It aint over till the fat lady sings...

Another perk of living on this little rock floating in the mediterranean, is that I've come, up close and personal, with flab ... serious flab ... I'm not judging fat people, in fact with a BMI on the verge of being problematic, I feel real compassion for anyone with a weight issue. But, what I have been experiencing here is not your average, garden variety, fat person. No, it is ... well ... a new, possibly alien-infested, genetically modified, branch of the human species.
We're talking BMI's of 50 plus!!

Bariatric surgery has never been my thing. In fact I truly believed that it is for those lazy, weak, psychologically challenged liars claiming to have tried every possible diet on this planet without success. How on earth did they actually get that big anyway? ( A bit harsh in retrospect ). So , barring your proudly South African mama, presenting for the c/section of her eighth kid, putting the michelin man to shame, and having little inclination to communication, I haven't had much to do with this patient profile until recently.

Two months ... and I realise just how wrong I have been!!

These are tortured souls, completely trapped, beyond escape, by hundreds of kilos of suffocating lard. Their bodies are physical freaks of nature and it doesn't matter how it happened ... the psychological torture is the same ... it's bad , really
bad.
They deserve to have these operations, in fact, they have earned the right to have them.
It's their only chance to have some sort of a normal life. Ok, normal is in the eye of the beholder, but never once being able to wash your own feet ( or any other, more delicate parts of your anatomy,
for that matter ) is abnormal for me. Very abnormal!
My most recent case really opened my eyes. A young mother of three (still trying to figure out by what divine intervention that feat was accomplished ) with a BMI of 57!!
To be visually affronted by the sight of such a quivering mass, stretched out on an operating table, is, to say the least, enough to ensure that no morsel of food ever crosses your lips again! Ever!!!
( Lost 3 kilos since this case...)


Needless to say, there were complications, both surgical and medical. How do you explain to anxious family members that their loved one's disfigured body is the ultimate culprit? That no matter how hard you try, it somehow gets in the way. One can only tape so many interfering rolls out of the way using the elastoplast technique. Nevermind that all that fat is metabolically active. It's a disaster waiting to happen!!

I get to know this young lady very well during her slow and difficult recuperation. I also realise again how wrong I was. She is not lazy, or weak. She is neither a liar, nor psychologically challenged, and she is definitely no fool. She is just a desperate soul severely trapped in a very, very sick body. Now, whatever resulted in this glorious abundance of glyceride esters, is totally irrelevant, because, just as a very, very sick heart needs cardiac surgery ... so too does a very, very sick body need bariatric surgery!!

She is finally being discharged from ICU, minus at least 15kg, and starting to sing - perhaps for the first time in her physically oppressed life - a merry tune!!