaches, but I've had plenty of dieting experience and programs, psycho and hypnotherapy, New-Age healing, the strongest anti-depressant medication prescribed for clinical depression (and one side effect is noticeably decreased appetite, which never took place), AND Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery in 2002. And I still gained weight. I can't openly talk about what HAS worked for me (but I can if you email me at the address listed in my profile), but I can say that I know what Oprah has been going through. And I hope she finds the solution I've found.

An addict's story

I am an addict. Most people would look at me and disagree with that statement. To them, an addict is one of those nasty, dirty criminals who would sell their children to the dealer for another line of coke, some more rocks to put in the crack pipe, or another syringe filled with whatever Willie-the-Dope-Man has on him. People look at me and see a overweight, middle-aged Black woman who needs mobility devices to walk, and they could possibly think, church lady. I look like thousands of overweight, middle-aged Black women with canes or walkers who stream out of the doors of the nearest Baptist/Penecostal/A.M.E. church every Sunday afternoon. I admit it; I do look like one of those women. But I'm still an addict of the most common, and frequently misunderstood kind. I'm a food addict. And I'm willing to bet that all those other overweight women waddling out of church every Sunday are food addicts, too. And they'd probably rather cut off their voluminous arms and legs and bleed out in the gutter before admitting that they are food addicts. I can relate to that. I didn't like making that admission, either.

Oh, no. I'm a good woman. That's a major preoccupation that overweight Black women often have. Others may call us self-righteous, but they're just jealous because we know God and they don't. We really are good, and we can prove it. You see those skanky little women on the corner, showing off everything the Good Lord gave her for any old dog out there in the street to sniff? We don't do that. We keep our legs closed because we're sanctified. Our bodies are God's temple, and we don't go sleeping around with every who-would've-thought-it like those Jezebels. We work, pay the bills, cook, clean and take care of our children. Those little slutty abominations figure it's o.k. to earn their way through life by opening their legs. They'll find out. When the doors of the pearly gates swing open and let all of us good women in, they're going to look seriously hurt because they'll be on the outside with their faces mashed up against the bars. And that's what they get for being so whorish. Only good women go to heaven.

That was my way of thinking, about twenty years ago. Before I was brought to my knees by a unrelentingly deceptive obsession with eating copious amounts of food that were high in fat and/or sugar, and low in nutritional value. My favorite pick-me-up-after a so-called bad day: A large bag of Fire-Hot Cheeto's, a pint of Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream and a tall can of Arizona Iced Tea in Raspberry. I leave it to you nutrition stalwarts to add up the grams of carbs, fat and sugar, along with the calories. Yes, I knew it exceeded the daily allowance. And that wasn't counting breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Eating like that nearly killed me. Twice. Yet, that wasn't enough to get me to stop. Even the desperate pleas of my increasingly alarmed children didn't persuade me to give up the food. The poundage I acquired on my body was overburdening my muscle and skeletal system, causing extensive cartilage damage in my left hip and lower back As a result, I became disabled, no longer able to walk without a cane or walker. Years later, I was in a wheelchair because the cartilage in my left hip was gone, and nothing remained except bone grinding against bone. Still, I kept eating.

I can't tell you exactly how much I weighed during that time. I had stopped going to see my primary care physician because the nurses always seemed to be anxious to check my weight during appointments. I stepped on the scale one time, and the digital read-out stopped on 369 pounds. Naturally, I was horrified. So I did what any food addict would do after an intense emotional shock--I went home and ate. No wonder I gained even more weight after that. For all I know, I could have been 400 pounds at that time. All that I'm certain about is that my size 4x clothes that I had to order from the Lane Bryant catalog were too tight. Even then, I refused to accept reality and order anything in size 5x. In my mind, I just couldn't have been that big.

