Flames... Flames on the side of my face...

I hadn't realized how angry I still am at the medical establishment, on behalf of me and every other fat woman on the face of the earth, but mostly on behalf of my mother.

My mom is a special woman in a lot of ways.  She's smart as hell, she's driven, she's devoted to her family, she's got a dry sense of humor... and she's obese and has been for most of her life.  She's been fighting it most of her life as well, with the usual diets and exercise and...  And she gets the same thing that I get, every single time we go into the doctor.  Whatever the issue we have, the answer is always the same - lose some weight.

And here's where I realize that I'm not really mad on behalf of my mother.  Well, I am - the woman is incredibly fit, considering.  She's come through uterine cancer with barely a blip, she walks every day, she does channel walking when she's here in Portland...  she's got healthier habits than most of the 20 year olds that I know.  And yet... she's having oxygen difficulties, to the point where she might be on oxygen permanently.  She told me yesterday that her doctor suggested losing some weight, and I went ballistic.  Overly ballistic (I know, this shocks those of you who know what an even-tempered soul I am.) 

But then I realized... it wasn't her doctor I was mad at.  It was every other doctor that looked at me, and immediately assumed that I just wasn't trying.  Every doctor that I saw when I had the flu who told me that my weight was causing it.  I was mad about the 3 weeks I had to wait to get a CT scan because Kaiser had no idea how to scan someone my size.  I was mad about not being able to get surgery to get this damned tumor out of me - yes, I understand that may have saved my life, but still...  (I wouldn't have been so mad about that part if Mom hadn't gotten the same opinion - come back when you lose 100 lbs - when she was already 150 pounds less than I was.)  I am angry about the medical establishment's assumption that if you are significantly overweight, you are a bad patient risk and can be shuffled off to the side with little consequence.  But mostly, I'm angry at the shame I feel for just inhabiting this body of mine.