2010 to 2013 was a time marked by lots of changes to my body. I was no longer going to age, I was going to fight it with every fiber of my being. I started to walk around the block, and that turned into walking a few miles, which turned into walking with a little jogging, to more jogging than walking, nothing but jogging, to jogging with running, then full on running. Past 2 miles, 4 to 8 miles a day. Longest run being 12 miles. I went from a size 46 pant down to a 34, something I hadn’t been since I was in my teens. I mixed it up with cycling, sailing, swimming when I could, and calisthenics.
Then my knee decided to crap out. Spoiler, something grew in the tendon but wouldn’t be diagnosed until this year.
It was the end of 2013 or so going into 2014. I was working for Boardvantage. I suddenly couldn’t run like I had been doing, my right knee would just be in pain, out of balance with my left knee. Slowly the weight began to creep back on. I tried going to Kaiser for help.
“You’re too fat, they won’t do anything for you in ortho!” my primary care physician told me. They weighed me while I was wearing my doc martin boots and a leather jacket. I tried to tell her that, but to no avail.
Slowly my knee began to get worse, and the weight continued to pile on. I started smoking again hoping to keep it under some control. It did, my weight hovered around 220 for the most part.
2016 my knee locked up for a week. The doctor ordered an ultrasound. “You’re fat and a smoker, I’m not doing anything else for you” was pretty much her answer.
2019 my leg had a complete muscle spasm of some kind. Only it wasn’t. The doctor that saw the MRI said, “Oh you just have a pulled muscle” and forgot about it. The pain was so severe on that one that I had to steal some of my wife’s squirreled away opioid pain meds.
Covid came, packed on another 20 lbs. Broke my finger, quit smoking, then the weight really packed on. I’m currently 342 +/-2 lbs. I’ve never been this heavy in my life. The pain grew to be so intense I couldn’t even walk a block anymore. Any walking I did do, required the use of a cane.
I got lucky though. I finally got a doc that listened to my concerns. He ordered 2 MRI’s and found a hot spot. It looked like my quadricep tendon had torn, and been torn for years. This caused my knee to drop (which caused the lockup they didn’t want to work on) and the Cartlidge on the kneecap to get worn out. Within 6 weeks I was scheduled in for surgery.
So I’ve been back to walking the last month. Not much at first, just a mile if I was lucky, and it HURT. Especially my back, I’d have to find spots to sit and rest the back from hauling all that belly weight up. I’ve been closing these circles daily on apple fitness.
With me has been my faithful companion Beatrice. She too was out of shape, at least as out of shape as a 3 year old Corgi can be, but she’s been doing nightly walks with me, and because of that loves me sooooo much. She’s the one on the far right.
Now I can complete several miles without a break. I just let Beatrice lead us wherever.
Here’s where perception comes into play thought. A lot of people would look at my gaining weight, and just assume I decided one day I wanted to be lazy. They had no idea (I had no idea) that a fatty tumor decided to plop down in one of my major leg tendons. So naturally people just treated me like every other fat fuck out there.
“You just need to eat less, and exercise more”
“But I can’t exercise, it fucking hurts”
“Then just eat less, anyone can do that”
I’m a big man, about 5’11” (my wife says I’m 6′) There’s a certain energy level and muscle density that if I don’t eat, I lose it. I will barely be able to carry myself around (and it actually was near that about 2 month ago)
There’s a lot of conversations like that though. For all intents and purposes I’ve been disabled the last decade. I’d get into these discussions with people about bike lanes.
“Oh we must create a car free society! Everyone should walk or bike!”
“But I’m disabled”
“Fuck you” was pretty much their answer everytime. (Well, it was actually lots of downvotes on reddit, but that’s a whole different issue)
It’s certainly changed my perception of overweight people.
I’d say at least 90% of them are overweight because they’re eating too much, and not exercising enough. Then there’s that 10%, who like me are this way because they were disabled, or in an accident, or some other kind of physical issue.
Here’s where my biggest issue with Kaiser comes from. That photo at the top of this? That is how I looked when they told me “Ortho won’t work on you because you weight too much” Sometimes, it’s not even them looking at you, it’s them looking at some botched scale readings and a BMI chart that dictates the care you’ll recieve. Even medical doctors will look at you, and decide, “You’re fat because you’re a overeating, lazy slob” and not “Oh you’re fat because you’re in too much pain to exercise”
I thank god for Dr. A, and Dr F for taking care of me. My knee isn’t perfect, but it’s a helluva lot better than it was. I just wished their colleagues had taken my complaints about pain serious when I went to them in 2013.
While I’m down, I’m not out. I’ll continue to push myself back to where I was, just like that last time, only a little bit slower. I’ve been eating a salad here or there, cut down on a lot of sugar, and just keep moving.