In 2001, I read a magazine article about Carnie Wilson's successful weight loss after gastric bypass surgery. I was jazzed. Finally, there was a way out of the madness. I called Kaiser Permanente the next day and set up an appointment with my primary care physician so she could refer me to the Bariatric Surgery Program. As it turned out, Kaiser requires all prospective bariatric surgery candidates to lose 10% of the wieght at the time of the orientation. Somehow, I had managed to lose a few and I weighed 341 pounds. Now, I have been doing the yo-yo diet dance ever since I was eight years old. In my rather warped sense of logic, I knew I could lose 10% of my weight. That's easy. It's staying on the diet for longer than a week without earning an arrest record that was difficult. I'm not kidding; I turn into something worse than Darth Vader when I have to eat three ounces of lean protein and a cup of salad greens decorated with tiny squirts of tasteless dressing. The lava pit of emotions that I'd suppressed by consuming too much food was suddenly ignited in a fiery explosion, blistering everything and everybody who dares to venture in my presence.

Obviously, that is an unacceptable way for a human being to behave in the civilized world. Inevitably, the diet was shelved for sanity's sake and remaining free of a criminal record. But for the sake of qualifying for gastric bypass surgery, I knew I could put up yet another diet. I've always been able to do anything on a temporary basis except remain silent in a room with my ex-husband. Besides, the people on the web sites dedicated to weight loss surgery said that they had lost all of their excess weight. and they didn't have to suffer through another diet. They ate tiny amounts of food and they were never hungry. Their descriptions of life after gastric bypass surgery seemed like heaven opening its gates to me here on earth. Here was my chance to be normal. I couldn't wait.

52. O SON OF MAN!
Should prosperity befall thee, rejoice not, and should abasement come upon thee, grieve not, for both shall pass away and be no more

(Baha'u'llah, The Arabic Hidden Words)


On July 11, 2002, the morning of my Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery, I weighed 311 pounds. And I managed to lose the weight without any volcanic eruptions or assault charges. I was ecstatic and looking forward to a filled with new possibilities and dreams that I could finally fulfill. Oh, and what dreams they were! I would be able to finally finish my Master's degree (couldn't handle getting around that huge campus anymore), go on pilgrimage to the Baha'i Holy sites in Haifa, Israel, travel around the world teaching the Baha'i Faith and learning more about life on this planet, walk long distances again, run, jump and swim without passing out, play softball, take Tae Kwon Do lessons and earn my black belt, learn to belly and/or ballroom dance, take a ride in one of the Thunderbirds' F-18 jets (o.k., I'll settle for an F-8), and maybe...just maybe...get to know a man by the content and quality of his inner character and do the marriage thing the right way. That's what I thought about as I watched the bariatric surgery team prepare for the operation and waited for the anesthesia to lull me into a state of blissful unconsciousness. My new life will begin as soon as I'm in the recovery room, I thought.

I should have known better.

The wonderful part of the story is that I went from 311 to 232 within six months. The bad part was that since 1995, I had developed some problems with my monthly cycle. I kept bleeding very, very heavily for two weeks, sometimes more. For at least three days every month, I was incapacitated because the excruciating pain made walking impossible. Even with these symptoms, I didn't seek medical attention. I simply did not want to be weighed. More than that, I didn't want to listen to yet another lecture about how my condition was probably caused by my obesity, and if I lost even 10% of my body weight, I would see a great reduction of pain. (That never happened, by the way. I lost a total of 137 pounds, and I was more pain after the weight loss than before.) I knew the drill well. So I had to grit my teeth through the pain and made the best of a terrible situation.

Morbid obesity may have been the cause of my osteoarthritis of the left hip and lower back, and it may have even caused the alarming hemorrhaging that was happening two weeks out of every month. But ignoring the conditions didn't make them go away, and refusing medical attention meant that the conditions progressed to a life-threatening situation. The bleeding and pain were indications of menorraghia (excessive shedding of the uterine lining) and fibroid tumors. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/menorrhagia/DS00394/DSECTION=1

One month after a successful gastric bypass procedure, I had to be re-admitted to the hospital for two emergency transfusions. I was soaking three pads in twenty minutes, and my entire body felt like a rubber chicken. The end result was that I had become severely anemic. After coming home from the hospital, I couldn't do much of anything except sit on the living room couch and stare vacantly at the television. Even walking to the bathroom would exhaust me for hours. Watching hours of soap operas in a Vicadin- induced stupor was not how I had envisioned my post-bariatric surgery life. Even though I was losing a lot of weight, physically I felt worse than I did before surgery. This revelation led to feelings of anger, despair, and finally, depression. A dark, seemingly bottomless pit of depression.

