Am I My Body?: Part Four

In 2019, I wrote, produced, and starred in a one-woman musical show on my 65th birthday. I still hate looking at the DVD. I was at my highest weight. Nothing I wore (and yes, there were several costume changes) looked good. I looked like a fat woman singing.

We all know what happened in 2020. The COVID pandemic. By this time Ernie and I lived in a downtown high rise with its own little gym and swimming pool. I chose the building largely because of its athletic facilities. I had switched from power walking to swimming because at my weight, I was having more and more pain in my knees. But now everything was closing. What on earth was I going to do? If I couldn’t work out, I’d gain even more weight. I bought some equipment, and did some walking in the Forest Preserve, but I knew I would never be able to keep it up on my own. No gym, no trainer. But I had to try.

Everything changed in April of 2020 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had a lumpectomy, followed by four months of chemo therapy, followed by 18 radiation treatments. I spent approximately eight months dealing with my treatments and all the resulting complications. I vomited, drained infections, swallowed antibiotics and countless other pills, picked at food, gave up food altogether at times, dealt with still more infections, and eventually ended up in the Emergency Room with a life-threatening pulmonary embolism. What I did NOT do during these months was work out.

Hey, I tried, but most of the time I felt like shit. The pool reopened eventually, but then I was going through the worst of the chemo and only swam a few times. My swimming hadn’t changed much – I was surprised that I could still do laps for 20-30 minutes – but when I got back home I would lie in my bed and gasp for breath for what seemed like forever.

(I found out later that the blood clot no one had detected could have moved and killed me during exercise, so it’s just as well I didn’t do that much.)

People encouraged me to get outside and walk. Which I did once or twice, holding on to Ernie’s arm and dragging myself along. With my bandana covering my bald head, looking like death warmed over. There may have been a pandemic on, but I live in downtown Chicago, and every time I walked I passed at least a hundred people on the sidewalks. I told myself I’d been working out five times a week for almost forty years, and when all this was over, I’d get it all back.

Which I did. I was surprised how easily the cardio came back. Within two weeks I was swimming just like before cancer, flip turns and all. What didn’t come back right away was my weight training. My strength came back slowly, and the left-side pain from my surgery got better even more slowly, but my main problem was that I was starting to gain weight back. I’d lost 40 pounds during cancer treatment. It didn’t seem possible. I was baffled, since chemo therapy had left me almost completely uninterested in food. I was eating half portions of everything, constantly bringing back doggie bags from restaurants. I told myself over and over again that maybe the one good thing about cancer treatment was that I’d finally taken off the weight I needed to lose. But it was coming back.

I’d been reading about the new weight loss medications, like Ozempic and Mounjaro, so I asked my doctor at my next physical if I should consider one of them. I’d been prediabetic for years, And I knew he wanted me to lose weight, but he never nagged me about it. He suggested I try Wegovy. I started at the lowest dosage, and gradually moved up to the maximum. And the weight began to come off. Almost immediately. Within a year I lost almost 50 pounds.

I’m awfully happy with the way I look right now. My total weight loss is around 60 pounds. With my doctor’s help, I’m decreasing the dosage amount, until we arrive at the place where I can maintain this weight easily and comfortably. There are days I look in the mirror and thin, “Oh maybe just another 10-12 pounds” but the truth is I’m at the point now where continued weight loss just means more loss skin on my lower belly. I’m not trying to look like a model. I’m comfortable in the average zone.

I feel like myself when I look at Jean in the mirror now. I never did recognize that fat girl. Yes, I’m going to say the word “fat.” It’s pretty out of style right now, and it should be But I feel free to use it the word on myself. I was fat. I’m not any more.

Right now, I’m healthy, I’m intelligent, I’m financially secure, and I’m happily married. Yes, all that was true 60 pounds ago. But…until I lost the weight, there was still something I lacked. I needed credibility. And fat girls don’t get that. No matter how smart, or talented, or pretty you are, people judge you, and wonder why, if you have so much going for you, you can’t lose some weight.

I am an author, an activist, an advocate, and a podcaster. But people don’t know that unless you tell them, and my professional career paths have been so crazy it requires a lot of telling. It only takes two seconds to look at someone and think, “Fat.”

Yes, I know men have this problem too. At some point, even the most successful man gets judged if he’s too overweight. But it’s not the same. Women are judged first for how they look, and second for what they do. Is it “fat shaming” to say these things? I don’t think so. I call it reality. I hope I’m still alive when things change. They haven’t yet.

I still have questions. Was my history of sexual abuse part of what kept me heavy for so long? Was I comfortable being overweight because that meant no one would abuse me sexually? Am I one of those people who, for medical reasons, can’t maintain a healthy weight through diet and exercise alone? I think I can answer that one. Yes. I must be. But that’s OK.

Am I my body? Yes, I am. It’s not all that I am. But as long as it’s the only one I’ve got. I have to like it and keep it healthy. I have no idea what will happen to it, and me, over the next ten to twenty years. All I can do is be happy with it and me right now.