I maintained my weight loss for a year hovering on or near the 232 pound mark. But since I was still suffering from osteoarthritis and menorraghia/fibroid tumors, I wasn't able to exercise as prescribed by the bariatric surgery program. I had trouble walking five feet without falling over, so even walking around the block wasn't happening. As depression blanketed every aspect of my life, I began to think about the comfort of food. I willfully fought against these thoughts, but their persistence began to wear down my resolve. One day, I was well enough to accompany my son Marc on a short trip to the grocery store. I secretly bought two bags of Hershey's kisses. By sunrise, I was sitting in my bedroom surrounded by piles of little foil wrappers. My relapse had begun.

55. O SON OF BEING!
Busy not thyself with this world, for with fire We test the gold, and with gold We test Our servants.

(Baha'u'llah, The Arabic Hidden Words)


So why am I sharing all of this very personal, potentially humiliating information with anyone who happens to casually surf this site? The reason is simple--I'm still recovering from this addiction, and I'm a writer. It helps me regain some clarity about issues that used to baffle me when I write about them. As for humiliation, that only works if the writer believes that she is nothing but pond scum. I'm over that. I have officially joined the human race in the past five years, and nothing can once again convince me that I'm beneath dignity. In other words, a person can be humiliated only if she agrees to it. I don't. Even though I have regained 70 pounds since weight loss surgery, I recently turned a corner in my recovery. Now, I observe my thoughts, feelings and behavior concerning food. And I make a daily practice of prayer and meditation. As a result, I have more awareness of how this addiction affects me, and I'm making much better choices. Not perfect, mind you. But much, much better.

It is estimated that 64% of all adults in this country are overweight. However, the term overweight, according the Center for Disease Control*, is divided into two categories: overweight(33%) and obese (31%). African and Native Americans have the highest rates of obesity, and as I did for many years, they are just as hesitant to get treatment for either obesity or any of the co-morbidity conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, osteoarthritis, heart disease or kidney failure. I am sharing my story to demonstrate what can happen if a morbidly obese person does not confront this very serious medical condition.

But there's also another issue that is rarely addressed by weight loss surgery programs or other methods of medical intervention for morbidly obese patients--food addiction. Most medical professions seem somewhat perplexed by the pervasiveness of addiction to food in morbidly obese patients. The patients often refuse to identify themselves as "food addicts" or "compulsive overeaters". In their minds, the problem is weight (and that is part of it), and the solution is either dieting to a "normal" weight or having weight loss surgery. A person can cut calories and a surgeon can bypass or band the stomach, but none of these methods address the source of the problem--the mind. This is the part that no amount of surgery can alter. The morbidly obese patient is responsible for guiding his/her mind away from food and into life.

For me, thoughts of God are stronger than thoughts of food. When I have my daily conscious communication with the Almighty, I am much more at peace with myself and the world. I don't need to stuff chocolates and caramels into my mouth in order to feel good. Having a few minutes of quiet meditation and prayer is much more conducive to letting go of destructive patterns of eating. That is the great lesson for me, and it's taken me 49 years to learn it. Anything is possible with God. I wholeheartedly believe that today.

*http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/r040121.htm

My story

I wanted to re-post this blog with an update. As of last Friday, my weight was 178 pounds, down from an all-time high of 400 back in 2000. As noted in this re-post, I have no official record of that weight, but come on--I am five feet, seven inches, and I BUSTED OUT of a size 54 waist (that means my waist was more than 54 inches round) jeans! And a correction to the re-post: I reviewed my medical records again, and my highest weight on record was NOT 358 lbs, but 365! Denial. Amazing, isn't it?

I've had the much anticipated complete replacement of left hip, which has gone extremely well. It's still healing, but it's amazing how the pain I had in my lower back and left hip has lessened. But am I ready to take Jeet Kune Do and salsa classes yet? Nope. A lifetime of morbid obesity is the "gift" that just keeps on giving.

I have experienced the monumental re-surfacing of health issues that took the backstage position to the more life-threatening and painful events, namely, fibroid tumors/menorhaggia/chronic anemia and severe osteoarthritis of the left hip. Now that those very serious issues (along with morbid obesity), have been dismissed, these other problems have taken center stage. They are: a) the deterioration of my abdominal wall which is causing ongoing hernia problems that threaten to rupture as two others have done; b) a two inch split in the tendon that runs along the left side of my right foot and through the ankle; c)osteoarthritis of both knees.

Undoubtably, losing over 200 pounds has made a difference in both the treatment and recovery from my previous health problems. And it is making a difference in my current treatment, which includes a soon-to-be scheduled abdominal wall reinforcement surgery (one of the surgeons who did an emergency hernia repair on me in 2008 will be sewing some kind of material onto my abdominal wall so it will stop tearing) and I will be wearing a brace with arch support on my right foot that will hopefully allow the tendon to heal itself. I hope it does because if that doesn't work, I will have to have another surgery to repair. That would suck, royally. Oh, and my primary care physician gave me cortisone shots in my knees. That has helped, but it's not a cure. I'm doing some natural healing methods (herbs, glucosamine sulfate, MSM homeopathic arnica tablets and healing visualization) to deal with the arthritis in my knees. I haven't completely worn out the cartilidge in them like I did with my left hip, so I have some tissue to work with.

What causes an abdominal wall to be weak? Here's what did it for me: years of gaining and losing massive amounts of weight since age 6, being chronically morbidly obese for almost 30 years, getting pregnant and giving birth three times, and having several surgeries performed in the abdominal area: tubal ligation, gastric bypass, uterine ablation with D/C, hysterectomy,and two emergency hernia repairs. As for the busted tendon, flat feet, morbid obesity and putting extra pressure on my right foot to avoid causing more pain to my arthritis-weakened left hip.

All I can say is if you are morbidly obese, get help!





I realize that there might be people who come across this blog and wonder why I write so much about recovery from food addiction. Well, the answer I have to that question is to share my story with those who have never read it. And to those who know my story, this is why I continue to write about this stuff. I can't afford to forget what I was like before. My life depends on me remembering what I was like, and to be grateful for where I am today.


My name is Angela, and I'm a food addict. My highest weight on record was 358 pounds, but I know I was bigger than that. I busted the zipper on a pair of size 54 waist jeans, the only ones I could find in a big woman's specialty shop that would somewhat fit me. Those jeans are still in my closet because I never want to forget how far down the road I was with this disease. I'm grateful to be alive. Food addiction has nearly killed me three times already, and I've come to realize that life is not guaranteed, just because someone has managed to escape death by the skin of her teeth.

My first near death came around 1988. I was going through a divorce, my soon-to-be-ex was in jail for various drug charges and having an on-going relationship with a 14 year old girl, I had to move back to my parents' house with my three children (all under age 5 at the time) and all I could do was eat. Not just eat, but big-time binge. I was putting down heaping platters of food. It was the night after Christmas, and I had been eating leftovers for the traditional family holiday feast, one huge platter of food every hour. I lost track of how much food I ate, and even though a soft voice in my head kept pleading with me to stop, I couldn't. Not even my younger brother Ricky, who I loved dearly, could keep me away from the refrigerator. And he played football. At that point, I probably would have tackled him to get to the dressing and gravy, or the sweet potato pie with whipped cream.

Finally, I passed out at some point on the living room couch, just like a wino. Around three o'clock in the morning, I woke up heaving. I knew I was going to throw up, and that it was going to be really bad if I didn't get off the couch. I was really dizzy and hung over from all the sugar and flour, and I had trouble figuring out how to move my body off the couch. Then I got a picture of Jimi Hendrix overdosing and choking on his own vomit, and I heard a voice yelling, "Angela, get up! GET UP! You'll die if stay here!" I rolled off the couch and crawled to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet. While I was throwing up (and I was doing so very violently, so much that I kept hitting my head on the porcelain), I was thinking, "God please, make it stop, just make it stop! I'll get help! I won't eat like that ever again!" I'm not sure how long I was in there, but when I finally stopped vomiting and cleaned up the mess, the sun was bright and shining through the living room curtains.

It's funny how addicts call on God when they are in trouble, but never when they are putting food in their mouths. I know I didn't.

Over the years, I've also realized that I could have had a massive heart attack and died after all that vomiting. My electrolyte balance must have been way off, but I was too sick to realize that I was probably very dehydrated. I saw everything in blurry pairs; my entire body was weak and rubbery, and my head felt like it had a sledgehammer pounding away inside of it. The only thing I could do was crawl back to the couch and pass out again.

Not long after that, I went to my first Overeaters Anonymous meeting. And I somewhat made good on my promise to God. I have never, ever binged like again, and for that I am grateful. But it would take me years before I became willing to stop eating sugar, flour and portions of food that my body doesn't need. I needed to have a much more disciplined program to do that because I have absolutely no concept of moderate portions, and once I take that first bite of sugar or flour, I start fiending for more, just like a crackhead going after that next rock. I can't stop.

In the meantime, I ate, and ate. Instead huge platters of food like I did that one day, I would just graze all day long. The pounds kept coming on. I developed osteoarthritis in my lower back and left hip. In fact, the cartilage in my left hip bones wore off completely, and for several painful years, I had bone grinding against bone. Now my left hip is deformed, and on the x-rays they appear to be twisted almost like a pretzel. The only thing that can be done is to have a total hip replacement. Even my doctor was amazed when she saw X-rays. "You have to do something about your weight," she told me. "Your symptoms will improve considerably even if you lost only ten percent of your body weight." (That's somewhat true; my symptoms have improved a bit. I need either a cane or a walker today to get around these days, instead of being totally wheelchair bound.)

I had trouble with that part. I would lose thirty or forty pounds, and gain back fifty. It kept going back and forth like that for years. In the meantime, I developed massive fibroid tumors in my uterus, and in 1996, I began hemorrhaging every month instead of having a normal menstrual cycle. It was so bad that I couldn't go anywhere for two or three days. I kept bleeding through like a waterfall, no made what I did. I used so many super-plus products that it's a wonder I never developed toxic shock. Finally, the dam finally broke on August 11, 2002, exactly one month after gastric bypass surgery. I had been bleeding for almost four months, and on that morning, even the super plus products couldn't hold it. I was gushing blood all over the place. I was rushed to ER, and when I came to, I was surrounded by a host of doctors in white lab coats talking softly to each other. A bunch of tubes and bags of stuff were hooked into the IV on my left hand (they had trouble finding my veins,I later learned), along with all kinds of instruments and beeping monitors. I remember thinking, God, please don't tell me I've died and gone to hell with a bunch of white men. Then I looked over at my blood pressure monitor, and it said 64 over 40. I wondered if that was bad, then everything went black again.

Why didn't I go to the doctor BEFORE all that happened? Simple. I didn't want to hear the sermon anymore: "If you would lose weight, your symptoms would improve...." I began to be very derisive in my attitude toward the medical community. Damn doctors, I would tell myself.

"They probably think that the reason I catch a cold is because I'm fat. And if that's the case, skinny people shouldn't ever have colds!"

That was the logic I used to keep me from seeing a gynecologist. And it nearly cost me my life, for the second time.

I believe my latest brush with death is related to the first one. All that binging and vomiting must have torn my abdominal cavity. There's no way to prove that at this point, however. But I sense that it's the truth. Gaining and losing weight over and over for twenty years probably put even more stress on the tear. My gastric bypass surgeon did tell me he repaired a small hernia during the bypass operation, but that conversation didn't even register with me until after I came home from emergency umbilical cord hernia repair surgery two weeks ago.

In the almost six intervening years between gastric bypass and today, I've had numerous vomiting episodes, mostly because I would eat stuff that I shouldn't have been eating in the first place. More ripping and tearing of that hernia. Finally, the hole was big enough for my intestines to begin falling out. Again, I made it to the hospital just in time.

Is the third time "a charm", as the old saying goes? I hope so; I'm not ready to die yet. For today, I'm abstinent, and that is by the grace of God. I'm anywhere from 100 to 120 pounds down from my highest weight on record, and within twenty pounds of my lowest post-gastric bypass weight. This time, I want get past that 200 pound threshold. I haven't been under 200 since junior high school. But it's a one day at a time thing, and not only that, it's a one day at time walking with my Higher Power (who I call God) every moment of the day, and using the tools of the program so the addiction won't take hold of my brain and lead me back into the food.

That's my story.